The Thaw is Very Flawed

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Readings From The Dead

Once upon a time, there was a rather prolific writer on rootworking and hoodoo by the name of Dorothy Spencer.  Never heard of her?  Perhaps you'd recognize her pen name.  Her pen name was Anna Riva.

If you are a member of the occult community, chances are you have heard of her.  Not only did she write lots of books, but she also had her own line of oils, incense, sachets, powders.  She retired around 2000 and sold the company to Indio Products, which split into two companies, a few years ago.  Wisdom Products for retail, it remains Indio for wholesale.  At least that is what their website says.  At any rate, the woman known as Anna Riva died in 2005 of advanced Alzheimer's disease.

Say what you will about her products.  Some people love them, other people hate them.  Then there are the fluffies who worry that her products and rituals might be evil with a creamy center.  Personally, I like some of the oils and hate others.  Some smell so awful it's crazy.  I used to live in an area where one of the local pagan shops bought her oils by the quart and rebottled them with the store name.  People who hated Anna Riva products on principle or their fears of hoodoo and voodoo raved about the oils this store sold.  I found it rather amusing, so I never opened my mouth about it around other customers.  But one day when it was just me and the employees in there, I did comment that the oils reminded me a lot of Anna Riva oils.  The staff got a bit flustered.  But all of that is beside the point.

The thing that has a bug up my butt at the moment is a flyer from Wisdom Products I was given yesterday.  It is a new flyer, flyer 2012-E.  I so wish I had a scanner so all of you could see this.

The top of the flyer asks you:

Is your mind driving you crazy?
Do you have questions and cannot find the right answers?
Is your spirituality challenged by a source higher than your knowledge?
Break the ice!... Clear your mind!... Find your path!

Then it great big letters it proclaims, "Ask Anna Riva."

In the bottom right hand corner in a red box it says in large text, "Anna Riva is a talented Wise Woman, creator of a line of Spiritual Products and world famous for her Vision.  She is also a renowned Author & Psychic."  (Capitalization is how it was done in the flyer.)

WTF?  She's been dead for around 8 years.  She would have to be one hell of a psychic to still be doing readings.  In my opinion, this is a marketing low.  Also, while it's a circular from Wisdom Products, who is Mara Worldwide?  I did a bit of looking around, while a tree on this site shows some relation to Indio Products, there seems to be no direct line drawn between either company?  And who is Brooke Beyer?  I can't find this person online at all.  Obviously this person is in some way paying to use Anna Riva's name.  On the back of the circular, there are books to order from Wisdom.  Which makes them sleazy in my opinion, licensing out the name to lead on gullible people.  Also, the circular came straight from Wisdom Products.

This circular has a list of 80 common questions that you can ask the person or computer posing as Anna Riva.  It claims that due to overwhelming response, Miss Riva, who is dead, can only answer the pre-printed questions.  Some of the questions are the ones that anyone who works as a reader hears all the time:

Does the person I love love me?
Should I break it off or surrender?
Will I have children?
Should I marry the person I'm thinking of marrying?
How do I cope with my boss?

Run of the mill questions.  Then there are some really odd questions and some that are downright disturbing. I'd like to address some of those.  Such as:

Why is my significant other frigid?

This is a question for a doctor, not a psychic.  There are so many reasons someone can lose desire.  In women, menopause is a big factor.  There is also the stress of being expected to be a wife, mother and homemaker, while holding down a full time job.  If this is the case, if you want to turn her on, send her out for a spa day while you do the cooking and cleaning.  Can't cook?  Take her to dinner instead.  If her frigidity is something that came on slowly and isn't a physical problem, then YOU are the problem.

Why don't I enjoy sex?

This is another question for your doctor.  If this is something that has been going on your entire adult life, see a doctor.  If it's something that is happening with your current partner and has never happened before, chances are your current partner sucks in bed.  But you should see a doctor anyway, not be asking a dead woman.

Will my significant other stop abusing me?

This question disturbs me.  If you want your spouse to stop abusing you, pack up their stuff, change the locks and get a restraining order.  Then visit a good divorce lawyer.  Remove the DOORMAT tattoo from your forehead and stop putting up with the abuse.  No amount of prayer is going to stop an abuser from abusing.  I don't care how much you love this person, you obviously have little respect or love for yourself if you're allowing abuse to continue.  This is NOT a question for a psychic, especially not a dead psychic.  This is a question of finding your inner strength and being your own person.  This is a question of finding a good lawyer before you're tempted to do something that will make you a candidate for an episode of Snapped or Wives with Knives.  If someone is abusing you, get out.  I know you want to hear that the abuser will stop, that you pray for the abuser to stop.  But abusers enjoy the power they get from the abuse.  Get out.  Get out before one of you ends up maimed or dead.

Why are my children abusive towards me?

Gee, are they the children you have with your abusive significant other?  If so, they have learned from example, especially if they are the same gender as your abuser.  This is something you might want to take up with social services.  Especially if your children are grown and you're elderly.  Elder abuse is against the law in most places.  If these kids are spoiled brat teenagers, force them to go to counseling.  Family counseling might help.  But if you let them be brats all their lives and now as teenagers they're being evil, you can pretty much bet they aren't going to change.  Also, teenagers tend to have little respect for a parent who stays in an abusive relationship.  However, once again, this isn't a question for a psychic.  It is a question for a mental health professional.

Why don't I ever have any money?

Chances are, this is a question for a financial advisor, especially if you have a good job.  You could be over extended.  You could be using your credit cards way too much.  You could have a crap job.  Or, you could be wasting tons of money asking dead women questions when you get circulars like this.

Will I change jobs?

This is a question I get a lot as a reader.  Before I even shuffle the deck and lay out one card, I ask straight out if the person asking me this is bothering to send out resumes or even apply for other jobs.  If the answer is no, there is no point in even looking at the cards and I bid them good day.  If the answer is yes, I will proceed with the reading.  However, if you are determined to find a new job, you are going to find one, even if it takes a year.  If you're serious and you are a business professional, you might want to ask a headhunter if they have anything for you.  But if you're not even bothering to look, you are going to be stuck where you are.

Will my life be more exciting?

This is not a question for a dead psychic.  This is a question of common sense.  This is a question of getting up from in front of the TV or computer and actually going out and doing something to make your life more exciting.  Oh, you don't like to do things by yourself?  Then you're never going to make any new friends.  Don't just wish you could be doing something like bungee jumping, go out and do it.  No one is going to knock on your door lost and needing a phone or broken down and needing a phone who is going to add excitement to your life.  Unless it's someone looking to stage a home invasion.  But that's not the kind of excitement most people are looking for.  You need to make your own excitement.  We all do.  If you wait for excitement to come to you, chances are it's not going to be the kind you're looking for.

Why am I so afraid?

This is a question for your doctor, especially if you have no reason to be afraid.  It could be an anxiety disorder.  99% of the time, it is some form of anxiety.  Not an omen, not a curse, but an actual medical problem.  See your doctor, not a psychic who is rotting in her grave.

Should I believe what the doctor is telling me?

The fact this question is on the list gives me chills.  Chills of a bad kind.  I do understand there are some terrible doctors out there who couldn't diagnose an ingrown toenail properly.  However, there is a little something called a second opinion.  If you got bad news that you are questioning, get a second opinion, especially if it's something bad.  Nine times out of ten you should believe your doctor, especially if it's a good doctor.  If the tests come back with something chronic and easily treated, take your medication.  If it's some rare disease, get a second opinion.  But if say that lump in your breast comes back as suspicious on a mammogram and the biopsy says it's cancer, get treatment before you end up as dead as Anna Riva.

How can I protect myself from an ex-lover?

This is a police matter, not a dead psychic matter.  Restraining order.  Have the ex arrested every single time he or she violates the order, instead of being a doormat and letting them in to talk.  Document every threatening call, every threatening text, every threatening email.  The police in most municipalities take these things very seriously.

