Ok So This Post Is Extremely Long And I Put It All Together For My Blogs Feeling Sad Page But As I Don’t

From Kladderadatsch, 1942.

Monsters of every stripe are collected here.

Wondering about this post?  Wait for the dissertation (TBA). For now:  Weblog ◆ Books ◆ Videos ◆ Music ◆ Etsy

The sign of high quality is the fact the book was banned by the government. Trash literature NEVER EVER had any troubles with the law.

Zodiac sign constellations for wrist tattoos. Thought this was pretty unique and interesting.

Witch Bottle: Mad Diviner Version

A witch bottle is a contraption designed to absorb and nullify the forces that may attack you, be they magical or otherwise. Some would argue that it only stops malevolent spells, but I see no reason why it would not deflect so-called mundane attacks, as well.

Witch bottles have a long and storied history, and are even found amongst the ruins of older buildings, dating from the Early Modern period. During this time, witch hunts were common, fear of witches ran rampant, and one cannot be surprised that many people tried to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves from these supposed evildoers. 

Though traditionally seen as a sort of talisman against witchcraft and evil magics in general, I do believe that the act of creating one, in and of itself, is an occult practice. Thus, it’s a bit bemusing to imagine those who hated witches and magic frantically making these things to save themselves from evil spells. 

I honestly think that, during the Early Modern period, making a witch bottle would have been a somewhat revolutionary, if private, act of defiance within a person’s life. Entire countries were turned against the very notion of magic, and had manufactured straw enemies in the form of Satanic witches. Many misfortunes were blamed on witches by authority figures, and it’s quite likely that the population, for the most part, believed these evil sorcerers actually existed.

The official government response consisted of conducting witch hunts and killing many innocent people. Imagine, though, what it must have been like for a person living in this time. That the evil witches existed could be taken for granted; such a person would have heard the lie repeated so often that the fear of malevolent magics was engrained in their psyche. 

When trouble arose that society wanted to blame on witchcraft, though, the individual likely felt powerless, particularly if they weren’t socially prominent. Most people were not in a position to do battle with imaginary witches, and the response by the authorities was just as terrifying as the false threat of witchcraft.

Thus, to regain a modicum of personal autonomy and assert their intentions to the universe, some individuals resorted to a plethora of folk remedies, charms, and spells (I call it like it is!) designed to drive off witches, or draw them into the open. This must have taken a lot of courage, because, as I’ve said, there’s very little way these people could have rationalized their spells away as not being somewhat akin to what witches do. Seeking to protect yourself from witches could easily get you named as a witch, after all, so yes, courage was required.

Did the bottles made during this period work, so to speak? Probably. It’s hard to say, because there really weren’t many actual witches active during this time period, and those that were active likely didn’t go out of their way to hunt down and curse random people.

 Still, these charms probably had a great deal of efficacy, if only due to the twin powers of intent and belief. This is partially why I see the witch bottle as effective against all kinds of attacks, not simply magical ones.

Making a Witch Bottle

Now, all over the internet, and indeed, all over Tumblr, you can find many excellent guides and recipes for witch bottles. Today, I’ll be showing you the personal method I developed for making one. It differs from other traditional methods in a single crucial way, and I believe this makes my version somewhat more difficult to make, but perhaps more effective overall.

Before developing the plans for this, I researched witch bottle traditions extensively, and made notes on them, etc. I ultimately concluded that there was something “off” in both modern and postmodern versions of the charm, at least for me. I just didn’t see how it could be effective given the way the ingredients were used and their composition. This is not to say it wouldn’t work for another person, but intent is everything, and I seriously doubted I could get my intent going if I followed an existing recipe. So, here’s my variation, and so can you!

The requirements for the spell are simple, and can be suited to your particular situation quite easily. You need:

A personal taglock,

A very small bottle, 

A larger bottle that the small bottle can fit within, 

Sharp objects,

Baneful herbs or an existing compound designed to dismantle evil or bring destruction.

The most important part, arguably, is the personal taglock. Read my long post about what a taglock even is, and what makes a good taglock. Basically, though, you need an object or bit of something that is essentially tied to you in some way. Physical proximity is good, but an emotional tie, as explained in the post I linked above, is even better. 

For my taglock, I went out and bought a nice package of fancy cigarettes of the kind that were popular in my youth, and, on the way home from the store, smoked one. When I was finished, I carefully extinguished it and deposited the remains in a small plastic bag. 

