#homer sapiens

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Oh, Wicked Wanda! - art by Ron Embleton (1973)

[tanadrin]

Favorite words

I keep a file on my computer of my favorite words, which are usually selected for phonaesthetic reasons, or because they are semantically or grammatically interesting. This is the list as of the most recent entries (”velico” and “Ushakaron”):

Individual words

analáugns (Gothic): hidden (nom. m. sg.)

anchorhold (English): the cell of an anchorite, in which the occupant is entombed as a kind of living saint

Apocryphan (invented): from World of Warcraft; proper name, of the pre-Cataclysm location “Apocryphan’s Rest” in the Badlands zone

armōsts (Gothic): poorest (nom. m. sg.)

ashkandi /,æʃ 'kɑn di/ (invented): proper name (World of Warcraft)

bearonæss /'bæɑɹ o ,næs/ (Old English): wooded headland (from bearu, "grove")

beinahrúgu (Old Norse): bone pile (dat. of beinahrúga)

carcern (Old English): prison (from Latin)

coalesce, coalescent (English)

crepuscular (English)

darkling (English): in darkness

daroð (Old English): javelin, projectile, “dart” in the older, more expansive sense

deliquesce (English), become liquid, esp. through organic decomposition

deosil (English): variant spelling of ‘deasil,’ turnwise; from Scottish Gaelic deiseil or deiseal, meaning ‘southward, sunward, counterclockwise;’ see also "widdershins," etymologically "anti-sunwise" and therefore counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere.

effloresce, efflorescence, efflorescent (English): to burst forth into bloom, to flower; from Latin effloresco, “I blossom, I flourish”

Enakro (invented): from Warcraft III; proper name, from the name of the multiplayer map “Enakro’s Way”

Eskhandar /'ɛsk hænd ,dɑɹ/ (invented): from World of Warcraft; proper name

etiäinen (Finnish): a type of folkloric apparition

exarch (English): a Byzantine provincial governor, particularly of an exarchate like Ravenna or Africa, from Greek ἔξαρχος.

fralusanō (Gothic): lost, gone away (nom. f. weak sg.)

gevaisa (invented): a tomb of living words; term of art among wizards of the Discworld; cf. Hebrew geniza, "a storeroom containing books which cannot be used, but which nevertheless cannot be destroyed because they contain God's name"

gnist (Danish): spark; related to OE gnāst, ON gniesta, SWE gnista, OHG gneisto, MHG gneiste

hellwara (Old English): ‘of the inhabitants of hell’ (gen. pl. of f. hellwaru or m. hellwaran)

hnasqus (Gothic): soft; cognate of OE hnesce, “soft,” ModE. dialectical nesh “wimpish, weak”

idaltu (Saho-Afar): elder, firstborn; cf. Homo sapiens idaltu, the (obsolete) classification of the “Herto man” specimen, human remains of about 150,000 years of age discovered in the Afar triangle, which were some of the oldest modern human remains known at the time of their description.

idreigonds (Gothic): repentant (nom. m. sg.)

iktsuarpok (English): the feeling of anticipation waiting for someone to arrive, often leading to repeatedly going outside to check for them; from Inuktitut ᐃᒃᑦᓱᐊᕐᐳᒃ itsoarpok, “goes outside repeatedly to check if a visitor has arrived yet.”

incunabulum (English): an early printed book; something in its infant stages; from Latin incunabula, ‘swaddling clothes, cradle, birthplace.” The change in ending is a result of the medieval form incunabulum, which was a singular back-formation of a noun previously found only in the plural.

incus (Latin): "anvil"

inwitwrāsen (Old English): ‘chain of deceit’

Iolanthe (Greek): proper name meaning ‘flower of the violet’

irgendwo (German): somewhere, anywhere

κακοΐλιον (Ancient Greek): proper name (‘Kakoilion’); dysphemism for Troy; compound of κᾰκός, “bad, vile, evil,” and Ἴλιον, “Ilion/Troy/Wilusa.” Translated variously as "evil Ilios" (A.T. Murray) or "Destroy" (Fagles, pun very much intended); a poetic hapax legomenon in Homer's Odyssey, used by Penelope for Troy.

kasterborous /kæs 'tɝɹ bɔɹ oʊs/ (invented): proper name of the constellation in Doctor Who containing Gallifrey; possibly Gallifreyan

lhammas (invented): the Elvish (Quenya?) name of a work of fictional sociolinguistics by J.R.R. Tolkien outlining the relationship of the languages of Middle Earth, later superseded; borrowed as a term for "a scheme of invented languages; the historical and aesthetic plan of languages in a constructed world; such scheme in the abstract, or a document laying out such a scheme"

lint (invented): quick, clever; possibly coined by Tolkien, and of no particular language; it formed the root of such words in several constructed languages of his that were unrelated, simply because he liked the sound-meaning relationship

listopad (Polish): November; literally, “leaf-fall”

mæw (Old English): seagull

mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): glossed as ‘a look shared by two people wishing the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin.’ The word is a regular derivation from ihlvpi, “to feel awkward, to be at a loss,’ with various grammatical affixes of voice, aspect, and so forth, and might be more accurately translated as ‘to make each other both feel awkward.’

narthex (English): antechamber or entrance area of some Christian churches; from Greek νάρθηξ, “giant fennel, box for ointments”

neorxnawang (Old English): ‘field of heaven’

opalescent (English): iridescent in a manner resembling opal

orcnaw (Old English): evident

razda (Gothic): voice

reordberend (Old English): ‘voice-bearer,’ i.e., a poetic word for a human being

ríastrad (Irish): battle frenzy, berserker rage, warp spasm

ruinenlust (German): literally ‘desire for ruins;’ yearning for the past evoked by ruins

Saoshyant /'saʊ ,ʃyənt/ (English): eschatological figure of Zoroastrian scripture and tradition who brings about the final renovation of the universe, the Frashokereti. From Avestan 𐬯𐬀𐬊𐬳𐬌𐬌𐬀𐬧𐬝 saoš́iiaṇt̰.

Sargasso (English): proper name applied to a region of the western Atlantic; from Portuguese sargaço, of unknown ultimate origin)

searonet (Old English): web of guile, web of cunning

Sumer (English): proper name, from Akkadian Šumeru, of uncertain origin but potentially related to Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Shin’ar, Egyptian sꜣngꜣr , and Hittite Shanhar(a), all meaning “southern Mesopotamia;” has also been linked to the Sumerian endonym 𒊕𒈪𒂵 sag̃-gig-ga, “black-headed people, the Sumerians”

talast (Old English): 2nd person singular present active indicative: thou reckonest, thou dost consider

tīrfæst (Old English): glorious

tramountayne (Middle English fr. Latin via Italian): the north; the north wind; the north star (rare) (from Latin transmontanus)

Tuscarora (English): proper name of a Native American people, from Skarure skarū’ren’, “hemp gatherers.”

Tyree (English): found as a personal name and surname (cf. Mount Tyree in Antarctica, named for a U.S. Navy rear admiral); name of a fictional planet in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; from Tiree (Scottish Gaelic Tiriodh), the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides.

Ushakaron (English): proper name of a star; according to unsourced claims, the triple star ξ Tauri, possibly from the Akkadian word for “avenger”

velico (Italian): sailing

westengryre (Old English): ‘terrors of the wasteland, terrors of the desert’

whyssyne (Middle English): cushion

wodwo (Middle English): woodwose, a wild man of the woods

þancoi (Old English): thoughtful

þystro (Old English): darkness (nom./acc. strong n. pl.)

Phrases or expressions

uncleftish beholding ("Uncleftish Beholding," by Poul Anderson, English): "atomic theory" as calqued into solely Germanic roots

proclarush taonas (Stargate SG-1, supposed ‘Ancient’ language): "Taonas, lost in fire"

varg í véum (Vǫlsunga Saga, Old Norse) "a wolf in holy places," i.e., an outlaw (equivalent to skógarmaðr)

wære fræton (Exodus, Old English): "they ate the treaty," i.e., they broke it

hapax legomenon (from Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον): a word which occurs only once in a manuscript or particular textual corpus

táiknái andsakanái (Gothic, Luke 2:34), “disputed sign,” cf. KJV, “a sign which will be contradicted.”

[quinloki]

Happy Name Day Quin!

In honor of the celebration, I have a fun fact about names, specifically One Piece names., specifically fish-men. I may have mentioned it before in passing or in nerding out over Arlong, but I like the idea of teasing him about the fact that his entire species is called Fish-Man/Men. The females being called Fish-Woman/Women has led me to harass him that the females are then technically a separate yet compatible species.

As you can imagine, this does not go down well with him. Often times leads to a fight. Furthermore, the name of the species sounds childish to me. It sounds like some human child of 5 saw a fish-man for the first time, didn't know what the person was, ran home and told his mother, "it was a man but he was a fish, he was a fish-man!" And humans just decided, yup, that's what we're going to forever call them now.

