Monthly Archives: November 2014

On the popularity of Shinto rituals in Japan – Memorial services for inanimate objects at Mikoromo-sha shrine

To follow up my post on Japanese magic at: “Praying to the gods never worked very well when you think about it.” -Reiki, hypnotic suggestion, and ceremonial magic I note that http://kikuko-nagoya.com/html/harikuyo-wakamiya.html shows various pictures of many people participating in a … Continue reading

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A Buddhist counterpoint to Spandrell’s materialist view

Recently, I noted that Spandrell pushes a materialistic metaphysics that can be used to deride all religion as fraud and social coercion.  An article from a Buddhist periodical provides a very different perspective.

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Posted in political economy | 2 Comments

Due to poor time management skills… [probably not very SFW]

I had planned a huge thousand-word post on sodomy. And I spent too much time reading Ferguson-riot discussions. Due to my poor time management decisions, I will not be posting my long-awaited anti-sodomy diatribe today. However, I did find some … Continue reading

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Posted in aesthetics | Tagged | 10 Comments

“Praying to the gods never worked very well when you think about it.” -Reiki, hypnotic suggestion, and ceremonial magic

Spandrell has written an off-hand line indicating his general materialism: “Praying to the gods never worked very well when you think about it.” The nature of the human condition is that neither materialism nor ceremonial magic works very well, from … Continue reading

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Posted in political economy | 1 Comment

A balanced rebuttal

Recently I got a comment that had better writing skills than the article it commented on! [Update: In fact, I’m going to copy this text to the sticky post in case new readers miss the old post.]

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