Eye on Faith

Friday, January 14, 2011

Ophiuchus: Astrological pandemonium

Ophiuchus In the Sky with Snakes

It looks as though people like Britney Spears (December 2) and Ozzy Osborne (December 3) will be experiencing even bigger identity crises than before - now that Ophiuchus (and his snakes) are out of the closet.

Not to mention the rest of the zodiac’s heirs - now that many Libras are Virgos, Virgos are Leos, Leos are Cancers – and so forth, all the way down the astrological line… According to Andrea Reiher, the new sun-sign calendar chart looks like this:

Capricorn: January 20 – February 16

Aquarius: February 16 – March 11

Pisces: March 11 – April 18

Aires: April 18 – May 13

Taurus: May 13 – June 21

Gemini: June 21 – July 20

Cancer: July 20 – August 10

Leo: August 10 – September 16

Virgo: September 16 – October 30

Libra: October 30 – November 23

Scorpio: November 23 – November 29

Ophiuchus: November 29 – December 17

Sagittarius: December 17 – January 20

Call it As the World Wobbles. It’s like one big cosmic circle dance in which partners are continuously being

juggled off to their neighbors. It’s no wonder that countless toes are being stepped upon – and countless

complaints such as these Huffington Post ones are being reported:

I have a Gemini tattoo on my ankle, and now I’m not a Gemini?

Another sign the pockalips is coming in 2012!

OHNOES what am I? I feel like everything I’ve known til now has all been a LIE!!!

Perhaps this is a foretaste of things to come. Eventually, we not only detach from our astrological identities, but also from our bodies, minds and personalities.

What then?

Resources

http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/01/ophiuchus-new-zodiac-sign-dates-and-your-real-astrological-sign.html

http://www.celebuzz.com/stars-whose-zodiac-sign-changed-s296841/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/13/new-zodiac-sign-ophiucus-astrology_n_808641.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Alice Cooper: No more Mr. Vice Guy

Sidney Rigdon

Alice Cooper has come back around full circle. Raised by a family that was highly involved with the Church of Jesus Christ, he has now returned to his Christian roots (although to a different denomination thereof).

The Church of Jesus Christ (also called the “Bickertonite Church” or the “Rigdonite organization” because of its strong links with William Bickerton and Sidney Rigdon) was originally an offshoot of the Latter Day Saints (LDS). In the early days of the LDS movement, Sidney Rigdon’s influence was said to be as great as Joseph Smith’s. William Bickerton, who was originally a Methodist, became part of the LDS movement after Smith’s death. He was considered to be a follower of Rigdon.

The Rigdon/Bickerton branch of the Latter Day Saints differentiated themselves from Brigham Young and his followers. They settled in Pennsylvania rather than in Utah, and rejected many LDS practices such as plural marriage, celestial marriage, and multiple priesthoods. They have also rejected many of Joseph Smith’s teachings and revelations.

At ages 11 and 12, Alice Cooper (then Vincent Furnier) was very involved with the Bickertonite Church of Jesus Christ. This allegiance fell sharply away as he became less Vincent Furnier, and more Alice Cooper. As Alice Cooper, he became more and more involved with a new “trinity” – that of the proverbial "sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll." In his own hindsight wording: I used to celebrate moral decay, the decadence of it… I was totally in agreement that every guy should sleep with every girl and drink as much as

they can…

And now? Back on track with Mr. Nice Guy…

Although self-admittedly still far from perfect, Cooper now hitches his wagon to stars of the heavenly kind. According to Donald Hughes, Cooper had this to say about once again embracing the Christian faith: We have to make a choice… This doesn’t speak to my intellect, it doesn’t speak to my logic – it speaks right to my heart and right to my soul, deeper than anything I’ve ever thought of.

Resources

http://www.alicecooper.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Cooper

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=35806

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Jesus_Christ_(Bickertonite)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Janus: Are two heads really better than one?

Photo by Steve Evans

The two heads of Janus, one facing backwards and the other facing forwards, is often symbolic of the past/future dichotomy. People tend to get particularly focused upon this dualistic view of time as the calendar shifts from one year to another. However, constantly gazing at the past and future can preclude ever really connecting with the here and now.

