Esoterica

Study finds California condors can have "virgin births"

Endangered California condors can have “'virgin births," according to a study released Thursday.

Researchers with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said genetic testing confirmed that two male chicks hatched in 2001 and 2009 from unfertilized eggs were related to their mothers. Neither was related to a male.

The study was published Thursday in the the Journal of Heredity. It's the first report of asexual reproduction in California condors, although parthenogenesis can occur in other species ranging from sharks to honey bees to Komodo dragons.

But in birds, it usually only occurs when females don’t have access to males. In this case, each mother condor had previously bred with males, producing 34 chicks, and each was housed with a fertile male at the time they produced the eggs through parthenogenesis.

FLDS Women Are Taking Their Power Back

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Just when you thought the story of Warren Jeffs and the FLDS couldn't be any more stomach-turning, new and still more horrible details come to light. The "prophet," who remains incarcerated for molesting his very young "brides," is now facing new allegations of sexual abuse, via a lawsuit by one of his alleged victims. Worse, she cites numerous co-conspirators, including two of his brothers, in a scheme to ritually abuse girls as young as eight.

A new lawsuit accuses Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs and others in the church of ritualistic sex abuse involving girls as young as eight years old.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in state court by a 21-year-old woman only identified as "R.H.," levels allegations of abuse against Warren Jeffs, his brothers Lyle Jeffs and Seth Jeffs; and former FLDS leader Wendell Nielsen of sex abuse. It also goes after the FLDS Church and the court-controlled real-estate holdings arm, the United Effort Plan Trust.

. . .

"Systemic sex abuse at the hands of Warren Jeffs and other leaders of the FLDS Church from the age of eight until the age of 14," her attorney, Alan Mortensen, told FOX 13 in an interview Wednesday.

The details, which can be read in court documents, are hair-raising.

Esoterica

Has a Mysterious Medieval Code Really Been Solved?

The Voynich manuscript is not an especially glamorous physical object. It is slightly larger than a modern paperback, bound in “limp vellum” as is the technical term. But its pages are full of astrological charts, strange plants, naked ladies bathing in green liquid, and, most famously, an indecipherable script that has eluded cryptographers to this day.

What could be so scandalous, so dangerous, or so important to be written in such an uncrackable cipher?

This week, the venerable Times Literary Supplement published as its cover story a “solution” for the Voynich manuscript. The article by Nicholas Gibbs suggests the manuscript is a medieval women’s-health manual copied from several older sources. And the cipher is no cipher at all, but simply abbreviations that, once decoded, turn out to be medicinal recipes.

The solution should be seismic news in the Voynich world—for medieval scholars and amateur sleuths alike—but the reaction to Gibbs’s theory has been decidedly underwhelming. Medievalists, used to seeing purported solutions every few months, panned it on Twitter. Blogs and forums started picking at its problems.

Lyle Jeffs In Custody, Not Raptured

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Acting on a tip from a pawn shop in South Dakota, the FBI has captured fugitive Lyle Jeffs. It appears that the disgraced FLDS leader did not in fact experience "the miracle of rapture" as his attorney had speculated. He was found living in his car, not a heavenly chariot.

The owner of a small-town South Dakota pawn shop says Lyle Jeffs revealed who he was on Tuesday when he pawned two pairs of Leatherman pliers for $37 and provided identification.

River City Treasures and Pawn owner Kevin Haug says a store employee in the small town of Yankton notified him that Jeffs was wanted by the FBI after Jeffs had left the store.

Haug says Jeffs provided his last name as his first name, going by Jeffs Lyle Steed.

. . .

He says Jeffs during his first visit was fidgeting, seemed nervous and "acting like a freak."

Esoterica

Genetic Study Reveals The Surprising Ancestry Of Ancient Egyptians

The first whole genome analysis of ancient Egyptian mummies has revealed that they were more closely related to other ancient people from the Levant, while modern Egyptians are now genetically closer to Sub-Saharan Africans. The results, published in Nature Communications, could pave the way for future genetic studies of mummies.

The researchers were interested in looking at whether or not population genetics recorded the major shifts in Egyptian demographics. Located as a gateway between two continents, and surviving for thousands of years as Caucasian, Near Eastern, and African empires were rising and falling, Egypt represents an incredible insight into the movement of cultures, ideas, and people.

