An incredibly powerful colorized image of Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thích Quảng Đức, burning himself to death. I have no words for this.
Born Lâm Văn Tức (1897 – 11 June 1963) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Thích Quảng Đức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam’s Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime. Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of the monk’s death, as did David Halberstam for his written account. After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact. This was interpreted as a symbol of compassion and led Buddhists to revere him as a bodhisattva, heightening the impact of his death on the public psyche.
The original black and white photo can be viewed here.
In 1921, while attending a church service in Missouri, 14-year-old Kathryn Kuhlman had her first religious epiphany. The Holy Spirit shook up her world and she would never be the same. A committed soldier in God’s army, she wasted no time in spreading the teachings of her beloved Christ. When most teenage girls were wooing neighborhood boys, Kuhlman was traveling with evangelistic tent ministries and preaching in pool halls. Jesus was her boyfriend.
By the time she was 28, Kuhlman was fronting her own revival show in a tabernacle in Denver, Colorado. But a romance with an older married minister (whom she eventually married) brought her budding religious empire crashing to the ground. It took several years and the selling of the tabernacle before she regained her mojo. When she came back, she came back strong.
Kuhlman ended up in the mining town of Franklin, Pennsylvania where the pulpit of the 1500 seat Gospel Tabernacle seem designed expressly for her. The crowds grew and Kuhlman’s Denver karma evaporated like holy water in the desert. It was in Franklin that Kuhlman discovered she had the divine ability to heal people.
As word spread of Kathryn Kuhlman’s miraculous ability to make the crippled walk and blind see, thousands upon thousands of true believers flocked to Franklin to be healed. In 1950, Kuhlman’s ministry went worldwide via radio and television and she became a huge attraction, appearing in Vegas and on television programs like Dinah Shore’s and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Through the 1960s and 70s, Kuhlman was a superstar for Jesus. And “star” is an apt description of Kathryn Kuhlman. She possessed the presence and grandeur of a great stage or film actress. And this is what I find fascinating about her.
Whether healer or charlatan, whether divinely intoxicated or just plain nuts, it matters little to me. It is Kathryn Kuhlman’s amazing flair for the dramatic, the flamboyant gesture and larger than life emotions she manifests that compels my conversion. Recalling Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, Kuhlman seems to be in a constant state of readiness for her close-up. Gesticulating like a silent movie star or drama-queening with the extravagant campiness of Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, the divine Ms.Kuhlman gnaws the scenery like a pitbull tearing at the leg of a drunken priest.
Living much of her private life in Garbo-like secrecy, Kathryn Kuhlman revealed little about herself until she got up in front an audience and it was there, on the stage, that she unleashed the diva within. Joan Crawford meets Joan of Arc on some purgatorial film set overseen by the ghosts of Douglas Sirk and R.W. Fassbinder.
On Friday, February 20th, 1976 Kathryn Kuhlman died. “Oral and Evelyn Roberts were among the few visitors permitted to see her. As they walked into her room and began to pray for her healing, Kathryn recognized what they were doing and put her hands out like a barrier and then pointed toward heaven.” She was ready for her close-up.
The world called me a fool for having given my entire life to One whom I’ve never seen. I know exactly what I’m going to say when I stand in His presence. When I look upon that wonderful face of Jesus, I’ll have just one thing to say: ‘I tried.’ I gave of myself the best I knew how. My redemption will have been perfected when I stand and see Him who made it all possible.
Here’s a compilation of some of Kathryn’s most dazzling performances.
A new meme is born! A video letter from a concerned Christian man with “insider information” from God to those of us who’ll be “left behind” when Jesus takes up all the Christians and Republicans to live in the clouds with him. After that begins the seven-year Tribulation period and this is when we’re all supposed to dial up YouTube and with this clown’s help, get right with the Lord… and eat dirt and paper. Or something.
Whether to point and laugh or to weep at how dumb and delusional this poor fucker is? This guy’s entire, pitifully small worldview is based on the Left Behind novels and Jack Chick tracts! He appears to be well-meaning, but there’s also an air of smug superiority to his advice which I find bust-a-gut funny coming from someone so obviously… not very bright.
