“My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is true and what is false, what is history, and what is myth.”
– Baron Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg, 1921

“In Mongolia, there was a legend of the warrior prince, Beltis-Van. Noted for his ferocity and cruelty, he spilled “floods of human blood before he found his death in the mountains of Uliasutay.” His slayers interred the corpses of the Prince and his followers deep in earth, covered the graves with heavy stones, and added “incantations and exorcism lest their spirits again break out, carrying death and destruction.” These measures, it was prophesied, would bind the terrible spirits until human blood once more fell upon the site.

In early 1921, so the story goes, “Russians came and committed murders nearby the dreadful tombs, staining them with blood.” To some, this explained what followed. At almost the same instant, a new warlord appeared on the scene, and for the next six months he spread death and terror across the steppes and mountains of Mongolia and even into adjoining regions of Siberia. Among the Mongols he became known as the Tsagan Burkhan, the incarnate “God of War.” Later, the Dalai Lama XIII proclaimed him a manifestation of the “wrathful deity” Mahakala, defender of the Buddhist faith. Historically, the same individual is best known as the “Mad Baron” or the “Bloody Baron.” His detractors are not shy about calling him a murderous bandit or an outright psychopath.

The man in question is the Baron Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg. His exploits can be only briefly sketched here. In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Baron Ungern found himself in eastern Siberia where he aligned himself with the anti-Bolshevik “White” movement. However, his extreme monarchist sentiments and independent ways made him a loose cannon in that camp.”

(via New Dawn Magazine)

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“Don’t tell Indiana Jones, but most archaeologists pack spades, not bullwhips, and big discoveries usually come after lots of digging, not looting. Maya discoveries in Mexico that are rewriting the history of this classic civilization, for example, are coming from years of careful digging, not looted idols.

The classic Maya were part of a Central American civilization best known for stepped pyramids, beautiful carvings and murals and the widespread abandonment of cities around 900 A.D. in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador, leaving the Maya only the northern lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula. The conventional wisdom of this upheaval is that many Maya moved north at the time of this collapse, also colonizing the hilly “Puuc” region of the Yucatan for a short while, until those new cities collapsed as well.

But that story of the Maya is wrong, suggests archaeologist George Bey of Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., who is co-leading an investigation of the abandoned city of Kiuic with Mexican archaeologist Tomas Gallareta of Mexico’s National Institute of Archaeology and History. “Our work indicates that instead the Puuc region was occupied for almost 2,000 years before the collapse in the south,” says Bey, by e-mail.”

(via USA Today. h/t: The Daily Grail)

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“Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians around the world are set to celebrate midsummer festivals Monday night with rites drawing deeply on pagan traditions of the Baltic people. “Marking the two longest days of the year, the celebration is called Jani in Latvia, Jaanipaev in Estonia, and Saint Jonas festival in Lithuania.

Christianity adopted the sun-worship holiday as the one dedicated to John the Baptist, but centuries later, pagan traditions still remain an integral part of the celebration. On June 23, Latvians crowned with wreaths of oak leaves flock to the countryside. Regarded as a holy tree in pagan times, the oak still features widely in Latvian folk songs. As the evening draws in, Latvians and Estonians light bonfires and sing folk songs or jump through the flames, seen as a way to guarantee prosperity. The white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Riga light up with bonfires as Latvians and Estonians flee cities to nature.”

(via Top News)

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“Last Sunday evening at the Silent Movie Theater, a clip from the 1938 astrological murder mystery “When Were You Born?” was shown as part of an “Occult L.A.” program curated by the author Erik Davis. In the clip, legendary occult scholar Manly P. Hall, who had also written the movie’s script, appeared on screen to introduce the concept of astrology. With penetrating blue eyes, thick dark hair and a rakish mustache, Hall had the looks of a silent film star, and he radiated intensity as he explained the various personality traits of the different sun signs — Leos are loyal, Capricorns are brave, and so on. But that’s not all: “Astrology can solve crime!” he exhorted. “It has solved many crimes in the past.”

At this the audience burst into laughter: Yet another absurd Hollywood twist. It wasn’t the late Hall’s finest moment — in fact, he’d done the scene reluctantly. But afterward he held out hope that “When Were You Born?,” the first major motion picture to treat the subject of astrology seriously, might help “open the way for a great cycle of occult philosophy,” he wrote.

