Earlier this month a reader's letter in Private Eye drew attention to an advertisement which had appeared in Eye 1279. It is a tiny ad and contains only a coloured picture of some sort of conflagration and the questions "Have you thought about the future?" and "Are you ready" (with no question mark). But it does give a link to the website http://www.arcsurvival.com/ where all is explained.
The site is well designed, though the spelling and punctuation of the text are not of the highest standard, but the welcome page advises: "If you do not have expendable liquid funds available to you, to cover as a minimum of one point five million euros for each member of your family, please do not continue". I would have to check whether I qualify, which is by no means certain, but clearly the offer is aimed at a high proportion of OMF's demographic, and in the interests of my readers I felt bound to investigate so that none of them would miss the opportunity of a profitable investment.
It is indeed a remarkable offer. Bearing in mind that "the Mayan’s predicted thousands of years ago that mankind as we know it would cease to exist at the end of December 2012" (cue lovely picture of a Mayan carving), that ..."the Knights of Malta, Knights of the Templar, Bilderburg group, Illuminati, and so on, Reptilian hybrids, shape shifters, etc, etc) have been living underground for thousands of years, feeding off the surface in terms of energy, food, etc etc....." and are about to emerge and take over the few humans who will be left after World War 3", plus "the well-known fact that an asteroid in the shape of the devil's head will pass near the Earth in 2012", we may well be concerned about the future.
It must be said that not everyone agrees with these predictions; my friends Septimus and George, for example, who look at the end-of-mankind thing from a more Jesus-oriented viewpoint, reckon that it will all happen before the end of this year, but, unlike the ArcSurvival people, have no suggestions for avoiding the unpleasantness which awaits us all.
What does the Arc (or sometimes Ark) Survival Group have to offer?
Well, this is not a flimsy plan hastily cobbled together by amateurs. For years a "highly experienced, and knowledgeable engineering team that has over 20 years average experience in all aspects of engineering, Structural, Mechanical, Advanced Engineering,... very respected and well known by their peer’s, experts in cutting edge free energy technology, of which we have perfected and have gone to great lengths to secure, in Nuclear, chemical, biological, attack survival and with advanced knowledge and expertise in natural disaster survival, including plate shifts...and with extensive knowledge in long term food and water provision and storage..." has been preparing to offer to "a handful of Elite people" a number of Ark Survival villages completely invisible to the outside world.
Each village will have some of the latest medical equipment available, and will in fact incorporate a mini hospital, while "two of the Elite members will be fully trained and qualified Doctors who can cover all aspects of health including surgical operations. Natural and homeopathic healing will play a major role, and we are already very advanced with this including treatments and cures for previously thought incurable diseases".
Security will be paramount: "We have a small number of specialists ex British SAS members who are part of our team and play a major role in member preparation, training, and state of the art security measures. This ensures that our survival village, will not only be completely stealth, but will be secure against any outside hostility".
It is good to know that "careful vetting of all who become part of this project" will be considered "of the up most importance", though presumably care will be taken not to infringe any of the provisions of the Equal Opportunities Act or relevant EU regulations. After all, being one of the Elite may involve staying underground for several years, and after paying all that money it would be distressing to find that one was expected to share accommodation with a rowdy bunch of former hedge fund managers or LibDem supporters.
We are told that: "Commissioning will commence from July 2011 through to November 2012 and planned first evacuation December 15th 2012". However, the Mayans prophesied nasty things happening at the end of December 2012 and of course the devil's head asteroid is scheduled to start upsetting everyone's arrangements in the same month, so time is getting very short.
The project sounds well thought out and attractive, though some may be doubtful about "placing funds into an irrevocable letter of credit attached to a contact agreeable to both parties, for no less than 60% of the total required amount". Still, we were warned at the outset that only those ready to contribute a minimum of one point five million euros for each member of their family should enter the website.
Showing posts with label superstition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superstition. Show all posts
Monday, 24 January 2011
Monday, 8 November 2010
Così Fan Tutte, or most of them
In my last post I described a little test I made to see if it was true that women are more superstitious than men. Knowing that among my readers are a number of otherwise sensible women who would find it totally unacceptable that I should consider the suggestion valid, I fully expected that one or more of them would take issue with me.
But none have done so. On the contrary, one comment came from an irresponsible barfly friend of mine called Grumio, who treated the project with typical flippancy, and another from Outeast, one of OMF's wise and percipient regular readers who has taken the trouble to conduct some more serious research to confirm or disprove my point. He used a datafile from the American 1972-2008 General Social Survey, a very useful tool for this kind of research, though he points out that the data relates only to men and women in the USA, so it may be that any conclusion drawn from it 'reflects primarily a cultural construct rather than anything innate', and he makes a couple of other caveats.
My own conclusion seems to be well supported: Women believe in weird things more than men do.
[I know nothing of Outeast's background, as he has always refused to reveal anything at all about himself. He is probably male but for all I know may be a Harvard Professor of Philosophy or possibly a Uyghur herdsman. Anyway, I am grateful both to him and to Grumio: they have cheered me up after a week of bad news from the U.S.]
But none have done so. On the contrary, one comment came from an irresponsible barfly friend of mine called Grumio, who treated the project with typical flippancy, and another from Outeast, one of OMF's wise and percipient regular readers who has taken the trouble to conduct some more serious research to confirm or disprove my point. He used a datafile from the American 1972-2008 General Social Survey, a very useful tool for this kind of research, though he points out that the data relates only to men and women in the USA, so it may be that any conclusion drawn from it 'reflects primarily a cultural construct rather than anything innate', and he makes a couple of other caveats.