“You must not accept the ‘Mark of the Beast.’ That is the main thing you must not do. So basically if anybody… if the government, basically, enforces some sort of a tattoo, or stamping of some sort, on your right hand or your forehead, do not take it at all costs. I don’t care if you can’t buy or sell anything, I don’t care if you don’t have any food, you are better off to eat dirt. Eat dirt. Paper. Basically anything you can find to basically to numb the feeling of your hunger. And it will be worth every bit of it if you refuse the ‘Mark of the Beast.’ Because if you receive the ‘Mark of the Beast,’ that basically guarantees that you are gonna be spending eternity in the lake of fire.”
So far only a couple of hundred people have watched this clip, but as it picks up speed, the commenters on YouTube are going to be merciless to this doofus. I predict remixes and 4chan infamy for this fellow, not to mention drinking games based on how many times he utters the word “basically.”
Here are some from the past 24-hours:
“this is sort of like the videos that suicide bombers make. have fun on your ufo!”
“You should speed up the process.”
“wow you got msg from god..you must be very smart an powerful person,,,im goin go eat some dirt an paper now,, caio”
“Maybe it’s already happened, and you’re one of those left behind?”
From her Subaru, a car painted as white as the fourth horse of Revelation, Allison Warden proclaims that Jesus shall return May 21.
By her reckoning, His return will fall on a springtime Saturday. And if the world weren’t ending, you might find people celebrating other notable highlights of the day: Mr. T’s birthday, Montenegro’s independence or the Red Sox-White Sox game.
But to Warden and hundreds of like-minded Christians, Judgment Day can be calculated precisely by tracing biblical genealogy or by following history forward 7,000 years from the day Noah shut the door to his ark.
So if May 22 rolls around and you’re still here, wailing and gnashing your teeth, don’t say nobody warned you.
“It’s a very jarring thing to be told you have five months on Earth,” Warden, 29, said. “That may interrupt any earthly plan.”
They say that ignorance is bliss, but I’m not so sure about that… It’s not like these two decided to be stupid.
The viral video of Miley Cyrus smoking Salvia Divinorum has brought a lot of attention to this formerly little known psychoactive plant. I doubt that all the media hype will result in positive results on any front. It’s LSD and MDMA all over again.
Salvia has a long tradition of being used and revered by Mexico’s Mazatec shamans for its vision-inducing properties. In recent years, a new generation of researchers have been exploring this magical plant. Salvia has become increasingly available outside of Mexico to anyone who has a desire to try it. But, because Salvia is an unpredictable and powerful hallucinogenic, it hasn’t been the drug of choice for party people. With the publicity arising from Cyrus’s video, that could change. As someone who has experimented with Salvia, I would caution anyone with the intent of trying it to approach Salvia with caution and great respect. It can be an ally or an enemy, depending on the dose you take and the setting in which you take it.
The Salvia experience is short but intense. Unlike LSD, Saliva induces actual hallucinations. With acid, you see objects in a new way, but you don’t see stuff that isn’t there. With Salvia, you see things that are not present in the so-called “real” world. In that respect, it shares some of the same qualities as Peyote. My Salvia trips have been overwhelming out-of-body experiences that were as mystical as they were frightening. In one experience, I was visited by Salvia’s Mescalito: a giant talking green carrot. While the carrot didn’t speak a language I was familiar with, it did manage to communicate on a psychic level a message of harmony and love. The carrot looked scary and its voice was a low intimidating roar, but ultimately the carrot had a good vibe - a psychedelic Jolly Green Giant. The whole experience lasted only a few minutes, but during those minutes I was completely incapacitated. I cannot stress the importance of having someone nearby in case you need some assistance.
I shared some Salvia with a woman friend of mine and she experienced an astral trip that took her to her childhood home on Long Island. She was loving it. But, while she was running across green grass somewhere in the suburbs, I was busy trying to keep her from leaping off the bed and running through the apartment. This is not unusual while tripping on Salvia. People have been known to walk into walls, furniture and human beings while under the plant’s influence. As my friend told me later, she could feel the grass on the front lawn of her home, smell the chlorine in the swimming pool and hear distant children laughing. As she was joyously reliving her past, I was her body’s caretaker.