The film was a bomb, but the fact that this obscure clip was being screened before a sold-out crowd of artists, intellectuals and spiritual seekers shows that the cycle of Hall’s influence continues. And it may grow in the coming months, for Process Media has just published “Master of the Mysteries,” the first biography of Manly Palmer Hall, written by Louis Sahagun (who is a staff writer at The Times).”

(via Los Angeles Times)

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“Why We Fight (2005) is a documentary film directed by Eugene Jarecki about the United States relationship with war. Its title is an allusion to the World War II-era newsreels of the same name, which were commissioned by the United States to justify their decision to go to war against the Axis Powers.

It describes the rise and maintenance of the United States military-industrial complex and its involvement in the wars led by the United States during the last fifty years, and in particular in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The film alleges that in every decade since World War II, the American public has been told a lie to bring it into war to fuel the military-economic machine, which in turn maintains American dominance in the world.

It includes interviews with John McCain, Chalmers Johnson, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Gore Vidal and Joseph Cirincione. The film also incorporates the stories of a Vietnam War veteran whose son died in the September 11, 2001 attacks and then had his son’s name written on a bomb dropped on Iraq; a 23-year old New York man who enlists in the United States Army citing his financial troubles after his only family member died; and a former Vietnamese refugee who now develops explosives for the American military.”

(via Google Video)

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“Bud and Ruth Schultz have spent 25 years interviewing and photographing Americans who have stood up to their government in the name of civil rights, from the First World War to the present day. Here are their stories.”

(via The Independent)

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“At the time of this writing, interesting recent press coverage hearkens back to two of 1969s most notorious events.

The first story concerns the new search for possible Manson family murder victims long rumored to have been buried in the desert near Manson’s old hideout at Barker Ranch in California’s Death Valley. This theory of unknown murder victims stems from a statement attributed to Manson family member Susan Atkins, who allegedly told a fellow inmate she was incarcerated with that there were “three people out in the desert that they done in,” referring to other possible victims during the Manson family’s spree of killings during the summer of 1969. As reported by the press, a team of forensic scientists have traveled recently to Barker Ranch and used cadaver dogs, ground penetrating radar and other equipment in an attempt to locate these possible victims. According to the report, the scientists located “three large areas of interest.”

The story second concerns a BBC News report that details the revelation from the FBI’s own files that the Hell’s Angels may have actually tried to assassinate Mick Jagger at his rented home in Long Island, New York in retaliation for Jagger�s comments following the disastrous concert at Altamont in late 1969. The murder attempt supposedly failed after the boat carrying the would-be assassins foundered during a storm, almost drowning them.

That these two stories continue to resonate in modern times in not such a surprise. The article below discusses the detrimental effects that the Manson murders, the ill-fated concert at Altamont, and numerous other crimes that the press of the day dubbed “hippie murders”, had on the hippie image.”

(via Steamshovel Press)

(For another good read about the dark side of “the Age of Aquarius” check out “Turn Off Your Mind”, by Gary Lachman)

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This is a series that was never aired (no surprise there) about the CIA, Iran-Contra, drug trafficking, and the Mena cover-up.

(via Google Video. Thanks DJ!)

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“The anti-Vietnam war demonstration of March 1968 was a turning point in post-war politics: it turned violent right in front of the world’s media; the police were shown throwing punches into the faces of already arrested students, and in general losing control. The police files from that event are considered too sensitive to release. But Newsnight has obtained, under Freedom of Information, a stack of police files relating to the much bigger anti-war demonstration of October that year. Watch tonight: they tell a story of rising panic in the establishment: the creation of Britain’s first bomb squad; an intelligence feedback loop between Special Branchand the press that ramped up the tension; and, farcically, the rock group The Doors being mistaken for a group of foreign revolutionaries…”

(via BBC News. Video via BBC Newsnight. h/t: Doc 40)

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“Along with superstars like Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, and Shia LaBeouf, the newest Indiana Jones movie promises to showcase one of the most enigmatic classes of artifacts known to archaeologists, crystal skulls that first surfaced in the 19th century and that specialists attributed to various “ancient Mesoamerican” cultures. In this article, Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh shares her own adventures analyzing the artifacts that inspired Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (in theaters May 22), and details her efforts tracking down a mysterious “obtainer of rare antiquities” who may have held the key to the origin of these exotic objects.”

