A new Italian book criticizing the betrayal of Mary Magdalene as an icon of the “sacred feminine” has captured the attention of the country’s media.Mario Arturo Iannaccone, an Italian scholar whose previous works have touched on themes of Gnosticism and alleged Biblical conspiracies, reports that in modern times Mary Magdalene– depicted in the Gospel as a repentant sinner and follower of Christ– has emerged in a new light as the representative of “the sacred feminine and a spirituality of the goddess.”
This radically altered view of the Christian saint– which closely follows the thesis put forward by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code– has been promoted by pagan influences including Wicca and New Age spirituality, the book says. The new view of Mary Magdalene, Iannaccone argues, is “more promising, relativistic, and multicultural: perfect for the modern mentality.”
The Italian daily Corriere della Sera has given prominent coverage to the Iannaccone’s critical approach. The daily Avvenire, published by the Italian bishops’ conference, devoted a full page to the book, entitling the review, “Hands Off Mary Magdalene.”
Something incredible happened in the study of ancient history. An ancient Vishnu idol found in an old Russian village shows how India 1700 years back influenced Russian civilization.
The idol found in Staraya (old) Maina village dates back to VII-X century AD. Staraya Maina village in Ulyanovsk region was a highly populated city 1700 years ago, much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all Russian cities.
“We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a hypothesis, which requires thorough research,” Reader of Ulyanovsk State University’s archaeology department Dr Alexander Kozhevin told state-run television Vesti .
This shows how ancient Hinduism and Aryan culture spread through out the whole world.
SUPER skinny NICOLE RICHIE is dabbling in witchcraft to help rid her of her bad luck. The socialite reportedly hired a shaman (someone who mediates between the natural and supernatural worlds) to stop her troubles spiralling out of control.
Nic has so far been arrested while driving under the influence, separated from fiance ADAM ‘DJ AM’ GOLDSTEIN, suffered from a hotly-debated eating disorder and seen her cat plunge 10 floors from the balcony of her apartment - and that’s just 2006!
The troubled star thinks someone in her social circle has “hexed” her and she’s determined to break the spell.
Nicole had a witch doctor perform a $1,000 (£500) spiritual cleansing of her West Hollywood apartment, according to Life & Style magazine.
A source - who claimed a shaman chanted, danced and burned sage in every room of her home for two hours - said: “She’s very superstitious and believes in this stuff. It’s a very personal thing for Nicole.
“Nicole believes in curses but would never put one on anyone, not even her worst enemy.”
UNLIKE its larger, postcard-perfect Aegean Sea neighbours, Keros is a tiny rocky dump inhabited by a single goatherd. But the barren islet had great significance for the mysterious Cycladic people, a sophisticated pre-Greek civilisation with no written language that flourished 4500 years ago and produced strikingly modern-looking artwork.A few kilometres from the bustling resorts of Mykonos and Santorini, Keros is a vast repository of art from the seafaring culture whose flat-faced marble statues inspired the work of 20th-century masters Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore. Out of all the documented statues - known as Cycladic figurines - in museums and collections worldwide, more than half were found there. New excavations by a Greek-British team of archaeologists have unearthed a cache of prized prehistoric statues, all deliberately broken, that could help finally solve the Keros riddle.
When they were unearthed, the white marble shards were jumbled close together like a pile of bleached bones: an elbow here, a leg there, occasionally a head. British excavation leader Colin Renfrew, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Cambridge University, believes Keros was a hugely important religious site where the smashed artwork was ceremoniously deposited.
“What we do have clearly is what must be recognised as the earliest regional ritual centre in the Aegean,” he says.
This could put it on a par with the sacred islet of Delos, also in the Cyclades, revered from early antiquity until Christian times as the birthplace of Apollo, god of music and light. However, the finds on Keros date to about 1500 years before the cult of Apollo started on Delos.
There is no evidence the Cycladic culture worshipped the Greek gods of Mount Olympus, who first appeared in the second millennium BC, and their beliefs are shrouded in mystery as no sanctuaries dating to before 2000BC have been excavated.
Some experts believe the islanders’ religion was probably built round a fertility cult related to the mother-goddess of neolithic times, whose worship survived in various forms until Christian times in the Greco-Roman world. The Cycladic statues, many of which depict pregnant women, may have played a part in such beliefs, and their deliberate destruction a ritual act.