How can I protect myself from an abusive spouse?

This is a legal matter.  Have the spouse arrested.  While the spouse is in jail, call friends, gather some money and pack up your stuff and get out.  Make sure your friends don't tell the abuser where you are.  If you're a woman, there are shelters to help you escape from an abusive situation in most areas.  There are restraining orders and divorce lawyers.  Social services might be able to help you.  If you get a restraining order, do not allow the abuser to violate it.  The best protection against an abusive spouse is to leave that spouse and if need be, press charges.

How can I protect myself from immigration authorities?

This is a question for an immigration lawyer.  But you might want to make sure you're in a sanctuary city.
Also, don't get involved in gangs, drugs, prostitution or any other fast money plot that can get you arrested.  You might also want to stay out of Arizona if you're illegal and brown.  You need to use common sense, not ask someone posing as a dead woman.

Why am I sick all the time?

Not a question for a psychic.  This is a question for a doctor.  I'm willing to bet that if you used this form and sent in this as one of the circled questions, you would get something about being under spiritual attack and hey, buy this product and you will feel better.  No.  Go to the doctor.  Go into detail about your symptoms.  Go into detail about how often you are sick.  Tests can be done to see if there is an underlying cause.  Then something can be done to make you feel better.  You need a doctor, not a feel good reading.

What can I do to lose weight?

Eat less, eat the proper foods, stay away from prepackaged microwave meals.  Exercise.  Get your fat behind off the couch and go for a walk every night after dinner.  If eating less, eating the right foods and exercise doesn't work, go to  the doctor and get your thyroid checked.  Keep a food diary and see just what you ingest in a day.  Eat fruits and vegetables.  Fresh fruits, not the stuff packed in heavy syrup.  Fresh or frozen vegetables, not that garbage in cans that is loaded with salt, which will cause you to retain water.  Sensible diet and exercise.  This is something you  need common sense for, not a dead woman.

Why do I abuse drugs and/or alcohol?

This is one of the questions that really disturbed me when I saw it.  Addiction is a serious matter.  You need a doctor.  You also need a therapist.  Alcoholism is a physical disease and it can be hereditary.  So if there is a long line of alcoholism in your family, you probably inherited it.  An addictive personality is not something you can get over by a quick detox.  You are going to need to work with your doctor and a therapist.  This is a question for a medical professional and a mental health professional.  Addictions tend to be a physical craving.  Cold turkey is just going to cause you to crave the substances of your choice more.  Work with doctors, don't go looking for psychic answers.

Why am I so depressed?

Not a question for a psychic, especially not a dead psychic.  It could very well be organic depression.  See your doctor, get a referral to a psychiatrist.  See if you have something that can be treated.  If you have a brain chemical imbalance, you are going to be chronically depressed.  A psychiatrist will be able to tell if you actually have a disease, or if you're an emo who will grow out of it.  You need a doctor for depression.  Depression can also be an underlying cause of something else.  Go to the doctor, go through the process and put in the effort to get better.

Those are the questions that really annoyed me.  Most are run of the mill, but those really are the ones where common sense should tell you to seek help from an actual professional.  Taking the advice of someone running a scam using the name of a dead woman could be dangerous in these situations.

So, how much is this scam service?  You can get 12 questions answered for $15.  You can get 5 questions answered for $10.  Add $2 shipping and handling, $5 for priority mail and also for foreign orders.  If you want more than 12 questions answered, you can add $1 per question.  Sounds like a bargain, right?  Not when it's being done in the name of a dead woman.

But wait!  There's more!  On the next page, we discover they are working this woman hard from beyond the grave.  Not only is she sending messages from the beyond to answer your questions, (as long as they're on the list,) but she is writing horoscopes too!  That not having to eat, sleep, shower, etc. because you're dead means she can work 24/7 and not complain about no time off!  On the very next page, you can order a personalized horoscope for the year.  Since she's dead, she can give you a detailed hand written horoscope for the next 12 months for only $14.99!  A bargain, as the dead have no use for money.  They also just need your birth date, not the place or time of birth, unlike those pesky still living astrologers.  I'm sure not one bit of it is computer generated.  Nope.  Not one word is created using a program akin to anything on this list.  Nope.  She is using the ephemeris of the gods and plotting everything by hand.  I'm sure she is.

Ain't Superstitious

Lately, I've been hitting up against some major superstitions in the spiritual community.  By lately, I mean in the last three or four years.  Most of them I had never heard of before moving away from the East Coast.  Some are downright strange and others make my head want to go "Scanners."  It has gotten me thinking lately about even the more run of the mill superstitions that people have.  So I'd like to address a few, giving my personal opinion.  Let's start with run of the mill.

1.  You must never speak ill of the dead.  Really?  What about Ted Bundy?  John Wayne Gacy?  Charles Starkweather?  Jeffery Dahmer?  Should we call them stand up guys because they're all dead?  Let's take it a step further.  Stalin.  Hitler.  Pol Pot.  Bin Laden.  Yeah, let's change the history books to not say anything bad about them because they're dead.

If you were evil in life, why shouldn't someone mention that evil in death?  What's going to happen?  You're going to get a strike with whatever deity you believe in, because you didn't say nice things about raging sociopaths?  We should feel sorry for them because they're dead?  It reminds me of being a young child and seeing Moms Mabley on some show.  She said, "They say you shouldn't say nothin' about the dead unless it's good. He's dead. Good!"

That about sums it up for me when talking about someone who was hideous in life.

2. Opening an umbrella indoors is bad luck.  OK, I can sort of see this if it's a small room.  You could take someones eye out.  Also, opening it before you try to get out the door can lead to the umbrella breaking.  However, the Dictionary of Superstitions published in 1989 by Oxford University Press claims the superstition is if you open it indoors and hold it over your head, someone in the house will die before the year is out.  This is very silly.  I would think people would be over this one by now.  If you have a house with a storm porch, think of the number of times you have left an open umbrella there to dry.  That is technically indoors.  Think of all the old Hollywood movies filmed on a sound stage where umbrellas were called for in a scene.  Not all movies had the budget of "Singing In The Rain" where they could take an outdoor back-lot set and cover it with tarps and stick sprinklers in those tarps.  However, doesn't that technically make the outdoor setting an inside setting?  Chances are, you don't want to open an umbrella in the house because it is large enough to break something.  This is one I had to try out as a child.  No one in my house died for years upon years.  So it's very silly.

3. Step on a crack and you break your mother's back.  How many mothers have had to endure their children stepping on cracks and announcing it proudly?  My mother always thought we wanted her dead when we did that.  Nope.  It was a 6 year-old foray into scientific inquiry.  It occurred to me that it was easy to not step on a crack if it was a well-maintained sidewalk.  But what about sidewalks where trees are growing up and cracking them, in terrible disrepair, to the point where crumbling is the next step?  While I'd like to think that this superstition started as a way to tell kids to watch their steps on dangerous sidewalks, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry gives a racist origin.

4.  If you count the cars in a funeral procession, that's how many years you have left to live.  Cool! The last funeral procession where I counted the cars, (it occurs to me I haven't seen one since I moved to my current city,) had over 120 cars in it.  Not to mention the police escorts.  That was about three years ago, so I've got at least 117 years left!  I never did find out who they were burying that day as I sat at a bus stop and watched the procession.  I'd like to think they were all friends and family of the deceased and not people who wanted to make sure that person was dead.  That said, this is a silly superstition.  I've been counting cars in processions since childhood, when I was first told it was a bad thing to do.  If this superstition held up, I would have been dead by 15.  However, I must insist on living another 120 years, thank you.