WELL, let me tell you. Last spring I took a survey course of the Masterpieces of World Literature and we started with hardcore ancient times aka. The Epic of Gilgamesh. I'm a big fan of Penguin Classics editions because the introductions are worth their weight in gold. The intro to Gilgamesh was no exception, it's like 60 pages of raw info and context and linguistic nitpicking and timelines and just all around good stuff. I like the intro more than the epic.

The 39th page of intro (pg. xliii according to the book itself) is talking about the Seven Sages and I may or may not have made the annotative note that the One Piece is real in my book because of this particular sentence: "Foremost among these Sages was the fish-man Oannes-Adapa, who rose from the sea."

Therefore, the concept of fish-men has existed since at least 2800 BCE. So, while the name sounds childish to my modern American ears, the name fish-man predates even Homer's epics by two thousand years (because Homer was around approx. 750 BCE).

Plus, fun lore connection, one could go so far as to posit that Oannes-Adapa was the first fish-man who left the sea and it is from him that the species evolved two breathing systems; their original gills for under the water and lungs for land. The Ichthyo-Sapiens have been around a long ass time.

So yeah, there's my fun fact regarding the name Fish-Man. And again, Happy Name Day.

Nothing has delighted me more than this - "Ichthyo-Sapiens".

I love it \o/ I love the whole post, I have said before but I will say again, I adore the way you just weave all this passion and knowledge around me and then just tour me through your world.

It is quite fantastic. Always brightens my day, and my day was long and a little more stressful than I would've liked, so I appreciate it.

I've got to be in a specific mindset to appreciate some good linguistic nitpicking ^_^ (I love linguistics, even if it's not something I'm formerly educated in.)

but thank you for sharing, and thank you for celebrating my name day like this 🥰❤️

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Hey Frank, did you hear about that new pop singer Homer Sapien? He's really cool, I thought you might like him.

Thanks! I don't listen to much pop music, though -- probably for the best, actually, given my general distaste for "pop" as a concept

[the-hem]

What does it mean to survive a war?

The Value in Gematria is 40-56, םה‎ו, "This is." The Hebrew term is atah na, or "Athena", the Greek goddess of the city.

"It's officially a mystery where our noun comes from, but, as we explain in our elaborate article on Hellas, here at Abarim Publications we surmise that much of the essential ideas surrounding information technology — the alphabet itself but also writing materials such as βιβλος (biblos), i.e. paper, spelling standards, even the names Homer, Helen and Hellene — were imported into the Greek world from the Semitic language basin along with the Phoenician abjad (consonantal alphabet). Our noun σφραγις (sphragis) certainly reminds of the important root ספר (spr), which is central to the Hebrew reflections on information technology and which itself may have stemmed from an Assyrian loanword saparu, meaning to send (a message): the Hebrew noun ספר (seper) means record; verb ספר (sapar) means to write; noun ספרה (sipra) means book; noun ספר (sopor) means scribe.

The second part of our noun σφραγις (sphragis) may then relate to the mysterious and powerful αιγις (aigis), which Zeus and Athena carried around with them. It's also officially a mystery what this thing called αιγις (aigis) might have been, but here at Abarim Publications we surmise that it (as well as many more elements of Greek mythology) has to do with the natural contraction of society: the emergence of humanity from the wilderness, the formation of cities and stratified societies, governments and formal law, and ultimately writing and the metaphorical narratives that exposed the deepest dreams and subconscious concerns of mankind.

The first words formed like mist in the natural interactions of vast populations of very early humans (Genesis 2:6). When these first words had achieved a critical mass, language was "discovered": the defining conscious mind of homo sapiens emerged (2:7), words began to be systematically manufactured (2:19-20), rain poured down and the earth was inundated (6:17), and mankind began to create its own human world, peopled by domesticated species and safely separated from the wilderness (8:17). Rain formed rivers and rivers sustained entire civilizations (see our article on the name Tigris).

The Greeks understood all this: the signature epithet of Zeus was νεφεληγερετα (nephelegereta), or Cloud-Gatherer; see our article on the noun νεφελη (nephele), cloud. Athena's epithets were παλλας (pallas), youth; παρθενος (parthenos), virgin (Isaiah 7:14, MATTHEW 1:23), or stemmed from the noun πολις (polis), meaning city.

This noun is used 16 times in the New Testament, SEE FULL CONCORDANCE, and from it derive:

The verb σφραγιζω (spragizo), to seal: to authenticate a document, to close and secure a space, to certify or pledge an object. In the classics this verb was also used metaphorically: one would claim the validity of one's verbal statement by stating that it was "sealed", or give something one's figurative "seal" of approvement. If a thing collided with another thing, it left its "mark" on it. And when some era or period came to an end, one could say that this period had been closed and sealed."

[ramrodd]

Death & Afterlife: From Homer to Plato--Overturning the World

COMMENTARY:

Myers Briggs and Keirsey are useful templates for interpreting Plato's Cave for High Performance. '

First of all, I am of the opinion that Plato's Cave represents a  racial memory of the paradigm shift from the Neanderthal metaphor to the Homo sapien paradigm that provides the back story to how, exactly, human inquiry got to the parable of the Cave.

  When you cast shadows on a aall or cliff face like this , like, you are at a Black's Beach clothing optional party on the beach with a bonfire that you can paly out dramas, naked, in a shadows on the wall while you're fucking and the quality of the shadow on the wall is exactly thse same quality as the shadow the earth  casts on the moon during a lunar eclipse and, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, something clicked in the mind of the homo sapiens  with not much else to do at night but make up stories about the lights in the sky..

two differences between Neanderthals and homo sapiens is music and the 7 Day Calendrer.

  Anyway, assume that the people chained and force to discuss the shadows to be college professors with NT and NF Kiersey temperaments and the people handling the  shadow objects as SJs and the person that escapes as an SP. There has apparently a SJ/NF/NT cognitive bias going back to Plato, but it is totally characteristic of the American education system, currently The SP is the deprived minority: My speculation has been, because I am an SP, that the majority of male high school drop outs are SPs and, to a lesser degree, female SPs. Women tend to accommodate themselves, socially, to the dominant coalition in terms of education. But, anyway, The Parable of the Cave has exposed  a perennial educational dysfunction that has  serious, and avoidable, dysfunctional social consequences.

  The Kahn Academy demonstrates that there are constructive solutions to this particular issue.

  Now, this is how Critical Race Theory works to improve the quality of life as a characteristic of the human condition. That's the sort of thing the Bible exposes. This is where Hegel and the process theology of the Becoming God of the Broken Heart and the unconditional love of Argos. and the father of the Prodigal Son. It's all right there, in black and white. Abram and Sarai couldn't have children because they were brother and sister of the same father and different mothers. nature would let it happen, That's why incest is unhealthy. God fixed this through the agency of the Spirit of God, which also make Mary of Nazareth pregnant spontaneously. The Total Depravity Gospel points out that  Rahab, a prostitute, produced a link in the family tree leading to Jesus of Nazareth, and Tamar, a bride cheated by Judah to commit incest to receive her dowry and Ruth got Boaz drunk to propose marriage to him and Uriah's wife fucked a king while her husban was deployed and then married the man who had  him killed, who produced the creator of the First Temple, all leading to Jesus.

  What the Total Depravity Gospel leaves out that is of the essence of the Liberation Gospel of Jesus, George Washington and George Marshall is that all these women brought fresh DNA into the insular gene pool of Judaism. The Jews were becoming a physically stunted race like the Dutch on the dikes of the ZIder Zee with their wooden shoes. The healthiest thing to happen to First Temple Jews was to have been transported to Babylon, and Persia , where their gene pools were reinvigorated. I mean, in the final analysis, the Zealots were into self-inflicted Eugenics.

  And that's the meaning of  the Parable of the Cave. The Parable of the Cave is what the world would be like without the Bible and the restless engery at the basis of the Declaration of Independence.

  The Parable of the Cave is what the Gospel of John brings to Christianity that is celebrated in the Letter to the Hebrews. Roman Christianity adopts the linguistic register of Aristotle to the existing republican servant leader ethos of Mission:Men:Self of the centurion and the Italian Cohort of the Praetorian Guards. The only thing Paul did was to expand the linguistic register of the Torah to the Odyssey. What happens to Jesus is what the False Suitors had planned when Odysseus came home from the wars. Like Agamemnon . The Prodigal Son was Odysseus who was  weeping when first we meet him in the narrative and the father of the Prodigal Son was faithful Penelope as played by Argos , who dies with joy on recognizing Odysseys. 

The Parable of the Cave is a gift of the Magi that Aristotle conveyed to Jesus by way of Alexander the Great. which why Hegel comes in handy.

