Esoterica

‘Headed off the charts’: world’s ocean surface temperature hits record high

The temperature of the world’s ocean surface has hit an all-time high since satellite records began, leading to marine heatwaves around the globe, according to US government data.

Climate scientists said preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) showed the average temperature at the ocean’s surface has been at 21.1C since the start of April – beating the previous high of 21C set in 2016.

“The current trajectory looks like it’s headed off the charts, smashing previous records,” said Prof Matthew England, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales.

. . .

Current observations show moderate to strong marine heatwaves in several regions, including the southern Indian Ocean, the south Atlantic, off north-west Africa, around New Zealand, off the north-east of Australia and the west of Central America.

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

Scientists Find No Evidence That Depression Is Caused by “Chemical Imbalance” or Low Serotonin Levels

After decades of research, there remains no clear evidence that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are responsible for depression, according to a comprehensive review of prior research led by University College London (UCL) scientists.

The major new umbrella review – an overview of existing meta-analyses and systematic reviews – was published on July 20 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. It suggests that depression is not likely caused by a chemical imbalance, and calls into question what antidepressant medications do. This is because most antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which were originally said to function by correcting abnormally low serotonin levels. In fact, there is no other accepted pharmacological mechanism by which antidepressants affect the symptoms of depression.

Lead author Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCL and a consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), said: “It is always difficult to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities, particularly by lower levels or reduced activity of serotonin.

. . .

Professor Moncrieff said: “Our view is that patients should not be told that depression is caused by low serotonin or by a chemical imbalance, and they should not be led to believe that antidepressants work by targeting these unproven abnormalities. We do not understand what antidepressants are doing to the brain exactly, and giving people this sort of misinformation prevents them from making an informed decision about whether to take antidepressants or not.”

Esoterica

NASA recorded a black hole’s song, and you can listen to it

If a black hole devours a planet and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? Physicists and astronomers have been trying to map astronomical data through sound for decades—and now we can finally listen to a black hole scream into the void.

Earlier this month, NASA released the first recordings, or sonifications, of what two black holes sound like—and it’s just the kind of noise astronomers and science fiction buffs were expecting: eerie, ethereal, and aurally extraordinary.

The universe is rife with the hum of celestial melodies—but it’s only relatively recently that humans have developed the technology to be able to hear them. A team of scientists at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory were able to extract and make audible previously identified sound waves from a nearly 20-year-old image of the Perseus galaxy cluster—a collection so full of galaxies, it’s assumed to be one of the most massive objects in the universe. It’s one of the closest clusters to Earth, around 240 light-years away.

Esoterica

The Space Tourism Industry is Stuck in Its Billionaire Phase

In this beginning phase, flying to space is priced only for the ultra-rich, driven by the high costs of new space technology. Virgin Galactic’s launch of Richard Branson represented one of the final key test missions to validate its shiny six-seated spaceplane, SpaceShipTwo, but it was also a meticulously crafted marketing event, complete with flashy promo videos, inspirational speeches, and a pop concert, all designed to help attract more attention, and more customers.

. . .

While Branson and Bezos’ flights to space mark key moments for their space tourism businesses, the space industry is far from being able to offer its services to the rest of the public. To get there, they’ll have to clear several hurdles: Can these rockets reliably fly humans on multiple missions without a hitch? If there is a hitch, like a fatal accident, can the market survive a damaged reputation? And can someone buy a ticket to space just as they can book an expensive flight (instead of just the ultra-rich)?

Then there’s the court of public opinion, which may be difficult to win over. Bezos, Branson and Elon Musk’s space ambitions have been criticized as another example of billionaires spending money on passion projects when there are places and causes where those funds could arguably be put to better use. The US alone struggles with vast wealth inequities, poor access to healthcare and a rapidly changing climate, among other problems that, when paired with space tourism, makes the activity look insultingly selfish to many. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading critic of billionaires, has repeated that point as the private space race heats up. “Here on Earth, in the richest country on the planet, half our people live paycheck to paycheck, people are struggling to feed themselves, struggling to see a doctor — but hey, the richest guys in the world are off in outer space!,” he tweeted in March.

 

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

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

The strange power of the 'evil eye'

When it comes to warding off the mystic malevolent forces of the world, there is perhaps no charm more recognised or renowned than the ‘evil eye’. Ubiquitous in its use, the striking image of the cobalt-blue eye has appeared not only in the bazaars of Istanbul, but everywhere from the sides of planes to the pages of comic books.

In the last decade, evil eye imagery has most frequently appeared in the world of fashion. Kim Kardashian has been photographed on numerous occasions sporting bracelets and headpieces featuring the symbol, while fashion model Gigi Hadid jumped on the trend in late 2017, announcing that she would be launching the EyeLove shoe line.