5. It's bad luck to put shoes on a table or a bed.  I can sort of get behind this one.  I don't want your shoes that have been outside stepping in who knows what on my table where I eat.  Ever hear of cross-contamination?  I also don't want your skanky shoes on my bed where I sleep.  Who knows what germs are on them?  This superstition is associated with both death and bad luck.  Back when it started in the Dark Ages, no one knew about bacteria or anything of the sort.  So you've been out all day cleaning the stables, come home and stick your boots on the table to clean them and then eat dinner off the table, yeah, you were definitely risking the galloping crud.  I don't consider this one to be bad luck as much as I do bad hygiene.  Also, cobblers have tables where they work to create the shoes.  I've never heard of a time in history where all the cobblers in the world suddenly died from having their work on their tables.

6.  A black cat crossing your path is bad luck.  What if you own a black cat?  It will cross your path on a daily basis.  There is an old saying about all cats being black in the dark.  So if you're walking at night on an ill lit sidewalk or road, you have no idea what color that cat is, as it's going to appear black.  No one seems to be sure where this rumor started.  However, in Japan it's considered good luck and gamblers will use Black Cat Oil to try to increase their luck.  So this is definitely one where your culture plays a role.  Having two ten month old kittens, I have to say, when a kitten crosses your path, chances are it's to see if they can knock you over.  Especially if she's a calico.

7. Thirteen is an unlucky number.  This seems to have its roots in both Norse and Christian lore.  Loki was the thirteenth, uninvited guest at a dinner and Balder ended up dead.  There were thirteen at the last supper and Jesus ended up dead.  People still believe this is an unlucky number.  Buildings are still being built with no 13th floor.  Well, the 13th floor is actually  marked as the 14th floor.  Like it or not if your room is on that floor, you are only fooling yourself if you suffer from triskaidekaphobia.  People have been mocking this myth for at least 200 years.  The Society of Eccentrics   had their first Friday the 13th dinner in the 1780s.  The Thirteen Club had their first dinner in 1894 and opened umbrellas at the dinner, put 13 at a table, invited bad luck.  These dinners have been revived, no harm seems to happen to anyone who attends, yet the superstition remains.

8.  Walking under a ladder is bad luck.  Well, yes and no.  Look up before walking under a ladder.  If someone is up there with a can of paint or a nail gun, it might be in your best interests to walk around it.  If someone is up there in general, it's a good idea to walk around it, as you don't want it to be bad luck for that person if you tip it over.  But if nothing is going to fall on your head and you're not going to strand someone on the roof if you tip the ladder, go for it.  Nothing will happen to you.

Those are just a few general bad luck superstitions.  If I went on, we'd be here for weeks.  There are equally silly superstitions in the spiritual community.  Here are a few of them.

1. Never buy your own tarot cards, it's bad luck.  I had never heard that one before a few years ago, when I moved to the Lower Midwest for a few years.  But everyone seemed to believe that.  Which led me to investigate why people believe something that silly.  From what I can gather, it dates to when the anti-witchcraft and anti-fortune telling laws were in effect in various places.  So while certain stores would sell cards, the owner could be arrested for selling to an undercover cop.  If you wanted a deck, you needed to know someone who knew someone.  Who would take you to the store, buy you the deck and then present it to you as a gift.  That way, the store knew you were cool and not a narc.  That is one story I've heard and the most plausible.  My feelings on the subject are, it's only bad luck if you believe it.  These days, the choices aren't nearly as limited as 70 years ago, which seems to be about how far back that superstition goes.  You need a deck that speaks to you in some way.  A deck you are drawn to.  What if you're drawn to say Tarot of the Moon Garden, but your friends have convinced you of this rumor and insist on buying you your first deck and they get you the Necronomicon Tarot?  Buy your own decks.  It's not bad luck.  If you can, find a shop where you can browse sample cards before buying.  That way you will know if you are into that deck or not.  Personally, if I waited for a deck to be gifted to me, I'd still be waiting.

2. An inverted pentacle is the sign of a Satanist and only bad, bad people wear them!  Let me get this straight.  You're claiming to be a high priestess in a traditional Wicca coven and you've never heard of second degree initiation?  (When you're done explaining that, tell me more about how you managed to become an 18 year-old high priestess.)  The inverted or upside down pentacle is used as a symbol of the second degree in Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca.  It has to do with facing the darkness, so you don't become some fluffer-nutter who is so scared of the dark that all you can see is light at midnight during a blackout, because you've burnt out your retinas staring into the light for so long.  It is a sign of balance.  It represents the Horned God, who you claim to worship, but you can't get your mind to think outside of some 1980s hair band album cover.  Considering the Horned God is supposed to represent logic, you fluffies who believe inverted = bad need to gather some logic.  Because your insane rantings about Satan make you sound as crazy as fundamentalists who insist the Catholic Church is a Satanic organization because of the use of St. Peter's Cross.

3. Never burn a red candle and a black candle together!  It will bring forth demons!  The first time I heard this, I just thought the person who said it was being weird.  Then I heard it a few more times.  None of the people who have told me this can explain why then there are red and black double action candles, or why the traditional reversing candle is a red core, dipped in layers of black.  These are used for unhexing.  The use of red and black candles together is present in a number of traditions.  I even had someone tell me once that I would bring forth Leviathan if I burned those colors together.  When I pointed out to her that she didn't believe in biblical monsters, she hung up on me.  For some reason, this color combination scares the crap out of certain pagans.  I have heard everything from they will summon demons, even if that's not your intention; to both being negative colors!

If you need to reverse bad luck, don't freak out about the black and red double action and/or reversing candles.  Keep in mind, they were around long before people started acting all weird about burning those colors together and they will exist for as long as candle magic is being done.

4.  All psychics are lightworkers, whether they realize it or not!  This is one that makes me want to slam my head into a wall or into the pavement, so I don't have to listen to the stupid.  This seems to be part of the mix and match stuff people who follow whatever New Age thing that is trendy latch onto.  Lightworker is a term that while according to the OED started being used in the 1800s, it really became popular through the I AM/Ascended Masters movement.  From there, it has been twisted, reshaped and turned into something it is not.  Some pages, such as Lightworker.org will tell you that EVERYONE is a lightworker, whether they know it or not.  Yet other pages go on about darkworkers.  There is no middle ground, just black and white, with no shades of gray or color in between.  Most of what you find online will lead you places such as the St. Germain Society, which is the Guy Ballard founded Ascended Masters group, or to some UFO/doomsday cult, as they seem to be taking over the movement.  Most of the UFO group sites will take you to the pages of people who believe Arcturus, a rogue red giant in our galaxy, is where we were all born and the aliens are going to come back to claim us.  The simple fact Arcturus is a red giant makes that a bit impossible, as red giants cannot sustain life.  The fate of our own sun in about 4.5 billion years will be to swell into a red giant and engulf the inner planets.  So if there are any Arcturians out there on a space ship, they're lost in space at this point and I'm not sure Robot is there to scream at them, "danger!"

I openly admit, I am not a lightworker or a darkworker.  I work in the center.  I find to embrace only light or only dark to be incredibly unbalanced.  Very  little in life is as black and white as a newspaper.  There are the shades of gray and the entire spectrum in between.  As people have been moving away from using the terms white witch/black witch, white magic/black magic, the lightworker and darkworker seems to be taking their place.  It galls me that people don't understand what it means, but insist on using the terms.  If you belong to the I AM/Ascended Masters movement, then yes, you have the right to use these terms.  But do NOT label those who don't belong to your movement, who don't believe in your "Source" and who are just living their lives as they see fit. I do wish some of you would stop staring into the light so constantly, you're going to burn out your retinas.  Find a bit of balance, before you end up like one of the gurus of your movement, Elizabeth Clare Prophet.  She spent her final years in that fortified compound in Montana, getting her followers to stockpile guns, because the world was ending.  Sadly, too many of the groups out there now have taken up her doomsday scenario, instead of admitting to themselves she was suffering from dementia brought on by Alzheimer's.