“We wanted to test if the conquest of Alexander the Great and other foreign powers has left a genetic imprint on the ancient Egyptian population,” explained Verena Schuenemann, one of the lead authors of the paper. To do this, they recovered the mitochondrial genome from 90 mummies, as well as for the first time ever the entire genome of three mummies. These were then compared with the genetics of modern Egyptians, to see how they differed.

What they found was very interesting. Over the 1,300-year period that the mummies represented, the researchers found that there was no real shift in genetics, suggesting that despite successive invasions and influxes of foreign people from all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the population genetics stayed surprisingly stable.

Bleeding the Beast That Is Warren Jeffs

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Members of the FLDS really don't like to pay taxes. They don't readily cooperate with the government, or acknowledge its authority. FLDS children are taught that Warren Jeffs is president of the United States. They will take financial support from illicit government forces, though, as we recently saw with the food stamp case, which ended in generous plea deals and the possible rapture of Lyle Jeffs. Their pattern of tax evasion and collecting millions in benefits is part of a "bleeding the beast" philosophy.

FLDS may be waging a slow war of attrition against the government, but it's one they appear to be losing. That sword cuts both ways. In fact, their lack of cooperation with federal and state government can mean that they're cutting off their noses to spite their collective face. Secular forces are gradually eating up their land and property wealth and it's their own refusal to cooperate with these forces, which in many cases are trying to help them, that could cost them everything.

Case in point, Short Creek, the FLDS stronghold made up of Hilldale, UT, and Colorado City, AZ,  is currently seeing an exodus of FLDS faithful. They would rather leave their homes than sign agreements and pay their property taxes.

"The Crick" is managed through a trust called the UEP (United Effort Plan). Originally set up by Warren Jeffs, the UEP was seized by the State of Utah, which argued that it was being egregiously mismanaged. Among the problems, those who were excommunicated were made homeless. As a state run trust, the UEP no longer applies a religious test, and some FLDS "apostates" have been able to reclaim homes in their old community, alongside those who remain devoted to "Prophet" Warren Jeffs. But FLDS members are in arrears.

Plea Deals in FLDS Food Stamp Case

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The FLDS food stamp fraud case ends with a whimper, as the State brokers a range of plea deals and dropped charges. Both sides are declaring victory in the highly publicized case. But there is still the small matter of fugitive from justice Lyle Jeffs, currently on the FBI's most wanted list.

For a case that began with FBI raids in the polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., it is ending quietly with nearly all of the defendants taking plea deals. Federal prosecutors have acknowledged an uphill battle if the case went to trial, where FLDS members were expected to claim a religious right to consecrate all they have to their church.

Defense attorneys have said the First Amendment religious freedom rights allows for FLDS members to live the "law of consecration," which includes communal living and giving of all they have. They also argued federal law is silent on whether SNAP benefits could be shared.

As he left the courthouse, Hyrum Dutson told reporters: "We won."

...

"It's like Vietnam. The government declared victory and got out and everyone's benefitted for it," said Aric Cramer, an attorney for Kristal Dutson. "It's a good deal."

...

Asked if he knew where Lyle Jeffs is, Hyrum Dutson replied: "It wouldn't matter if I did."

FLDS Defends Religious Freedom and Felonious Rapture

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Gaming the food stamp program was the free exercise of religious faith, FLDS attorneys argued in court this week.

Members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church charged in a massive food stamp fraud and money laundering scheme are arguing a religious freedom right to "consecrate" their government benefits to their church.

The results of the hearing in federal court could make or break the government's case against the polygamous church and some of its top members. Federal prosecutors have charged 11 FLDS members, accusing them of ordering faithful members to hand over food stamps to the storehouse, to do with as they wished. The U.S. Attorney's Office has claimed the scheme exceeds $12 million in taxpayer money, and some of it went to purchase luxury cars or was spending cash for leaders.

. . .

The "Law of Consecration" stems from early Mormon teachings about united orders, where people give what they have to the church and it is doled out according to needs. A retired Mormon history professor testified on Tuesday that what the FLDS Church preaches is no different than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints taught in the 19th century.

FLDS Still Slippery as Feds Build Case

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Five years after its leader was incarcerated for sexually abusing his very young "brides," the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints may finally be in serious trouble. As I wrote here, a federal case was brought against sect leaders for defrauding the food stamp program, while letting the genuinely needy sect membership starve. The case appears to have thrown the FLDS into disarray.

