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Archive for August 2010

  1. Ganapati variations: the Ganapatyas

    Hail to the Lord of Vows, hail to Ganapati, hail to the First Lord, hail unto you, to the Big-Bellied, One-tusked, Obstacle-destroyer, the Son of Shiva, to the Boon-Giver, Hail, hail.
    Ganesa Upanisad

    Inspired after a recent Ganesa Puja in Wales, and reflecting on the fact that I have been a devotee of Ganapati for well over 20 years now, I thought it would be appropriate to write a short series of posts on some of the more obscure aspects of this much-beloved devata. Continue reading »

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    August 26th 2010

    Posted by in History, tantra

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  2. Framing Rumi’s Ecstasy of Being

    The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
    As we laugh together

    From Rumi’s Divan of Shams of Tabriz (translated by James Coleman)

    Of late, I have been re-reading some of the writings of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, the thirteenth century Persian Sufi mystic whose poetry is so beloved in the contemporary West. Continue reading »

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    August 22nd 2010

    Posted by in History, Queer, tantra

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  3. Ordering-machine: sketchy maps?

    Through the process of knowledge assemblage we have created a naturalised space amenable to being mapped; we now equate scientific knowledge with maps.
    David Turnbull, Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers

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    August 12th 2010

    Posted by in Occult

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  4. Vodou in Berlin

    In our recent trip to Berlin, we happened across a wonderful exhibition at the Museen Dahlem – Vodou: Art and Cult from Haiti – which is on until 24th October 2010. If you should find yourself in Berlin, it’s well worth a look. Continue reading »

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    August 6th 2010

    Posted by in Event reviews, Reviews

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  5. Experience – III: Some conundrums

    “At one extreme experience (present) is offered as the necessary (immediate and authentic) ground for all (subsequent) reasoning and analysis. At the other extreme, experience . . . is seen as the product of social conditions or of systems of belief or of fundamental systems of perception, and thus not as material for truths but as evidence of conditions of systems which by definition it cannot itself explain.” Raymond Williams, Keywords

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    August 2nd 2010

    Posted by in Occult

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    3 comments »