Time itself has been the subject of many a scientific, philosophical, and/or religious theory – especially insofar as the elusive “present” is concerned. According to Wikipedia, St. Augustine of Hippo (modern-day Algeria) described the present as “a knife edge between the past and the future…” For Augustine, that which is eternally present (God) exists beyond the constraints of time. However, for some mystics, the razor’s edge of each and every “be here now” moment is fraught with divine reality.

According to Patheos, Buddhism began with a time dichotomy of its own. Rather than focusing upon the differences between past and future, it focused upon the differences between samsara (“the endless cycle of births and deaths”) and nirvana (the ultimate escape from such a cycle). However, as Buddhism evolved, a new concept of shunyata (emptiness) emerged. This “emptiness” is not what we usually imagine as “nothingness.” In fact, it is much more akin to all-at-once “everythingness.”

In trying to explain this, The Conscious Universe offers this passage from Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha:

… the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the

ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future…”

If a new Janus prototype were to reflect this gestalt way of perceiving past, present and future - then its second head might need to morph into a third eye.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_%28philosophy_of_time%29

http://conscious-universe.blogspot.com/2007/06/time-in-buddhism.html

http://www.patheos.com/Library/Buddhism/Ritual-Worship-Devotion-Symbolism/Sacred-Time.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_eye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Church music: Give me that old-time dopamine

Dopamine (By: Sbrools)

According to McGill University researchers - whether it’s sex, drugs, rock or gospel - what seems “good enough for me” often feels that way because of an accompanying dopamine rush.

Discovery News explains that even the anticipation of a favorite piece of music is enough to trigger some feel-good brain “hits” of dopamine. Does this therefore imply that familiar hymnal music can be as potent as shamanic mushrooms or tantric positions in terms of its effect upon consciousness?

Could this also be why there have been many who warned against an “overabundance” of worship music? The early New England Puritans were careful to restrict their use of church music to simple Psalm singing. The famous Swiss Reformation leader, Ulrich Zwingli, was noted for his avoidance of choirs and chants (which he felt diverted congregations from true worship).

David Huron of Ohio State University suggests that music, “like sex and drugs,” may be “mildly addictive.”

The McGill findings specify that “music-induced pleasure” is associated with such responses as a surge in intense emotional arousal, shivers or chills, and changes in heart rate, pulse, breathing rate, and other measurements.

According to Interactive Bible, the following quotations are from some historical Christian writers:

Men run to church as to a theatre, to have their ears tickled. (Erasmus)

The unison voices of Christians would be more acceptable to God than any musical instrument. (Eusebius)

Music in churches is as ancient as the apostles, but instrumental music not so. (Bingham)

I have no objections to instruments of music in our chapels, provided they are neither heard nor seen.(John Wesley)

Resources

http://news.discovery.com/human/music-dopamine-happiness-brain-110110.html

http://www.bible.ca/H-music.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Puritan_culture_and_recreation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldrych_Zwingli

Monday, January 10, 2011

Cleopatra's revenge: Egypt needling New York

Bust of Cleopatra

An official of the Egyptian government has been threatening to take back the Cleopatra’s-Needle obelisk that has proudly stood in New York’s Central Park for over a century and a quarter.

Perhaps one too many showings of Antony and Cleopatra in New York City has riled up the ancient queen’s spirit. Although Shakespeare had tried his best to portray the queen as a grand and tragic figure, her shortcomings were nevertheless often quite evident.

One of these shortcomings – vanity – was perhaps the reason why an obelisk that was built and inscribed by two other pharoahs hundreds of years before her time is now associated mainly with Cleopatra’s name. Her politically-fueled passions were also partly responsible for this association. During the Roman era, the obelisk that had originally stood in the ancient Egyptian holy city of Heliopolis was moved to the temple that Cleopatra had built in honor of – you guessed it – Marc Antony.

Although Cleopatra was actually Greek, she liked to portray herself as being a living incarnation of the Egyptian goddess, Isis. Isis was known for magic, fertility, and motherhood (the latter being perhaps the biggest stretch in Cleopatra’s case). The son of Isis, Horus, was – according to Wikipedia – “one of the oldest and most significant deities in the ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times.”