5. Never use a Ouija board!  It's evil!  Eeeeeviiil!  The Ouija board is made by Parker Brothers.  It is a popular toy.  I had one as a kid, so did most of my friends.  We managed to scare ourselves with it, but we never brought forth demons, ghouls, poltergeists, etc.  Use Google and you will find site after site, both fundamentalist Christian and pagan telling you never, ever use a Ouija board.  There are horror movies based on the Ouija board.  There are websites dedicated to people telling their horror stories about contacting something evil with the board.

At the same time, there are people who are designing their own boards, calling them witch boards or spirit boards.  Some people can work the things, other people don't even realize they're moving the planchette.  In most cases, someone is moving it unconsciously.  How do I feel about the Ouija board?  It's cardboard and plastic.  You can make your own with a piece of paper and use a coin as a planchette.  Do that and see how the answers you get are something you already knew, or something you're really hoping for, or really scared of.  Basically, if you believe you're going to contact a spirit, you are going to move the planchette in a way where you convince yourself you are talking to a spirit.  The same goes for demons, ghoulies, etc.  If you don't believe me, watch this segment from Penn & Teller: Bullshit.  Especially the part where they get the Hollywood tourists to use the board.  See if you still believe it's pure evil after that.  (Please note:  If you are part of the fluffy love and light brigade who is going to watch that segment and get their noses out of joint for the snark thrown into the segment and the language Penn Jillette uses, or scream that they're bias because they're atheists, you are missing the point.  It also says you put your beliefs over the beliefs or lack thereof of others.  In other words, you choose to believe what you want to believe and aren't interested in any other side of the story or investigation.  In which case, go find a cheerleader blog to read.)

6. You should never take money for readings, only gifts.  Those who work in the spiritual field are meant to be poor.  The very same people who will tell you this have no problem paying for a reading in a metaphysical supply shop.  Or saving up to have a reading with someone like Sylvia Browne, who is far from poor and charges hundreds of dollars for a half hour reading.  But if you work independently, you hear all the time about how you're not supposed to charge for your gifts.  Christians will tell you it's against the Bible, Wiccans will tell you it's against the rules.  And it is against Gerald Gardner's 161 Laws.  However, admitting to practicing Wicca is also against the same rules.  So to be running around wearing a pentacle the size of one of Flava Flav's clock necklaces, proclaiming to be more Wicca than thou while screaming it's evil to take money for a reading is cherry picking.  I have heard people say, just tell clients like this that they're paying for your time, not the reading.  But as this is a line that is used in the escort business, it's not something I'm going to say, because I don't feel I am a spiritual prostitute working as a reader.  I  provide a service and people pay me for that service.  I actually had someone tell me once, it was OK for me to do it, because I wasn't making a lot of money.  But it's bad for those who make money at it to do it.  It is odd reasoning in my opinion.  You are doing work and you are getting a wage for it.

Spiritual work takes a lot out of the person performing the work.  It can leave you limp and listless for days, especially if that work is for a psychic vampire.  Spiritual centers run almost completely on donations.  So do a lot of churches.  But I find it odd that people who say the smaller spiritual centers are supposed to be poor have no problem whatsoever with mega-churches.  All in all, people expect those who do spiritual work to either marry well, or be like Cate Blanchette in "The Gift".  In other words, both cases are Hollywood perceptions of those who do spiritual work.  Then these same people make anyone who has written a feel-good book rich.  It's fuzzy logic in my opinion.

I will say when getting spiritual work done, such as an egg cleansing, or getting a reading, it can definitely be a case of buyer beware.  You need to go with your gut.  Someone who is skilled with a cleansing isn't going to send you home with an egg to sleep with under your pillow and crack it open in a poorly lit room, slipping a piece of pumpernickel in to make it look like blood and a curse.  Someone who is on the up and up isn't going to bilk you out of money to remove a curse either.  Nor are they going to go on about Jesus and praying with them and getting offended if you tell them you're not Christian.  You get my drift, I'm sure.  On the other end of the spectrum, someone offering you real spiritual guidance isn't going to treat you like something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe if you are passing out and need to leave the sweat lodge.    Keep in mind, just because someone claims to be poor or appears to be rich isn't a guide for how spiritual they are.  If you really believed money was evil, you'd be spending more time listening to that homeless guy who spouts his philosophy to anyone who will listen over a man with his collar on backwards, or some self-help guru who has sold over 1,000,000 copies.  The poverty mentality is a myth and one that has to disappear from the spiritual community.

7. Karma is going to get you!  The western view of karma is not the original meaning of the word.  While it has to do with cause and effect, it is not if you break up with that obsessed girl, you're going to get yours.  Karma has nothing to do with her stalking you after the break up.  As a matter of fact, as karma is a build up of deeds and actions from past lives and this life, that break up with her could very well be her paying for karma from a past life.  If you live a life that seems cursed, if you believe in karma, you have to face the fact that you might not have been a very nice person in past lives and now you are paying the price.  It does not mean that if your college roommate tends to steal your food, that roommate will be fat in ten years, because karma is going to get them.  Or if some guy breaks up with you, karma will make sure all his future relationships are bad.  Karma has some darker implications that we in the west really don't want to think about.  Such as, if a child is born handicapped in some way, the eastern belief is that child has a karmic debt to pay.  If you even suggest that in western culture, you are a bad, evil person.  If your boyfriend beats you and you stay and put up with it, because you think he's your soulmate, well, soulmate indicates past lives with that person.  Which means, as far as karma goes, you probably did something really bad to him in a past life, so you are being beaten by him now, because you deserve it. If you're poor and hungry and end up starving to death, that could mean you were the food stealing roommate in a past life.  So we in the west have cleaned it up to mean you will get yours, if you act like a bastard.  Because no one wants to deal with the idea that a child being beaten and starved and not allowed out of the basement is a victim of past life karma.  Karma in its purest sense is kind of disturbing.

While in a way, karma is like Newton's Third Law of Motion, with past lives thrown in.  Karma says we all get the lives we deserve.  So yeah, karma does get you, but not in the way people in the west believe.  According to karma, if you're suffering in this life through no fault of your own, you deserve it.

8. All followers of Norse Tradition/Heathenry are white supremacists.  Um, yeah.  And Anton LaVey was a theistic Satanist.

This is another one that makes me want to bang my head on my desk or into a wall.  Yes, a good number of neo-Nazi groups have adopted Germanic Heathenry, as they feel, oh, who knows.  The gods are all lily white?  But while they're giving heathenry a bad name, there are groups out there trying to fight the racist label that the alarmists are giving the entire movement.  I live in Southern New Mexico and I can tell you, there are a number of people of Mexican descent around here who are practicing heathenry and dangling Thor's hammer from their necks.  A number of white supremacists are also Christian.  Does that mean all of Christianity is a white power movement?  There is a lot of misinformation out there.  Even this site, which tends to defend religions, says Asatru is good, Odinism is racist.  Sadly, there aren't enough pages like this, which seek to dispel that myth.  There are minorities in heathenry.  To say otherwise is an attitude born of ignorance.

9. All pagans are liberals.  Which one might suppose, but it is far from the truth.  There are quite a few conservatives in neo-paganism and even more who believe weird right-wing conspiracy theories.  If you don't believe me, go to some public gathering near where you live and start talking about something like chemtrails or FEMA death camps, or your favorite conspiracy theory.  You will be surprised at how many actually believe these things.  You'd also be surprised at how many pagans on disability want to do away with social programs for everyone else.  Or the ones who talk about altruism, but vote against any candidate who believes in it.  Or who go on about protecting nature, but vote for candidates who want to end any and all regulations on businesses.  While it boggles the mind when someone announces they are voting for a candidate who wants to turn this country into a Christian theocracy, it does happen.  Usually among the group that feels income taxes are illegal.  (Which they are not.  Which they would know if they bothered to read the U.S. Constitution.)

