Esoterica

Lunar trifecta: Rare 'super blue blood moon' will light the sky this week

Set your alarms, space fans -- if you can drag yourself out of bed on Wednesday, you're in for a treat.

The pre-dawn hours of January 31 will play host to an incredibly rare celestial convergence -- a "super blue blood moon."

. . .

So, a "supermoon" is when a full moon occurs at the same time as its perigee, the closest point of the moon's orbit with Earth. The result: the moon appears larger than normal and NASA is predicting this one will be 14% brighter than usual.

Chances are you have used the phrase "once in a blue moon" -- but have you ever wondered where it came from? The well-known idiom actually refers to the rare instance when there is a second full moon in a calendar month. The first supermoon of 2018 -- which took place on New Year's Day -- was previously described by NASA as the "biggest and brightest" one expected for the entire year.

Then completing this "lunar trifecta" is the "blood" element. Although it does not have a scientific definition, a "blood moon" occurs during a lunar eclipse when faint red sunbeams peek out around the edges of the Earth, giving it a reddish, copper color.

Esoterica

'Ring Of Fire' Eclipse Set To Blaze In Southern Skies

If you're in the southern hemisphere and you happen to look up Sunday morning — or, for everyone else, if you happen to have Internet access — you may have the chance to see an annular solar eclipse. Unlike a total solar eclipse, this one will leave just a sliver of sunlight shining at the rim of the moon's shadow as passes between Earth and the sun.

The effect is a bit like an inept hide-and-seeker standing behind a bush he's just a little too big for — or, to adopt a simile closer to Johnny Cash's heart, like a burning "ring of fire." Though the moon may slide in front of the sun, the moon will be a little too far from Earth — and thus, from our vantage point, too small — to conceal the sun entirely.

The event will be visible above "parts of the Southern Hemisphere, including Chile, Argentina and Angola," NASA says.

Bergholz Amish Win Appeal

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

It brings me no joy to report that Sam Mullet and his Bergolz Amish followers have won a victory in an appeals court and may "become loose" against the express wishes of many local Amish.

A deeply divided ruling from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals went against the jury's determination that the hair-cutting attacks, with which Mullet's minions terrorized the greater Amish community, constituted a religious hate crime.

The majority of those convicted had already completed, or nearly completed their sentences. The real issue, as ever, is with Bishop Mullet, whose fifteen year sentence offered his community a life free of his sexual demands on the women, physical abuse of their husbands, and the psychological control he exerts over all of his Bergholz Amish.

It is not illegal to run a cult. It is not illegal to extort sexual favors from adult women, in most cases. It is not even illegal to consign grown men to incarceration in chicken coops. It is illegal to terrorize neighboring communities with physical abuse and assaults on their dignity, and it is for this that Mullet and his co-conspirators were convicted.

The larger question from the beginning has been whether cutting off the hair and beards of other Amish constituted a hate crime, in other words, were the crimes motivated by religion.

Dethroning the Hierophant

Article first published as Dethroning the Hierophant on Blogcritics.

A few years ago, I observed that the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was hitting a critical point, as a glut of news reports was beginning to directly implicate the Vatican. I suggested then that what was happening in the Catholic Church was an indicator of the dismantling of hierarchical systems more broadly and that in the Motherpeace Tarot, such patriarchal, spiritual authority is represented by the Hierophant.

At its root, the word "hierophant" means bringer to light of sacred things. In the traditional Tarot, the Hierophant represents a priest or Pope, the paternal religious authority.... Representing a hierarchical view of religion, the Hierophant stands on a pedestal, raised up from the earth, above the common person. In the Motherpeace image, he has taken over the robes and skirt of the High Priestess, along with her breasts which symbolize her sacred power, but he has forsaken her "Sophia" or wisdom.... The authority of the Hierophant is based, in large part, on repression of women and the natural instincts that women symbolize.

The The Motherpeace Tarot Playbook explains how to read the card when it comes up in a spread.

The Hierophant represents spiritual authority. He represents ritual and ceremonial magic which manifests as organized religion in this culture. Or he represents the psychic control exercised by mostly male, authority figures in our culture, such as psychiatrists, gurus, doctors and courtroom judges. Since he is also the internalized parent or superego authority, he represents conventional morality.