The name Horus appears a number of times as part of the hieroglyphic inscriptions upon Central Park’s

Cleopatra’s Needle. That is because Cleopatra was far from the only pharaoh to be self-portrayed as a

deity (or as the child of a deity). Thutmosis III, who originally ordered the obelisk to be built, is referred to on one of its sides as “the golden Horus, content with victory…” Not to be outdone, Ramses II added his own inscriptions centuries later: Ramses II, The chosen of Ra, Son of the Sun…

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra's_Needle

http://www.livescience.com/culture/Egypt-threatens-removal-central-park-obelisk-11106.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_and_Cleopatra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Knicks: The Legend of Sleepy Skirvan

Headless Horrors (Darley, 1849)

It’s no wonder that a team named after Washington Irving has now passed on some ghostly legends of

its own.

Just about a year ago, the Knicks were bottoming out into a hollow of their own making. Perhaps not able

to fully face their shortcomings, they instead blamed some upon a ghost of many Christmases past. This

ghost, who is said to still reside at the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City, allegedly messed with Jared Jeffries and Eddy Curry on the night before a big game. Needless to say, the Knicks then suffered a thunderous loss.

Jeffries and Curry are not the only ones who have complained about this ghost. Even when she was alive, many were affected by her wandering ways. Called Effie by those who weren’t quite sure of her real name - she was supposedly a Skirvin maid who was impregnated, then imprisoned in a room on the hotel’s tenth floor, by none other than oily Mr. Skirvin. That’s enough to drive anyone to distraction, especially one with Effie’s rumored social nature. She therefore is said to have jumped out the window – infant in her arms.

Ergo, the mysterious baby’s cries that many hotel guests have reported… It got so bad on the fateful night that the Knicks were there that Curry had to calm himself down by sleeping in Nate Robinson’s room. According to Frank Isola of the NY Daily News, Jeffries declared: The place is haunted. It’s scary.

However scary this might have been, Curry and Jeffries can thank their lucky stars that they didn’t run into the original Knickerbocker ghost. Had they been pursued by the Headless Horseman himself, they might still be trapped in the sleepy hollows of that sleepless night.

Resources

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ok-skirvinhotel.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2010/01/12/2010-01-12_hotel_ghosts_have_knicks_hearing_boos.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Knicks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Sleepy_Hollow

Saturday, January 8, 2011

It's well past time to ask: Which witch is which?

Magic Circle (By: Waterhouse, 1886)

Witchcraft has been making a lot of headlines these days. In the wake of Christine O’Donnell’s “I’m not a witch!” announcement, comes some equally memorable news from Romania.

The Romanian government has, for the very first time, decided to impose taxes upon the income that Romania’s witches garner from their professional services. Although some witches see this as a validation that the work they do is, indeed, professional – others have been angry enough to get even.

According to the Associated Press, Romania’s “queen witch” - Bratara Buzea - is threatening to “cast a spell using a particularly effective concoction of cat excrement and dead dog…” If that weren’t bad enough, she’s claiming that her “curses always work” – and, worse yet, proclaiming to all who will listen: We do harm to those who harm us…”

That’s the kind of blanket statement that tends to prejudice people against all witches. It’s also the kind of statement that leads people to assume that all witches are alike - and that all witches get mixed up with violence and revenge.

According to many Neopagans, this sort of stereotyping couldn’t be further from the truth. Many witches today adhere to morality codes that closely resemble those of major world religions. For example, the essence of the Wiccan Rede (the “Golden Rule” that many current witches follow) is this: Do what you will, so long as it harms none. The Charge of the Goddess, another guide for witches, includes this dictum: Keep pure your highest ideal, strive ever towards it… The Rule of Three explains that whatever type energy a person shares will be returned threefold. It doesn’t take a genius (or a crystal ball) to thus figure that the sharing of benevolent energy is a win-win for all.

As for the sharing of bad vibes? According to the Rule of Three, there might be thrice the “toil and trouble” awaiting those who insist upon dabbling in hatred and revenge.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiccan_morality

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20018526-503544.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40930813/ns/business-world_business/