I realize there are far more myths than these.  If I were to write about all of them, I would be here a week.  So those are the myths for this post.

May All That Is Holy Help Me, I Watched Part 2

I finally brought myself to watch the second half of that Michael Tsarion video.  Allow me to share the pain.




I went back and watched the tail end of the first one, to remember what he was talking about at the start of this one.  Basically, he is reading from someone else's website and well, all but worshiping at the altar of Terence McKenna.

He goes on to say that psychics haven't been able to see past 12/21/12.  I have to say, those are some crappy psychics.  I have to wonder if they're psychic at all, or just those who hear voices and go untreated and also buy into all this 12/21 nonsense.  I really do take issue with those in the psychic community who are being alarmist about this, as the ones who are alarmists tend to exhibit paranoid qualities.

Then he goes on to say that there are no Mayan horoscopes for after that day, that 12/21/12 is the last horoscope.  OK, it's also the end of the calendar.  So the next reading would be for the new round of the calendar, right?  It's like saying there are no more horoscopes in the newspaper because the person who writes them only wrote them so far in advance.  So when they hand in the advance columns, the world ends on the day after the last column they wrote.  It is stupid and any one of the myriad Mayan astrology websites out there will give you information for days after the 21st.  As a matter of fact, the horoscope he claims for the 21st actually gets repeated again in 2013, according to websites.

From here, he makes more claims he pulled from various websites, that we have heard before.  12 strands of DNA, 13 chakras, all of this happens now!  So by Monday, these are all claims debunked by doctors.  But I doubt that will stop him, as he insists on claiming the old myth, we only use 10% of our brains is true.

Then he goes on about a doctor named George Washington Crile.  He worked at the Cleveland Laboratories at once point.  He was a pioneering doctor, so he's a bit more than a footnote in history.  But he had a hypothesis, that each cell had a nucleus that was between  3,000° and 6,000° C.  About the only reference I can find to this is an old article from 1932 from Time Magazine.  I can't find anything that says it's true, other than New Age sites that quote that very article.  As a result, I'm going to assume that his hypothesis was false.  I think we would all know if each of our cells had a nucleus that was burning at that temperature.

Next he goes on about extremely low frequency signals and brain waves.  Doing a Google search on those terms, know what I got?  Conspiracy websites about the government trying to program our brains.  So let's put on our tin foil hats and move to the next part.

Next is a claim from some guy named Steven Hanaeur, who claims the Mayan calendar was not just based on galactic cycles but on our DNA?  He's a metaphysical teacher somewhere in North Carolina and well, at this point it's pretty obvious that Tsarion just did a web search, found pages that he felt backed up his insane claims and went with them, including authors you can't find information on, such as Mr. Hanauer.

We are so not in the photon belt anymore.  Now he's on about magnetic pole reversal.  Not something that is known to happen overnight.  The poles drift and shift all the time, well, the magnetic poles, that is.  But don't recalibrate your compass just yet.  This is something that can take thousands of years.  We so won't be around for it.

YES!  HAARP conspiracies are next!  He actually quotes a book named, "HAARP, The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy."  Now the evil government is going to project holograms of gods and demons in the sky today?  You know, if Jesus ever does come back, all the conspiracy theorists are going to insist it's a HAARP hologram to control our minds, it's not the real Jesus.  HAARP doesn't do any of the crap these people claim.  As a matter of fact, every few years, they hold an open house where the public can come see the set up, get a tour and ask questions.  If it was really so nefarious, would they do that?  But more to the point, he slips in a reference to children of the Nephalim?  Breaking through the stargate?  The children of the Nephalim are tyrants?  WTF is this guy on?

NOOOOOOOO!  The video ends there, meaning...  There is a part three.  I'm going to cry now.

We are less than an hour from sunrise in the Yucatan Peninsula.  Which is when the alignment is supposed to happen to usher in the end of the world.  Nibiru is going to swing around from the sun and defy all laws of physics and crash into us!  Asteroids are going to come pounding down!  Our DNA is going to change as we move into pure light in the photon belt!  Earthquakes!  Volcanoes!  Wait, no major earthquakes or volcanoes overnight?  Well damn, this is going to be yet another boring doomsday, isn't it?

But I'm still going to have to watch part three before the person who posted it takes it down out of embarrassment   Just to listen to the insanity.  Or not.  Maybe I'll just go for end of the world pancakes.

The WHAT Belt?

I seriously can't believe I haven't posted anything for most of the year.  I've started posts, I have a bunch of unfinished posts.  My mind just ends up trailing off, as my train of thought derails.

It is December, 2012.  So far, most of the end of the world crowd seems mostly quiet, at least on Facebook.  The forums at 2012 Hoax seem to be jumping, with people who are scared and people who are there to try to put their fears to rest.  But there is also a new thing.  Of course.

I am starting to see the 12/12/12 posts.  How it's the last synchronistic date we will see in our lifetimes. Um, what about 3/13/13?  Or 4/14/14?  Or do these people think the world is ending on the 21st?  I think dates that are anagrams are much more fun than repeating dates.

Synchronistic dates might be fun to write on a check, or even notice.  But they have no bearing on luck, they aren't mystical, they just are.  Unless we skip dates, they have to happen.  They will turn up in the simple progression of the calendar.

But the apocalyptic crowd is still out there.  Some of the claims about the 21st are beyond bizarre.

Such as, dark rift.  We aren't going to be passing through the nebulous clouds that block light from other parts of the galaxy, but the claims are the sun will align with the dark rift.  Would someone please tell me how aligning with a nebulous cloud will cause catastrophe on the planet?  It makes no sense.  Also, that alignment won't even be happening on the 21st.  This has also been happening since about 1970 and will continue for about another hundred years.  We align with these clouds every year, as in, the nebulous clouds, the sun and the Earth are in a straight line.  This has been happening every year since 1970.  Why would 2012 make things any different?

The one I just heard of is about a so-called photon belt.  A what?  Photons are particles of light.  Light moves in a straight line and keeps moving in that straight line.  But among those who are into the Pleiadian alien myths, this is going to happen.

See, this photon belt is circling a star called Alcyone in the Pleiades.  Or, depending on who you listen to, the photon belt circles all the Pleiades.  This information comes from those who claim to channel the Pleiadian aliens.  The photon belt was first claimed to exist by an engineer by the name of Paul Otto Hess, back in a book he wrote in 1950.  Since then, the alien crowds have been running with it.

The claim Hess made in his book was, if the Earth enters the photon belt first, eh, no biggie.  There will be a great light show.  But if the Sun enters first, watch out.  Solar flares will kill us all.

What bothers me about that statement is, why would the Earth, which is miniscule compared to the sun, manage to shield the sun from the supposed harmful effects of photons?  Also, since when do solar flares kill?  They have been known to cause power interruptions, but for the most part, they give us an amazing light show in the form of the aurora borealis.

Photons are simply particles of light.  We are bombarded by them every day.  Stars create most of the light that throws photons out into space.  So why would a photon belt, if one could even exist, be so harmful?

This hypothetical photon belt could exist, sort of.  If it was circling a black hole.  Not even light can escape a black hole and at the event horizon, everything starts spinning in a big spiral, until he finally reaches the point where it will be eaten by the black hole.  If the star Alcyone was a black hole, physicists would know it, as it's only about 370 light years away.  Which is another thing.  How could we enter a hypothetical circle of light that is 370 light years away in such a short time?  The light from Alcyone by now would be that of near another sun.  It would be beyond bright if we were that close.  Also, none of the stars would look right.  And we all know what the stars not aligning properly would mean.  Cthulhu and the elder gods.

