A team of archeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have found a 12,000 year old skeleton of a female shaman near Galilee in north Israel. The small corpse, sealed in a limestone enclosure by a rock slab, was buried along with pieces of animal bone, an eagle wing, a cowtail, a human foot, and fifty tortoise shells arranged around the body. The skeleton suggests that the woman was 45 when she died, an advanced age for the era. The grave is thought to be of Natufian origin, a nomadic culture that existed in the east Mediterranean 9,500-13,000 BC. According to Harvard anthropologist Ofer Bar-Yosef, the unusual arrangement of the shells could be a "sign of elite emerging among hunter-gatherers". This find offers a unique insight into the transitional period towards sedentary societies, prior to the development of writing."What we see [with the Natufian burial rites] is the beginning of a tribal system," says Bar-Yosef.

12,000-year-old shaman unearthed in Israel, Time.com

The International Cryptozoology in Portland, Maine, is in dire straits following an IRS lawsuit, and needs $15,000 in donations to move to a new location. Loren Coleman, the curator of the museum and author on numerous books on the study of ‘hidden’ animals, says the case began as a challenge of "the reality of cryptozoology as an occupation," which in turn called the validity of the museum into question. According to Code 183 of the IRS, cryptozoology is a hobby, so the museum needs more income to support itelf. Coleman argued that combined with publications, and the visibility of the museum on the internet, he lived above poverty level, but since the museum is a separate entity, that didn’t fly, loosing him an appeal. It is a little strange that cryptozoology does not merit more consideration as a science. Every day new species are discovered, widening our understanding of evolutionary diversity. Considering some of the species already discovered, like the egg-laying venomous mammal the duck-billed platypus, a unicorn or Big Foot no longer seem that exotic. Further, a history of hidden animals may lend clues to animals already extrinct, as well as those we have not ‘officially confirmed’ yet. On a curious note, when Magellan returned from his journey, having for the first time seen a rhinocerous, he declared that he found unicorns, but that they look somewhat different from how people imagined them. If nothing else, a cryptozoology museum is a unique place preserving preserving both our earlier understanding of the animal kingdom and our creative imagination thereof, which is often all science ever is.

Save The Museum, Cryptomundo.com

The Center for the Study of Religion, along with several departments, of Princeton University is sponsoring a three day conference entitled ‘Mysticism, Reform and the Formation of Modernity’ in the East Pyne building next to Firestone Library. It will feature many speakers from around the world, including professors from Oxfrod, UPenn, UC-Berkeley, University of Zurich, as well as Princeton. Some of the topics to be discussed are punishment and perfectability, vernacular hermeneutics and the construction of the secular realm, and the role of female spirituality. If that isn’t enough, I think there will also be free food. See below for more details.

Mysticism, Reform and the Formation of Modernity, Princeton.edu 

So it’s Rorschach and Prozac and everything is groovy.
"The Curse of Millhaven," Nick Cave

Back when parlor games were popular, there was one going around Europe called Klexographie. It involved spilling ink on a piece of paper and folding it in half. The sheet was then passed around among people, with each one telling a story based on what they saw in the image. In the early 1920’s, Swiss psychiatrist and proponent of psychoanalysis Hermann Rorschach was the first to apply the same concept to psychology. The Rorschach test was originally meant to test "perception and apperception" - form, perceived movement, color -  rather than imagination. However, its applications soon included using it to probe the subconscious of patients, by seing what kind of images they project on a random splash of color. There are ten official inkblots: five are black ink on white, two are black and red ink on white, three are multicolored, and while the Rorschach Society claims the blots are copyrighted, they should be in the public domain based on when they were first created and how long the creator has been dead. Now, it’s possible to give yourself this classic test in the form of the Klexographie Inkblot Oracle, which works similar to divination by reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, fireplace ashes, or candle wax. Just think of a question and the patterns/symbols in the image should help you with the answer. If there is still something unclear, try another blot. It’s interesting how you can see completely different things in the same image on different days.