When I arrived home and went into my laboratory space, I rummaged around and found a very, very, very small bottle with a cork. I shredded the cigarette remains and filled the tiny bottle with them, then corked it. I topped this off with silver wax to form a good seal (silver being the only available color I had around).

To be honest, if you decide to try my version, I would recommend using a lock of hair in place of the cigarette, because smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. Yes, yes, I did it, but you shouldn’t. End of story!

Now, you’re probably wondering why I chose such a small bottle, and just put the taglock inside without anything to shred a malevolent force, as is customary. Well, I did this because the tiny bottle is going to go inside the larger bottle. Yep, that’s the big difference between my version and everyone else’s.

Anyways, you then take the larger bottle and stuff it halfway full with your material - glass, sharps, banefuls, etc., depending on your preference. Do remember that there must remain room for the small bottle to rest comfortably within the larger one, though. Once the bottle is halfway filled, slip the small bottle inside, like this:

As you can see, I used baneful herbs for the majority of the space within the bottle. Specifically, I used wormwood, which I filled the bottle with very carefully and gently so as not to spill any. I added some sharp needles and tacks and such, as well. Once it was halfway full, and the small bottle was inside, I began using my vinegar.

I chose to use Four Thieves Vinegar for this working, and carefully filled the bottle up slightly with the mixture. For more information on Four Thieves Vinegar and what it contains and represents, see my post about it. If you end up using a liquid like this, make sure to leave room for more of the solid stuff in the bottle, so that the liquid doesn’t mess with the cork.

You can see above that the tiny bottle is nearly floating. I added a lot more wormwood to soak it all up, and some more sharp objects, too. Finally, I closed it up, and ultimately sealed it with wax, just as I had the smaller bottle.

You may ask why I’m putting the taglock within a smaller bottle. Well, it’s simple to me! I don’t want a taglock from me floating in a jar of baneful herbs and sharp things. Think about it - that’s exactly the method you would use to curse someone, right? And, while intent is everything, I just figured it wouldn’t work for me, so I developed this idea instead. I hope this is helpful for someone!

Celebrating Spitzer, One of NASA’s Great Observatories

As the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 16-year mission ends, we’re celebrating the legacy of our infrared explorer. It was one of four Great Observatories – powerful telescopes also including Hubble, Chandra and Compton – designed to observe the cosmos in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Light our eyes can see

The part of the spectrum we can see is called, predictably, visible light. But that’s just a small segment of all the wavelengths of the spectrum. The Hubble Space Telescope observes primarily in the visible spectrum. Our Chandra X-ray Observatory is designed to detect (you guessed it) X-ray emissions from very hot regions of the universe, like exploded stars and matter around black holes. Our Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, retired in 2000, produced the first all-sky survey in gamma rays, the most energetic and penetrating form of light.

Then there’s infrared…

Infrared radiation, or infrared light, is another type of energy that we can’t see but can feel as heat. All objects in the universe emit some level of infrared radiation, whether they’re hot or cold. Spitzer used its infrared instrument to make discoveries in our solar system (including Saturn’s largest ring) all the way to the edge of the universe. From stars being born to planets beyond our solar system (like the seven Earth-size exoplanets around the star TRAPPIST-1), Spitzer’s science discoveries will continue to inspire the world for years to come.

Multiple wavelengths

Together, the work of the Great Observatories gave us a more complete view and understanding of our universe.

Hubble and Chandra will continue exploring our universe, and next year they’ll be joined by an even more powerful observatory … the James Webb Space Telescope!

Many of Spitzer’s breakthroughs will be studied more precisely with the Webb Space Telescope. Like Spitzer, Webb is specialized for infrared light. But with its giant gold-coated beryllium mirror and nine new technologies, Webb is about 1,000 times more powerful. The forthcoming telescope will be able to push Spitzer’s science findings to new frontiers, from identifying chemicals in exoplanet atmospheres to locating some of the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang.

We can’t wait for another explorer to join our space telescope superteam!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Ancient Symbols and their Meanings.