However, science fact tells us the solar system is moving away from Alcyone.  Not closer.  There is zero chance of us hitting this supposed photon belt, no matter what the Pleiadian crowd tells you.

The beliefs of the Pleiadian crowd are insane.  They show that these people are duping those with a complete and utter ignorance of science.  I refuse to call these people stupid, because some very smart people want to believe in aliens coming to save us, want to believe these things.  However, their intelligence and knowledge is not in science.

You Tube is full of videos preying on these people.  The language used is all from the I AM/Ascended Masters movement.  These are people who are big on supposed channeling of the masters, of aliens, of whatever.  Fantasy seems to invade these channeling sessions regularly.  I'm not saying everyone is channeling only their inner fears and fantasies, but a number of them are.  When they do claim to be channeling Pleiadians, we are supposed to believe a race so much more advanced than we are and who can contact us Earthlings are so ignorant of the physics of the universe that they get the science wrong?  They've mastered interstellar travel, but are completely clueless about physics?

My big problem with all these movements is, the knowledge of science is stuck in the early 20th century, if even that advanced.  The following video makes some really insane claims.  How we are all beings of light.  No, we're not.  We are made of matter.  In my opinion, the entire being of light thing is based on someone misunderstanding when a science teacher told them in the most basic terms how we are all made of stardust.

Or not.  The video explains that when we go into the photon belt, we will lose our corporal bodies.  Well, considering the only real thing out there that would classify as a photon belt would be within event horizon of a black hole, that might be right.  As matter approaches a black hole, it stretches out in a process that is actually called spaghettification.  But we won't become beings of light, we won't be visiting the fourth dimension.

It also claims that we pass through the photon belt all the time.  No.  We would all be dead if we were on the event horizon of a black hole.  However, if you're paying attention, you will see that claim of spending time in the photon belt every month directly contradicts the claims of the guy who came before.

This video also has the nerve to call Jose Arguelles a researcher.  The dude was a writer who realized he would get rich quick off people whose egos won't allow them to understand how insignificant we are in the Universe.  He was in no way a scientist.  He especially wasn't an astrophysicist.  I'm not even touching the faulty biology in this.  Or how there are people who are among us who are really in the fourth dimension. (Where there are sixteen corners to have to clear out cobwebs, instead of just four.)  Or how all religion is from outer space.  Or the Illuminati crap.  But watch it.  If you want a laugh.  If you take it seriously though, you are on the wrong blog.  Thankfully, while the guy who is going on about the Illuminati is talking, the video cuts off.




Wait.  I AM going to discuss a bit of the faulty biology in this.  Our DNA and RNA are not going to replicate in the same fashions?  So our DNA is going to mutate?  Know what happens to people whose DNA mutates?  They get sick!  Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Disease and a host of other things are caused by DNA mutations.


Then we have this asshole.  Michael Tsarion is a hack and a sham and this video will make your brain explode.




He doesn't understand what the word photonics means.  It is the study and use of light, such as in fiber optics.  That is the most basic definition.  So I have to ask...  Photonic radiation?  You mean x-rays and radio waves?  Photonic energy is the highest form of light?  All light is made of photons!  And of those photon particles, gamma rays are the highest frequency of light. My brain is scrambling from these claims!

He claims the photon belt is like a cosmic car wash for the planet.  This reminds me of the comet scares of the past.  Photonic radiation that will wipe the planet clean of the dross?  Yeah, sunlight, which is comprised of traveling photons does have some cleansing properties.  But there are other things it causes to grow.  Seriously, I'm less than a minute into this video and I want to give myself a mental enema.  Did he just say something about the Atlanteans needing to vacate the planet?  It hurts!

His claims of the photon belt being found by satellites in 1961 and 1991 are pure malarky.  If you Google the Golden Nebula, you will find no scientific pages, just photon belt pages.  No satellite has found anything of the sort.  It would be huge news if it had.  The closest you're going to come to any hits that even pretend to be scientific in Google are a few artists renditions of a gold colored nebula.  NASA is very proud of the photos of nebulae that have been taken.  You will not find this nebula on their website, or any other.  The only nebula in Taurus is the Crab Nebula.  As you can see, it is not golden.

While not mentioned in the video, true believers think there is a conspiracy to cover this up.  No, it is not a conspiracy to cover this up.  If they were going to conspire to avoid mass panic, no one would be allowed to talk about the asteroid Apophis.  Astrophysicists are very open about the fact it could hit the Earth in 2036.  So why would they cover up the supposed photon belt?  Besides, if this nebula existed, any amateur astronomer with a decent backyard telescope would have seen it by now.  Taurus isn't all that far away, in the grand scheme of things.  It would be visible.

Then the claim we have to pass through the photon belt twice in a 26,000 year orbit.  Once to the north, once to the south?  Um...  I don't think Tsarion understands the actual process of precession.

According to this hack, we are going to be in this photon belt for two thousand years.  Somehow, we are going to zippy-zoomy to the constellation of Taurus by the end of the month, defying the speed of light and then just hang in this hypothetical belt for 2000 years.  He also claims that it's closer to the center of the galaxy, when we know it's not.  Then again, he can't even get the constellation right.  The Pleiades are a star cluster in the constellation of Taurus.  As a matter of fact, Taurus is out towards the rim, nowhere near the center of the galaxy.  Our solar system revolves around the center of the galaxy, as do most other stars.  (A few rogue stars, such as Arcturus  are working their way out of the galaxy.)  But this scam artist claims it is the central sun of our galaxy.  The center of our galaxy is a black hole.  Period.

As an aside, But I do love the way he slides in with his graphic, (but without using the actual words,) these 2000 years of being in the photonic energy band being when we enter the age of Aquarius.  According to astronomers, (as opposed to astrologers,) we're still about 600 years away from the age of Aquarius.  So don't hold your breath.

This doesn't only tie in with modern Pleiadian mythology.  It ties in with modern Mayan mythology.  The modern claim is the Mayans believed we rotated around Alcyone.  However, it is modern New Age books that make that claim, as far as I know, no actual scholars have said this.

He either has no idea what the Fibonacci sequence is, or he is duping people who think his mention of it make him sound intelligent.  He claims all organic life is based on this sequence.  The Fibonacci sequence has to do with addition and each number is the sum of the two numbers before it.  Yes, it works in nature, through reproduction.  However, not all of nature is based on this series of numbers.

Then he goes on that we're entering a belt of radiation?  The planet is surrounded by a belt of radiation.  It's called the Van Allen Belt.  Hey, the Van Allen Belt is made up of trapped particles of protons and neutrons.  We're not going to pass through a radiation belt.  We're already surrounded by one. So how will this light energy alter the electrons in the Van Allen Belt?  This is high school stuff right now.  ~sigh~

OK, next he contradicts himself and says that some "scholars," (read crackpot authors,) say we entered the mythological photon belt in 1962.  That if the Sun enters first, we will be plunged into darkness.  If the Earth enters first, then we get a light show.  Um...  A belt of pure light is going to plunge the Sun into darkness and do bad things to it?  But we entered this area in 1962 and got neither the darkness, nor the light show?  Light bodies?  We will all take on a nice, radioactive glow and darkness will seize to be?  The sale of sleep masks are going to skyrocket!

We will get another 42 pairs of chromosomes?  Oh wait, make that 41, because there are 23 pairs of chromosomes, according to the human genome pattern.  The last pair indicates gender.  We would seize to be human if that we were to suddenly develop that many extra chromosomes.  Oh wait, that's when we get our "light bodies."  Waiter, whatever Mr. Tsarion is smoking, I'll take two.

All I can say about this supposed Leviathan Cycle is, the Google hits you will get have to do wtih RPGs and well, cycling to lose weight.  So this tangent is something that seems to have been pulled out of thin air.  Especially since that is not a Leviathan in the image, but an Ouroboros. Leviathan was a sea monster in the Bible.