. . .

To understand the origins of the evil eye, one must first understand the distinction between the amulet and the evil eye itself. Though often dubbed as ‘the evil eye’, the ocular amulet is actually the charm meant to ward off the true evil eye: a curse transmitted through a malicious glare, usually one inspired by envy. Though the amulet – often referred to as a nazar – has existed in various permutations for thousands of years, the curse which it repels is far older and more difficult to trace.

Esoterica

Facebook Shut Down AI After It Invented Its Own Language

Researches at Facebook shut down an artificial intelligence (AI) program after it created its own language, Digital Journal reports.

The system developed code words to make communication more efficient and researchers took it offline when they realized it was no longer using English.

The incident, after it was revealed in early July, puts in perspective Elon Musk’s warnings about AI.

“AI is the rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive,” Musk said at the meet of US National Governors Association. “Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’ll be too late.”

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Musk’s warnings are “pretty irresponsible,” Musk responded that Zuckerberg’s “understanding of the subject is limited.”

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.

The Ghosts of Clear Mountain

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

An old college friend of mine tagged me into a comment thread on Facebook the other day. Had I ever encountered any of these supposed ghosts when we were at Montclair State?

Montclair State is said to be one of the most haunted colleges in America.

For years there have been reports of doors and windows slamming, lights flickering on and off, constant cold, and even a ghost who hovers over the beds of the tenants.

It is believed that Montclair is built on top of Indian burial grounds and alumni say it’s a very scary school. So scary, that many refuse to go in the woods after sundown. There have been many reports of figures believed to be Native Americans spotted in the forests.

According to Classes and Careers, the worst stories come from the Clove Road Apartments. Tenants have reported electrical appliances turning on and off on their own, lights on the second floor flashing on and off by themselves, disembodied knocks on bedroom and bathroom doors, “unearthly” noises emanating from the woods behind the apartments.

I remember hearing about weird happenings at Clove Road. I never got terribly invested in it. I only visited apartments there once or twice. When you're me, everywhere is haunted, and the vast majority is really unthreatening.

What struck me, though, about this story is that it to some degree affirms something I've long suspected -- that Montclair State might well be on an Indian burial ground. I had no idea at the time that this had been rumored. I only knew that the years I spent there were miserable. I had health problems and battled depression the entire time. My grades suffered. I simply hated it there.

The Remarkable Vision of Jimmy Nelson

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I don't like the title of this book. It sounds fatalistic to me, as if the attrition of these indigenous cultures is inevitable. But it is also a warning, a reminder of what a treasure they are, a call to protect what's left of humanity's origins.

These are truly remarkable photographs. Jimmy Nelson devoted 25 years of his life gaining the trust of these tribal peoples, so much so that they were willing be documented by a Westerner.

Looking at Nelson’s photographs, it’s difficult to imagine how a British man could gain this kind of access. “I never, ever take out the camera right away,” Nelson says firmly. “I didn’t know their language, but we connected as people.”

Because each tribe has its own particular dialect, there was only so far a local translator could go. The rest was up to Nelson. He says he used body language to convey ideas. By way of demonstration, he stretches his eyes wide, puts his hands on his face, makes an expression of awe and ‘ooos’ and ‘aahs.’

“It’s all about vanity and empathy,” Nelson says. “You literally go onto your knees and you beg them… You put them on a pedestal and you say until you can’t hear yourself anymore, ‘You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful. You’re important.' And eventually people feel that.”

The Holy War Against Pop Culture Pagans

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

A trio of pretty, karate trained teens are battling demons around the world. Charmed? No. Worse. Brynne Larson, Tess Scherkenback, and Savannah Scherkenback are evangelical Christian exorcists who have been touring impoverished mining towns in Ukraine armed with nothing but crosses, holy water... and Larson's preacher father. Their efforts at saving these lost souls from the tortures of hell have received mixed reviews... from the director of their documentary.

[Charlet] Duboc said: ‘The way they come across on camera is just the way they were when we turned off the camera, they never stopped the vacant smiling,’ the British film-maker said.

They weren’t horrid, they weren’t unpleasant, they were just a bit creepy. It was a bit like talking to the Stepford Wives, I was like “where are the humans behind this?”’

The girls will be taking their glazed expressions and vapid smiles to the heart of the dragon, which is to say Potterworld, which is to say London. Someone has to protect unwitting entertainment seekers from demonic possession!

The Solstice and the Serpent

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Well here's something I did not know.

This morning, while scanning the news for fun Summer Solstice events, I noticed this item on the Mother Nature Network. Apparently, the famed serpent mound in Ohio is aligned to the sun on this day. How marvelous. That puts this ancient curiosity amongst sacred sites all over the world as aligned to key astronomical events. I don't know that this will ever make Ohio Bush Creek a destination on par with Stonehenge (see above) but I actually find this slightly more fascinating.