Lyle Jeffs, who was the church's acting leader, used olive oil (presumably paid for with illegal food stamps) to slip out of his ankle monitor and escape. He remains at large – or on a "repentance mission" if communiques from Warren Jeffs are to believed. The fugitive Jeffs was stripped of his authority by the incarcerated Jeffs, and replaced with another Jeffs, Nephi. 

Prosecutors would like to see the key defendants behind bars awaiting trial, as they have all been caught meeting against court order, and illegally carrying out Warren Jeffs's mandates.

Warren Jeffs ordered John Wayman and Seth Jeffs to meet with others in Hildale, Utah, several times in late July, the U.S. Attorney's Office says in a court filing Monday. They were told to make a plan to interview all members of an elite group within the sect known as the "United Order" to determine if they should be re-baptized and re-confirmed as members, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors filed the new evidence in an attempt to persuade a judge to keep Wayman and Seth Jeffs behind bars. They were re-arrested last week for violations of their release provisions.

"The evidence, including the defendants' past conduct, well establishes that when the dictates of their prophet conflict with an order of the court, the defendants will follow their religious leader in contravention of the court's order," prosecutors wrote.

FLDS, Foodstamps, and Fraud

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Federal charges against FLDS leadership have opened a new window into Warren Jeffs's oppressive, ongoing regime. The imprisoned child molester is still very much in control and, while his followers are suffering, they are not doing so equally. While rank and file members have been forced to subsist on beans, sharing in the pain of their incarcerated "prophet," they were also directed to apply for food stamps, which they were directed to turn over to church leaders. The government benefits are enjoyed by the privileged few, while the majority starve.

Lyle Jeffs and 10 other church members, including another Jeffs brother, Seth, were accused in a federal grand jury indictment of conspiring to cheat the federal government -- and qualified recipients -- of millions in food stamp benefits. Families who qualified for federal assistance were told to turn over their food stamp debit cards and take what they needed from a warehouse of pooled resources called "the bishop's storehouse."

As a result, the federal government alleges, some families subsisted on beans, rice and toast, while high-ranking church members were able to serve more expensive meat, turkey and seafood. The government also alleges that the Jeffs brothers and others laundered money by swiping food stamp debit cards and ringing up "ghost" purchases at church-friendly businesses. The laundered cash allegedly was used on big-ticket items such as a Ford F-350 pickup truck ($30,236), a John Deere tractor ($13,561) and $16,978 in paper products.

In addition, another $250,000 allegedly was spent on printing costs for Warren Jeffs' self published, 854-page book of jailhouse revelations, "Jesus Christ, Message to All Nations."

Warren Jeffs Controls Bodies and Souls

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Warren Jeffs has been getting a lot attention lately, and I don't think it's the kind he likes. A recent CNN special focused on two of his adult children, both of whom claim he molested them when they were very young. This weekend Showtime will premiere Prophet's Prey, a documentary about the FLDS leader. Jeffs continues to maintain strict control of his empire from behind prison walls.

The revelations from Becky and Roy Jeffs are harrowing, but not terribly surprising. It's been clear to outside observers, for some time, that Jeffs is an out-of-control sexual predator. All I could think watching this show was that Roy, in particular, needs serious intervention. All other implications aside, these are sex abuse survivors and their wounds are evident.

There is little more that can be done to corral Warren Jeffs. Barring the kind of divine intervention Jeffs is counting on, he will be spending the rest of his days behind bars for his molestation of underage "celestial wives." But, imprisonment has not loosened his grip on the FLDS. He's effectively put them all in prison, making them suffer as he is suffering, on a beans and water diet, and holding them accountable for his incarceration. Like so many cult leaders, Jeffs seems to see his membership as extensions of his own ego.

CNN: Warren Jeffs Molested His Children

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

DVR Alert: Tonight on "This is Life," Lisa Ling interviews two of Warren Jeffs's children. Both claim that he molested them when they were children. Charges of sexual abuse are not new for Jeffs, who is currently incarcerated in Texas for taking child brides and molesting them as well. Testifying in that trial were his niece, nephew, and a third woman, all of whom claim to have been molested by the man who inherited the leadership his church community.

It's quite clear that Warren Jeffs is a serial predator, whose sexual compulsions made a large cult that spans several states and parts of Canada into his hunting ground. I won't say I'm looking forward to watching Ling's coverage this evening, but I think it's must viewing for anyone who has been watching this horrible tragedy unfold for lo these many years.