(via Archaeology)

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“Join me now, if you have the time, as we take a stroll down memory lane to a time nearly four-and-a-half decades ago – a time when America last had uniformed ground troops fighting a sustained and bloody battle to impose, uhmm, ‘democracy’ on a sovereign nation.

It is the first week of August, 1964, and U.S. warships under the command of U.S. Navy Admiral George Stephen Morrison have allegedly come under attack while patrolling Vietnam’s Tonkin Gulf. This event, subsequently dubbed the ‘Tonkin Gulf Incident,’ will result in the immediate passing by the U.S. Congress of the obviously pre-drafted Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which will, in turn, quickly lead to America’s deep immersion into the bloody Vietnam quagmire. Before it is over, well over fifty thousand American bodies – along with literally millions of Southeast Asian bodies – will litter the battlefields of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.”

[..] Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world in those early months of 1965, a new ‘scene’ is just beginning to take shape in the city of Los Angeles. In a geographically and socially isolated community known as Laurel Canyon – a heavily wooded, rustic, serene, yet vaguely ominous slice of LA nestled in the hills that separate the Los Angeles basin from the San Fernando Valley – musicians, singers and songwriters suddenly begin to gather as though summoned there by some unseen Pied Piper. Within months, the ‘hippie/flower child’ movement will be given birth there, along with the new style of music that will provide the soundtrack for the tumultuous second half of the 1960s.”

(via The Center for an Informed America. h/t: Conspiracy Planet)

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“It is not really surprising that historically occultism and espionage have often been strange bedfellows. The black art of espionage is about obtaining secret information and witches, psychics and astrologers have always claimed to be able to predict the future and know about things hidden from ordinary people.

Gathering intelligence is carried out under a cloak of secrecy and occultists are adept at keeping their activities concealed from sight. Like secret agents they also use codes, symbols and cryptograms to hide information from outsiders. Occultists and intelligence officers are similar in many ways, as both inhabit a shadowy underworld of secrets, deception and disinformation. It is therefore not unusual that often these two professions have shared the same members.”

(via New Dawn Magazine)

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From AOL News:— The human race may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, two new genetic studies suggest.

The human race may have been nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, two new studies suggest. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis published Thursday in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimates that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. "This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species’ history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence.

Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA – which is passed down through mothers – have traced modern humans to a single “mitochondrial Eve,” who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.

The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa which appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago. Eastern Africa experienced a string of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago. The researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing people into small, isolated groups which developed independently.

Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, commented: “Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction.” Today more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the planet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Of course, we know the Devil put that evidence in our DNA to trick the True Believers.

(Thanks, Chad.)

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“The last time any excavation was allowed inside its ancient sarsen stone pillars was in 1964 but now the first archaeological excavations at Stonehenge in almost half a century are attempting to solve, once and for all, the mystery of how and why the stone circle was built.

The enigma of Stonehenge, famed for its orientation in relation to the rising and setting sun, has puzzled and divided experts for decades. Some say the ancient stones were built as a temple used to worship ancient earth deities. Others say it was a prehistoric astronomical observatory; others claim it was a sacred burial site for people of high birth. Arthurian legend even has it that the stones were put there by the magician Merlin.

But yesterday, researchers started the dig inside the stone circle, a project English Heritage is calling the most significant in the site’s history, and which they hope will finally lift the lid on the truth behind one of Britain’s most famous landmarks.”

(Thanks Kallisti!)

(via The Independent)

(Just for fun: Carhenge)

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Kevin Annett is a former United Church minister in Vancouver, Canada, who was fired without cause in 1995, and then expelled from the same church without due process, after he had unearthed evidence of the theft of native land by church officers, and of the murder of native children at the United Church residential school in Port Alberni, British Columbia, where Kevin ministered.

Since his firing and blacklisting by the United Church, Reverend Annett has worked as an advocate and counsellor in aboriginal healing circles on the west coast. He organized the first international Tribunal into Canadian residential schools in Vancouver in June, 1998, at which a United Nations affiliate, IHRAAM, presided.