The text goes on to explain how to read this card when it presents as reversed, or ill-dignified.

The reversal shows a full-scale rebellion. You can no longer tolerate external roles and conventional morality; you have begun to call on your deeper conscience for advice You are able to stop kneeling to the priest or the doctor or the father, choosing instead to take your own advice, heed your own counsel.

Sam Mullet to Go Away for Awhile

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Click to See Press Conference Video

Samuel Mullet, the bishop of the rogue Amish sect that terrorized Amish in four Ohio counties with  hair clippers, was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Aaron Polster to fifteen years in prison. Fifteen of his followers who carried out the brutal attacks will all do some jail time, with sentences ranging from one year and a day to seven years.

The most complete record of today's proceedings I've been able to locate is from WKYC in Cleveland, and it includes a partial transcript of comments. Each of the defendants took responsibility and many offered to take on the punishment for others. In particular, several of the husbands offered to serve for their wives so that they could go home to their children. Judge Polster gave the lightest sentences to the women and deferred a number of them until after their husbands are released so that the children would be protected.

Many of the defendants were characteristically Amish -- apologetic, contrite, and accepting of justice for their fully confessed wrong-doing. To my ear Sam Mullet still managed to come off as a self-pitying martyr.

"I am being blamed for being a cult leader....I am not going to be here much longer...my goal in life is to help the younger people...if somebody needs to be punished, I'll take the punishment for everybody....let these mothers and fathers go home to their children"

"I'm not taking the farm with me. I'm not going to be here much longer. My goal in life has been to help people that are the underdog, to help people who are frowned on, mocked.....,"

"Let these dads and moms go home to their families, raise their children, I'll take the punishment for everybody. There's a lot more things I could say, but everything I say is twisted and turned."

Well. At least he offered to do the right thing, even if he resents it.

Please Keep Sam Mullet in Jail

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

That is the urgent plea of 14 Amish letter writers from as far away as Pennsylvania and New York state. For their family members who are married to Mullets, for their grandchildren, for the good of the Amish, please don't let him "become loose."

The content varies little. Sam Mullet is running a cult. His followers are brainwashed. Things have begun to improve in Bergholz since his incarceration. But the strangest wrinkle is that letter after letter extends thanks -- to the judge, the prosecutors, and the FBI by name. That is how afraid the greater Amish community is of Sam Mullet. The Amish, one of the most independent, self-reliant populations in the country -- a network of communities that almost always wants to handle things internally assisted by nothing but God's grace and their own ability to forgive just about anything -- is grateful that the government stepped in. And they won't feel safe unless Sam Mullet spends the rest of his days in a federal penitentiary. And that is exactly what prosecutors are asking for.

Federal sentencing guidelines call for a level 32 punishment, which translates to 10 to 13 years, but prosecutors are asking the judge for what's known as an upward enhancement. More time. They want life in prison for Mullet.

Mullet and his merry band of hair-cutters are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

Religious Abusers in Prison Maintain Strict Authority

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Incarcerated FLDS leader Warren Jeffs is maintaining an iron grip on followers even as his prophetic proclamations fail to manifest. I say that only because it's 2013 and the world hasn't ended.

“The consensus seems to be that Warren is indicating that by the end of the year, the end of the world will be here," Brower said.

A CNN reporter dispatched to the community's main enclave in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, was rejected by FLDS members who refused to speak to him. Meanwhile, the abrupt closing of the area's only grocery story and "central gathering" point for the community has added to fears Jeff's followers are gearing up for doomsday, according to the report.

The global cataclysm appears to have been rescheduled after an earlier prediction that would have ended the world on December 23rd also failed to pan out.

Amish Hair-Cutters Found Guilty

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I can't say I'm terribly surprised to see Sam Mullet and his band of hair-cutters go down. As stated, I thought federal prosecutors put on a strong case. I'll be the first to admit, I thought they might have been reaching by making this a test case of a newly expanded federal hate crimes statute, but they laid it out well. From the New York Times:

Samuel Mullet Sr., the domineering leader of a renegade Amish sect, and 15 followers were convicted of federal conspiracy and hate crimes Thursday for orchestrating a series of bizarre beard- and hair-cutting attacks last fall that spread fear through the Amish of eastern Ohio.