[soivebeenthinking]

Homer and Hesiod apparently interpreted the cyclops very differently. To Hesiod, they were the children of gods, smart and gifted blacksmiths. To Homer, they were solitary, vicious monsters. Regardless of interpretation, some have proposed that the myth of the cyclops was sparked by the discovery of the remains of Elephas falconeri, a species of elephant native to Sicily. In the corpses of the dead, in the puzzle we'd yet to understand, we saw ourselves. Rather, we saw someone else, close enough to be our brothers. In the modern day, the puzzle of space becomes our blank canvas, with the imagining of thousands of species we've never met. Interestingly, even despite knowing the obvious, that aliens would be drastically different from ourselves, we continue to imagine them as fundamentally human-adjacent. Maybe this is just a natural human urge, a species-wide narcissism or a lackluster imagination. But human is itself an interesting term, right? We think we know what humans are: us, Homo sapiens, the people we see and talk to every day. The term, in some circles, however, also applies to the many many similar species that we used to share the Earth with. Not only did we exist simultaneously, we met some, but now they're gone. Paints a dire picture of ourselves, maybe, that all the other humans died out before us. One such species, Homo neanderthalensis, was our geographic neighbor, one we met leaving Africa. Its not clear how they met their end, only that they're not here now, and haven't been for a very long time. As an aside, this isn't entirely accurate either. Gene sequencing reveals that their genes are present in countless modern humans, possibly causing behaviors like depression. Like the cyclops, there are multiple interpretations of the place neanderthals occupied, but we do have some predictions of how they would have behaved: solitary, probably as smart as us or smarter, stocky, with a brain developed for tools more than our own. Is the point here clear? I don't to put forth any sort of scientific theory, or make any broad claims about the world or ourselves, but I do think its a fun coincidence, that we've spent lifetimes seeing the shadows for something quite like us, searching for our cosmic companions, only to find that they live on in our own veins, that we have always been the companions or enemies we imagined.

[bookish-thinking]

Top 5 Favorite M/M Couples

(Just five? That does not seem fair...)

1. Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish (from “The Raven Cycle” series): I love this ship. Adam’s internal coming out struggle, Ronan’s harsh personality that goes against all stereotypes, and their mutual taking care of each other, a love so much deeper than the physical level. 

2. Henry “Monty” Montague and Percy (from “The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue”): it takes forever for these two to get together, but all that ust-ing is so fun to read about, and when they finally do realize their feelings, it is such a genuine love in such a harsh environment, it is just amazing.

3. Jude and Willem (from “A Little Life”): this book will make you feel all the feels, and in between all the pain and trauma, the love between these two men and the way Willem takes care of Jude and his anguish is heartwarming. 

4. Simon and Bram/Blue (from “Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda”): who else cannot wait for the movie?? Simon’s coming to terms with his sexuality was very well written, and that first kiss scene was just so adorable. As I wrote in my original review: sequel please!

5. Patroclus and Achilles (from “The Song of Achilles”): seriously, anyone who has ever read Homer probably shipped these two, but Madeline Miller makes it reality. And it is wonderful. 

T5W by Samantha

[themedicalstate]

A Year Without Germs

Months of exuberant hand-sanitizing and social isolation during the pandemic have changed our exposure to microbes, in ways good and bad.

Sales of alcohol surged in 2020, especially among the higher-proof varieties. But one type far outsold the others: hand sanitizer.

In the heat of the pandemic, Purell poured some $400 million into expanding its production. As anyone who resorted to bootleg hand sanitizer knows, the company came nowhere close to meeting demand. Distilleries and state governments also got in on the action; New York State’s version was, a mixture of urinal cakes and bottom-shelf vodka. All told, by the end of 2020, sales of hand sanitizer had increased by 600 percent.

Some of this sanitizer is presumably still sitting untouched in people’s pandemic pantry stockpiles. But much of it also went onto our skin, where the alcohol hastily dissolves most of the viruses, bacteria, and fungi it encounters. This dramatic increase in personal sterilization—combined with many other microbe-reducing habits, including masking and physical distancing—have prompted some biologists to wonder, in academic papers and prominent op-eds, about the extent of the “collateral damage” to our immune system.

To get this out of the way: Destroying the coronavirus is, without question, paramount. Millions of people are dead, and tens of thousands more die every week. At the same time, the majority of the trillions of microbes that inhabit our skin and gut—collectively, our microbiome—are either harmless or helpful. “The microbes we carry around are involved in many of the fundamental processes of Homo sapiens,” Brett Finlay said, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of British Columbia, in Canada. Among their other roles, these organisms interact with the immune cells in our skin and teach them to respond only to serious threats. The overall effect of messing with our microbes is not manifestly good or bad, but it is also manifestly not zero.

Our microbiome is constantly in low-level flux, depending on our environment—the people around us, the food we eat, the soaps we use, and so on. But many of our environments and daily routines have changed dramatically over the past year as a result of the extreme focus on hygiene and potential viral exposures of all sorts. This has almost certainly had substantive effects on our microbiome diversity, individually and collectively, Finlay said. “The concern among some microbiologists, for the last decade or so, has been that the collateral damage of excessive sanitizing and use of antibiotics is not good, in terms of microbes that we spent thousands of years evolving with.” He cited links between antibiotic overuse and increasing rates of asthma and obesity, as well as a smattering of evidence about the beneficial effects of vaginal deliveries versus Cesarean sections. There is also evidence that having a diverse microbiome is an indicator—if not necessarily a driver—of good health.

The pandemic may have accelerated that loss of diversity. In recent weeks, Finlay has been quoted on the subject in several news stories, as concerned work-from-homers begin to reckon with the long-term effects of their extended isolation. “When COVID hit, it created a fantastic experiment that’s ongoing,” Finlay said. “We have completely changed our behaviors, and when you do that, you change your microbial exposures: You’re not hugging and kissing people, not riding the subways; you’re spending more time at home making bread.” (How did he know?)

It’s too early to be certain of the effects, Finlay said, and any correlations could take decades to bear out. But he’s especially concerned about the very young and the very old, whose microbiomes are most labile. They also happen to be the groups whose daily lives were most affected by the pandemic. “Kids haven’t been in day care or preschool,” Finlay said. “Elderly people have been isolated from their grandkids, who usually slobber all over them.”

He is far from alone in this line of worry. “As a parent—not just as a researcher—I was extremely concerned by a lot of the plans for intense sanitizing in schools,” Melissa Melby said, a medical anthropologist at the University of Delaware. “The number of people reporting they were sanitizing everything they brought into their houses was pretty tremendous, and I think we have good reason to believe that dramatic changes in hygiene and sanitizing behaviors will affect our microbes, particularly for young children.”

One result of this has already been observed: We’ve broken chains of transmission for all sorts of disease-causing pathogens, including common-cold viruses and influenza. Cases of these illnesses last winter were at recent-historic lows. Microbiome experts are not suggesting that it’s good to get lots of common colds; they say we should be grateful for the recent dip in these infections, just as we’re grateful that we haven’t lately stepped on a rusty nail. The “what doesn’t kill you” adage does not apply to respiratory infections any more than it does to tetanus.

A recent piece in The New York Times described researchers’ “mounting sense of dread” about these behavioral changes and their potentially “irreversible consequences.” But some are feeling optimistic. Certain effects could be positive, says Martin Blaser, the director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers University. For one thing, because people didn’t get colds, they also didn’t get (inappropriately) prescribed antibiotics. Many of these are crucial, even lifesaving, therapies. Used too often, though, they can disrupt microbial diversity in the body. If the pandemic helped mitigate their overuse and misuse, that’s “unquestionably good” from Blaser’s point of view.

As for those of us whose microbiome might be lacking because of isolation, Blaser has more hope. “The microbiome in older kids and adults is very resilient,” he says. The microbes that we acquire from other people later in life don’t seem to stick around so long, or to fundamentally alter the microbial foundation that each person develops very early in life. Married couples, for instance, share far less of their biomes than do a mother and child.

Whether the loss of social contact over the past year matters for our microbes in the long term depends on how we transition out of this period. For older kids and most adults, Finlay reassured me, “the damage is not irreversible.” That is, your microbial diversity may fall, but your foundation stays with you. High-fiber diets can help bring the diversity up again. “Instead of a sugar and white-flour diet, try to eat more nuts and seeds and legumes,” Finlay recommended. Spend time outside when you can, and hang out with animals. “Dogs are a great way to get microbial exposure.”

In many families, young children were able to spend more time with their parents and pets than they otherwise would have. “I actually got my family outdoors more,” Melby, the medical anthropologist, said. But these benefits have not been uniform across the population. Although “some people have improved their lives in terms of microbial exposure,” she said, “I know a lot of people who went the other direction.” Among the latter are those who have lacked access to safe parks and neighborhoods, high-quality food, and clean air. “I think the way this is going to play out is going to be very dependent on what resources people had during the pandemic.”

“If they have the income to do it, there are measures people can take to make sure their young children develop a healthy microbiome,” says Tamara Giles-Vernick, who studies medical ethnohistory at Institut Pasteur. In particular, she says, breastfeeding at an early age seems to play a role in setting the foundation of a child’s microbiome. This may have been easier during the pandemic than during normal times, for people who have worked from home. For those who have had to take on second jobs, the inverse is true.