Sunrise with a snake: Twenty miles south of Bainbridge, Ohio, a mysterious mound rises from the Earth. A bird's-eye view would reveal that this mound is in fact man-made, and that it is in the shape of a giant serpent.

On the summer solstice, the sun rises directly over the head of this serpent, which was likely created by the so-called Fort Ancient culture that thrived nearby between A.D. 1000 and 1550. The Serpent Mound park is open during daylight hours, so solstice-seekers can stroll around the ancient snake and imagine the early astronomers that must have overseen its construction.

I've never seen the serpent mound. Ohio is big state and I grew up on the other end of it. But it's always tickled me pink that this vestige of ancient wisdom appears in such an unlikely place.

To Suffer a Witch

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Put this in the broad category of things I really don't want to write about. But I'm afraid I have to. In a curious synchronicity I noticed the latest drivel from Rob Kerby on my start page. One of these days I will remove the Beliefnet feed, but a combination of morbid curiosity and laziness has prevented it thus far. (For the back story on the Beliefnet news feed's devolution into a reactionary, bigoted, wingnut megaphone for the Christianist Kerby, see here and here.) Kerby's latest bit of wrongheadedness is a diatribe on the dangers of witchcraft. Why is this synchronous? This may be a little hard to follow but bear with me.

Let me start by saying that Kerby's biggest mistake is in conflating certain third world, tribal fears of witchcraft with Pagan faiths. He expresses dismay at Harry Potter for trivializing the dangers of witchery and at the Cornwall schools' inclusion of Paganism in its religion curriculum. This is the first synchronicity. But even more curious is that I was watching this fascinating video last night which had me thinking about a very particular usage of the term "witchcraft." It's a documentary on shaman and "vegetalista" Don Emilio Andrade Gomez who more than once uses the term witchcraft to describe the dark practice of sorcery. A lot of this could be written off to semantic differences but the distinction is too important to leave to the Rob Kerbys of the world... because that kind of thinking gets people killed.

Paul Levy on the Collective Shadow

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I've referenced Tibetan Buddhist and healer Paul Levy before -- notably in my review of The Secret. Levy's essays are available on his site Awaken in the Dream and in his book The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis. In his newest book Wetiko, Levy continues to explore the projected shadow as a collective phenomenon and the Native American mythical embodiment of it known as wetiko to the Cree. Years ago, I watched a movie called Wendigo, another Algonquian name for the same phenomenon. It's a haunting film that brilliantly captures the sense of doom we experience at those times when life is turned upside down leaving us at the mercy of an unfolding fate that seems to have its own agenda. As Levy explains, we actually animate this darkness run amok from our suppressed shadow. The more in denial of our shadow we are, the more inevitably we will confront it as a seemingly alien entity in our reflective world.

One of the things that struck me in this Red Ice Radio interview is Levy's anecdote about a New Age bookstore that wanted him to appear but not talk about all that shadow stuff. They wanted it to be "positive." It put me in mind of another author who dared to write about the painful side of spiritual growth; Rabbi Yonassan Gershom who wrote about Holocaust reincarnates.  Said Gershom:

Then in 1984 I was invited to speak on Jewish mysticism at the annual Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (SFF) retreat at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. SFF is an eclectic group of spiritually oriented people who are interested in psychic phenomena, and most believe in reincarnation. Here, I thought, would be a receptive audience for these case histories that I had been gathering. So I suggested "Cases of Holocaust Reincarnation" as my topic.

I was turned down flat. The SFF representative explained that the theme of the retreat would be "I Am the Light," and they wanted to focus on uplifting, positive material because that's what people expected. The Holocaust was just too heavy and depressing, and might upset people, even if I were talking about reincarnation. Couldn't I do something more inspiring, like a Sabbath liturgy?

This relentless focus on the upbeat and cheerful is not just naive. It's dangerous -- something I've written about ad nauseam, ad infinitum. And as Levy has been explaining brilliantly for years, it can unleash terrors beyond our conscious imagining.

James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial: Day 10

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

James Arthur Ray "Just Standing There" in Court

Monday is not an actual trial day. It is a good day, however, to recap and catch up on testimony that wasn't aired last week... or was preempted on the live feed by the unfolding horror in Japan. Today In Session ran the rest of Beverley Bunn's direct questioning by prosecutor Bill Hughes and the very beginning of her cross examination by Tom Kelly.