The convictions of Mr. Mullet and his followers and family members who carried out the assaults could bring lengthy prison terms. The jury’s verdict vindicated federal prosecutors, who made a risky decision to apply a 2009 federal hate-crimes law to the sect’s violent efforts to humiliate Amish rivals.

The Times story paints a vivid picture of the bizarreness of this case -- one which actually caused several Amish communities to break with tradition and bring their concerns to the authorities. Many of them came to court allowing themselves to be snapped at fairly close range by news photographers. It speaks to the extremity of the circumstances that such private people allowed this intrusion. Sam Mullet was a bigger threat to their way of life than the modernity of the English world.

Verdict Watch: Amish Hair-Cutting Trial

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Sam Mullet

In its fourth day of deliberations, the jury in the Amish hair-cutting trial has now twice sought clarity on the fine points. It isn't surprising that they would need both time and clarification with this case. Bear in mind that they have to determine the guilt or innocence of sixteen defendants, dressed in matching styles, and variously named Mullet and Miller. They are facing different sets of charges and have multiple defense attorneys with differing arguments.

Today the jury attempted to parse the fine points of their individual culpability in a conspiracy that may not involve all the parties.

The U.S. District Court jury in the trial of 16 Amish reconvened and promptly asked the judge if a conspiracy could involve just some of the defendants.

Judge Dan Aaron Polster told the jury that a conspiracy wouldn't necessarily need to involve all nine victims in the five attacks or all 16 defendants. Defense attorneys argued that the indictment specified a plot against nine victims, but Polster overruled them.

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to cause bodily harm to the victims. The judge said that if all 12 jurors agree that the government proved a conspiracy, the jury then must separately decide who plotted.

Amish Hair-Cutting Case Goes to the Jury

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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The jury will begin deliberations today as to the guilt or innocence of Sam Mullet and fifteen of his followers.

Jurors will begin deliberating on Thursday whether Samuel Mullet Sr. and 15 of his followers are guilty of federal hate crimes for the attacks on nine Amish men and women last fall.

All 16 were charged with conspiracy to commit a hate crime, and some face charges of lying to police or withholding evidence. They face up to life in prison if convicted.

It's hard to get a sense of how a trial is going from press reports alone. But from those accounts, I can't help thinking this trial was a slam dunk for the federal prosecutors. They built a strong case and the defense closed quickly providing no witnesses. Sam Mullet's attorney Edward Bryan is certainly right that the burden of proof is on the prosecution and the defense has no requirement to mount a defense at all. But in this case it looks like they didn't present a case because they just didn't have a reasonable defense to present.

From the press accounts, their various defense strategies look to have been all over the map and internally contradictory. They disputed none of the factual elements of the case, neither the attacks themselves, nor the shocking disciplinary and sexual demands of the Bergholz bishop. They simultaneously claimed that these were not religiously motivated attacks, but based entirely on family and financial disputes, and that the attackers acted out of concern for the souls of their victims, which would seem to imply a religious motivation.

Amish Trial Closes With Damning Testimony

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Federal prosecutors wrapped up their case against the Amish hair-cutting ring this week with strong testimony from several witnesses, including Sam Mullet's daughter.

Barbara Yoder was reluctant to testify against her father but, all the same, gave a very damning account.

Mullet's daughter, Barbara Yoder, testified that she never heard her father order any of the four hair- and beard-cutting attacks, but confirmed her father had endorsed the humiliating hair-shearings as disciplinary measures, and laughed when the men reported back to him in the aftermath of the attacks.

. . .

"He said it would help stop people from being Amish hypocrites," Yoder testified.

This is not the first evidence jurors have heard that Sam Mullet found the brutal, humiliating attacks hilarious.

Amish Bishop Uses the C Word

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Prosecutors in the Amish hair-cutting trial were proscribed from using words like "cult" to describe the Bergholz clan, in a pretrial decision by Judge Polster. But nothing prohibits witnesses from such characterizations and one of the brutally butchered bishops, Myron Miller, did so.

Pressed by the prosecutor to specify his concerns, Miller mentioned without details "cultic" activities and reported "brain-washing" of community members required to submit to Mullet's authority.

. . .

Ed Bryan, defense attorney for Mullet, asked Miller whether the dispute involved personal issues instead of religious differences as the government has argued in calling the attacks religion-based hate crimes.