A microbiome gap is evident even in nonpandemic times. “Generally, communities of lower socioeconomic status tend to have less diverse microbiomes,” says Katherine Amato, a biological anthropologist at Northwestern University. In its most extreme form, this paucity is known as “dysbiosis” and is strongly associated with metabolic and autoimmune disorders. But the research is just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of microbial disparities, Amato says. “Things like stress, diet, shift work, and disturbances in circadian rhythms can have negative impacts on the microbiome.” Baseline inequities that affect the microbiome are clearly playing into the disparities in who’s dying of COVID-19. Whether the microbiome itself is a factor in those outcomes remains to be seen.

“Many high-income countries have moved to vaccinate the elderly first, and that’s incredibly important in terms of reestablishing normal microbial inputs,” Giles-Vernick says. Opening up nursing homes to outside visitors as soon as possible, too, may have more than purely social and psychological benefits. The same goes for common areas in nature. “In France, we’re in confinement, but unlike last spring, we can go to parks,” Giles-Vernick says. “That’s a really important measure.”

The ongoing challenge is to avoid binary thinking about microbes: They are not simply good or bad, any more than people are, and neither is Purell. “Everything can be overdone,” Blaser reminds me, and that includes sterilizing things. We should instead make targeted hygiene the goal—and focus on the proven, effective methods to prevent disease transmission. Hand sanitizer can be a miracle during a cholera outbreak; that doesn’t mean you should shower in it after every Zoom call.

By James Hamblin, M.D. (The Atlantic). Image: Adam Maida/The Atlantic.

[andtosaturn]

📖 READ IN 2022 📖 goal: 25

(add me on storygraph!)

📚 books 📚

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh (★☆☆☆☆)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (★★★★☆)

The Crucible by Arthur Miller (★★★★☆)

Galatea by Madeline Miller (★★★☆☆)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (★★★★★)

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (★★★☆☆)

Great Classic Science Fiction by multiple authors (★★★★☆)

Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier (★★★☆☆)

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkein (★★★★☆)

Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt (★★★★★)

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam (★★★★☆)

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (★★★★★)

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher (★★★★☆)

💥 comics 💥

Ms. Marvel Vol. #5: Super Famous by G. Willow Wilson (★★★★★)

Secret Invasion by Brian Michael Bendis (★★★★☆)

Ms. Marvel Vol. #6: Civil War II by G. Willow Wilson (★★★★☆)

Ms. Marvel Vol. #7: Damage Per Second by Willow G. Wilson (★★★★☆)

Ms. Marvel Vol. #8: Mecca by Willow G. Wilson (★★★★☆)

Ms. Marvel Vol. #9: Teenage Wasteland by Willow G. Wilson (★★★★☆)

Ms. Marvel Vol. #10: Time and Again by Willow G. Wilson (★★★★☆)

Thor Vol. #1: The Goddess of Thunder by Jason Aaron (★★☆☆☆)

Magnificent Ms. Marvel Vol. #1: Destined by Saladin Ahmed (★★★★☆)

Magnificent Ms. Marvel Vol. #2: Stormranger by Saladin Ahmed (★★★☆☆)

Magnificent Ms. Marvel Vol. #3: Outlawed by Saladin Ahmed (★★★★☆)

Captain Marvel Vol. #2: Fallen Star by Kelly Thompson (★★★★☆)

Captain Marvel Vol. #3: The Last Avenger by Kelly Thompson (★★★★☆)

America Vol. #2: Fast and Fuertona by Gabby Rivera (★★★★☆)

[lailoken]

The Witches' Supper

“ The figure of the witch in the early modern era was an amalgam of religious typologies including blasphemer, heretic, spiritual malefactor, idolater, consort of fallen angels, and liege of the Devil. In parallel the witch accreted the substance of secular criminality: poisoner, thief, abortionist, grave-robber. These opprobrious brands were impressed on the accused by those whose written records survive, often in the form of legal tractates or penitentials. Yet as command of the printed word spread beyond legal and religious centers, other typologies emerged: healer, folk-charmer, superstitious rustic, impoverished wretch, and others. This procession of witch-guises has continued well into the present day, to include the glamorized images suffused in popular culture: the witch as diabolist caricature, illusion-maker, emanant of sexual allure, and repository of the unexamined ejecta of Christian orthodoxy.

An important and little-examined dimension of the witch-guise is that of the reveler at the Devil's Sabbath banquet. The imagery of this feast appears frequently in woodcuts and is occasionally innocuous, but at other times proffers the image of the witch as necrophage. The assembled coven is alternately portrayed as consuming unbaptized infants or the grisly products of desecrated graves; human bones are also included at the table, as they are in portrayals of the witches' Grand Rite. From the perspective of desecration taboo, the array of grim foodstuffs is no less appalling than the relics held in veneration by the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches: teeth, fingers, jawbones, foreskins and skulls, incorruptible corpses and vials of blood which liquefy and coagulate at auspicious moments. Yet, witches too have their saints and ossuaries, their hallowed relations to the Holy Dead. It is the passage from stewardship and veneration of remains to ritual consumption that triggers affront in the common mind, and has also contributed to the fear of witchcraft. Despite its abhorrent qualities, this forbidden lore persists and is known to some modern practitioners of folk magic as The Witches Supper' -a clandestine and disturbing meal which is, in some cases, a cipher for profound spiritual arcana, as well as the lore of poisons.

The process of bodily decomposition was a matter of fascinative obsession and repulsion to our ancient forbears, from both religious and magical perspectives. Upon death, the body naturally undergoes myriad biochemical changes bent toward the singular goal of material retrogression, the descent of the incarnative vessel to the mortified estate of the Profane Adam. Discoloration of tissue, stiffening of the body, abdominal bloating and pooling blood are mere precursors of the great corporeal tumult whose horrific imagery resembles the demonic horrors of the witches' cauldron. Bodily decay produces its own array of chemical poisons, many of which are responsible for the fetor so viscerally offensive to the living nose, but, also serving as inviting beacons to scavengers and detritivores. The fortress of primordial Adamas, once inviolable with God-given dominion over Nature, is rapidly transformed into a food source for a great variety of organisms, this status heralded by the production of corpse-poisons. Many of these putrefaction-derived compounds, in isolation, can be intoxicating or deadly to Homo sapiens"; some of them, in minute amounts, are also associated with pleasure or sexual allure, thereby recalling the ancient connubium between Eros and Thanatos. In some cases the corpse-poison also served a magical function before physical death: the power to cause flesh to rot on a living body, by forced infection and corrupt magical principles, was a known power of Zuñi medicine men and a documented procedure during the slow execution of witches. This odorous stew of nitrogenous cadaver-compounds falls into the ancient toxicological classification of ptomaines, from the Greck ptoma, indicating a corpse or provenance is the graveyard and charnel house, the crypt and plague-pit, and they are united in both science and magic as the vaporous effluent of the necropolis.

Witches and diabolical consorts at the Sabbath-feast.

No less than the natural decomposition of the human body, foodborne illness is also caused by organic decom 'fallen body'. Their position, and has been colloquially referred to today as a kind of poisoning. Corrupted food been a perpetual fact of civilized existence and has required ingenious solutions to forestall the advance of decay. Transmitted by the noisome taint of worms and micro-organisms en masse, putrefaction was a philosophically confounding process both dead and alive; the stench and ugliness generated in contaminated victuals were likewise an offense to reason as well as the senses. Early technologies of food preservation included cooling, drying and salting to arrest decomposition, or, in some cases, to mask the objectionable flavors of rancidification. The ancient arts of meat preservation naturally share a kinship with embalming: the outrage of post-mortem decay was of prime importance to the Old Egyptians, whose methods of providing salvific respite for the corpse may rightly be considered a magico-religious art form. In Christianity, the processes of corporeal decay were assigned to the dominion of the Devil, likely one reason for the folklore that Satan cannot abide the presence of salt. Persons who claimed to have attended the medieval Witches Sabbat remarked on the absence of salt at the feast. Similarly, when salt was brought in, the spectral revelers of midnight's table suddenly vanished, leaving the guest alone. The power of salt for slowing or arresting decay also relates to its magical uses for exorcism, blessing and consecration. The magician's exorcised circle is thus both fortified and mummified, a perfectly-preserved moment in time and space.

Both the corrupted products of Death and the means of slowing or arresting them bear crucial relationships to the Witches' Supper, which in one interpretation (stripped of its heretical elements) can be seen as fostering a ritual intimacy with the deceased. That the witches' delectations should be portrayed in the first instance as necro- cannibalistic is consistent with the position of witchcraft as transgressive, and as operating in spheres roundly condemned by religious and social orthodoxy. The witches' relation to the dead vis-à-vis their atrocious meal is, on the surface, portrayed as a mock Christian communion, or as the vulgar tactic of demonizing enemies by implied cannibalism. On a different level, the Supper operates as a hieroglyph of specific witchcraft power, namely the unique magical relationship between witches and the so called 'Mighty Dead', the retinue of ancestral shades and fountain of pre-incarnate atavism. The art of necromancy, or magically calling forth the shades of the dead, has long been a vibrant strand of witchcraft and magic of many epochs, and in many recensions may be considered its driving engine. Linked with more ancient currents of shamanism, this art was known from the writings of ancient Sumer, Chaldaea, and Greece, the latter providing the prototypal witch-figure and poisoner Circe, the sorceress of Homer's Odyssey.