Salvia is hot right now. Websites selling Salvia are trying to exploit the Miley Cyrus connection to make a quick buck. Thousands of unsuspecting people are going to take a casual approach to Salvia and end up having “trips” that are more than they bargained for. It is a mighty plant that imparts certain knowledge and insight to those ready to receive it. Salvia has the potential to be a teaching tool and a facilitator for spiritual insight. But, based on my experience, one thing it definitely is not is a recreational drug. Granted, I took strong concentrations of Salvia, but according to everything I’ve read and heard, Salvia even in low doses can knock you for a loop. So, be careful. As I said, approach this plant with respect.
The following documentary is a glimpse into the world of Salvia Divinorum. Not very scientific, but fascinating.
Aside from a similar accident of birth on the North American land mass, I don’t perceive myself as having ANYTHING in common with someone who believes that dinosaurs and unicorns were on Noah’s fucking Ark (or Sarah Palin supporters for that matter)! Do you? Where is the commonality when IQs have become this stratified? And where is this mess headed when the stupidest people in the country are the only ones reliably voting? It’s really getting frustrating to read the news these days. I feel like there is a new low reached almost daily. The dumbness used to be a little more spread out.
Truly, it’s undeniable at this juncture that “the dumbs” are really starting to take over and if these shit-for-brains types are allowed to continue dominating the conversation, then all bets are off for the future of the American republic. I can’t help but to feel we’re about to reach a tipping point towards some serious bad craziness. If you can convince a man that dinosaurs and unicorns were on Noah’s Ark, you can convince this man of ANY darned thing (like millionaires and billionaires pay too much in taxes or that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president).
I asked Answers in Genesis if there will be dinosaurs on their Ark. They said yes.
I’ve since asked if there will be fire-breathing dragons on their Ark.
My visit to the Creation Museum last week told me that the answer is a strong “probably so.” Digging through the AiG archives this morning, I now see that Ken Ham says the answer is an emphatic “yes”:
Being land animals, dinosaurs (or dragons of the land) were created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24–31), went aboard Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6:20), and then came off the Ark into the post-Flood world (Genesis 8:16–19). It makes sense that many cultures would have seen these creatures from time to time before they died out.
There will be dragons on their Ark. [What about Godzilla or Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster? Will non-American “dragons of the land” be considered for inclusion?—RM]
But here’s one more question for you: Will there be unicorns on the Ark?
“Some people claim the Bible is a book of fairy tales because it mentions unicorns. However, the biblical unicorn was a real animal, not an imaginary creature.”
“Modern readers have trouble with the Bible’s unicorns because we forget that a single-horned feature is not uncommon on God’s menu for animal design. (Consider the rhinoceros and narwhal.) The Bible describes unicorns skipping like calves (Psalm 29:6), traveling like bullocks, and bleeding when they die (Isaiah 34:7). The presence of a very strong horn on this powerful, independent-minded creature is intended to make readers think of strength.”
“The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.). Eighteenth century reports from southern Africa described rock drawings and eyewitness accounts of fierce, single-horned, equine-like animals. One such report describes “a single horn, directly in front, about as long as one’s arm, and at the base about as thick . . . . [It] had a sharp point; it was not attached to the bone of the forehead, but fixed only in the skin.”
“To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.”
There will be unicorns on the Ark. So this is what we’re left with:
Thanks to [Governor] Steve Beshear, Kentucky is no longer just known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600 year old man herded dinosaurs onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.
No, Kentucky will now be known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600-year-old man herded dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons and unicorns onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.
But Steve Beshear wasn’t elected to debate religion, he was elected to create jobs…
Ouch! I just want to pull the covers over my head when I read something like this, don’t you? Obviously, requesting a unicorn chaser would not really be appropriate here…
If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? (Discovery)
Ear-bleeding, anti-music, anti-abortion song from the one and only Wlliam Tapley, “Third Eagle of the Apocalypse” and “Co-Prophet of the Endtimes.” I realize that linking to this shitty song by this nincompoop is a bit like saying “This smells like shit, here, smell it,” but there it is. Waiting for you. To hit play.
The Beyond Within is a well-balanced two part documentary on LSD featuring Albert Hoffman, Ken Kesey and British politician Christopher Mayhew.
While the entire documentary is filled with absorbing insights, The Mayhew segment is particularly fascinating.