My own conclusion seems to be well supported: Women believe in weird things more than men do.
[I know nothing of Outeast's background, as he has always refused to reveal anything at all about himself. He is probably male but for all I know may be a Harvard Professor of Philosophy or possibly a Uyghur herdsman. Anyway, I am grateful both to him and to Grumio: they have cheered me up after a week of bad news from the U.S.]
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
So you're a Scorpio? Wow!
Some time ago ago I carried out a little survey to try to establish whether or not women, in general, taking it by and large, on the whole and with reservations, might be thought to be—or tend to be—more, perhaps marginally, superstitious than men. This was a frivolous exercise, and I did not imagine anyone would consider it tendentious or even take it seriously.
But I was wrong. My conclusion ("Yes, possibly") evidently festered in the mind of an acquaintance of mine until she could rein in her contempt no longer, and now, four years later, she has sent me an email expressing the view that what I had written was monstrously unreasonable, bigoted, mendacious and shameful, though supplying no evidence to support her contention that my conclusion was wrong.
This attack has hurt me deeply. While I am prepared to admit that such strictures could be applied with some truth to much of the content of OMF, I do not believe they can be levelled at the post in question, so over the past few days during which I had few major commitments (any fewer, and there would have been no need for me to get up in the mornings), I have gone to the trouble of repeating the enquiry using a larger sample.
It was based on the same premise as the earlier survey: that the desire to reveal your astrological sign to the world by noting it in your blog profile indicates a belief that this information says something interesting about you. There is no reason to believe this unless you think that there is something in astrology and that it is not just silly rubbish; in other words you have at least one superstitious belief.
So I looked at a hundred blogs which feature a personal profile, fifty written by women and fifty by men. Of these, 11 (22%) of the men and 36 (72%) of the women list their astrological sign.
This does not prove that women are more than three times as likely as men to be superstitious, of course: such a conclusion would be quite unwarranted.
But I was wrong. My conclusion ("Yes, possibly") evidently festered in the mind of an acquaintance of mine until she could rein in her contempt no longer, and now, four years later, she has sent me an email expressing the view that what I had written was monstrously unreasonable, bigoted, mendacious and shameful, though supplying no evidence to support her contention that my conclusion was wrong.
This attack has hurt me deeply. While I am prepared to admit that such strictures could be applied with some truth to much of the content of OMF, I do not believe they can be levelled at the post in question, so over the past few days during which I had few major commitments (any fewer, and there would have been no need for me to get up in the mornings), I have gone to the trouble of repeating the enquiry using a larger sample.
It was based on the same premise as the earlier survey: that the desire to reveal your astrological sign to the world by noting it in your blog profile indicates a belief that this information says something interesting about you. There is no reason to believe this unless you think that there is something in astrology and that it is not just silly rubbish; in other words you have at least one superstitious belief.
So I looked at a hundred blogs which feature a personal profile, fifty written by women and fifty by men. Of these, 11 (22%) of the men and 36 (72%) of the women list their astrological sign.
This does not prove that women are more than three times as likely as men to be superstitious, of course: such a conclusion would be quite unwarranted.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
How many are interested?
There's a lot of fun to be had playing with Google's Search Trends, which can count the the number of searches made for any key word over time, and thus enable researchers to monitor the level of public interest in people—Led Zeppelin, say, or a topic, like homeopathy. The graphs show that interest in the former has been very steady, with a huge peak at the time of their reunion show last year, while interest in homeopathy is 40% less than at the beginning of 2004.
Searches on Google are of course only one indicator of the level of public interest, but for homeopathy there is some evidence that appears to correlate with the search trend. You can read about it here ; the comments to the article generally support the suggestion that the popularity of this particular kind of quackery is on the wane and may indeed be in terminal decline, not before time.
In the UK there is a lower proportion of simple-minded people who believe in it than in the US, Australia, India or France, but if Prince Charles eventually becomes king he may well continue his efforts to promote it.
Bishop William Crosswell Doane (1832–1913) explained the posology of homeopathic nostrums many years ago:
Stir the mixture well
Lest it prove inferior,
Then put half a drop
Into Lake Superior.
Every other day
Take a drop in water,
You’ll be better soon
Or at least you oughta.
Searches on Google are of course only one indicator of the level of public interest, but for homeopathy there is some evidence that appears to correlate with the search trend. You can read about it here ; the comments to the article generally support the suggestion that the popularity of this particular kind of quackery is on the wane and may indeed be in terminal decline, not before time.
In the UK there is a lower proportion of simple-minded people who believe in it than in the US, Australia, India or France, but if Prince Charles eventually becomes king he may well continue his efforts to promote it.
Bishop William Crosswell Doane (1832–1913) explained the posology of homeopathic nostrums many years ago:
Stir the mixture well
Lest it prove inferior,
Then put half a drop
Into Lake Superior.
Every other day
Take a drop in water,
You’ll be better soon
Or at least you oughta.
Friday, 24 October 2008
Season of smoke
Mists we shall probably have, and maybe a hint of mellow fruitfulness, but the other manifestations of this time of year are less romantically enjoyable; the dreary imported Halloween will be closely followed by our own Guy Fawkes night. But it's not much fun in China, either, according to a netfriend of mine who lives in Beijing. He has a civilised blog called Froogville in which he writes perceptively about life generally but particularly in China, and had this to say recently about what happens there in October:
The air has been freakishly clear for the past week or so. One rather suspects that the country's entire manufacturing industry has been shut down until further notice because of the global economic meltdown. Then again, maybe we've just been lucky to have a long run of cleansing easterly breezes (rather than the more usual westerly ones that bring in the industrial fug from the rest of the country, or the occasional southerly ones that pin the city's accumulated smog up against the mountains to the north and west).