The materia of the Dead—flesh, blood, and bones—is the mumia of art, known well to witchcraft, alchemy, folk magic, and medicine. The act of its ritual consumption, presented in early modern Witches' Supper depictions as vulgar cannibalism, encodes a number of precise ritual formulae and powers in necromantic magic. The most important of these is the elevation of 'dead matter to a living state by its incorporation into the living body. This is the active principle underlying the Holy Eucharist, wherein, through divine transmutation of elements symbolizing the mumia, Christ's body and blood are come forth from the tomb, and commune with the Body of the Faithful. The potent necromantic implications of the Holy Communion, as a magical act, would have been instantly recognizable to practitioners of folk-sorcery, particularly in contexts where funerary rites maintained close communication with the departing spirit.

Present within the Feast of the Dead is also the Formula of Opposition, a precept which underlies many historical patternings of witchcraft. Named by Andrew D. Chumbley, who wrote about it extensivelys , the Formula is an operant dynamic between the sorcerer and the 'Other', that being the zones of spirit-alienation external to personal experience and containing ungathered seeds of occult numen. In the case of historical folk magic, Formulae of Opposition are often transgressive against law, religious orthodoxy, or social convention, but above all against Self; as exacted they often make use of inversion. In violation of strongly-held personal Tabu, the structure normally governing conception and use of magical power is overturned, resulting in a liberation of consciousness, and the acquisition of previously-forbidden realms of power. At the Feast of the Witches, a culinary encounter with dismembered limbs, organs, and heads serves as an oppositional force on a multitude of levels, from the basic violation of the senses, to affronts against personal and group morality. Whilst the actual consumption of decomposing human flesh by historical practitioners of Sabbatic rites is an open question, it is, perhaps, the wrong question. More relevant is the depictions of the moribund Feast as a symbol of initiatic power gained through the Formula of Opposition.

The Accursed Victual, as a component of the Feast, may also mask the presence of initiatic power, conveyed through mumia. A recurrent component of magical charms is the secretion of semen, menstrual blood, feces, or urine into food as a spell of control over one's victim. This action mimics the spoor secreted by many mammals for the 'marking'or'claiming’of territory and if correctly engaged draws upon a vast astral repository of atavism, and belongs to an ancient stratum of magic reaching into prehistory. Spells employing such secreted matter are transgressive of ancient dietary laws wherein food, and the feast itself, represents a sacrosanct compact between the dining parties. However, when the parties are wholly conscious of the nature of their food, and eat nonetheless as they are shown doing in portrayals of the Witches' Supper- it may be presumed that there are religious or magical reasons for doing so, namely reverence for the deceased, the acquisition of power, or both.

All such approaches to the Feast are essentially necromantic, and as a coercive approach to spirits, it is properly classed as sorcery. It is thus aligned with early modern witchcraft, but ritual communion with the dead using food and drink is also a feature of ancient religion." Roman cults of the dead persisted into the early centuries of Christianity, with night-long memorial feasts in honor of those whose bodies had passed, often in situ at the tombs themselves. Archaeological evidence, as well as the written record, reveals remains of ancient graveside banquets, including drinking and cooking vessels. Church prohibitions on pagan rites honoring the dead occurs in written form as late as the thirteenth century, indicating that such observances were still in practice. Feasts offered in honour of the dead persist into the modern era, even in exemplars largely bereft of religious trappings. Ritual consumption of the dead as part of a socially acceptable funerary practice, is also documented.

The abominable meats, bones, and sundered limbs often pictured at the Witches' Supper may be afforded an additional interpretation with regard to their magical rôle at the Witches Sabbath. In certain inquisitional records, an emergent pattern among some groups, which differed from the usual clerical projections, involved a banquet with archaic features which scholar Wolfgang Behringer has called "The Miracle of the Bones'." This features the restoration of life to a cow or other animal from a disjointed skeleton. The implicit power of this mystery as a magical practice is captured in a section of Robert Fitzgerald's Midnight's Table, a manual of witchcraft lore and spellcraft concerning the arcane power of the witches' banquet:

The Mind void yet the Thought fully formed.

The Body hungry yet the Spirit replenished.

The Wood unfinished yet the Table carved.

The Platter empty yet the Larder full.

Here the desolation of the witches' feast remains, as well as their potentiality as nutritive victuals or even as living beings, is invoked, the suggestion of Voidful Presence through the juxtaposition of emptiness and corporeal flesh. Extrapolated beyond the objects themselves, the table may be seen as the witches'altar or circle, the zeroth vessel of all-potentiality which, like a cornucopia, may contain a multitude of fruits by way of ritual power. This symbolic and emblematic patterning is completely consistent with the atavistic patterning evident in the orally-transmitted magical lore of the Sabbatic Cultus.

The natural transformative processes of rot and decay are crucial strands of the magical currents feeding folk magic and witchcraft. The alchemists of Europe explored putrefactive states thoroughly, borrowing the process from Nature, then emulating, calibrating, and magnifying it under precise fractionations in glass vessels. It is likely that, as with the Royal Art itself, a considerable 'portion of putrefactive magic in Europe was a direct inheritance of Arabic and Islamic magic; such texts as Ġäyat al-Hakim and Kitab al-Sumum employ numerous members of dead animals, some ritually killed, for cursing, poison, and magical power. These usages also occur in the later corpus of European grimoire formulae. However, the powers of putrefaction and decomposition had a far more ancient pedigree, one of which is of specific interest to the Sabbath banquet. Correctly harnessed, they give rise to both of the primary mysteries of the witch sacrament: the Bread and Wine.

In the Bread and Wine of the Witches Supper, some have seen the historical outlines of the ritual consumption of psychoactive substances at the Sabbath, specifically conveyed through food and drink, and indeed this interpretation is present in some modern-day witchcrafi practices. Historical references are uncommon, but suggestive. The Inquisitor Pierre DeLancre reported that the bread of the Basque witches' was black and revolting, its flour ground from black millet, and served with 'false meats'. Aside from its resemblance to cadaverous flesh, the "black bread' is of potential toxicological interest. In centuries past, white flour was a privilege of the wealthy, and poorer classes resorted to eating so-called 'black breads', made of rye and barley, and which also contained diverse adulterants from the harvest. Piero Camporesi in his Bread of Dreams has speculated that psychoactive contaminants of grain such as darnel (Lolium temulentum) and ergot (Claviceps purpurea) were so common in the flours of some regions and eras that the average peasant was in a constant state of intoxicatio as a consequence of poor diet. If true, the evidence cited suggests that the psychoactivity of such breads was an accidental by-product of a fouled food supply, but if the phenomenon was understood by herbalists and magical practitioners, there would be little to stop the cunning from crafting experimental loaves. Indeed, as with the Thelemic Cakes of Light', the Sabbath Bread has its own secret formulations.

The Nocturnal Assembly gathering corpses for the Witches’ Supper. Compendium Maleficarum, 1608.

The old term "Crow's Bread" originates in the founding lineages of the witchcraft order Cultus Sabbati, and originally referred to the intoxicating mushroom Psilocybe semilanceata as a gift of the spirits for visionary ritual use. In the late 20th century, the term was applied within the group for broader use to refer to any psychoactive ritual substance gathered from Nature, but its nature as 'Bread is linked both with the Communion Host of Christ and the male generative power linked with the 'Lord of Light’, in some cases identified with Lucifer. In this latter association, the Bread's power as Revelator is especially notable. Covines and lodges of the Cultus have long made use of venefic gnosis in various forms; its oldest known recensions, dating from the second half of the nineteenth century, contain obscure charms against poison, as well as certain ritual transmissions of power using a prepared psychoactive sacrament. Oral teachings long pre-dating the Great War concern another poisonous species of note in Britain: Belladonna. There are also adjunctive practices concerning a multitude of other plants of power, specifically their Eucharistic power. My contacts with other Traditional Witchcraft groups outside of the Cultus have, on occasion, affirmed the presence of such sacraments elsewhere, some of which have themselves passed into a largely symbolic or chemically inert form.

Within the Sabbatic Cultus, the Bread of the Sabbath Feast operates upon many magical levels, its essence is intimately tied to British agricultural cycle, the God of Harvest, Corn and Sheaf, sometimes manifest in the mythical divinity of John Barleycorn. The germ of this myth encloses the great mystery of ritual murder and resurrection embodied in the Holy Loaf, and the resulting sustenance of the kingdom. This quintessentially English expression of the Bread is thus seminal, nutritive, life- giving, and radiant, but also embracing the mysterium of Death and a patterning of seasonal time and tide. Here Barleycorn is sometimes identified as the Witch-Father Mahazhael. He is thus often depicted as a skeletal god with an erect phallus, bearing a scythe, sickle, and stalk of grain; his mystery is well encapsulated in his invocation from Chumbley's The Dragon-Book of Essex:

On the first day I awoke within the furrow.

On the second day I knelt in prayer 'neath the sun.