Media and public interest in LSD reached a point in the early 60’s that a politician by the name of Christopher Mayhew agreed to undergo an experiment, and for this experiment to be filmed by the BBC. This fascinating experiment involved his taking a dose of Mescalin in the company of a physician, and answering certain basic brainteasers over the course of his little trip. The footage of his experience is extraordinary, as this eloquent upper-class aristocrat describes what he is experiencing under the influence of the drug, his eyes wide as saucers. Indeed, the footage proved too controversial for the BBC at the time, and was not shown until this Everyman documentary broadcast it in the 1980’s. Interestingly, Mayhew, who in 1986 was a member of the House of Lords, watches the footage, 30 years later, and stands by his description of the experience. “I had an experience in time” he says, and his conviction is apparent.”
There has been a recent resurgence of interest in psychedelics within the psychiatric and scientific community and I personally think it’s about time. The benefits of psychoactive drugs, DMT and LSD in particular, far outweigh the hazards. It’s time to make pharmaceutical quality LSD available to adults who want an alternative path to mental well-being and spiritual insight. We need to re-approach this extraordinary chemical without hysteria and hype.
Made in 1986 for BBC television, The Beyond Within explores the rise and fall of LSD. Here it is in its entirety.
Sicko Christian fundamentalist David Benoit tells a grisly tale of redemption with a shameless insensitivity that borders on the sociopathic. What a creep.
In June of 1984, David was led of the Lord to establish Glory Ministries as an evangelist. When David began, the emphasis of Glory Ministries was to expose the truth of the damaging effects of rock music on society. The only solution being regeneration by Jesus Christ.
In the past several years, David has used his vast knowledge of the occult and the New Age movement to show how Satan is subtly gaining entrance into our families and our churches through seemingly harmless children’s toys, movies and cartoons.
“David Benoit’s message is one of hope, not fear. David has a unique way of presenting hard hitting facts with southern style humor.” Jerry Falwell.
Westboro Baptist Church would be dangerous if they weren’t so fucking insane. In this sick little ditty sung to the tune of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” the Phelps clan concoct a rape scenario involving children and a non-existent mythic character named Santa Claus. These freaks are fantasizing on a level so evil that Charlie Manson would cross the street to avoid their collective bad karma.
Forget about chestnuts, these religious whack jobs would love to see us all roasting on an open fire.
Santa ain’t coming to town. He doesn’t exist. But Jesus does and he’s pissed.
But after reading Canadian cannabis activist Dana Larsen’s 2003 article on the apparent psychotropic and shamanic origins of Santa Claus and many other Christmas traditions, it made some deeper sense to me.
According to Larsen, the Lapps of modern-day Finland and the Koyak tribes of the central Russian steppes had holy men in their ranks who regularly imbibed the hallucinogenic red & white amanita muscaria mushroom (also known as “fly agaric”). These ‘shrooming shamen proved to be the model of the figure we now know as Santa Claus.
Larsen also contends that the Christmas tree was originally seen as a “World Tree”, typically a fir or evergreen, species under which the amanita muscaria mushroom thrived:
The World Tree was seen as a kind of cosmic axis, onto which the planes of the universe are fixed. The roots of the World Tree stretch down into the underworld, its trunk is the “middle earth” of everyday existence, and its branches reach upwards into the heavenly realm.
So, of course, the North Star around which all stars seemed to revolve was always aligned with the top of the tree—thus the star on top of the modern Christmas tree. These ancients also saw the magic mushroom springing up as “virgin births” seeded by the morning dew, which is symbolized by the tinsel on the tree. Trippy, eh?
Also:
In the highly stoned eyes of these shamen, amanita muscara-eating reindeer appeared to, well, fly.
Santa wears the red-and-white outfit of the original mushroom gatherers, his ruddy glow is an effect of the ‘shrooms, and like most shamen, used the central smoke hole (chimney) of his animal-skin shelter as an entrance or exit.
Oh and those mostly red, bulbous ornaments on the tree? Those symbolize the ‘shrooms red caps, which the ancients used to dry on the trees.
Below is the least campy video I could find that draws a bunch of the connections between Santa and the ‘shroom. Enjoy!