Barbara Walker - The Double-Triadic Hexagram, “The I Ching of the Goddess”, 1986. The original Triangle stood for the Goddess’s Trinity of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, she of a thousand names, such as Maya the birth-giving Virgin, Durga the preserving Mother, and Kali Ma the Death-dealing Crone. Her primary symbol was a downward-pointing Triangle, the Yoni Yantra, sometimes called Kali Yantra. This represented a Vulva (Sanskrit yoni), and femaleness in general: by extension, a womb, motherhood, female sexuality, the Life Spirit embodied in menstrual blood, or the world-activating power of the Goddess herself. The same symbol stood for ‘woman’ and ‘Goddess’ among ancient Egyptians, pre-Hellenic Greeks, Tantric Buddhists, and the gypsies who migrated westward from Hindustan. The primordial female Triangle became a male-female Hexagram by eight stages, graphically represented as follows. Figure 1 - At first there was only the Goddess alone, containing within herself all the elements in a fluid, unformed state. Figure 2 - With the passage of ages and by her will, eventually a spark of Life was formed within her core, represented by a dot. Tantric sages called this spark the Bindu, and one of the Goddess’s titles was Bindumati, Mother of the Bindu. Among Cabalists it became Bina, the Womb of Earth. Figure 3 - The Bindu grew and slowly became a separate being within the Mother, though it still lay wholly inside her borders. At this early stage of the Divine Creation, Darkness (the God) was still enveloped in a greater Darkness (his Mother). The God was still one with the author of his being, Maha-Kali, the Great Power. Figure 4 - At the fourth stage, the God was Born. Represented by an upward-pointing Triangle - which often symbolized the masculine principle of Fire - the God broke through the boundaries of the Primordial maternal Triangle. Here, at the moment of ‘Birth,’ the idea of the male Deity was conveyed by three solid lines, while that of the female Deity became three broken lines. Thus was the design taken apart, and its components utilized as Trigrams and Hexagrams in the I Ching. Figure 5 - Male and female Triangles, one separated, came together again in a very ancient figure that later rounded off to the Mathematical Symbol of Infinity in so-called Arabic Numerals, which were actually Hindu in origin. The two Tangential Circles or teardrop shapes of this sign meant the same as two Tangential Triangles: the two sexes in contact. The female Triangle above now took on the aspect of a nourishing breast, while the male received her nourishment. Figure 6 - Tantric yogis continued to hold that sexual union in true love was an intimation of Divinity, giving the partners a sense of merging ‘like pouring of water into water’. Similarly in Egypt, the Goddess and her God were represented by vessels of water, their conjunction by a combination of the two waters, as in the Sacred Talisman known as Menat. In the Middle East, a Sacrificial God was preceded by a vessel of water in procession to his place of Execution, a tradition that was followed even in the story of Jesus. Like Shiva, the Christian God also was born of the same Mother on whom, as a Divine spouse, he begot himself. Figure 7 - By penetrating each other to the farthest boundary, God and Goddess formed between them the ancient Tantric Symbol of the World, a Diamond, flanked by four new Triangles that were assimilated to the Elements, the four directions, the four corners of the Earth (when the Earth was supposed to be square), the four winds, the four divisions of the Zodiac, the four Sons of Horus, or the Norsemen’s related Spirits of north, east, south, and west that upheld the Heavens. All these ideas could be expressed in a simple glyph of six lines. Figure 8 - Finally, the ultimate interpenetration was shown by the full Hexagram. Male and female principles extended even beyond each other’s boundaries, becoming ‘One’ in sixfold Symmetry. This was the Union proposed by Cabalists as well as Tantric sages: the symbol of Eeternal Conception and Re-Creation. This was the hidden reason for the Rabbinic traditions claiming that the Ark of the Covenant contained male and female images sexually joined, ‘in the form of a Hexagram,’ and that the triple six of Solomon’s golden talents represented the king’s sexual union with his goddess, who gave him his great Wisdom. This explains also the early Christian’s horror of the sixfold symbol of Aphrodite, similarly united with Hermes as the first ‘Hermaphrodite,’ and their insistence that three sixes made a Devilish Number (666) and six was the ‘Number of Sin’.  The ultimate absorption of the God into the Yoni Yantra (Goddess) was his Immolation, usually conceived as a voluntary Sacrifice of his Life for Salvation of the Earthly World, which needed the Life-Force inherent in Divine Blood. As Kali the Destroyer, the Goddess devoured her consort and returned to the original solitary female form of the Yantra (Fig. 1). Thus the Cycles of Creation and Destruction were carried on throughout the Life of the Universe.

Fireproof human skulls for your gas fireplace, barbeque or fire-pit

They’re $65 each, handmade from “lava granules plus significant heat ceramic refractory,” available in black and white. (via Geekologie)

Want.

kulning (old swedish herding call) for a herd of cows.