On the third day I stood in the long green robe.

On the fourth day my head was crowned with gold. 

On the fifth day the sickle laid me to rest.

On the sixth day my body was ground between stone.

On the seventh day I was raised anew

to feed the brethren at Midnight's table-

to serve at the Round Feast for both the Living and the Dead.

In addition to the process of ritual murder which births the Bread, the putrefactive processes used for its fermentation, via yeast or bacteria, are also reckoned as a part of the Corn-God's dominion. As a natural agent of corruption, yeasts are widespread and penetrate countless strata of the world, often contaminating foodstuffs, as well as the human organism. Even where fermentation conditions are controlled, the process of making bread and wine relies on the mass death of these microorganisms. This catastrophic loss of life, on the order of hundreds of millions of individuals per loaf, nonetheless provides a delectable crumb serving as both an holy sacrament and the common man's ‘Staff of Life'. A further relation between bread and the grave is its frequent off-white colour, recalling bone, and the hardness it attains when stale, sometimes petrifying, as a skeleton, over the course of centuries; and amongst some witchcraft practitioners, the churchly Communion Wafer is sometimes addressed within the circle simply as 'The Corpse' or ‘The Skeleton'.

The magical corollary to the Witches' Bread is the Vinum Sabbati, or Winecup of Midnight's Table. Its alignment is with the Moon and the Lunar emanation, the feminine principle, and the many humours of the body, primarily blood, but also the female sexual secretions, both gross and subtle. In witchcraft contexts, as well as other secret societies and magical orders, the Wine is of legendary status and a great deal of lore and doctrines have emerged concerning its generation and use. To some it is a cup producing fantastic visions, to others, an initiatic ordeal which serves as the most harrowing trial for the drinker. Certain teachings, through its association with both the Living Cup and its Wine as a single entity, have two essential natures which in combination, magically unify to create a Blessed Third, an apotheosis of both. Within the Cultus Sabbati, the 'Graal of Midnight' has precise formulations to empower and support the various pathways of Sabbatic Congressus: Thanatomantic, Atavistic, Sexual, and many others. By a metaphoric pathway, the Wine of the Sabbath is not only a fluidic medium, fermented and distilled within the Flesh of the Initiate, but also the entire process of corporeal transmutation during its imbibition at the High Sabbat.

As an actual drink conveying ritual power, a medieval prototype of the Wine of the Sabbath is to be found in Johannes Nider's Formicarius (1435), which alleged the witches of the Simmenthal region of Switzerland were initiated using a potion brewed from the ashes of infants. More important than the composition of the brew was its alleged effect: the beguiling draught conferred upon the initiate an instant knowledge of the Art Magical. Though described prior to the advent of the Sabbath as a major component of witchcraft, it is the ritual cup and its function as a bestower of witch-power which links it to the Witches' Supper.

The bridge between wine and the incorporeal host is also relevant to the nature of the witches' cup. Historically, the grape was considered divine not only by mankind but also by spirits of the Dead. In ancient Greece, the Vine-shoot was regarded as possessing strong properties of purification; wine was often poured there as a libation for the dead, as well as to chthonic deities. This custom of offering alcohol to the deceased resisted the strongest attempts at eradication; Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus (427-449) reports with outrage pagans bringing wine to the deceased in evening rites. Cæsarius relays a legend in which two servants at the monastery of Laach, charged to guard the vineyard by night, bribed the devil to do their work with a cophinum full of grapes, a deal which was apparently kept. Amongst the nocturnal activities later alleged of the Vaudois witches was the invasion of wine cellars, led there in a troupe by the Devil. "Under lead of the demon they enter cellars and drink wine, all of them first urinating in the cask from which it is drawn." The threefold linkage of wine to the Dead, witches and the Devil draw additional lines of arcane association with the Sabbatic Grail, both as a form of communion with the Dead and with the Black Man of the Sabbath, the God of the Lamiae.

The presence of Wine in historical English witchcraft and folk magic may indeed arise from its aspect as mock-sacrament, theʻpolluted bloodof Christ which featured in invertive and blasphemous sorceries. However, wine was present in England before the advent of Christianity; introduced by the Romans, there is evidence for viticulture among the Anglo-Saxons; one conservative estimate identifies at least 139 definite or possible vineyards in medieval Britain. Though climatological trends in past centuries have fluctuated, and viticulture has prospered or suffered accordingly, the Genius of the Vine has been present in England for millennia. This is certainly sửfficient time for a body of lore and rites to have accreted around the Grape and its divine expressions, drawing from numerous magico-religious currents, as well as the inevitable corpus of agrarian lore which accompanies so important and venerated a crop. This is to say nothing of England's great tradition of hedge wines, a testament both to the ingenuity of her vintners and the botanical diversity of her lands.

The Cup of Wine which features so prominently at the Feast of the Witches may be understood as the mechanism of sorcerous transmutation of the body, not only its vehicle, but its symbol, process, teaching, and legacy. This symbol in activated form unfolds, as an opening rose, the entire ecstatic algorithm of the Sabbat. Within the rites of Sabbatic Witchcraft, the Wine of the Devil's Graal appears in radiance at the confluence of sorcerous enchantment and spirit-veneration. Where the covenant of adepts is of sufficiently focused will, desire, and belief and of sincere devotion", the Cup is vinted, filled, mixed, and drunk. The motto ‘Ipse venena bibas’ or 'drink thou thine own poison' encodes the truth that the Grail of the Witch is both the cup from which it is drunk, and the initiate into whom the wine passes. The alpha-numeric essence of this matter is eloquently contained within the number 710, which corresponds both to the grail-poison (tar`elah) and the Sabbath itself.

The active magical nature of the Witching Graal, and its function as the intermediary in rites of 'Communion' naturally evokes the Body of the Goddess as the portal of mystery. In the Sabbatic traditions of witchcraft, the shade-mother Lilith or Liliya Devala is identified with the witches' cup in both its exalted and desecrated forms, aligned with sex-magical moduli of Void-mind (the empty cup) and the conjured circle of spirits (the full cup). Other permutations occur, especially those co-identified with the body of the Priestess or ritual adjuditrices. Each wine vinted within these cups is as much a product of the Vessel as the Vine.

Kenneth Grant has linked the Sabbatic Wine to the blood of Charis, wife of the smith-god Haephestos, and also known as the threefold goddess Charites, or the Graces. Expanding upon the writings of Massey, which quote the ancient writings of the Gnostic Marcus, Grant links the Vinum Sabbati with the blood of Charis, the 'original Eucharist'of the early Gnostic Christians. The vintage is the central component of the ancient magico-sexual rites of trance mediumship wherein the goddess spoke through a chosen medium. This bears certain similarities with kindred operations in the Order of Eastern Templars, as well as those of at least one Traditional Witchcraft lineage informing the Cultus Sabbati. Likewise, a cup-blessing used for the Wine connects its use to the forgotten intimacy of Samael and First Woman:

Bright Host of Saint Hawa, draw nigh unto this, my Cup.

Before mine eyes, the Well of Abomination,

Betwixt thy thighs, the Red Stream of Eternal Fire.

Behold thou the Good Companie assembled

To feast upon the grave-wandering corpse,

Draught of Manbane, and dew of the Forest grail,

The blood-fouling thorn, the Fang and Toad-froth,

Yea, All Delights of Resurrection's Vineyard:

O, Mercy of the Spirit I pray!

Here 'Communion' also relates in mystery both to the Witches' Agapae or love-feast as well as the coition of spirit transpiring within the circle of the High Sabbat itself. This resonates with the witches' Fortunum or Cup of Good Fortune, a specific preparation of male and female sexual secretions, ritually expressed in the correct lunar phase, and empowered through conjuration of precise spirit- presences. Withing these covines are preserved teachings concerning 'the vinting and pouring’ of the Agapae-wine, as well as its function at the Feast. It is impossible to pinpoint with certainty the origin of the oldest of these witch-rites, though their resemblance to some practices of South Asian Tantra is striking. This may be an occult adaptation of Tantric practice, as perpetuated through such magical orders as the Ordo Templi Orientis, with which some covines have had contact. However, the oldest witch- praxes of this type pre-date the Oriental Templars' contact with Tantra, and in fact retain elements marking their origin as specifically English and Northern European. Additionally, their foci incorporate atavistic formulae, placing them squarely within the precincts of an ancestral cult, as well as incorporating elements which would to many occult lodges, be considered "low magic".

Despite the linkage of these sexual witchcraft formulae with the Dead, their strata of magical expression very much concern the living, the present body of initiates, woven into the perpetuity of magical time. In addition to the powers of manifestation their perfected exaction radiates, they are capable of simultaneous intoxication, empowerment and nourishment -the great 'Transmutation of the Body' in which one becomes magic entire. Its linkage with the ghastly imagery of the demonologist lies in its formulation from the Corpus Humanis. Under correct conditions, the two give rise, like the antediluvian pillars, to the Great Temple of the New Flesh.

