Esoterica

UFO Bombshell: U.S. Intelligence Whistleblower Says Feds Have 'Intact' Craft

A whistleblower who served in the U.S. military and in several intelligence roles says the federal government has multiple craft of “non-human” origin ― and has been working overtime to cover it up.

“These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed,” David Grusch told NewsNation on Monday evening.

In some cases, agents found more than just vehicles.

“Well, naturally, when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots and, believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it’s true,” he said.

Earlier in the day, The Debrief reported that Grusch has told both Congress and the U.S. Inspector General that this information was illegally withheld from lawmakers, who have recently held hearings on UFO activity.

Esoterica

When Satan Club went to school: What’s behind the group that created controversy in Chesapeake

The Satanic Temple was ready to pick a fight — lots of fights, actually, and it got them — in Illinois, in Pennsylvania and in Chesapeake.

. . .

Eventually, after the ACLU of Virginia took on the issue, the club held its first meeting in February and has continued to gather monthly since.

. . .

“Because of their actions, people who normally talk about the importance of religious freedom, some of them have said, ‘Actually, I don’t like religious freedom, if religious freedom means satanists can do this kind of stuff.’”

“This small group has kind of been able to punch above its weight in forcing these kinds of questions on people.”

Esoterica

Pope warns Vatican staff an ‘elegant demon’ lurks among them

Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith.

Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See on notice that they are by no means beyond reproach and are, in fact, particularly vulnerable to evil.

Francis told them that by living in the heart of the Catholic Church, “we could easily fall into the temptation of thinking we are safe, better than others, no longer in need of conversion.”

. . .

Beyond that, Francis appeared to also want to take broader aim at arch-conservatives and traditionalists who have become the pope’s biggest critics. Francis blasted their way of living the faith, insisting that being Catholic doesn’t mean following a never-changing set of dicta but is rather a “process of understanding Christ’s message that never ends, but constantly challenges us.”

Esoterica

William Shatner experienced profound grief in space. It was the 'overview effect'

"I was crying," Shatner told NPR. "I didn't know what I was crying about. I had to go off some place and sit down and think, what's the matter with me? And I realized I was in grief."

While he wasn't sure what to expect, Shatner did not predict this. He had been excited to travel to space, and had thought about it for nearly 60 years, but didn't think he'd be overwhelmed with sadness, or that he'd go through "the strongest feelings of grief" that he's ever experienced.

There's a name for what Shatner felt: it's called the "overview effect." The term was coined by space philosopher Frank White in his 1987 book of the same name.

"The overview effect is a cognitive and emotional shift in a person's awareness, their consciousness and their identity when they see the Earth from space," White told NPR. "They're at a distance and they're seeing the Earth ... in the context of the universe."

Esoterica

‘The Daily Show’ and William Shatner Join Forces to Expose Elon Musk

“What do you think of when you think of the future?” actor William Shatner asks at the top of this exclusive segment from Tuesday night’s episode as images of rockets, robots and “cybertrucks” appear on the screen.

Over the next several minutes, Shatner helps make the case that Musk might actually be the “supervillain” his biggest detractors fear him to be. The piece traces the Tesla “Technoking’s” origin story as a young kid who “overcame many hardships, although unlike other South African celebrities, he didn’t make his childhood into a whole thing,” referring to Trevor Noah’s backstory.

“Like so many tech entrepreneurs, he earned his unimaginable wealth by doing something invaluable for society,” Shatner says dryly. “Selling a start-up you’ve never heard of to a company that doesn’t exist anymore.”

The narrator goes on to mock Musk for having a “mid-life crisis” in his twenties by crashing his million-dollar “supercar” and starting a record label to release his own EDM track. “A banger all the more impressive considering Musk had clearly never heard music before,” he says. “Yes, Elon Musk refuses to stay in his lane, much like a Tesla on auto-pilot.”

Esoterica

Damien Echols loses bid for DNA testing of evidence from West Memphis murder investigation. He’ll appeal.

Circuit Judge Tonya Alexander ruled today in West Memphis that Damien Echols could not obtain evidence from the West Memphis Three murder case for enhanced DNA testing.

A release from a spokesman for Echols:

After two years of lies and unnecessary delays by the state of Arkansas that prevented the West Memphis 3’s Damien Echols from conducting state-of-the- art DNA testing on the evidence in the murder of three children in 1993, a court today ruled that Echols did not have the right to test forensic evidence.