"I have nothing against Sam Mullet," Miller responded. "What's going on in that community, or was going on, we were very concerned about interaction with any of our members."

Miller's excommunication of one of Mullet's sons was one of the key triggers to the series of attacks and he was the second victim to be targeted.

Amish Trial: Sexual Coercion & Violent Haircuts

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Well, now we know what "sexual counseling" from Sam Mullet meant. As per testimony from his, ahem, daughter-in-law, it was to help women become "better wives" and stop failing their poor husbands.

The woman said her husband had a mental breakdown in the summer of 2008 and was in the hospital when Mullet suggested that her husband's trouble stemmed from dissatisfaction with his marriage. Mullet told her he wanted to help the couple with marriage counseling, and she agreed to his request to move in with him, she said.

At first, he wanted hugs, from her she said, adding that she learned he had asked the same of other women.

"Next we had to kiss him or maybe we had to sit on his lap," she said. "I'm not sure what was first."

. . .

She went along with Mullet's wishes because she thought it would help her husband, she said.

The Amish Hair-Cutting Trial Begins

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I've been reading through the coverage of the Amish hair-cutting trial that kicked off this week. Today's award for the stupidest lede goes to one James F. McCarty of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The law of God will collide with the law of man this week in a crowded federal courtroom in Cleveland, where 16 Amish defendants -- 10 men with full beards, six women in white bonnets -- will stand trial on charges related to a series of beard- and hair-cutting attacks against fellow Amish men and women last year.

That would be true if the government were simply prosecuting Sam Mullet and his followers for  practicing their religion. But that implies that religious freedom gives people the right to assault and degrade other people. That is, more or less, what the defense is arguing -- that, somehow, Sam Mullet had the right to "punish" people who weren't even under his religious authority.

As with U.S. Catholic Bishops, we're now expected to accept a definition of religious freedom as the right to control other people.

Religious Abuse: The Amish Hair-Cutting Trial

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The trial of the Amish hair-cutting ring is set to start next Monday, August 27th. And prosecutors will be able to present evidence of Sam Mullet's abuse of his own parishioners: sex with other men's wives, paddling, the chicken coop, all of it. The government's argument is that these things are evidence of Sam Mullet's control over his flock, making him culpable for the hair-cutting raids on other Amish communities.

"His ability to convince those women, as well as their husbands and parents, to permit him to do so, establishes the extent of defendant Mullet's control over the community," the government said.

Based on that, the government said, the jury can conclude that Mullet was aware of 2011's attacks and approved.

In addition to the sexual conduct issues, alleged paddling rituals and punishing members by sending them to a chicken coop "are not inflammatory; they are undisputed facts" that the jury should hear, the government said.

Defense attorneys had moved to have much of this information excluded on the basis that it was unproven and prejudicial. But Judge Dan Aaron Polster has largely agreed with the prosecution. He found that Mullet's treatment of his own people is an element in the crime in question and testimony about that treatment can be heard by a jury. He did agree with the defense that prosecutors not use prejudicial language to describe the Bergholz clan which has been characterized by many as a cult. Witnesses, however, will not be so constrained.

Sixteen Amish Mullets and Millers Reject Plea

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Bishop Mullet Strikes a Pose

The case of the Amish hair-cutters will proceed to trial. The sixteen defendants rejected a plea offer that would have given them sentences of 2-3 years. They'll take their chances at trial where they face potential sentences of twenty years or more.

The defendants include members of an eastern Ohio breakaway Amish group. Prosecutors said the attacks were hate crimes.

The defendants said they were internal church disciplinary matters not involving anti-Amish bias.

So, they're stickin' with that story. Two problems: 1) The judge found that a sectarian conflict can be considered a hate crime and the Bergholz clan is a break-away sect, and 2) That they consider attacking people in their homes and cutting off their hair and beards -- something the Amish consider an assault on their religious beliefs and highly degrading -- a form of "discipline" tells you everything you need to know about Bishop Sam Mullet. He also considers putting his own male followers in a chicken coop and sleeping with their wives a form of discipline. Sam Mullet is one sick twist.