Returning to the concept of Crow's Bread, within the Sabbatic Cultus, the Liberty Cap mushroom (Psilocybe semilanceata), when encountered growing in the wild, is regarded as an omen of ancestral favor. A prime concentrator of atavistic force, it is a gateway to the dominion of Faerie and a guardian of the Way. It is never hunted, but when encountered must be acknowledged by certain ritual customs and sacrifices.

Importantly, it eschews dung, unlike other visionary mushrooms of its genus, and thus in mystical terms is separated from Abel, the unrefined or 'profane' nature of flesh prefiguring the sorcerer Cain. Proceeding as it does from the soil and thus the subterranean vaults of the Mighty Dead, its fruiting body is the brief apotheosis of those fallen and yet come again: the ephemeral Risen Phallus of the Spirit-Meadow. The mushroom thus subsumes three important mysteries of the Witches' Supper in one body: the Corpse, the Phallus, and the Visionary Sacrament. From a devotional entry in Hypnotikon:

Amongst the true-born of its flesh, it is known as ‘The Watcher on the Moor' and this is precisely where I was introduced to this Friend. It speaks of many things: great spectral mists uncurling before the moon; of time and the procession of bodies upon bodies; of hedge-haunting devils; of the deeds of the Saints' bones, resonant and deep in the earth; of the Immovable Stone and its wisdsom; of symmetries and arrangements of things - trees, plants, beasts; of holy books writ in ossuary dust; of the delectations and radiances of the flesh; of the Round Dance and the Fallen Star; of the Sovereign and Horn'd Head detached from the body, ruling over the Land; of the telescoping of the soul into indescribable abysses. When it has spoken its final word, and revealed its last vision, what then remains? The accumulated counsel of every incarnation as I'.

In the abyssal heart of ancestral shadow, the 'Bread' of Midnight's Table is served both for the Living and Dead. For those who sup in flesh, and walk in the world of men, it is a sacred loaf broken for remembrance: to honor the Dead with sensation and savor, and to call forth into the body, through the rite of necrodeipnon, what has gone before. For them who abide in shade, the Bread is the Lantern of the World, shone as a beacon for return to the flesh, if ever briefly. Through the medium of poison, and its child ecstasy, the decay and annihilation of Death is cast aside, the spirit clothed anew in the radiance of corporeal transfuguration. ”

—

Veneficium:

Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path

by Daniel A. Schulke

[shadowfromthestarlight]

Fiction I read in 2021

The Earth’s Children series by Jean M. Auel

I read The Clan of the Cave Bear at the end of 2020 and completed the rest of the series in 2021. I love thinking and learning about prehistoric times. There’s so much about these books to criticize, but I still find them haunting. I appreciate the depth of the author’s research and her descriptiveness, and at the time she was writing there was a lot she had to simply speculate about. However, I have to admit the books are quite fanciful, the main character is the archetypal Mary Sue, and the sex scenes are excessive and pornographic. Still, I love the subject matter.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin 

I love Ursula K. LeGuin! What more can I say? She was a genius.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I’ve gotten into sci-fi and fantasy in my old age, so I had to read it, you know? Weird, but I liked it enough to watch both the 1984 and 2021 movies. 

Circles of Stone by Joan Dohr Lambert

Since I like prehistoric fiction now, I read this book and... ugh, I couldn’t bring myself to keep reading the series. I thought the first part, from the perspective of a Homo habilis, was unique and interesting, but the rest of the book was ridiculous and difficult to take seriously. 

Crossroads Trilogy (Survival of the Fittest, The Quest for Home, and Against All Odds) by Jacqui Murray

I enjoyed this prehistoric fiction more. I liked that the characters were not modern Homo sapiens but were still complex and sympathetic. Jean M. Auel still holds first place for detailed description of the prehistoric world, but this trilogy was a fun read. 

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

This fictional contemporary of the Buddha was, uh, interesting, though sometimes frustrating to follow on his quest for Enlightenment. 

Lily’s Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff

I found this in one of my neighborhood’s sidewalk “libraries” and read it one late summer day. It was humorous, because it was about a feisty kid, though also sad, because it takes place in the middle of World War II.

October Sky by Homer Hickham

I read this book in August, ironically! I found this story of a few ordinary teenagers from a West Virginia mining town learning to building rockets very uplifting. It goes to show you what you can do when you put your mind to it!

Children of Time and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I read Children of Time in 2020, then read it again cover to cover in 2021 when I was reading a book about animal cognition. Then I went ahead and read the sequel, which I’d been meaning to read anyway. Both books are an absolute delight. Not only are they a feat of imagination, they’re exciting and well-written with compelling characters, a couple of whom are now on my all-time favorites list.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

I became interested in reading this book when I read the first chapter after finding it in another neighborhood sidewalk “library.” I eventually downloaded it for myself and read the whole thing. The idea of a Civil War romance might make you roll your eyes, but it’s one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. Better than Gone With the Wind! The movie was great, too. 

Contact by Carl Sagan

I read this after seeing the movie. I actually liked how a lot of things were changed in the movie, though the book’s depiction of the teleportation scene and all the characters got to discuss and learn from the aliens was much more satisfying. 

The Merchant of Venice, play by William Shakespeare

I read this for my old law school’s Law and Religion book club. I loved it! I found it very funny and entertaining. I also saw the 2004 movie, which I liked. However, it was also interesting to examine the play’s serious insights about law and religion - though my impression is that it was poking fun at the legal system and intentionally caricaturing Christians and Jews alike. 

Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson

I should have read this before Rhythm of War, but I was glad that I finished reading it all the same. I love this series! 

Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

You can actually read this novella in Clarkes World magazine. I read this... and read some parts multiple times... for another book club. I might go back and read it again, I found it that strange and thought-provoking.

Waterland by Graham Swift

I found this decades-old novel about the Fens of England in a box in front of someone’s house. Loved the narrator. Loved the history. Loved the writing style, except for the overuse of parentheses. The overall plot was pretty depressing, though. I definitely don’t plan on spending much time in any fens, lol.  

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

This has to be one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. I laughed out loud for most of it. I loved how painfully realistic it’s descriptions were - of places, of people, of states of mind, of everything! Not that the plot itself was realistic in any form, though I do appreciate the cleverness of taking the old adage “truth is stranger than fiction” and running with it.

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen

I’ve been a Franzen fan for over a decade, and I think he outdid himself here. His usual themes are present: family, politics, religion, Middle America. But I’m floored by the empathy and intelligence it takes to construct a novel like this. Where is this guy’s Pulitzer? Hello???

[papasmoke]

homo sapiens = homer simpson

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

1 second ago, I typed this sentence.

10 seconds ago, I picked up my phone and opened tumblr.

100 seconds ago, I finished drafting this post in a word doc because it took me a while to do all the math.

1,000 seconds ago, I was in the middle of drafting this post (please don't scroll away yet, I promise it gets more interesting)

10,000 seconds ago, I was on my way to work this morning

100,000 seconds ago, I was asleep before work yesterday morning

1,000,000 (million) seconds ago, it was June 5th, I don't remember anything of note happening that day

10,000,000 seconds ago, it was February 21st, Biden had just finished his first month in office and Trump had been acquitted during his second impeachment trial the week before

100,000,000 seconds ago, April 17, 2018, Trump was preparing for his first meeting with Kim Jong Un scheduled for the following month

1,000,000,000 (billion) seconds ago, October 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was exactly one month away from falling

10,000,000,000 seconds ago, July 17, 1704, Scotland was still independent from England, whose Virginia Colony was not yet 100 years old

100,000,000,000 years ago, 12th century BC, around the time of the Trojan War which wouldn't be immortalized in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for another 400 years

1,000,000,000,000 (trillion) seconds, some 32,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans had only recently settled in Eurasia, and wouldn't cross the Bering Strait into the Americas for close to 20,000 years

10,000,000,000,000 seconds ago, this is around the time Homo sapiens evolved in Africa some 300,000 years ago. Other species of Homo were much more widespread, but far from the dominant species on the planet

100,000,000,000,000 seconds, 3 million years ago, the earliest hominids appeared, losing their hair and walking on two legs

1,000,000,000,000,000 (quadrillion) seconds, over 30 million years ago, apes hadn't evolved yet, only proto-monkeys

10,000,000,000,000,000 seconds, over 300 million years ago, reptiles hadn't evolved yet, only fish and the earliest amphibians. Tiktaalik had only recently crawled out of the sea

100,000,000,000,000,000 seconds, over 3 billion years, multicellular life was in its earliest stages, photosynthesis was a new development, the atmosphere hadn't been oxygenated yet

1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (quintillion) seconds, 32 billion years ago, the universe didn't exist yet, and wouldn't for close to 20 billion years; that's older than the universe is today, meaning we're closer to the start of the universe than the start of the universe is to this point in time. Hell, "time" didn't even exist yet, so it's hard to describe exactly when or what or where or why or how. Everything is nothing, and nothing was anything.

[gemsofgreece]

10 Greatest archaeological discoveries in Greece the previous decade (2010 - 2019)

*You can see original Greek article by Pengy Riga here. This is a summary of what I read there translated in English and closer to my personal tone. 