Beverley Bunn appears to me to be traumatized. She struggles to maintain an icy control as she recounts events that still reduce her to trembling voice and tears. What I keep ruminating on as I watch her is that this was the woman who James Ray wanted to work with one on one. Something that she disclosed to the group the evening the seminar began was serious enough to demand the leader's personal attention. My hunch is that what Ray saw was a beautiful, intelligent, powerful woman with an Achilles heel; a gaping vulnerability that he could exploit. He proceeded to insult her, to hurl profanity at her, and to keep her on the kind of emotional roller-coaster any survivor of a cult or abusive marriage can relate to.

In the testimony aired today, Bunn continued to break down the course of events during the sweat lodge. In round six, all hell broke loose. Or, to use Beverley Bunn's words, everything "kinda went pretty crazy." Everyone was yelling. Someone was screaming "She's passed out. She's passed out." People started calling out each other's names. In other words, there was panic and mayhem. At the end of the round a woman was dragged, unconscious to the door and past Ray who completely ignored it. Even after she was dragged out, there was still panic and people yelling for one another. That got a reaction from Ray:

James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial: Day 9

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Beverley Bunn

When prosecutor Bill Hughes interviewed Beverley Bunn today, he touched on the issue that has been bothering me regarding the waivers. That is to say, he asked her when she had paid for the event and when she received the packet containing the waivers. Indeed, she had paid months before obtaining the information packet; half up front at another event and the second half about a month later. My point: If she had looked at that waiver and had a sudden concern for her health, that money would have been forfeit. Asked if she knew when she registered what the events were going to be she said, "No." The brochure had pictures of people hiking and the details were left deliberately vague, "'Cause they told you that they didn't want to disclose any of it because they didn't want ruin any of it for you." She did not know at the time she paid that there would be a sweat lodge. She only learned that there would be a sweat lodge a few hours before the sweat lodge.

It occurs to me that telling participants that they didn't want to disclose too much about the activities beforehand could have had the effect of discouraging them from looking too closely at the waiver and ruining those surprises for themselves.

She signed the waiver when she arrived. She was late and she was rushed through the signing process and told get into the dining hall so as not to miss dinner.

James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial: Day 5

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Jennifer Haley

I've checked the CNN live feed at intervals today and as near as I can tell there's been no courtroom broadcast today. So, it's a good time to back up and look at some elements of last week's proceedings.

In Session finally ran more of the opening statements. Prosecutor Sheila Polk laid out the prosecution's case by underscoring the key elements of case as they are to be revealed in upcoming testimony:

• Participants were being dragged from the tent as early as the fourth round in right front of Ray in obvious distress, displaying nausea, vomiting, and unconsciousness
• Lou Caci will testify to delirium that resulted in his passing out and falling into the heated rocks where he was badly burned even as he was trying to make a run for the exit
• Ray did not stop the ceremony despite the chaos and did not check on people when concerns were raised
• Liz Neuman: Polk points out something on Laura Tucker's testimony that definitely needs to be emphasized -- that it was after Ray had responded to Tucker that Liz knew what she was doing that she said she was fine (implication: she may have been intimidated into refusing help)
• Medical testimony will explain that heat induces confusion and an inability to discern when one is at risk
• There were only a few basic medical supplies on hand, no emergency medical plan, only one person trained in CPR on scene, no portable portable defibrillator
• James Ray endorsed those who had left, including the injured Caci to come back and complete the sweat lodge
• Sidney Spencer will testify that the back area of the tent where she sat near Kirby Brown and James Shore was hotter, was pitch black, and that she remembers little before losing consciousness and being carried to the opening by James Shore
• Several people called out for help for Kirby Brown; that she was passed out and not breathing and that James Ray's response was, "We're closing the door. We'll deal with it when we're done."
• The fire tender's wife looked in the tent at the end and saw three people unconscious, lying on the ground, and she initiated the rescue attempt by tearing open the tent and dragging purple and blue mottled people out -- she also called 911
• James Ray came out of the sweat lodge first and had his own needs attended to but did nothing to assist others; other participants and volunteers took care of those who were unconscious or otherwise in distress

James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial: Day 1

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

According the New York Times, opening arguments did go forward today in the James Arthur Ray trial. But whatever happened in that regard did so after In Session's trial coverage wrapped for the day. Instead, I watched a lot of the pregame show but an as yet unspecified problem with the jury delayed pretrial hearings and the beginning of the public trial. Here is a brief encapsulation from the Times.

A prosecutor, Sheila Polk, argued that Mr. Ray’s negligence caused the deaths of Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman in October 2009. She said Mr. Ray conditioned the victims to put aside their inhibitions and trust him as a way of reaching enlightenment.

Luis Li, Mr. Ray’s lawyer, called the deaths accidental and said the victims had voluntarily entered the sweat lodge.

Mr. Li said that the victims were adults and had made their own decisions and that Mr. Ray held no power over them.