Clear, that is, by day. The nights have been horrendous. The beginning of the tenth lunar month in the Chinese calendar is yet another of those appeasing-the-ancestors festivals. At other times of the year, they burn money (or, more and more often, elaborate paper effigies of consumer goods) to make sure that their departed forebears can continue down the capitalist road in the afterlife. In autumn they burn clothes - so that the dead can dress warm in winter. I think it's the first day of the month that is supposed to be devoted to this, but in practice it drags on for a week or more. Every night, hundreds of thousands of people are out building mini-bonfires on the streets. And the damp autumn air quickly becomes saturated with the soot this produces. This year has been worse than ever, the very worst I can recall. The air quality after dark has been just poisonous this week.
The decades of hardcore Communism were remarkably ineffective in rooting out these antique superstitions; and now these fatuous practices are once again freely tolerated (if not actively encouraged, as a charming manifestation of China's "rich and ancient culture"). How long can we continue to condone a quaint tradition that is so massively pointless and so shockingly deleterious to the environment? There are a lot of Chinese customs that irritate me, and this is one of the worst. And I don't suppose the majority of Chinese really believe in this ancestor-worship nonsense - any more than we Westerners believe in Father Christmas. But our customs - hanging out stockings, etc. - are innocent, non-noxious. The Chinese custom of lighting millions of small bonfires across the country every night for a week is a massive assault on the environment - and it needs to be ended. Soon.
The air has been freakishly clear for the past week or so. One rather suspects that the country's entire manufacturing industry has been shut down until further notice because of the global economic meltdown. Then again, maybe we've just been lucky to have a long run of cleansing easterly breezes (rather than the more usual westerly ones that bring in the industrial fug from the rest of the country, or the occasional southerly ones that pin the city's accumulated smog up against the mountains to the north and west).
Clear, that is, by day. The nights have been horrendous. The beginning of the tenth lunar month in the Chinese calendar is yet another of those appeasing-the-ancestors festivals. At other times of the year, they burn money (or, more and more often, elaborate paper effigies of consumer goods) to make sure that their departed forebears can continue down the capitalist road in the afterlife. In autumn they burn clothes - so that the dead can dress warm in winter. I think it's the first day of the month that is supposed to be devoted to this, but in practice it drags on for a week or more. Every night, hundreds of thousands of people are out building mini-bonfires on the streets. And the damp autumn air quickly becomes saturated with the soot this produces. This year has been worse than ever, the very worst I can recall. The air quality after dark has been just poisonous this week.
The decades of hardcore Communism were remarkably ineffective in rooting out these antique superstitions; and now these fatuous practices are once again freely tolerated (if not actively encouraged, as a charming manifestation of China's "rich and ancient culture"). How long can we continue to condone a quaint tradition that is so massively pointless and so shockingly deleterious to the environment? There are a lot of Chinese customs that irritate me, and this is one of the worst. And I don't suppose the majority of Chinese really believe in this ancestor-worship nonsense - any more than we Westerners believe in Father Christmas. But our customs - hanging out stockings, etc. - are innocent, non-noxious. The Chinese custom of lighting millions of small bonfires across the country every night for a week is a massive assault on the environment - and it needs to be ended. Soon.
Friday, 9 February 2007
Writer’s block
One can’t chew one’s pen now, of course, and drumming one’s fingers on the keyboard doesn’t help. A writer friend of mine called Hugo Jennings, trying to get himself started on a novel for which he had already had the advance, once turned in desperation to an ancient method of stimulating creativity, which Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary defines as follows:
Taghairm, ta’garm. n. In the Scottish Highlands, divination; esp. inspiration sought by lying in a bullock’s hide behind a waterfall. (Gael.)
He told me later that it was a dismal failure. Exhausted after lugging his hired bullock’s skin halfway up the Scottish mountain to the waterfall, he found that the little ledge above which the water tumbled was crowded with an extraordinary bunch of people: a couple of crazy old shepherds, some palmists (who had come for the divination) and several Americans with waterproof laptops. He managed to find a space to lie down and wrap himself up in the skin, but what with the cold and the wet and the constant background hum of Texan chatter it was quite clear that inspiration was not going to come to him, and after a miserable hour or so he gave up and stumbled back down the rocky path.
Happily, he later managed to finish his book, which was a moderate success, and was able to get a good price for the bullock’s hide after he had dried it out.
Taghairm, ta’garm. n. In the Scottish Highlands, divination; esp. inspiration sought by lying in a bullock’s hide behind a waterfall. (Gael.)
He told me later that it was a dismal failure. Exhausted after lugging his hired bullock’s skin halfway up the Scottish mountain to the waterfall, he found that the little ledge above which the water tumbled was crowded with an extraordinary bunch of people: a couple of crazy old shepherds, some palmists (who had come for the divination) and several Americans with waterproof laptops. He managed to find a space to lie down and wrap himself up in the skin, but what with the cold and the wet and the constant background hum of Texan chatter it was quite clear that inspiration was not going to come to him, and after a miserable hour or so he gave up and stumbled back down the rocky path.Happily, he later managed to finish his book, which was a moderate success, and was able to get a good price for the bullock’s hide after he had dried it out.