10. Possibly the oldest Homo sapiens skull in Europe (2019).

The skull was found in the caves “Apedema” in Mani and it was estimated to be 210.000 years old, five times older than any other Homo sapiens skull found in Europe. According to another research the skull comes from a transitive phase between Neaderthals and Homo erectus. This discovery invites the reexamination of the time the first men left Africa and spread to Europe and Asia as it might have happened way before we thought. 

9. Ancient wooden artifacts (2011, 2013, 2014).

These include a wooden statue of a woman found in the Temple of Artemis in Brauron (5th Century BCE), the coffin of a young person from the Archaic Era (610 - 480 BCE), a small statue of Hermes and more than 550 other wooden artifacts and objects from the Hellenistic Era (150 - 86 BCE) in Piraeus. What is so important about all these findings is that they are made of wood, which naturally decomposes easily and quickly, so wooden archeological findings are very rare. 

8. Neikó, the possessed lady of Síkinos (2018).

In the remote island of Sikinos there is an impressive mausoleum of the late antiquity. It was turned into a church during the Byzantine Era and remained a functional church till recently, when it closed for the public because it needed extensive restorations. During the restoration project, archaeologists found for the first time the unlooted tomb of a high-class woman, to whom this mausoleum was apparently dedicated. The woman was buried with all her dearest and most precious belongings but the tomb was so well hidden that it escaped all three known invasions throughout the centuries and was found accidentally when a wall collapsed in 2018. The tomb was not in the regular crypts of the mausoleum but hidden in a blind spot between two walls within the building. Her tomb was also sealed tightly, her skeleton was found in an unusual position and sulphur and tar were placed on her chest. It seems that she was believed to be possessed so they had taken precautions to ensure she wouldn’t rise after death. Nevertheless, she was loved by her family, judging from the beauty of her Mausoleum as well as the memorial scripts found in the monument. Her name was Neikó.

7. Ceramic plaque with verses from Homer´s Odyssey (2018)

The plaque was found in Ancient Olympia and has 13 verses from the Odyssey. It is estimated to originate from the Roman Era, before the 3rd Century AD. It might be the oldest Homeric text of that length found in the Greek territory  and the only one carved into pottery. It was included in “Archaeology” magazine’s list of the 10 most important discoveries for 2018.

6. Tomb of Casta in Amphipolis (2014)

Easily the discovery that drew the most attention worldwide and a neverending archaeological and political thriller to this day. This is the largest burial monument ever found in Greece, in east Macedonia. It has a perimeter of 500 meters, four underground rooms, sphinxes in the entrance, two big Caryatids that would block the intruder from entering the last room with their arms, a beautiful large mosaic that depicts Hades kidnapping Persephone and finally four skeletons, belonging to two men, one old woman and a child. The excavation drew so much attention that it was abused for political reasons and it basically happened livestream, as the entire nation would watch the progress in the news every day. This inflamed the war between the two leading political parties, it messed up the excavating process itself and it caused unprecedented animosity amongst archeaologists and historians. The greatest reason for the fights was the initial disagreement for the dating of the monument as well as the identity of the dead found in it. Depending on their political affiliations, half the politicians and scientists would jump to wondrous conclusions without evidence while the other half would downgrade the importance of this discovery beyond belief. When the government changed, the Tomb of Casta was inexplicably and mysteriously abandoned. Only the local people kept protesting and pushing the authorities to continue the excavations. Since then, the leading party has changed again and the new government promises to continue the work as quickly and efficiently as possible so that the monument will open to the public until 2022. The scientific community has at least agreed that the tomb dates back to the late 4th - early 3rd Century BCE. There are many extremely optimistic estimations about the identity of the dead and equally many counter-arguments.  Hopefully, we’ll eventually get some objective answers as the excavations continue. It’s been realised that excavations should continue in all the area as it is suspected that the Tomb of Casta is not the only monument waiting to be unearthed there. 

5. Daskalió of Keros (1963 - 2018)

Daskalió is a settlement on the westmost cape of Keros island. Multiple excavations have taken place there from 1963 to this day by the University of Cambridge and the British School of Athens. The excavations have revealed a prehistoric shrine and settlement, densely and skillfully built. The shrine and the artifacts found in the excavations date to the 3rd millenium BCE, which makes Daskalió according to Cambridge professor Colin Renfrew the oldest known coastal shrine in the world. The findings suggest this was the work of an expert architect and the infrastructure on the location was based on a well planned project. Furthermore, there are indications that Daskalió was an important center of metallurgy. However, they imported the metals they used from other islands which also suggests nautical expertise. 

4. The eternal couple of Dirós (2015)

The skeletons of two young adults, a man and a woman, were found in an embrace in a hill in Dirós. Double burials with the dead embracing are extremely rare and this one is one of the most ancient found, if not the oldest, dating back to 6000 - 3800 BC. 

3. The Underground of Thessaloniki (1986 2013 till forever)

If Amphipolis is a political thriller, then the underground of Thessaloniki is the national comedy. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece and thus has a bad need for a subway. The creation of a subway began in the 80s and... it’s still in the process, making the (future) subway of the city a Greek meme and a joke everyone at this point understands. However, there is a solid reason for this delay. Back in 2004 the archaeologists warned that the subway routes that were planned to be dug under the city’s central part should be modified because the area was of extreme archaeological interest. They were ignored and eventually the works were interrupted by the unavoidable discovery of Ancient Thessaloniki. Some of the most impressive findings are the largely intact main roads of the city, such as the Roman built Decanus Maximus and the Byzantine built Middle Avenue, which survived till the 18th century. Crossroads, houses, shops, graveyards and monuments have also been found. Scratches on the roads made by carriages can be seen. More than 300,000 artifacts were discovered, such as statues, jewels and other small objects. Now the fate of the underground has also become a political game as the two leading political parties fight on whether the artifacts should remain on their spot undisturbed which would make the subway’s creation harder and more dangerous or they should be removed until the subway is complete and then returned to their original place with a claimed accuracy of 90%. What’s certain is that when (or if) the subway is complete, the ancient city will be easily accessed via the metro, visible from its windows and there will also be the option to walk on the ancient roads. 

2. The Tomb of the Griffin Warrior (2015)

A grand tomb was found next to the Mycenean palace of Nestor in Pylos. A skeleton was discovered in the tomb along with no less than 3500 burial gifts. The gifts were weaponry, jewels and other objects exclusively made of valuable metals and stones. Not a single plain object was found, such as a ceramic amphora for example. Many of the artifacts are made in typical Minoan style which invites a reevaluation of the relations between the Minoans and the Myceneans. The monument took its name from an ivory plaque depicting a griffin, a power symbol for both Pylos and Minoan Crete. The tomb dates back to 1500 BC and it is the best evidence of wealth in prehistoric Greece found in the last 63 years. The most important finding however is that of a tiny seal, which is unique because it’s a masterful work of miniature art that resembles the much later classical Greek art. Archaeologists deem impossible the creation of this gorgeous piece of art without a magnifying glass. The art depicts two warriors, one slitting the other’s throat with his sword. The imagery has elements that suggest an event resembling those from the Iliad - which suggests that this event depicted on this tiny seal in the Griffin Warrior’s tomb was part of the inspiration of the oral lore of the Homeric epics that began in the following centuries. It is obvious that the dead man was a  most influential figure of his era. 

1. Necropolis of Fáliron (2012-2016)

The most macabre discovery makes it to the first place. The largest part of the necropolis, a mass graveyard, was found already in 1913.  Numerous people were executed there with the violent method of Apotymbanismós (Αποτυμπανισμός) that might have inspired the Roman crucification. A century later, in 2012, the excavations expand and unearth thousands of different burials spanning from the 8th - 4th century BCE. The most sensational discovery would happen in 2016 though; a mass burial of no less than 80 prisoners, tied and placed next to each other. All were young men of good health and were not executed with the method of apotymbanismos. Based on the evidence, the mass execution took place in the middle of the 7th Century BCE and these men must have tried to take over the rule of Athens. This was an unstable political era in the Athenian history indeed. This discovery was included in the 10 Greatest Discoveries for 2016 in the magazine Archaeology. 

[alexandraswriting]

Books to Distract You During Quarantine

Fiction: 

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She is Sorry by Fredrik Backman 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert 

Lovely War by Julia Berry 

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

The Wayward Children Series by Seanan McGuire 

The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 

Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman 

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo 

Pride and Prejudice and Other Flavors Sonali Dev

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang 

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets to the Universe Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 

Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Emma by Jane Austen (Especially if you haven’t seen the movie yet) 

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende 

The Odyssey by Homer 

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

A Moveable Fest by Ernest Hemingway 

Non-Fiction: 

Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza 

Material Girl, Mystical World by Ruth Warrington 

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu 

The Essence of Happiness by The Dalai Lama 

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz 

First We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Though Anxiety by Sarah Wilson 

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari 

Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari 

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari 

For those who cannot buy books right now for whatever reason, Scribd (not sponsored) is an app I use a lot. They offer a 30 day free trial for first time users.