Oprah Interviews FLDS Turncoat

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Possibly of interest, Willie Jessop, former Warren Jeffs bodyguard, current apostate, was interviewed by Oprah in a show to air tonight.

Winfrey catches up with Jessop in an episode of "Where Are They Now," to air Sunday on the OWN network

Jessop parted with Jeffs just before Jeffs' trial in 2011. He since has started cooperating with federal and Utah authorities, so much so that the United Effort Plan, the polygamous trust operated by the state of Utah, agreed to sell him land at a reduced price.

He also took possession of Jeffs' compound in Hildale and turned it into a bed and breakfast.

Jessop remains a controversial character, with many continuing to doubt his motives. But he did give us a lovely tour of Warren Jeffs's former compound before turning it into a bed and breakfast. Maybe tonight he'll explain how one repurposes a rape room and makes such a place a charming place to stay on vacation.

The Unbreakable Woman in Red

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

For anyone with an interest in Warren Jeffs and his FLDS, this Dateline episode is must viewing. Rebecca Musser -- former wife of Rulon Jeffs, witness for the prosecution against Warren Jeffs, and red wearing apostate -- has written a book. The Witness Wore Red tells the story of her life before and after breaking from the church she grew up in. Musser was instrumental in putting Warren Jeffs behind bars and this Dateline episode gives a fairly thorough overview of the long process of bringing this unrepentant pedophile to justice. The whole show is in the embed above and can also be viewed here. Some of it is hard to take. The "desecrated" temple with its sacred, holy beds is every bit as creepy as other well-hidden rape rooms Jeffs has constructed.

Musser is one brave woman, risking hell-fire and damnation to free herself from total domination by dirty old men of God. One can't help but marvel at the strength of women like Musser, her sister, and other apostates, who have not only found their voices but used them to put a far too powerful sex offender in prison.

In other news, the FLDS empire continues to crumble. The Alta Academy, where Warren Jeffs raped children and taught such unassailable facts as how the moon landing was faked because God would never allow such a thing, is slated for demolition. Good riddance.

Warren Jeffs Prophesies Destruction of Salt Lake City

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The most startling reveal in Warren Jeffs's latest revelation is that Jesus has terrible grammar. His punctuation is somewhat capricious and he has little patience for articles like an and the.

That Salt Lake City will be destroyed by a falling Mount Olympus is kind of exciting, too.

For the first time in a long time, we're hearing from jailed pedophile and polygamist prophet, Warren Jeffs.

. . .

In it, Jeffs attacks the "Mormon Church" and says Mount Olympus will fall on Salt Lake. He writes, "Mount Olympus falling across valley in world land pressure explosion." He then adds, "That city is my enemy now."

As per Jeffs, Jesus has been upset with the Mormon Church since Wilford Woodruff signed an "agreement with hell," which is code for ending polygamy. That was in 1890, so Jesus has been showing remarkable restraint. Now he's really lost patience and the reason is that Warren Jeffs is in prison and state governments are seizing all his property.

74. Let my servant go. Let my people receive full order of my consecrated lands now under attack by governing state powers by influence of apostate lies.

The Labyrinth of Warren Jeffs: Another Tour

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The other day I posted a video tour of Warren Jeffs's estate conducted by Willie Jessop who recently claimed it at auction. The new video above was shot by Jim Dalrymple of Salt Lake Tribune's Polygamy Blog.

What strikes me in both these videos is the incredible devotion to secrecy and this video makes it in even more apparent. These are heavy walls within heavy walls. The doors are so thick and solid they need four hinges. Everything is practically soundproof.

As Dalrymple takes the viewer past the outer walls of the compound and through succeeding sets of walls, leading finally into the house, I have the sense of being drawn into the center of a maze -- one that leads to a central but externally obscured "rape room." This is the labyrinth of the Minotaur.

The Minotaur was a monstrous half bull, half man creature of Greek myth.

After he ascended the throne of Crete, Minos competed with his brothers to rule. Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of support (the Cretan Bull). He was to kill the bull to show honor to Poseidon, but decided to keep it instead because of its beauty. He thought Poseidon would not care if he kept the white bull and sacrificed one of his own. To punish Minos, Aphrodite made Pasiphaë, Minos' wife, fall deeply in love with the bull. Pasiphaë had the archetypal craftsman Daedalus make a hollow wooden cow, and climbed inside it in order to mate with the white bull. The offspring was the monstrous Minotaur. Pasiphaë nursed him in his infancy, but he grew and became ferocious, being the unnatural offspring of man and beast, he had no natural source of nourishment and thus devoured man for sustenance. Minos, after getting advice from the oracle at Delphi, had Daedalus construct a gigantic labyrinth to hold the Minotaur. Its location was near Minos' palace in Knossos.