Klexographie Inkblot Oracle

Coventry University has started a two-year Masters of Science program in Parapsychology, which aims to examine the middle ground between science and religion through a study of the paranormal. Among the things the first 15 graduate students will do in the Fall will be investigating haunted houses, experimenting with extra-sensory perception and researching the mystery of life after death. Students will also use yoga and meditation to extend and enhance their personal development. At last, a program for aspiring ghost-busters.

Ghostly syllabus for new degree, BBC.co.uk
Coventry University

McbrCrtn

Motto: Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest
(Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself)

Paracelsus (1493-1541), born Theophrast von Hohenheim in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, is sometimes called the father of toxicology. A pioneer in the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine, he was the one who named the element zinc (from "zinke" German for pointy). An alchemist (initiated by Henry Cornelius Agrippa), he worked off the hermetic view of health centered around the harmony between the microcosm, Man and the macrocosm, Nature. Despite the risk, he investigated the plague firsthand. He also came up with a chemical diagnosis of madness and was the one who invented the Alphabet of the Magi used for engraving angelic names on talismans. Though a pacifist, he always had a huge broadsword at his side, even when he slept. His search for occult knowledge took him through Germany, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, China, to Constantinople, where an Arabian adept supposedly imparted Paracelsus with the supreme secret of a the alkahest, a hypothetical universal dissolvent. Another story has it that the devil gave him a white horse, but considering the historical Paracelsus died in a White Horse Inn makes the similarity questionable. A new book by Phillip Ball, Devil’s Doctor, explores the life of this mysterious figure. Today, Paracelsus still crops up in Harry Potter books.

Ragged-trousered alchemist, Guardian.uk.com
Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, Phillip Ball

Ministry to Mosaics: Teens and the Supernatural, a study conducted by the Barna Group, interviewed over 4000 teens ages 13-18 and found that 73% of America’s youth have taken part in some type of psychic or occult activity (beyond media exposure or horoscope usage). Most common occult activity was using a Ouija board or reading about witchcraft (1/3 teens), 1/10 participated in a seance, 1/12 tried to cast spells or mix potions. 30% had their palm read, while 27% had their fortune told in some other way. 14% claim to have witnessed someone else using psychic powers. No wonder Underworld 2 is the highest grossing movie in the country.

New research explores teenage views and behavior regarding the supernatural, Barna.org

German Protestant mystic Jacob Bohme (1575-1624) started out as a cobbler in Gorlitz, in his spare time he would study scripture and theology. Then one day he had a mystical experience that he summed up in the phrase "In Yes and No all things consist" (Philip K. Dick had a very similar experience/revelation from a beam of pink light). From it he developed a system of Christian Gnosticism, which has influenced Swedenborg, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, George Fox (founder of the Quakers), Adam Weishaupt (founder of the Illuminati), the theosophists and high grade Freemasonry, to name a few. The "eye in the pyramid" on the back of the dollar bill was one of Bohme’s trademark images.

His cosmology consisted of the Trinity +1. The first person, God the Father, is the primal, unmanifested reality, the Abyss that contains all potentiality. The second person, the Son, is the desire of the Abyss to reveal Himself, which is accomplished through divine introspection/self-contemplation. So, the third person, the Holy Spirit, is the process of God’s self-reflection. However, this process involves a divine mirror, which Bohme calls Sophia or "Virgin Wisdom", sometimes viewed as the fourth person. It was seeing the images in the mirror of Wisdom that made God want to manifest potentialities in reality through Creation. This suggests that God is a kind of fractal, a self-replicating binary-based matrix of tension between potentiality and actuality, perpetually growing in complexity. Good and evil become the positive and negative aspects of Creation, one strives to differentiate itself, the other to sink back into oblivion. The Neoplatonist influence is especially noticeable here, as evil is defined as an absence of good. Furthermore, the Fall, departure from God, was a necessary step for humanity to evolve to a state of redemption superior to original innocence. Superior because it is achieved through free will and deliberate action, while original innocence can only be maintained through ignorance of good and evil (as in the Garden of Eden before the fruit incident).

Jacob Bohme, Invisible Basilica
Jacob Bohme, Rotten.com
Jacob Bohme Resources, UCF.edu