Wednesday, 18 October 2006
My horoscope (2)
Last Friday I was writing a post about superstition when I realised that it was the 13th of the month, so I thought it would be prudent to get some advice from the astrological top brass about how we Pisceans might survive the day. Here is the advice given (without fee, the generous souls) by eight experts I found on the internet. It is hard to say which of them was the most hilariously unhelpful.MSN Astrology
You might be feeling a little stir crazy today, fantasizing about leaving your job or your romantic relationship behind you. You have been going through a challenging period where you have had to be more disciplined and focused. Free-spirited Pisces likes to handle things much more spontaneously. But don't make any hasty moves today. You don't want to end a situation or relationship that is teaching you and helping you to grow.
astroadvice.com
You've got lots of different directions you can go today but, if you follow a creative path, you will end up in a place that pleases you both financially and aesthetically. Children will play a role in a decision you make.
Jonathan Cainer
You can create a case this weekend, for getting upset and worried about many things but none of them, I promise, are as serious as you suspect. [Pretty perfunctory, this one; you have to pay to find out more]
astrology.com
Take the path of least resistance—wait for everyone else to get on the same page. A part of your past involving a female relative or some female energies becomes a pressing matter. Part of you wants to pull the covers over your head, but go deep. You'll come out of this with a new point of view.
astrology.com (via Washington Post)
Your new and improved take-charge attitude is starting to work today. Results are still coming slowly, but people are getting behind you more and more. No one else sees things like you do, and that is working in your favor. Resist taking on any more right now. Instead, take the path of least resistance and wait for everyone else to get on the same page as you. They can pick up the slack while you stand on the sidelines, cheering everyone on like a coach.
daily-horoscopes.com
People can't keep their word. There are likely to be unkept promises and mix-ups in personal talks and communications. Enjoy your good taste and refinement to the max, but stay within budget.
myhoroscope.com
If you do one thing this morning make a list of everything you need to do today as you are likely to in a very forgetful frame of mind. On the plus side someone who likes you a lot more than you may realize is going to let you know just how much they like you.
Mystic Meg
Your mind is at its sharpest and you are ready to say yes to learning extra work skills. Even though it may be hard to see, your opinions count for a lot at home, so do give them in a tactful way. Later, the moon in your house of love can turn even a grumpy partner into a real romantic.
There seemed to have been an awful lot happening to me on that day and I was undecided which advice to take: follow a creative path? pull the covers over my head? make a list of everything I need to do? Perhaps just “enjoying my good taste and refinement” while “giving opinions tactfully” would be the best way to cope with it all, provided that my mind is really “at its sharpest”.
But I am not merely a couple of fish, but a Chinese sheep as well (sometimes, confusingly, referred to as a goat): what does this tell me about myself?Well, it seems I have a knack of getting off on the wrong foot, I can be charming company, I sometimes hold back my emotions, and I am not fully appreciated for my true nature. Further, I am first to complain about discomfort, naturally pessimistic, mild mannered and even shy, a lover of art and nature, creative, cultured and well-mannered. While being Intelligent, Artistic, Gentle, Kind, Cultured and Sensitive, I am at the same time Fussy, Insecure, Ingratiative, Self-Indulgent and Dependent.
This is almost dead right, though hopelessly wrong towards the end, but it is disappointing to realise that I am by no means the unique possessor of all these qualities: I share them not only with Michelangelo, Buster Keaton, Laurence Olivier, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Rudolph Valentino and Orville Wright but also with all those countless millions born in the same year as I and every twelfth year before and since.
Monday, 16 October 2006
My horoscope (1)
If you want to annoy a militant feminist (and who, from time to time, does not?), it is necessary only to make some confident pronouncement along the lines of "women are more (or less) [….] than men, of course". The response will be to the effect that (a) they aren’t and (b) if they are, it is because of social conditioning/centuries of repression by men/under-nourishment, etc. This response will in some cases be quite justified—generalisations about gender differences are often inaccurate and to be deplored.
However, there is one which I have always taken for granted and which can be attributed, as far as I can imagine, only to some innate disparity between the male and the female psyche. It is this: women tend to be more superstitious than men.
My belief that this is so was based merely on casual observation, until it was questioned the other day by a (totally unsuperstitious) woman for whose intellect I have the greatest respect. "Nonsense", she said, robustly, "there are just as many men as women who believe in preposterous things". Clearly, my empirical belief would have to be tested.
I decided to pick one particular superstition, since many seem to appeal to men and women equally (homeopathy, say); I couldn’t think of one which mostly men go for (though there must be some: UFOs, possibly?). No-one much thinks about spiritualism these days, and I didn’t want to look at religious beliefs because they are too heavy-weight a subject for a playful little enquiry like this.
So I chose astrology. Judging by the space given to it in magazines, and the serious money being made by the charlatans who peddle it, an interest in this drivel must be widespread, even if people who look up their stars are not necessarily taking any of it seriously. But is it mostly men or women who actually read the stuff?
I have to say that my results were as conclusive as any amateur, unscientific test (small and unadjusted sample and generally poor methodology) could possibly produce.
I began by asking friends and family whether they believed in astrology, but I couldn’t find anyone who gave any kind of positive answer (sceptical lot, my friends and family), though a few said they thought it was a bit of fun . Then it occurred to me that I could widen the field of enquiry quite simply, without going to much trouble. Most blogs offer some kind of profile of the author ("About Me") and the bloghoster provides suggestions for personal details to fill in: occupation, place of residence, gender, interests, favourite (sorry, favorite) books, films, Astrological Sign and Zodiac Year. I guessed that anyone who thinks it worthwhile to fill in these last two details may not actually believe in astrology but probably at least regards it as something more than a silly superstition and a lucrative fraud.