Reverend Annett is working with aboriginal and human rights groups around the world in an effort to bring charges of complicity in Genocide against the government of Canada, the Anglican, United and Roman Catholic churches, and the RCMP. He is serving as the secretary of the recently-established Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, has authored a book about his experiences, “Love and Death in the Valley”, and co-produced the documentary “Unrepentent” about the church’s coverup in the genocide of 50,000 Native Americans.

“John LeKay: When you first arrived at your new parish and were invited to conduct a wedding ceremony at the native reserve; you asked a native man by the name of Danny Gus - why there were no natives showing up for mass on Sunday. He turned around and said “because they killed my friend, he is buried up in the hills behind the church”. What was your initial reaction when you heard this?

Kevin Annett: Disbelief. I wanted proof but didn’t know where to look for it.”

(via Heyoka Magazine)

(Related: the documentary “Unrepentant” via Google video. Hidden From History website. Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust)

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“As the main deity of the funerary cult, Osiris is shown as a mummy wearing the crown and holding the crook and flail as his royal insignia. But why is the god portrayed as a human being?

As is well known, anthropomorphy is a trait shared with all prominent members of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, often in combination with animal features. Likewise, ancient civilisations such as the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Greeks, the Persians, the Indians, the Chinese and the Aztec all widely painted, sculpted and described gods and goddesses in terms of human beings. This raises the question to what extent members of these cultures actually envisioned their gods as humans?

Euhemerus of Messene (4th century BCE) was a Greek mythographer credited with the view that the supernatural tales and characters featured in mythology were really exaggerations of mundane historical events. While his work has not withstood the ravages of time, various classical writers of the Imperial period reflected the opinion that the gods were really just extraordinary human beings.”

(via Thunderbolts. H/T: The Anomalist)

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“An Italian team of archaeologists unearthed the goblet in the 1970s from a burial site in Iran’s Burnt City, but it was only recently that researchers noticed the images on the bowl tell an animated visual story.

The oldest cartoon character in the world is a goat leaping to get the leaves on a tree.

According to an article in the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies:

The artifact bears five images depicting a wild goat jumping up to eat the leaves of a tree, which the members of the team at that time had not recognised the relationship between the pictures. Several years later,Iranian archaeologist Dr Mansur Sadjadi, who became later appointed as the new director of the archaeological team working at the Burnt City discovered that the pictures formed a related series.”

(via Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)

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“Evidence of pagan rituals involving swans and other birds in the Cornish countryside in the 17th century has been uncovered by archaeologists. Since 2003, 35 pits at the site in a valley near Truro have been excavated containing swan pelts, dead magpies, unhatched eggs, quartz pebbles, human hair, fingernails and part of an iron cauldron.

The finds have been dated to the 1640s, a period of turmoil in England when Cromwellian Puritans destroyed any links to pre-Christian pagan England. It was also a period when witchcraft attracted the death sentence. Jacqui Woods, leading the excavations, has not traced any written or anecdotal evidence of the rituals, which would have involved a significant number of people over a long period. There are no records of similar practices anywhere else in the world.”

(via Times Online)

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An argument about the theory that “Moses was high on drugs”.

“Over the last week, Benny Shanon’s article “Biblical Entheogens: A speculative hypothesis” has been a rather popular topic online, both in mainstream media outlets and specifically in the skeptical community. I wonder how much of this interest, especially in the the skeptical community, is just a case of Schadenfreude. After my skeptical comments on the article earlier this week, I have decided to go through the article thoroughly, and offer a more concrete review of Shanon’s work.

Effectively, Shanon’s thesis is that Moses, throughout his encounters with God, was under the effects of an Entheogen, a mind altering psychedelic drug, which lead to hallucinations and an altered state of consciousness. This is certainly an interesting theory, but one that I believe Shanon fails to support. His main evidence appears to be comparison to known historic and modern usages of such substances in religious and spiritual endeavors. However, his comparisons to Pre-Columbian and modern American examples may serve as example of entheogen use, they cannot serve as evidence of Israelite use.”

(via Archaeoporn)

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In our first interview with Natalia and Anton we discussed the history and superstitions surrounding the Koldun. In this segment we discuss the history and relationship of the Tarot that form the center of their tradition.

