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Helena Petrovna von Hahn was born in 1831 into a family of the lower Russian nobility. Around her eighteenth year, she fled a brief and unconsummated marriage to an older man, Nikifor Blavatsky, and embarked on what by all accounts was a twenty-odd-year-long global quest for secret knowledge, triggered by her reading of her great-grandfather’s occult library and her own mystical experiences. During this time, she said, she met her Master Morya in London, who charged her with a mission: to reach Tibet, where she would be tutored in the control of her psychic abilities. She surfaced in New York City in 1873, where she lived in a woman’s cooperative on the Lower East Side. A meeting with Colonel Henry Steel Olcott led to a lifelong Platonic relationship, and in 1875, she, Olcott, and William Quan Judge founded the Theosophical Society. The rest is history.
Although we do have hard and clear evidence - archeologically speaking - that the veneration of women, of the yoni, and of Goddesses have been the primal and primary form of religion around the globe, it has been the East - specifically ancient India with its Tantric teachings - where this seems to have found its most exalted and open expression.
Via Gracie Passette
Chris Arnade: I've been reminded that life is not as rational as Richard Dawkins sees it. Perhaps atheism is an intellectual luxury for the wealthy
While searching through the attic of his father’s house, a son came across boxes of old items. The most interesting were piles of love letters sent from a man named Max. From 1913-1978, Max and Pearle wrote each other. All his letters begin with “My Sweet Pearle” and end with “Forever yours, Max”. These letters were supposed to have been burned when Pearle passed away in 1980, but the family didn’t honor those wishes, and one of the greatest love stories began to unfold.
In 1911, a woman named Pearle Schwarz met a man named Maxwell Savelle at the Country Club. They fell madly in love. Unfortunately, Maxwell would not convert to Judaism (his parents were Southern Baptists) and so they could not be together. They went their separate ways – Maxwell went into the Navy and Pearle continued to pine for him until she died. She never let go.
Discrimination and abuse wrongly backed by doctrine are damaging society, argues former US president Jimmy Carter
Via Religulous
A battle has been raging in Texas, and it's all about evolution.
On one side are creationist-minded members of the state Board of Education. They don't believe evolution should be taught in public schools in Texas.
Via J'nene Solidarity Kay
With a new Pope promising reform, Michael Joseph Gross reports from Rome on how the Catholic Church’s gay clergy members navigate the paradox of their lives.
On the night of May 11, 2011, sometime around midnight, 13-year-old Hana Williams fell face-forward in her parents’ backyard. Adopted from Ethiopia three years before, Hana was naked and severely underweight.
Secret sex rituals, foreign spy agencies, Biden family offspring, and the war within the Unification Church's first family
"We opened a door that lost God's protection over our environment," said the Christian historian VIDEO
Via J'nene Solidarity Kay
While the Abrahamic religions have tried to control sexuality, these traditions make use of the very urges they seek to suppress.
Via Wayne HellSlave, Gracie Passette
Scientists who regard religion as an irrelevance are foolish. Like it or not, belief has led to mankind’s greatest scientific innovations
Finding the head of an ancient statue is an “exclamation point” for the team. Scarred with chips and cracks on its nose and face, the head of Aphrodite’s statue most likely avoided destruction during the Roman Byzantine period, about A.D. 330.
Hoff said the area where the head was found was once used to destroy ancient marble statues, to get lime for making mortar or because they were considered pagan symbols.
“Some rather zealous Christians were destroying images of Greek gods and goddesses to get rid of pagan images,” he said.
As for the rest of Aphrodite’s body, Hoff said it was most likely incinerated.
Via David Connolly
The secular have no place in today's GOP — and libertarian atheists should realize that now
Via Religulous
by CHRIS HEDGES, Truthdig
The cult of masculinity, as in all fascist movements, pervades the ideology of the Christian right. The movement uses religion to sanctify military and heroic “virtues,” glorify blind obedience and order over reason and conscience, and pander to the euphoria of collective emotions. Feminism and homosexuality, believers are told, have rendered the American male physically and spiritually impotent. Jesus, for the Christian right, is a man of action, casting out demons, battling the Antichrist, attacking hypocrites and ultimately slaying nonbelievers. This cult of masculinity, with its glorification of violence, is appealing to the powerless. It stokes the anger of many Americans, mostly white and economically disadvantaged, and encourages them to lash back at those who, they are told, seek to destroy them. The paranoia about the outside world is fostered by bizarre conspiracy theories, many of which are prominent in the rhetoric of those leading the government shutdown. Believers, especially now, are called to a perpetual state of war with the “secular humanist” state. The march, they believe, is irreversible. Global war, even nuclear war, is the joyful harbinger of the Second Coming. And leading the avenging armies is an angry, violent Messiah who dooms billions of apostates to death.
So much MORE
Via J'nene Solidarity Kay
Blessed Angela of Foligno (1248 – 1309), a Franciscan tertiary, and Saint Catherine of Siena (1347 – 1380), a Dominican tertiary. They were Catholic holy women from medieval Italy.