The prosecution had argued, and the judge agreed that only those who were still incarcerated could test for DNA. This conclusion is based on the flawed assumption that the only consequence that matters from a conviction is its sentence. Hundreds of wrongfully convicted have sought relief after they were paroled and were “free.”

Esoterica

Pastor Greg Locke threatens to dox ‘witches’ that infiltrated wife’s Bible book club

The Tennessee pastor known for burning so-called "witchcraft" books like Harry Potter and Twilight has threatened to expose six supposed "witches" in a new video that has gone viral.

Pastor Greg Locke, who styles himself as a prophet for predicting Donald Trump would beat "demon-possessed" Joe Biden, went on a wild sermon against the so-called "witches" that infiltrated his congregation.

In the video taken on 13 February, Mr Locke demanded the six "get out" or he would expose them during the next sermon to his Global Vision Bible Church this coming Sunday.

"Three of you are in this room right now. Three of you in the room right now. You better look in my eyeballs, we ain’t afraid of you, you stinkin’ witch, you devil-worshipping Satanist witch. We cast you out in the name of Jesus Christ! We break your spells, we break your curse. We got your first name, we got your last name, we even got an address for one of you!" he screamed.

Esoterica

Canada mourns as remains of 215 children found at indigenous school

A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children has been found in Canada at a former residential school set up to assimilate indigenous people.

The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978.

The discovery was announced on Thursday by the chief of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was a "painful reminder" of a "shameful chapter of our country's history".

The First Nation is working with museum specialists and the coroner's office to establish the causes and timings of the deaths, which are not currently known.

. . .

Canada's residential schools were compulsory boarding schools run by the government and religious authorities during the 19th and 20th Centuries with the aim of forcibly assimilating indigenous youth.

Esoterica

Lost golden city of Luxor' discovered by archaeologists in Egypt

The 3,400-year-old royal city was built by Amenhotep III, abandoned by his heretic son, Akhenaten, and contains stunningly preserved remains.

Three thousand four hundred years ago, a contentious ancient Egyptian king abandoned his name, his religion, and his capital in Thebes (modern Luxor). Archaeologists know what happened next: The pharaoh Akhenaten built the short-lived city of Akhetaten, where he ruled alongside his wife, Nefertiti and worshipped the sun. After his death, his young son Tutankhamun became ruler of Egypt—and turned his back on his father’s controversial legacy.

But why did Akhenaten abandon Thebes, which had been the capital of ancient Egypt for more than 150 years? Answers may lie in the discovery of an industrial royal metropolis within Thebes that Akhenaten inherited from his father, Amenhotep III. The find, which has been dubbed the “lost golden city of Luxor" in an announcement released today, will generate as much enthusiasm, speculation, and controversy as the renegade pharaoh who left it.

Because the city was initially discovered just in September of last year, archaeologists have only scratched the surface of the sprawling site, and understanding where this discovery ranks in Egyptological importance is hard to say at this time. The level of preservation found so far, however, has impressed researchers.

Esoterica

Psychedelic therapy could 'reset' depressed brain

Psychedelic-assisted therapy might offer longer-term relief from symptoms, some researchers believe.

A growing body of evidence indicates other psychedelic drugs, particularly alongside talking therapy, are safe and can be effective for treating a range of mental illnesses.

This will be the first time DMT is given to people with moderate to severe depression in a clinical trial.

Carol Routledge, the chief scientific officer of Small Pharma, the company running the trial said: "We believe the impact will be almost immediate, and longer lasting than conventional antidepressants."

Esoterica

World's oldest known beer factory may have been unearthed in Egypt

American and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what could be the oldest known beer factory at one of the most prominent archaeological sites of ancient Egypt, a top antiquities official said on Saturday.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the factory was found in Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 450km (280 miles) south of Cairo.

He said the factory apparently dates back to the region of King Narmer, who is widely known for his unification of ancient Egypt at the beginning of the first dynastic period (3150BC-2613BC).

Archaeologists found eight huge units – each is 20 metres (about 65ft) long and 2.5 metres (about 8ft) wide. Each unit includes about 40 pottery basins in two rows, which were used to heat a mixture of grains and water to produce beer, Waziri said.

Esoterica

Empire State Building company now powered entirely by wind

The iconic Empire State Building that has crowned Midtown Manhattan since the early 1930s is now a game changer in American architecture in a different way: by becoming completely powered with renewable energy.