ANTON- I think it’s important before discussing the tarot constellation that we should first review the history of the relationship between the Tarot and the Kolduny. The last time I checked Tarot scholars are totally undivided as to the origins of the Tarot. Stuart Kaplan, Mary Greer, and Rachel Pollack as well as other Tarot historians all seem at a loss concerning the origins of the Tarot. The Kolduny are not at this loss. It is our beliefs concerning the origins of the Tarot that set us aside from other “Tarot” readers. It is our beliefs concerning the origins of Tarot, which creates the pathology that makes Kolduny Tarot both unique and incredibly powerful.

The Kolduny, believe heart and soul that the Tarot is theirs. Even today when people think of the Tarot, the most common mental image is an Eastern European woman laying cards down. There is a reason for this collective mental image.

(more…)

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“Italy’s highest appeals court ruled that a 42-year-old workman broke the law by “ostentatiously touching his genitals through his clothing” and must pay a 200 euro fine, the Telegraph reported Friday. The U.K. paper also noted that crotch-grabbing is a common habit among superstitious Italian males, who believe the gesture wards off bad luck. What does the crotch have to do with luck?

It’s the seat of fertility. The crotch grab goes back at least to the pre-Christian Roman era and is closely associated with another superstition called the “evil eye”—the belief that a covetous person can harm you, your children, or your possessions by gazing at you. Cultural anthropologists conjecture that men would try to block such pernicious beams by shielding their genitals, thus protecting their most valued asset: the future fruit of their loins. Over the centuries, the practice shifted. Men covered their generative organs not only to defend against direct malevolence but also in the presence of anything ominous, like a funeral procession.”

(via Salon)

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“Poveglia is a small island floating in the lagoons of Venice. In stark contrast to the beauty of its surroundings, the island is a festering blemish. The waves reluctantly lapping its darkened shores will often carry away the polished remains of human bones. When the first outbreak of bubonic plague swept through Europe, the number of dead and dying in the city of Venice became unbearable. The bodies were piling up, the stench was oppressive, and something had to be done. The local authorities decided to use Poveglia as a dumping ground for the diseased bodies.

The dead were hauled to the island and dumped in large pits or burned on huge bonfires. As the plague tightened its grip, people panicked, and those showing the slightest symptoms of the Black Death were dragged screaming from their homes. These living victims, including children and babies, were taken to the island and thrown into the pits of rotting corpses, where they were left to die in agony. As many as 160,00 tormented bodies were disposed of over the years.”

(via Phunk U)

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Koldoun, Koldun, Koldun’ya (Russian) - A magician or sorcerer; one having more power and knowledge than a znachar (wizard). - (via the Theosophy Dictionary)

The Koldun are an ancient Pagan sect that has existed in the Russian/Slavic areas for hundreds of years. The teachings are passed down through families orally, and there isn’t much written on them. What little is known is written by scholars in a few texts on Russian magic. I sat down and talked with a couple who currently practice and live in the United States, Natalia and Anton Tikimirova.

TiamatsVision- I understand that you use tarot, astrology, numerology, and herbs in your practices. These techniques are used together for example, in finding a specific herb to use for an ailment or looking into a good day to marry. How does this work?

NATALIA- It is all intertwined, that is what keeps it a formal tradition. It is the frigid pathology of the Kolduny that has kept it so separated from other traditions. Unlike Wicca, which has it’s own beauty in its free flowing way of doing things. Yet with that freedom comes a lot of questions, which is why many who claim to be Wiccan are still seeking to define what Wicca is. It seems anyone can buy a couple of books and suddenly be “Wiccan”. I am not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing for Wicca. But that is for them to figure out. Kolduny practices are far more formal and rigid. A lot of what we do is based upon numbers. Time, is very important to us.

(Read more)

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“A rare documentary of science fiction on American television. During half an hour you will watch a synthesis of what was the first forty … all » years of the science fiction production for television. From precursors as “Rocky Jones, Space Ranger”, “Space Patrol” and “Flash Gordon”, to cult series of Irwin Allen (”The Time Tunnel”, “Lost in Space”, “Journey to the Botton of the Sea” and “Land of Giants”). The documentary will glimpse at the best of the genre and bring a surprise that will please very much the fans of “Star Trek”. The phenomenon is remembered through a 14 minutes special tribute with a collection of hilarious out-takes of funny goofs made by the actors that was wonderfully edited and given to the cast members as souvenirs. The scenes had been selected from all the three seasons.”

(via Voodoo Who Do)

(Star Trek Inspirational Poster courtesy of Ecosphere)

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