Religious Abuse: Animal Cruelty Edition

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The Banality of Evil

Nearly a year ago, after Warren Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison, I wrote something about the phenomenon of religious abuse and speculated that Jeffs's incarceration would not stop the cycle of abuse. Obviously, I was proved right. News of Jeffs's continuing influence keeps trickling out. But I really wasn't prepared for some of the horrors that are occurring under the control of this megalomaniacal pederast. Colorado City and other FLDS communities remain as Jeffs's fiefdoms, with a substantial membership acting as brutal enforcers. The latest casualty? A kitten. Yes, that's right. Some follower -- or followers -- of Jeffs tortured a kitten to death simply to send a message. (This link contains graphic images. Click with care.)

Controversial Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints (FLDS) leader Warren Jeffs’ polygamous sect is accused of sending a cat buried alive in a bucket of concrete to a former church member as a threat. Jeffs was convicted last year on felony charges related to sexual relationships with underage girls, according to The Blaze. A dangerous fast landed the FLDS leader in the hospital in critical condition after his incarceration began. The fundamentalist church once again made headlines after a cat in concrete was sent to a man who had “abandoned the radical sect” as a warning.

AZ Family notes that other former FLDS followers claim to have received similar shocking threats. Isaac Wyler was excommunicated in 2004. He recently discovered the kitten buried in a concrete bucket inside a pipe in his yard. Wyler considers the incident a “threatening message” to “encourage” his silence about the FLDS. Since leaving the FLDS, Wyler has been very outspoken in his opposition to the polygamous sect.

Isaac Wyler has been a thorn in Jeffs's side for years and has been on the receiving end of a lot of threats and intimidation by FLDS enforcers. One of the more telling details in this atrocity points to the scope of the problem. (This link contains graphic images and video. Click with care.)

Amish Hate Crime Case Going Forward

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Every so often you read a legal decision so clear, so lucid, that, for a moment, all the lights in the room seem brighter. Such language issued from Judge Dan Polster in his dismissal of the First Amendment claim of the sixteen Amish men accused of a hate crime against other Amish victims. In short, Judge Polster found that an assault based on sectarian differences can be charged as a hate crime.

"In fact, violent acts of the kind charged in the superseding indictment are designed to punish individuals who exercise their religious beliefs, or to chill others from doing so," he wrote.

. . .

"By the Defendants' logic, a violent assault by a Catholic on a Protestant, or a Sunni Muslim on a Shiite Muslim, or an Orthodox Jew on a non-Orthodox Jew, would not be prohibited by this statute," Polster wrote.

It's just beautiful logic and completely demystifies defense attorney Dean Carro's argument that "intrareligous actions" are not covered under the law.

FBI Raid on Amish Mullets

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Egads! The Amish hair-cutting attacks discussed here and here are now being prosecuted at the federal level. The FBI raided the Berholz stronghold and arrested seven men including Bishop and purported cult leader Sam Mullet. They're charging this as a hate crime.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said religious differences should be a matter of theological debate, not disputes "resolved by late night visits to people's homes with weapons and violent attacks."

He said he does not know how often hate crimes involve intradenominational disputes.

A little more insight into why the Bergholz clan is considered a cult can also be found in the above linked article.

When Amish Attack

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Five Amish men were arraigned today for the hair-cutting attacks discussed here. Three are sons of Bishop Sam Mullet and all five are part of the Bergholz community he leads.

The latest Amish men to turn themselves in are Daniel Mullet, 37, along with Eli Miller, 32. Also accused are Levi Miller, 53; Johnny Mullet, 38; and Lester Mullet, 26, who were arrested on Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, on charges of kidnapping and aggravated burglary. Those three originally told the Jefferson Count judge Tuesday, that they wanted Bishop Sam Mullet to decide if they should waive extradition, but later agreed on their own. The three accused were being held at the Jefferson County Justice Facility, in a segregated area, on $250,000 cash bond each, according to reports. The trio told the judge that Bishop Mullet was expected to arrive with the $750,000 cash bond needed to be freed. Bishop Mullet did show up, but did not have the money; therefore, Holmes County came and transported back to their jail, sources said.

These incidents have dragged the normally very private Amish into the media and some of them are speaking openly. Bishop Mullet, the man at the center of this dustup, has proved to be quite loquacious. His former son-in-law -- whose custody claim resulted in the SWAT at the schoolhouse incident -- has also given a lengthy statement to the press. He compared the splinter group to Jim Jones's Peoples Temple which ended in a notorious mass suicide in 1978.