I don't even know where to start on how many ways he's wrong about the pentagram.  The five points represent head, arms, legs.  Think Da Vinci's famous drawing.  But of course, it has to have a nefarious meaning with this gloom and doom crowd.

Next he starts with the Sun aligns with the galactic central point.  If we are just talking about the Sun, then it is always aligned with the central galactic point, as they are two points on the galactic map.  It will always be a straight line.  It will be aligned with any other point in the galaxy.  This is basic geometry, for the love of all that is holy.  I will stress again, every year around December, the Earth, Sun and center of the galaxy are in alignment.  There is nothing special about it happening again this year.  I think he means the galactic central plane.  Which is the disk of the galaxy, not the center of the galaxy.  The center of the galaxy is a black hole. With which, if you draw a line from the black hole to the Sun, will show a straight line alignment.  This is why Saggitarius is not in the center of the galaxy, we wouldn't be able to see it if it was, but the closest constellation to the band of the Milky Way, which is the disk of the central plane.  Got it?

Then the bit about sunrise on the 21st, how it will be back off center.  Unless you're in an Equatorial region on the planet, the Sun will never be on center.  I really want to know what "researchers" he means when he said some researchers think this is a sign of the end times.  They have zero background in astronomy, I can tell you that.  Oh wait, he's not talking about the Sun being due east, he's claiming it's a galactic alignment.  Nope.  According to this, the claim is impossible.

Then he gets into the galactic equator stuff.  The galactic equator is a made up term for astronomers to map the sky.  As far as passing through the galactic plane, we are above the plane by around 75 to 100 light years.  We won't be passing down through the plane again for around another 30 million years.

Now, as far as the ancients knowing about the center of the galaxy, we are talking about people who believed the Sun and the planets revolved around the Earth.  Several civilizations thought it was a path to the afterlife.  The Chinese saw a correlation between yearly rains and the band of the galaxy.  But even they weren't advanced enough to not attach a myth to it.

The video ends with him talking about John Major Jenkins, a self-professed expert on all things Mayan.  I have no problem with calling yourself an expert, if your work holds up to peer review.  However, most of Jenkins claims are out there and he has turned them into a tourist industry.

Oh goody.  There is a second half to the video.  I'm not sure I'm up to watching it at the moment.  But I'm sure I will and I'm sure it will inspire me to rant.

Before I close, I have to get into the entire Pleiadian thing for a second.  It was a hoax perpetuated by a Swiss farmer named Billy Meier.  He claimed contact with aliens from the Pleiades.  He took photos of some of the Golddiggers from the "Dean Martin Show" from his TV, which made them nice and blurry and insisted they were the aliens who visited him.  He has been exposed as a hoaxer, but his messages from the Pleiadians took off in New Age circles and thanks to him, we have all these people who have created a new mythology about the Pleiadians and people who claim to channel Pleiadians.  All based on a hoax that fed into their fantasy.

For those who truly believe there are habitable planets in the Pleiades.  The Pleiades are all blue giants.  The hottest and among the youngest stars out there.  They cannot support life as we know it.

So, if you have been buying into this photon belt bullshit, rest assured that it is just mythology.

It's not all about you

St. Valentine's Day is fast approaching.  With it, come the questions from people with a sense of entitlement.  He had better get me better flowers than the rest of the girls in the office get.  I had better get a ring from a man that I see once a month for sex.  One woman in my office got a 3 pound box of Godiva chocolates, why hasn't he sent me a bigger box?  The list of what he needs to do goes on.

Ladies, I have news for you.  It is not all about you.  It is about him too.  St. Valentine's Day isn't about what you get, but it is about the love you give.  So, as you become self-obsessed and feel a sense of entitlement because you think it's all about you, you lose your perspective.  Without that perspective, he's going to go find someone who is far more giving and loving and doesn't just view him as a means to an end.

Yes, I am a bit cynical.  In my experience, St. Valentine's Day is the one day of the year where couples who haven't gotten along in forever try to be nice to each other.  It is also the day of the year that women who watch too many chick flicks, not to mention the Hallmark and jewelry store commercials feel if they're not getting the biggest bouquet delivered to them in the office, they are complete failures in life.  So what the biggest gift delivered to the office went to a woman who is married to a man who is upper-middle management in his company, while your boyfriend is still an apprentice electrician, who still has a year or two to go before becoming a journeyman?  You still deserve the best present in the office, to show you have the best boyfriend, right?  Um, no, you don't.

I know this is hard for some of the fluffier of you to grasp.  The fact that it is not all about you, that you don't deserve to be queen of the day, unless you're willing to make your man king for the day too.  It is not about self obsession.  It is about being a couple and showing love for each other.

If you equate love with material goods, you need an attitude adjustment right now.  If you can't get past your materialistic nature and how it's all about you, then you need to move on from the relationship and find someone just as self obsessed as you are.  See how much you like dealing with your own mirror image.

I know I sound like a broken record, but Valentine's  Day is supposed to be about each other.  Do you understand that?  It isn't just about you, it is about your partner too.  So while you are obsessing over how he isn't buying you the right things and gearing up for a fight, what are you doing for him?  Getting him some girly stuffed animal that he's going to have to hide from his friends, lest he have to be called a pussy for months?  A bottle of booze, that you will share with him, so you can try to pry a ring from him?  Or how about just a DVD from the $5 bin at Wal*Mart?  He's a man, that's all he deserves, right?

Instead of being hung up on the material, how about just enjoying the day and evening without fighting with him?  Swallowing your pride and anger when he doesn't propose and just enjoying being with him?  Do you want to be with him, or do you just want to be able to show your girlfriends the rock he bought you?  Is it him you're in love with, or the idea of just being with anyone?  Are you even capable of enjoying the moment?  Or is the moment a means to an end?

Mutual respect should be the phrase of the day.  So what if you didn't get three dozen roses dyed to match your outfit of the day?  If style over substance means so much to you, get out of the relationship now.  You don't love him, you are in love with yourself.  It will never work, as he is competing with your feelings for you.

If you're a woman who isn't in a relationship, don't let the commercialism get to you.  Don't do the stupid things women have been known to do, such as ordering flowers and chocolates for yourself.  You will get found out 9 times out of 10.  Then you will be the laughing stock of the office.  Besides, if the snarky women who are all about showing off get on your back, tell them the truth about the day...

How many of you even know who Saint Valentine was?  All those cute little Cupid cards that go around, well, those are actually Pagan in nature.  Cupid was not a little baby cherub, but the Roman god of lust.  Come to think of it, if you read the Bible, cherubs aren't cute little baby angels, but really vile creatures with flaming swords to cut down anyone who gets near the Garden.

But I am off track.  Oh yes, Saint Valentine.  Of which, there are over a dozen martyred saints with that name and the story gets very muddled.  But here is the rundown.

He was either a priest or a bishop in Italy, or a missionary in Africa.  No one is quite sure.  He is said to have been a virgin.  The story goes, he was arrested for helping Christians and performing weddings for Christians during the reign of Claudius II.  He didn't renounce his faith.  The Emperor liked him, it is said, until Valentine tried to convert him to Christianity, which was illegal at the time.  As a result, he was tortured and executed by beheading on February 14, maybe somewhere around 270 C.E.  Yet he wasn't mentioned in the first compendium of martyrs in 354 C.E.  Pope Gelasius made him a martyr in 496 C.E.  His feast day was the day of his execution, February 14.

Somewhere along the way, he became the patron saint of happy marriages.  Along with beekeepers and epileptics.  Not to mention travelers and the plague.  Because we all know how romantic the idea an epileptic transient beekeeper with the plague can be.