. . .

Warren Jeffs's Estate: The Grand Tour

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Willie Jessop exercised his option to put a credit bid on his former boss's auctioned property. As discussed, the former bodyguard of the currently incarcerated Warren Jeffs won a 30 million dollar settlement against the FLDS leader for his harassing apostate Jessop and damaging his business property. Thursday Jessop purchased the lavish estate and surrounding property.

Jessop’s bids of $1.1 million for a school and its surrounding land, as well as a $2.5 million bid for a parcel containing a warehouse, three homes and four other residential buildings, were entered as credit bids that will simply reduce the court’s financial judgment and were unopposed by other bidders.

The auction, presided over by a Washington County Sheriffs deputy, lasted less than five minutes. Members of the media and many onlookers with ties to the twin communities of Hildale and Colorado City, where the FLDS church is headquartered, looked on.

Yesterday he escorted a news crew through the crisp, white, lavishly carpeted rooms, as well as the hastily remodeled "rape room." This was the massive labor of love from his followers that Jeffs promised would cause God to free him from is prison cell.

Even behind prison bars in Texas, Jeffs still leads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He ordered the Hildale compound built in 2010 while awaiting trial and has never lived in the opulent mansions built for him.

Jessop says FLDS members went broke building the compound, but did so with the promise from that “God would knock down the walls” of Jeffs’ prison cell and that “he would be living in the community by the end of the year.”

P.S. He's still in prison.

Warren Jeffs's Utah Compound on the Auction Block

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

As I mentioned here, one of the thousand cuts for Warren Jeffs's empire was a 30 million dollar judgment in favor of his former spokesman Willie Jessop. As discussed, collecting that judgment is proving challenging, but Jessop should get at least partial compensation from the auction of Jeffs's Utah compound.

Washington County officials plan to auction a sprawling compound belonging to Warren Jeffs’ family to pay a judgment to a former spokesman for the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The April 25 auction will allow the public to bid on the multibuilding complex in Hildale that property records show sits on 6.1 acres and has a market value of $2.65 million. The sale is designed to raise money for a judgment obtained by Willie Jessop.

Jessop sued FLDS leaders, including Jeffs and his brother Lyle Jeffs alleging they arranged a late-night break-in at his business, R&W Excavating. Jessop argued that during the break-in several people stole computers, hard drives and other property.

Jessop will also have the option of putting a "credit bid" on the property himself, using a portion of the 30 million.

Jessop, for his part, mostly seems pleased to see Jeffs lose possession of compound that was largely designed for the purpose of sexually abusing young girls -- the same reason Texas is moving to seize Jeffs's Yearning For Zion Ranch. In the interview posted above, he describes how disillusioned and demoralized he was when he learned what Jeffs was doing in secret chambers of compounds like this one.

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.

FLDS Splinter Group Takes Root in the Desert

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Click for Video

A very long, convoluted, lede-burying set of articles and blog posts in the Salt Lake City Tribune profiles William E. Jessop, the leader of a growing group of FLDS apostates. Not to be confused with Willie Jessop, William E. Jessop was born William E. Timpson but an earlier splintering of FLDS caused him to become a Jessop. I suspect this story would be easier to sort out if FLDS weren't so inbred and didn't keep playing musical chairs with the wives and children.

Apparently William E. Jessop was ordained by Rulon Jeffs, father of the currently incarcerated Warren Jeffs. The ordination is dubious, however, because the elder Jeffs had had a number of strokes which by his own rules disqualified him from ordaining anyone. Even so, Jessop was one of Warren Jeffs's top lieutenants and the bishop of Short Creek. He was often called upon by Jeffs to do his dirty work, like delivering his capricious excommunications. Jessop also acquired the wives of a number of excommunicates.

Jessop acknowledged taking some of those women as his own wives. Records seized by Texas authorities in the 2008 raid of the YFZ Ranch show Jessop had 11 wives as of 2006. Jessop says he has many fewer wives now.

Within his new group, polygamy is still practiced, but Jessop has condemned the practice of compelling young girls to marry. Teenage girls are to be provided with options and if they choose to marry, are to be warned of the implications.