So over two or three months I looked at all the profiles linked to any blogs I happened to visit. This gave me a sample of 32 men and 46 women, and I found that 15.6% of the men and 73.7% of the women wanted the world to know that they were born under the sign of Capricorn, in the year of the Ox*, or whatever.
I believe this shows that women tend to be more superstitious than men.
Donald Swann had a song which gave me the title for this post:
MY HOROSCOPE
Jupiter's passed through Orion,
And come into conjunction with Mars.
Saturn is wheeling through infinite space,
To its pre-ordained place in the stars.
And I gaze at the planets in wonder,
At the trouble and time they expend.
All to warn me to be careful.....
In dealings involving a friend!
[More about horoscopes HERE]
*Actually, Chinese star signs have nothing to do with astrology, though horoscopes have developed around them much as monthly horoscopes in the West have been developed for the different signs of the zodiac. For example, a Chinese horoscope may predict that a person born in the Year of the Horse would be, "cheerful, popular, and loves to compliment others". These horoscopes are amusing, but not taken seriously by the Chinese.
Every year is assigned an animal name or "sign" according to a repeating cycle: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar; every twelve years the same animal name or "sign" would reappear.
Thus, the signs serve a useful social function for finding out people’s ages, avoiding having to ask directly how old a person is; you can just ask what is his or her animal sign. This would place that person’s age within a cycle of 12 years, and with a bit of common sense the exact age can be deduced.
However, there is one which I have always taken for granted and which can be attributed, as far as I can imagine, only to some innate disparity between the male and the female psyche. It is this: women tend to be more superstitious than men.
My belief that this is so was based merely on casual observation, until it was questioned the other day by a (totally unsuperstitious) woman for whose intellect I have the greatest respect. "Nonsense", she said, robustly, "there are just as many men as women who believe in preposterous things". Clearly, my empirical belief would have to be tested.
I decided to pick one particular superstition, since many seem to appeal to men and women equally (homeopathy, say); I couldn’t think of one which mostly men go for (though there must be some: UFOs, possibly?). No-one much thinks about spiritualism these days, and I didn’t want to look at religious beliefs because they are too heavy-weight a subject for a playful little enquiry like this.
So I chose astrology. Judging by the space given to it in magazines, and the serious money being made by the charlatans who peddle it, an interest in this drivel must be widespread, even if people who look up their stars are not necessarily taking any of it seriously. But is it mostly men or women who actually read the stuff?I have to say that my results were as conclusive as any amateur, unscientific test (small and unadjusted sample and generally poor methodology) could possibly produce.
I began by asking friends and family whether they believed in astrology, but I couldn’t find anyone who gave any kind of positive answer (sceptical lot, my friends and family), though a few said they thought it was a bit of fun . Then it occurred to me that I could widen the field of enquiry quite simply, without going to much trouble. Most blogs offer some kind of profile of the author ("About Me") and the bloghoster provides suggestions for personal details to fill in: occupation, place of residence, gender, interests, favourite (sorry, favorite) books, films, Astrological Sign and Zodiac Year. I guessed that anyone who thinks it worthwhile to fill in these last two details may not actually believe in astrology but probably at least regards it as something more than a silly superstition and a lucrative fraud.
So over two or three months I looked at all the profiles linked to any blogs I happened to visit. This gave me a sample of 32 men and 46 women, and I found that 15.6% of the men and 73.7% of the women wanted the world to know that they were born under the sign of Capricorn, in the year of the Ox*, or whatever.
I believe this shows that women tend to be more superstitious than men.
Donald Swann had a song which gave me the title for this post:
MY HOROSCOPE
Jupiter's passed through Orion,
And come into conjunction with Mars.
Saturn is wheeling through infinite space,
To its pre-ordained place in the stars.
And I gaze at the planets in wonder,
At the trouble and time they expend.
All to warn me to be careful.....
In dealings involving a friend!
[More about horoscopes HERE]
*Actually, Chinese star signs have nothing to do with astrology, though horoscopes have developed around them much as monthly horoscopes in the West have been developed for the different signs of the zodiac. For example, a Chinese horoscope may predict that a person born in the Year of the Horse would be, "cheerful, popular, and loves to compliment others". These horoscopes are amusing, but not taken seriously by the Chinese.
Every year is assigned an animal name or "sign" according to a repeating cycle: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar; every twelve years the same animal name or "sign" would reappear.
Thus, the signs serve a useful social function for finding out people’s ages, avoiding having to ask directly how old a person is; you can just ask what is his or her animal sign. This would place that person’s age within a cycle of 12 years, and with a bit of common sense the exact age can be deduced.
Tuesday, 26 September 2006
Endtimers
Watching recently a sober and well researched documentary about modern fundamentalists of various kinds, it struck me how devil-worshippers like dear old Aleister Crowley were really quite cuddly compared with some of today’s pro-God factions. In particular, I had not until then heard much about a terrifying bunch of people called Endtimers: it seems there are millions of these dangerous crackpots, mostly Americans and possibly including George W Bush, who subscribe to the notion that the prophecies in the Book of Revelation are actually going to come true, the key element in their preposterous beliefs.
You can find out more from the many websites which come up if you search for keywords such as Endtime, Armageddon, Rapture and Tribulation, but I wouldn’t bother. I am not providing links to them because reading this mediaeval drivel is such a depressing experience and anyway all you really need to know is in this comment on the TV documentary.