Announced on Wednesday, Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT) confirmed that it struck a three-year contract with Green Mountain Energy to power its entire commercial real estate portfolio with renewable wind electricity. This reportedly makes ESRT the largest user of green power in U.S. real estate.

. . .

ESRT controls more than 10.1 million square feet of real estate, all of which will be powered by renewable energy for the next three years. This switch will spare about 450 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere.

This is roughly the equivalent of every New York State household turning off all of their lights for an entire month.

Esoterica

Bikram yoga founder Bikram Choudhury trapped in Mexico after passport seized; fleet of CA cars to be auctioned

Once at the top of an international yoga empire, Bikram Choudhury is now on the run from creditors, hiding from an arrest warrant and trapped in Mexico where his bills are only growing.

Eyewitness News learned that the founder of the hot yoga brand, whose international Bikram Yoga empire is headquartered in West Los Angeles, had his passport seized in Mexico, where he failed to pay a $180,000 bill at the Princess Mundo Imperial Hotel.

The 76-year-old yogi is also accused of using his trademark name to market his teacher training sessions at the Acapulco resort in violation of court orders.

. . .

On his trail is the woman who brought him down. His former attorney, Micki Jafa-Bodden, won a $6.6 million sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit. Four years after the court judgment, Jafa-Bodden is closing in on Bikram's hidden assets.

Esoterica

Gay people should not join Catholic clergy, Pope Francis says

Pope Francis is “concerned” about what he describes as the “serious issue” of homosexuality, saying in an interview published on Saturday that being gay is a “fashion” to which the clergy is susceptible.

“The issue of homosexuality is a very serious issue that must be adequately discerned from the beginning with the candidates,” the pontiff said with regards to would-be priests.

“In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable and that mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the church,” he says in the book The Strength of a Vocation, released in Italy on Saturday.

“This is something I am concerned about, because perhaps at one time it did not receive much attention,” he says in the book, a transcript of an interview that will be released in 10 languages.

Esoterica

8-Year-Old Girl Discovers Iron Age Sword In Swedish Lake : NPR

Earlier this summer, an 8-year-old girl named Saga Vanecek was doing what she often does: wading in Sweden's Lake Vidostern.

"I like to walk around finding rocks and sticks in the water, and then I usually walk around with my hands and knees in the water and in the sand," she explained to Radio Sweden Wednesday.

It was then that she felt something odd beneath her hand and knee. She lifted the object and saw that it had a handle.

She pulled it out of the water and carried it over to her father. "Dad, I found a sword," she said.

. . .

"Indeed an amazing story!" Mikael Nordstrom, head of the cultural heritage department at the Jonkopings County Museum, told NPR in email. "We now believe that the sword is about 1,500 years old."

Esoterica

Satanic Temple statue unveiled at the Arkansas State Capitol

Dozens attended a rally held by the Satanic Temple at the Arkansas State Capitol on Thursday.

The rally comes after the Arkansas legislature approved the placement of a Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds.

During the Satanic Temple's Rally for the First Amendment, a more than 8-feet-tall Baphomet statue was unveiled.

. . .

Following the installation of the Ten Commandments monument, the Satanic Temple filed a lawsuit to have its statue placed on the same grounds in the name of religious pluralism and the First Amendment.

During the 2017 legislative session, the Satanic Temple sent a letter to Arkansas legislators asking for lawmakers to sponsor a bill that would allow a Baphomet statue on Capitol grounds, but not one lawmaker responded.

Esoterica

Meet the Makers of Motherpeace Tarot, the Feminist Deck That Inspired Dior’s Resort Collection

A skeleton, huddled in a fetal position, encircled by a molting snake decorates the opening look of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior Resort collection. Picked out in colorful threads at Dior’s Paris ateliers, the original image was drawn almost 40 years ago—it’s the Death card in the Motherpeace feminist tarot deck. An unlikely, inauspicious image for a fashion show, even one set in the wilds of the Santa Monica Mountains? Not according to Karen Vogel, who cocreated Motherpeace Tarot with Vicki Noble in the late ’70s. In fact, Chiuri’s choice of the Death card is downright uncanny. “It’s not necessarily about physical death,” says Vogel. “[It’s about] the beauty of the shedding of the skin that a snake does, that we can transform our lives. It’s about transformation and renewal that’s really beneficial.” An apter visual metaphor for Chiuri, who has set off on her own at Dior after working alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli for nearly three decades, is hard to conjure.