Saints are supposed to perform miracles.  The only miracle attributed to Valentine was an anecdote about how he supposedly restored the sight of the jailer's daughter.  There is no recorded evidence of this though.  However, back in the old days of the Church, martyrdom in the name of Christ was a free pass to sainthood.  Which is probably why Valentine, along with a number of other martyrs, had his feast day removed from the Church by Pope Paul VI, under his Mysterii Paschalis.  Ironically, the letter was issued on, February 14, 1969.  But don't feel too bad for Valentine, it was the same proclamation that removed Saint Christopher from the Catholic Calendar, too.

Chances are, he wasn't real, but Pope Gelasius made him up to replace the pagan festival of  Lupercalia, a three day festival of cleansing and fertility.  By the time Pope Gelasius became Pope, it had degraded into a drunken naked festival.  So what better way to replace the festival, than to create a martyred saint who's feast day is right smack dab in the middle of Lupercalia?

So, getting back on point, you ladies are getting your noses all out of joint over a day that isn't even on the calendar of Saints anymore.  Over a virgin that was beheaded and whose life details are more than a bit sketchy.  This doesn't mean he's still not a saint.  It just means that his life really can't be verified and any official veneration in the Church takes place on All Saints Day.  But he was a virgin priest, if he existed at all.  Yeah, that's real sexy.

If you want to do Saint Valentine's Day right, go to a chocolatier.  Get him or her to create a chocolate saint filled with raspberry or strawberry goo.  So when his head is removed, he bleeds properly.  He should also come in an appropriate coffin.  Also made of chocolate, of course.  Come to think of it, if your boyfriend is a horror movie fan, this would be the best Valentine's Day gift you could get him.  So if you're calling me morbid, you are missing the entire point.  Which is, it is not all about you and what you want.  It is also what your partner wants.  Which just might be a two person drunken, naked festival.

Where Is Your God Now?

I just can't wait for football to be over this year.  I've never been a fan, but this season really annoyed me.  Why?  Two words.  Tim Tebow.

OK, so he believes in God.  So does most of the world's population.  Ah, but he's a "Real Christian."  As in Born Again.  So God must be on the side of his team, the Denver Broncos.  Because unless you've been saved, you're not a real Christian.

So believes the far right Christian population of this country.  Anyone who belongs to a denomination other than Baptist and hasn't had that saved experience is a heretic.  Especially if they're Catholic.  But that's another story.

However, all these "Real Christians" tend to forget the sabbath and keep it holy, as they're worshiping at another altar entirely.  Football.  The NFL is a religion unto itself.  Tim Tebow is the new messiah.

I'm not exaggerating.  He has been elevated to godhood by his fan base.  You hear about his life all the time.  From the fact his mother was deathly ill while pregnant and he wasn't supposed to have survived birth.  To how he was home schooled, which in the eyes of the far right religious community in this country, means he was saved from the evils of a secular education in the public school system.  (Forget that being sheltered like that kills a person's ability to learn proper social skills with his peers.)  If not for a Florida law saying that home schooled students can play sports for high schools, we never would have heard of this man.

But play high school football he did and he ended up an All-American.  Every high school football player's dream.  After college, he was a first round draft pick, which would be more impressive if he wasn't ranked 25th.  That says there were 24 players more desirable than he was.  But that is a mere technicality when talking about the new Messiah.  Even ESPN was calling him, "the Chosen One."


He had a decent college career, set records, won the Heisman trophy in 2007.  He was the Golden Child.  He could do no wrong.  Until of course, Sam Bradford beat him out for the trophy the next year.  But his acolytes would rather not mention that.  OK, so 2007 was his really good year in college, his other three years were good, but not nearly as stellar.  However, he was already a god in the eyes of football fans.

He would put Bible chapter and verse numbers in his eye black in college.  The NFL prohibits it, as you are out of uniform if you do something like that.  So the Christian right is screaming that this infringes free speech and freedom of religion.  Which is pretty funny, as they want anyone who doesn't think the same way they do to shut up.  However, rules are rules and you can be fined by the NFL for wearing shoes that are the wrong color for the uniform.  If we let anyone put anything on their eye black, well, let's just say sports players aren't always the most cultured of people.  Anyone else remember that famous Billy Ripkin 1989 Fleer baseball card and "Fuck Face" written on the bottom of his bat?  Just think of the short slogans NFL players could write on their eye black.  Those TV cameras get up close and personal with players.  So there are reasons for these rules. 

So this season, Tebow was promoted from back-up quarterback to starting quarterback.  Because God obviously wanted him to be in the spotlight, the season's original starting quarterback started sucking massively and was put on waivers.  No one saw it as a sign from God when the team he was traded to beat the Broncos on New Year's Day.  God was just testing them, besides, the AFC Western Division was crappy enough this year that with a season average of .500, it was good enough for the Broncos to go to the play-offs.

Well, sort of.  As I said, the AFC Western Division was crappy this year.  They were tied for first place with the Chargers and Raiders.  The Broncos played tie-breakers and won both.  An obvious sign from God!

Then it was onto the Wild Card team of the Division, the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Who finished the season with a .750 average.  Somehow, the Broncos won.  Not by much, but they won. 

Hey, God MUST be on their side, for them to beat a team so much better than they are, right?  Nothing can stop them!  God will see them to the Superbowl!

Well, depending on how Orthodox you are, you might consider Saturday the sabbath.  God's day off.  Since this is the play-off season, there was a Saturday game.  The Denver Broncos vs. The New England Patriots.  The best team in football.  An .813 win average.  But the fans had faith in their prayers.  And New England trounced the Broncos.  The final score was 45-10.  An embarrassing defeat.  Tebow played badly from what I've heard.  The entire team did.  Which leads me to ask...

Where is your god now, Tim Tebow?

Obviously, God likes Tom Brady much better.  Tom Brady.  Who is a Catholic, not a "Real Christian."  So while "Real Christians" go on about how Catholics are Satanic, because of the veneration of Mary and the saints, well, think about this.  If Saturday really is the sabbath, which according to many it is, God was taking the day off.  But in his stead, the saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary were watching out and protecting those who believe in them.  Right?  After all, out of the 2.1 billion estimated Christians in the world, 1.2 billion are Roman Catholics.  So you can't expect God to be there for every single person every single second of every single day.  Saints pick up some of the slack.  So of course the team with the Catholic quarterback was going to win.  Forget the fact that they've been the best team in football for a while.  Forget that they're all seasoned players and quite good at the game.  It all has to do with God and who God wants to win.  Because it's football.

My question is, why do they think God cares about football?  What makes them think that they are such better Christians than any other team's fans, that God will grant their prayers for a certain sports team?  Why are you praying for a sports team to win in the first place?  There are far more important things to pray about in this world, if you're going to pray.  Pray for the economy to improve.  Pray for war to end.  Pray for the homeless.  Pray for children to have enough to eat.  But no, you all spend your time praying for millionaires to get bonuses for winning the Super Bowl.

Football has been elevated to a religion.  I am simply amazed that no one has gotten the idea to start a church and call it the Holy Church of the Gridiron.  Joe Heisman or Knute Rockne could be the God of this new religion.  Jerry Rice, who many consider the greatest football player of all time, can be a living deity, along with Tom Brady, Dick Butkus, Lawrence Taylor, Jim Brown, Joe Montana and a host of others.  We can see if Tim Tebow can maintain before actually elevating him to sainthood or even godhood.  Oh wait.  His fans are already worshiping him as a god.  Too bad his god doesn't see it that way.

So, I'm up for starting a cult church.  While I'm a baseball fan and not a football fan, I can fake it.  The Holy Church of the Sacred Gridiron.  I bet we can make a bundle, while exploiting the true religion of football fans.  Who's with me?  We still have time to get this started in time for the Stupid Bowl Super Bowl.