However, I did find one page on a site called RaptureReady which I much enjoyed. Last May I posted a not entirely serious piece about likely accommodation in Heaven, but this topic is dealt with more convincingly here, where there are charming photographs giving a clear idea of the sort of dwellings with which Christian believers will probably be provided. Naturally they are graded according to individual merit, ranging from a rather depressing neo-baronial Super Saint Mansion for top believers all the way down to something that looks like an outside privy, for those whose godly activites were confined to going to church on Sunday.
And a famous earlier guess at how the world will end (or rather, won’t) is here.
You can find out more from the many websites which come up if you search for keywords such as Endtime, Armageddon, Rapture and Tribulation, but I wouldn’t bother. I am not providing links to them because reading this mediaeval drivel is such a depressing experience and anyway all you really need to know is in this comment on the TV documentary.
However, I did find one page on a site called RaptureReady which I much enjoyed. Last May I posted a not entirely serious piece about likely accommodation in Heaven, but this topic is dealt with more convincingly here, where there are charming photographs giving a clear idea of the sort of dwellings with which Christian believers will probably be provided. Naturally they are graded according to individual merit, ranging from a rather depressing neo-baronial Super Saint Mansion for top believers all the way down to something that looks like an outside privy, for those whose godly activites were confined to going to church on Sunday.
And a famous earlier guess at how the world will end (or rather, won’t) is here.
Tuesday, 12 September 2006
Possibly the evillest man in East Sussex
His own mother called him the Great Beast and he rather enjoyed being described as the wickedest man in the world. This of course was an exaggeration; in a century which saw Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot operating on a grand scale and Fred West, Paul Dutroux and Ian Brady on a smaller one, such a title is not easy to earn.
However, Aleister Crowley was certainly an extremely nasty character. He inherited a fortune and spent most of it on self-publishing books on the occult and disseminating his racist and sexist views. Some of his poems were banned, dealing lyrically as they did with such themes as paedophilia, bestiality and necrophiliac cannibalism.
Wandering the world for some years, he got up to various often silly but always unpleasant activities (such as naming his daughter Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith) in Sicily, Egypt and the Far East. During the First World War he lived in New York and found employment in writing propaganda for pro-German periodicals.
Aleister Crowley died in a Hastings boarding house in 1947 at the age of 72, penniless and addicted to heroin. An obscure local magazine recently had an article about him asserting that before he died he cursed the town, though it is not known what this pleasant seaside resort had done to upset him.
As it was a quiet week for news in the south-east the BBC sent a reporter to question Hastings residents about their feelings towards Crowley and his curse. It was not clear how many people were approached and said “Who?”, but eventually some were found who were prepared to testify that they were conscious of his continuing malign influence on Hastings and even one man who said he was frightened to speak Crowley’s name, and another who thought it "incredibly likely" that there is still a dedicated army of his followers in the town. A couple, looking distinctly embarrassed, demonstrated some allegedly sinful but rather feeble-looking satanic ritual and, accompanied by some creepy sound library music and with some awed comments from the presenter, all this piffle made up an item which the BBC astonishingly thought was worth broadcasting several times last week.
Although his cursing had no discernible effect and his books and his general carryings-on are now of little interest, he apparently had and still has an influence on modern popular culture, which perhaps says more about modern popular culture than it does about this dreary charlatan.
He's behind you!
He chose this photo for the cover of one of his books, obviously not realising that you do not cut much of a figure as the Great Beast 666 if you wear a comic pantomime hat. But the British love comedians and this might be why, in a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 to find "the 100 Greatest Britons", Crowley was voted number 73. This put him forty-one places behind Eric Morecambe but only seven places behind Charlie Chaplin.
However, Aleister Crowley was certainly an extremely nasty character. He inherited a fortune and spent most of it on self-publishing books on the occult and disseminating his racist and sexist views. Some of his poems were banned, dealing lyrically as they did with such themes as paedophilia, bestiality and necrophiliac cannibalism.
Wandering the world for some years, he got up to various often silly but always unpleasant activities (such as naming his daughter Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith) in Sicily, Egypt and the Far East. During the First World War he lived in New York and found employment in writing propaganda for pro-German periodicals.
Aleister Crowley died in a Hastings boarding house in 1947 at the age of 72, penniless and addicted to heroin. An obscure local magazine recently had an article about him asserting that before he died he cursed the town, though it is not known what this pleasant seaside resort had done to upset him.
As it was a quiet week for news in the south-east the BBC sent a reporter to question Hastings residents about their feelings towards Crowley and his curse. It was not clear how many people were approached and said “Who?”, but eventually some were found who were prepared to testify that they were conscious of his continuing malign influence on Hastings and even one man who said he was frightened to speak Crowley’s name, and another who thought it "incredibly likely" that there is still a dedicated army of his followers in the town. A couple, looking distinctly embarrassed, demonstrated some allegedly sinful but rather feeble-looking satanic ritual and, accompanied by some creepy sound library music and with some awed comments from the presenter, all this piffle made up an item which the BBC astonishingly thought was worth broadcasting several times last week.
Although his cursing had no discernible effect and his books and his general carryings-on are now of little interest, he apparently had and still has an influence on modern popular culture, which perhaps says more about modern popular culture than it does about this dreary charlatan.
He's behind you!
He chose this photo for the cover of one of his books, obviously not realising that you do not cut much of a figure as the Great Beast 666 if you wear a comic pantomime hat. But the British love comedians and this might be why, in a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 to find "the 100 Greatest Britons", Crowley was voted number 73. This put him forty-one places behind Eric Morecambe but only seven places behind Charlie Chaplin.