. . .

Christian Dior himself knew from magic. He was a devotee of the tarot and is said to have had his cards read before each of his fashion shows. But the decks he used would have been distinctly different from Motherpeace with its strong female archetypes, more than half of whom are of color. Noble and Vogel researched the goddess-based cultures of indigenous peoples around the world to make their illustrations. “We put women back into history,” says Noble. They also made their deck round, changing not so much the structure of the tarot, but the form. Since they self-published in 1981 and hand-collated the first 5,000 decks, they’ve sold upwards of 300,000, but Motherpeace has remained fairly esoteric. Noble chalks that up to the usual resistance to feminist work, especially matriarchal feminism (which posits a pre-patriarchal gynocratic age marked by peace, not war). “We knew lots of women at Ms. Magazine who had cards in their desks, but the cards were never featured in the magazine because they’re offbeat.”

Nearly four decades later, the culture just might be catching up to Motherpeace. Beyond Chiuri and Dior, Vogel says she’s noticed a renewed interest in the deck. “Separately but related, I’ve been hearing people using the word patriarchy, when it used to be fringe terminology,” she says. “And there’s a renewed sense that it’s okay to be a feminist, for sure.” We just might be able to chalk that up to President Trump.

Hobby Lobby Goes to the Black Market for Jesus

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Note to Hobby Lobby: Please stick to arts and crafts and leave archaeology to the professionals.

Hobby Lobby purchased thousands of ancient artifacts smuggled out of modern-day Iraq via the United Arab Emirates and Israel in 2010 and 2011, attorneys for the Eastern District of New York announced on Wednesday. As part of a settlement, the American craft-supply mega-chain will pay $3 million and the U.S. government will seize the illicit artifacts. Technically, the defendants in the civil-forfeiture action are the objects themselves, yielding an incredible case name: The United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty (450) Ancient Cuneiform Tablets; and Approximately Three Thousand (3,000) Ancient-Clay Bullae.

Under any circumstances, this case would be wild: It involves thousands of ancient artifacts that seem to have been stolen from Iraq, where the pillaging of antiquities has been rampant. The longstanding trade in antiquities of dubious provenance has become an especially sensitive topic in recent years, and a target of increased law-enforcement scrutiny: ISIS has made some untold millions—or billions—by selling ancient goods. While nothing in the case indicates that these objects were associated with any terrorist group, the very nature of smuggled goods means their provenance is muddy.

But the case really matters because of who’s involved. The members of the Green family, which owns the Hobby Lobby chain, are committed evangelical Christians who are probably most famous for their participation in a 2014 Supreme Court case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which helped dismantle certain birth-control-coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The Greens are big collectors of ancient antiquities; they’re also the primary visionaries and contributors behind the Museum of the Bible opening in Washington, D.C., this fall. Steve Green is the chairman of the board. The family’s famous name, now tied to a story of dealer intrigue and black markets, is likely to bring even further scrutiny and attention as they prepare to open their museum.

Esoterica

Tennessee Scientology facility closed after cops find patients held against their will

A series of psychiatric facilities run by the Church of Scientology in Cannon County, Tenn. has been closed after police found that patients there were being held against their will.

Via Tony Ortega, the Cannon Courier reports that several facilities in the county were shut down after police received a 911 call from someone within one of the facilities, whom they found locked inside a cabin with no way to get out.

The man then told officers that he had been held at the facility for the past nine months, during which he had been treated with unknown drugs.

The operator of the facilities, a man named Marc Vallieres, was arrested and charged with two felony counts of facilitation of kidnapping, while two other men who worked at the facility pled guilty to misdemeanors.

Esoterica

Physicists Just Came Up With a Mathematical Model For a Viable Time Machine

Physicists have come up with what they claim is a mathematical model of a theoretical "time machine" - a box that can move backwards and forwards through time and space.

The trick, they say, is to use the curvature of space-time in the Universe to bend time into a circle for hypothetical passengers sitting in the box, and that circle allows them to skip into the future and the past.

. . .

The model is based on the idea that instead of looking at the Universe in three spatial dimensions, with the fourth dimension (time) separated, we should be imagining those four dimensions simultaneously.

That allows us to consider the possibility of a space-time continuum, where different directions in space and time are all connected within the curved fabric of the Universe.