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Sorting Fact from Fiction

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:05:43 +0000

I love the internet. Really, I do. But everything has its downside. One of the drawbacks of the internet is that anyone can post anything, and nonsensical stories can spread like wildfire. As both a writer about religion and a historian, I deal with these issues all the time.

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Rules and Sins of Satanism

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:14:09 +0000

One of the interesting things about living in a culture so dominated by a single religion (Christianity) is that people tend to expect all religions are structured similarly. People think every religion have a heaven and hell, and they ask what those religions teach about salvation, when, in fact, salvation is a very Christian idea.

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Poor Reasons to Be a Satanist

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:06:23 +0000

Every couple of weeks, I get a message in poorly written English along the lines of "let me join your Satan group" on my Facebook page.

I couldn't understand this phenomenon. And then, this week, I found this post on the Church of Satan's website:

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As Above, So Below

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:07:52 +0000

Western occult philosophy is an incredibly diverse topic. But one of the things you hit over and over again in studying it is the phrase "as above, so below."

This hermetic phrase has guided people for centuries in how they understand the universe (both physical and metaphysical). Higher realms guide the lower realms, and understanding the lower can show something of the higher. The separating and reconstituting of spiritual and physical parts of ourselves is a basic building block of alchemy.

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Old Religion as New Religion

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:33:58 +0000

Many religious ideas become part of our common culture, even if we don't specifically take them as fact. For example, most Westerners known who Adam and Eve are even if they are not Jews, Christians or Muslims.

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Fasting in Religion - The Baha'i Fast in the Month of Ala

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:29:09 +0000

The Baha'i fast for most of the month of March, up to the new year's celebration of Naw-Ruz on March 21.

Why do people fast? Lots of reasons. For some it is a show of humility. For others it is a time of contemplation and spirituality, which is often seen as assisted by the denying of physical wants.

Science and Religion

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:23:53 +0000

I don't know about anyone else, but I've gotten very tired of the suggestion that religious people have to be anti-science. Personally, I find my faith to be instructing me to better understand the world, and a primary way of doing that is through science.

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Alchemical Gallery

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:56:39 +0000

A new image gallery went up this week centered around the alchemical idea of the chemical marriage, the union of the Red King and White Queen which ultimately produces The Rebis. In addition to the previous article on the Rebis (from the Rosarium Philosophorum), I have now added another Rebis image from a separate source, the "Book of the Holy Trinity and Description of the Secret of the Transmutation of Metals". I have also added the first image of the Red King and White Queen, also from the Rosarium Philosophorum.

The Alchemical Great Work

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 01:35:39 +0000

The Great Work is the ultimate goal of alchemy, a refining and transmutation of the soul into something pure and without contradiction. The result of this Great Work is sometimes represented in images as the Rebis, a two-headed person representing the union of opposites. here I discuss one such image, with a new image gallery in the works.

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Westboro Defections and Cultish Appearances

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:07:33 +0000

The Westboro Baptist Church is arguably a dangerous cult. They are a small, tight knit, isolated group which sees the rest of the world as waging a war against them and God They don't tolerate dissenting opinions. On the other hand, they don't seem to be making threatening moves toward defectors.

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