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Hair of the dog
The Observer publishes a weekly colour supplement consisting mostly of childish rubbish which makes a nice contrast to the content of the paper’s other earnest, sober and usually responsible pages. It includes, for example a whole page of astrological drivel; having been quite busy lately, I have only just caught up with the edition of 23rd April, and thus missed the opportunity of benefiting from the advice that current planets were indicating a “a grand trine in water signs”, so that I (and a twelfth of the world’s population) would have been having a good week for publishing, going sailing, creating art, “twirling as a fashionista”, and tippling. I don’t mind too much because I never participate in any of these activities except the last, for which any week is a good one.
On a page of the same issue dealing with medical matters there are assorted experts, charlatans and fruitcakes earning an honest—or in some cases a dishonest—penny by providing solutions to the problem of the week. That week there was a query about a child who might, or might not, be suffering from an allergy to the family pet, and I was much taken with the splendidly dotty answer from one Anton Van Rhijn, described as a “consultant homeopathic physician” (he doesn’t put Dr. before his name but perhaps consultant homeopaths, like consultant surgeons, are grander than mere Drs).
Anyway, he recommended a concoction made from “dog hair in homeopathic potency”, which "can help relieve the symptoms of allergy to dogs and other pets". He says: "take 12c every day or 30c once a week".
(30C dilution is equivalent to 1 drop in the total mass of the sun, while 12c is many thousands of times stronger, so if you take the daily dose you are getting many many thousands of times more of the active element than if you take the weekly one: this is known as the "Less is more" principle, and some people actually believe in it.)
I really must stop poking fun at homeopaths and the mugs who buy their nostrums. Homeopathy is beyond satire, and criticising it is supererogatory, like throwing mud at a sewage farm.
On a page of the same issue dealing with medical matters there are assorted experts, charlatans and fruitcakes earning an honest—or in some cases a dishonest—penny by providing solutions to the problem of the week. That week there was a query about a child who might, or might not, be suffering from an allergy to the family pet, and I was much taken with the splendidly dotty answer from one Anton Van Rhijn, described as a “consultant homeopathic physician” (he doesn’t put Dr. before his name but perhaps consultant homeopaths, like consultant surgeons, are grander than mere Drs).
Anyway, he recommended a concoction made from “dog hair in homeopathic potency”, which "can help relieve the symptoms of allergy to dogs and other pets". He says: "take 12c every day or 30c once a week".
(30C dilution is equivalent to 1 drop in the total mass of the sun, while 12c is many thousands of times stronger, so if you take the daily dose you are getting many many thousands of times more of the active element than if you take the weekly one: this is known as the "Less is more" principle, and some people actually believe in it.)
I really must stop poking fun at homeopaths and the mugs who buy their nostrums. Homeopathy is beyond satire, and criticising it is supererogatory, like throwing mud at a sewage farm.
Thursday, 19 January 2006
That sounds good
I imagined—and, indeed, asserted—that the title of my previous post was a good one for exciting readers’ interest, but of course in my innocence I had forgotten that a title which promises nothing to the prurient can never be of universal appeal, particularly if it is very long and cryptic in a dull sort of way.
Someone who understands this very well is a major league fruitcake called David Jay Jordan who lives in Canada. His colourful and exuberant website has attracted over a million hits over the last five years and one can see why, for it has something for everyone.
Most visitors to his pages will probably not bother with the links to items like I was one of Canada’s Ten Most Wanted, or Basketball for Jesus, or Geography Mysteries, and indeed these lead to nothing very exciting.
Feminists might want to check out his Wonderful Women webpage covering Twelve Women Apostles of Jesus, Feminine Holy Spirit, Women Warrior Poems, etc, but they will find little to inspire them there.
A great number of his page titles, however, feature the key word which attracts those who spend their days trawling the net for titillation They will want to go straight to Sexual Mysteries; few people in search of lewdness, or even, for the most depraved, a bit of hardcore, could resist the lure of links to Sexual Dancing, Sex Is Divine, Chocolate Sex, Fish Sex and the Bible, and 130 Years of Recreational Sex.
Following these, however, may lead to disappointment; for example, Mr Jordan tells us that the 130 years which sound like fun are merely those between the Creation and the birth of Seth, when Adam and Eve "just kept doing what came natural, until the Lord eventually blessed them with another son to replace their beloved Able".
Someone who understands this very well is a major league fruitcake called David Jay Jordan who lives in Canada. His colourful and exuberant website has attracted over a million hits over the last five years and one can see why, for it has something for everyone.
Most visitors to his pages will probably not bother with the links to items like I was one of Canada’s Ten Most Wanted, or Basketball for Jesus, or Geography Mysteries, and indeed these lead to nothing very exciting.
Feminists might want to check out his Wonderful Women webpage covering Twelve Women Apostles of Jesus, Feminine Holy Spirit, Women Warrior Poems, etc, but they will find little to inspire them there.
A great number of his page titles, however, feature the key word which attracts those who spend their days trawling the net for titillation They will want to go straight to Sexual Mysteries; few people in search of lewdness, or even, for the most depraved, a bit of hardcore, could resist the lure of links to Sexual Dancing, Sex Is Divine, Chocolate Sex, Fish Sex and the Bible, and 130 Years of Recreational Sex.