These two women had mystical visions and practiced extreme mortification. While such behaviors may seem strange and somewhat detrimental to the modern feminist scholar, we must examine these behaviors from the context of the time period of Angela and Catherine. This paper will attempt to contextualize the actions and texts of both women, to show that though they appear on the surface to be the submissive ‘lambs’ of the Church which today’s feminists vilify, underneath the ‘lamb’s clothing’ of orthodoxy they are more akin to the ‘wolves’ contemporary feminists are seeking for inspiration. Angela and Catherine submitted to the Church by practicing imitatio Christi, becoming part of official orders as tertiaries and revealing their actions and visions to confessors.
In their behavior and writings, both women supported the ideals of the Church. This conformity allowed Angela and Catherine to avoid charges of heresy and to carve out a space for themselves within the Catholic Church. However, both women threatened to cross the line into heterodoxy with their critiques of the Church and the extreme degree to which they took their asceticism. In addition to their sanctity amongst the laity, both women were able to usurp some of the Church’s spiritual authority through their actions and texts. Thus, though both women wore the ‘lamb’s clothing’ of conformity, they were ‘wolves’ underneath.
Why aren't Republicans more frightened of a shutdown and a default? Part of the reason is magical thinking
Via Religulous
Laura Ortberg Turner writes at Christianity Today that feminism is the Christian f-word. Turner argues that evangelicals have wrongly dismissed feminism as "anathema" to the body of Christ. She con...
Via bobbygw
Americans are abandoning religion in droves.
Via Religulous
The Old Testament is rife with the admonishment of errant kings and queens worshiping ‘false gods’, with the much of the blame falling on the Kingdom of Israel and that of Ahab and his infamous queen Jezebel. In recent years there have been a significant number of discoveries of cult stands and shrine caches throughout Israel. They were found either buried in favissae (underground cellars) or buried in caches, such as at Hazevah and Yavneh, or found in various other settings, like at Tel Rehov’s honey production site and at Tel Halif’s industrial textile area. The most recent findings were at Motza, just north of Jerusalem, where a cache of apparently cultic items were found in an ancient temple. Israel is often touted as the birthplace of monotheism. But the Motza artifacts, so similar to those of distant Hazeva and Qitmit, taken in conjunction with the previously discovered stands, shrines and altars from Megiddo, Taanach and Beit Sh'ean, paint a significantly richer picture of the religious life of this ancient land. Add the various figurines found strewn about the land of Israel of females in various poses and states of dress and undress as well as dogs, horses, and bulls: The iconography points to a pantheon of deities, as some scholars believe, or to two main deities, something of a duality.
Via David Connolly
This antique rosary contains a hidden compartment where relics could be kept. Most often, these rosaries contained soil from the catacombs in Rome where many Catholic martyrs are buried. These were also used as mourning jewelry and are sometimes found with locks of hair or ashes.
The crucifix is ebony wood and the beads are dyed green bone.
via Roses and Rue.
"If you think homosexuality is an unnatural condition, I cannot agree with you."
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Curated by Deanna Dahlsad
An opinionated woman obsessed with objects, entertained by ephemera, intrigued by researching, fascinated by culture & addicted to writing. The wind says my name; doesn't put an @ in front of it, so maybe you don't notice. http://www.kitsch-slapped.com
Other Topics
Antiques & Vintage Collectibles
Crimes Against Humanity
From lone gunmen on hills to mass movements. Depressing as hell, really.
Cultural History
The roots of culture; history and pre-history.
In The Name Of God
Mainly acts done in the name of religion, but also discussions of atheism, faith, & spirituality.
Kinsanity
Let's just say I have reasons to learn more about mental health, special needs children, psychology, and the like.
Nerdy Needs
The stuff of nerdy, geeky, dreams.
Readin', 'Ritin', and (Publishing) 'Rithmetic
The meaning behind the math of the bottom line in publishing and the media. For writers, publishers, and bloggers (which are a combination of the two).
Sex Positive
Sexuality as a human right.
Vintage Living Today For A Future Tomorrow
It's as easy to romanticize the past as it is to demonize it; instead, let's learn from it. More than living simply, more than living 'green', thrifty grandmas knew the importance of the 'economics' in Home Economics. The history of home ec, lessons in thrift, practical tips and ideas from the past focused on sustainability for families and out planet. Companion to http://www.thingsyourgrandmotherknew.com/
Visiting The Past
Travel based on grande ideas, locations, and persons of the past.
Walking On Sunshine
Stuff that makes me smile.
You Call It Obsession & Obscure; I Call It Research & Important
Links to (many of) my columns and articles.
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An interview with Gary Lachman, part of the band Blondie and author of Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality, a biography of the pioneering nineteenth-century spiritual figure H.P. Blavatsky (also known as HPB).
Book here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0087GJNX4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0087GJNX4&linkCode=as2&tag=glamkitllc-20