Following these, however, may lead to disappointment; for example, Mr Jordan tells us that the 130 years which sound like fun are merely those between the Creation and the birth of Seth, when Adam and Eve "just kept doing what came natural, until the Lord eventually blessed them with another son to replace their beloved Able".
Friday, 28 October 2005
Not as harmless as you might think
I wrote last year of the irritating way in which the fine old English tradition of letting off fireworks on November 5th to celebrate the torture and disembowelment of some misguided and incompetent seventeenth-century terrorists is nowadays overshadowed by the Halloween tomfoolery.
Recently, however, I have realised that Halloween is not merely a silly custom but represents a real threat to our way of life and, indeed, to our very souls. This warning is given in an excellent website set up by the Landover Baptist Church, of Freehold, Iowa (“Where the worthwhile worship. Guaranteeing Salvation since 1612”).
There are links to many pages of helpful guidance such as “How to Crash Satan’s Birthday Party and Ruin Halloween”, “Trick or Tract”, "10 Halloween Tips for Holyweeners” and “Will Jesus Sling Little Children Into Hell For Celebrating Halloween?”
Other pages on the site give more general information and advice on Christian matters, including “Do You Have Demons in Your Colon?” and “How to Organize a Book-Burning”. There are also some attractive offers like “Win A Vacation With President Bush! An exclusive offer for Republican friends of Jesus Christ!”
We all have friends who are less God-fearing than we would like them to be. Encourage them to browse on this website and after half an hour they will be shaking with terror. Or something.
Recently, however, I have realised that Halloween is not merely a silly custom but represents a real threat to our way of life and, indeed, to our very souls. This warning is given in an excellent website set up by the Landover Baptist Church, of Freehold, Iowa (“Where the worthwhile worship. Guaranteeing Salvation since 1612”).
There are links to many pages of helpful guidance such as “How to Crash Satan’s Birthday Party and Ruin Halloween”, “Trick or Tract”, "10 Halloween Tips for Holyweeners” and “Will Jesus Sling Little Children Into Hell For Celebrating Halloween?”
Other pages on the site give more general information and advice on Christian matters, including “Do You Have Demons in Your Colon?” and “How to Organize a Book-Burning”. There are also some attractive offers like “Win A Vacation With President Bush! An exclusive offer for Republican friends of Jesus Christ!”
We all have friends who are less God-fearing than we would like them to be. Encourage them to browse on this website and after half an hour they will be shaking with terror. Or something.
Wednesday, 22 June 2005
Split personality
This is an obsolete name for what was later called MPD (multiple personality disorder), which in turn has now been re-named DID (dissociative identity disorder), in which a patient may appear to have a number of different personas each with his or her own behaviour patterns.
A recent TV documentary, Being Pamela, examined what may be a case of this, and the perceptive and witty Guardian writer Catherine Bennett in her column last week suggested that such a disorder might explain Cherie Blair’s seemingly inconsistent conduct:
One day, she might appear in the character of a devout young mother, peering shyly from a giant mantilla as she explains the importance of the Virgin Mary…..
…In an instant, she might switch to a different persona, a bleating New Age devotee of homeopathy, crystals and mud-covered rebirthing...
Then again into a highly toxic property developer, determined that nothing will stand between her and a brace of luxury flats, until, in another shift of persona...
...she forgets both flats and financial adviser and morphs into an eBay-addicted shopoholic with a fondness for brazen sexual innuendo, whose favourite programme, Supermarket Sweep, would be anathema to Mrs Blair in the most rational of her guises…
…as the brilliant human rights lawyer and hammer of sexist discrimination: Cherie Booth QC.
(The remainder of the article Is there more than one Cherie Blair? suggests a different diagnosis of her case.)
A recent TV documentary, Being Pamela, examined what may be a case of this, and the perceptive and witty Guardian writer Catherine Bennett in her column last week suggested that such a disorder might explain Cherie Blair’s seemingly inconsistent conduct:One day, she might appear in the character of a devout young mother, peering shyly from a giant mantilla as she explains the importance of the Virgin Mary…..
…In an instant, she might switch to a different persona, a bleating New Age devotee of homeopathy, crystals and mud-covered rebirthing...
Then again into a highly toxic property developer, determined that nothing will stand between her and a brace of luxury flats, until, in another shift of persona...
...she forgets both flats and financial adviser and morphs into an eBay-addicted shopoholic with a fondness for brazen sexual innuendo, whose favourite programme, Supermarket Sweep, would be anathema to Mrs Blair in the most rational of her guises…
…as the brilliant human rights lawyer and hammer of sexist discrimination: Cherie Booth QC.
(The remainder of the article Is there more than one Cherie Blair? suggests a different diagnosis of her case.)
Friday, 13 May 2005
Mr Toad
"Unlike most toads, wealth toad has three limbs and a pair of red fiery eyes and is commonly seen offering an ancient Chinese coin in its mouth, sitting on a pile of gold. As a wealth enhancement, one may place a wealth toad at the main door or wealth sector to increase business flow and personal luck.”Yes, indeed, quite unlike your typical toad.
I don't think my house has much in the way of wealth sectors, but I’m thinking of getting an eight-foot wealth toad for the main door. It might not do much for my business flow or personal luck but it would sure as hell frighten away Jehovah’s witnesses and, come October, trick-or-treaters.
I wonder why those who peddle ancient Chinese drivel, and the idiots who pay money to learn how to align their wardrobes so as to maximise the flow of qi through their socks, pronounce it fung shway but don't spell it like that. In China it's regarded as a peasant superstition but is hugely popular in Taiwan, Hong Kong and of course in California.
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