During excavations in the middle of last year, Renfrew’s team found an undisturbed trove of figurines missed by looters who ransacked the islet in the 1950s and ’60s. They all had been deliberately smashed around 2500BC: “We’ve got hundreds of marble bowl fragments and many dozens of figurine fragments, which don’t seem to fit together,” Renfrew says. “You have a head here, a single foot here, a torso there, some thighs here - and all very deliberately broken. Pieces havebeen deliberately broken again into small pieces.”
Cycladic civilisation was a network of small, sometimes fortified farming and fishing settlements that traded with mainland Greece, Crete and Asia Minor. Best known for its elegant figurines - mostly naked, elongated figures with their arms folded under their chest - it flourished between 3200BC and 2000BC and was eclipsed in the second millennium BC by Crete and Mycenaean Greece.
Broken figurines such as these are known from private collections formed after the looting, but for the first time experts can try to piece a story together from the subtle clues that treasure hunters destroy.
The excavation disproves theories that the artefacts came from cemeteries, as no human bones were found, or that they were wantonly broken by modern vandals.
“We can say that the breakages are definitely old,” Renfrew says. “(The figurines) weren’t smashed there because (then) you’d find the bits together, and there’s differential weathering which suggests that not only were they broken elsewhere and brought there, but some of them became weathered elsewhere.”
Renfrew believes the figurines, some of them originally up to 1m high, may have come from regional sanctuaries spread throughout the Cyclades. Pottery finds indicate the site could have attracted worshippers from as far away as mainland Greece.
“Maybe at some point in some life cycle, the figurines were ritually smashed and taken to Keros in some ceremony,” he says. “It’s going to take a while to sort out what’s goingon.”
Experts agree that the elegant marble figurines, which initially had details painted on in bright colours, were highly prized in the early Bronze Age Cyclades, but still don’t understand for what purpose they were made. Some 1400 have survived, although only 40per cent are of known origin as looters destroyed evidence on the rest.
They were made following a pattern that changed little over 800 years. They have been variously interpreted as depicting gods or venerated ancestors, serving as replacements for human sacrifice, grave goods, even children’s toys. While Renfrew believes they should not be associated with the cemeteries in which many were found, he concedes there is little evidence of how they were used in everyday life.
“So there’s a lot we have yet to learn,” he says. “We may be on the path toward learning now.”
In the coming year, excavations will focus on the nearby rock of Daskalio, which Renfrew believes was one of the main Cycladic sites.
“There are huge quantities of building stone littering the surface, lots of walls to a small height and great quantities of pot shards,” he says. “It clearly is by early Bronze Age standards a very large settlement.”
Two Havana groups of Santería priests issued their predictions for 2007, eagerly awaited by the many Cubans who practice the mixture of African and Catholic religions.
In separate and virtually competing new-year predictions, two groups of Cuban Santería priests are predicting a ‘’funereal'’ future but also an ‘’ideal'’ moment for an economic recovery.
The island’s babalawos have long been split into several groups, with one group relatively loyal to the government. But their annual predictions nevertheless are anxiously awaited by the many Cubans who practice the mixture of African and Catholic religions.
This year, the predictions were awaited with special interest because of Fidel Castro’s still-unknown ailment, which has kept him out of the public eye since July 26 and sparked speculation that he’s seriously ill.
On Monday, the Yoruba priests who make up the relatively independent Commission for the Year’s Letter announced that 2007 would be marked by wars and ‘’military interventions'’ although the island will see an economic improvement based on the discovery of oil and mineral deposits.
While they refused to speak specifically about Castro’s health, babalawo Lázaro Cuesta, who read the year’s prediction, made comments that seemed to be directed at the Cuban leader’s ailment.
‘’The panorama that presents itself to us is a little funereal,'’ he said. “When one doesn’t leave his place at its proper time, one runs the risk that unpredictable things happen.'’
Castro surrendered power for the first time in 47 years after undergoing intestinal surgery in late July. A Spanish surgeon who visited him two weeks ago said Castro was recovering from ‘’complications'’ following “very grave surgery.'’
The 80-year-old Castro turned over most of his power temporarily to his younger brother Raúl, who is believed by many Cuba-watchers to be more willing than his brother to open the island’s economy to more market forces.
‘’I was powerfully impressed that they [the babalawos] were so categoric on this,'’ said María I. Faguaga Iglesias, a Havana anthropologist who took part in the process of developing the commission’s predictions.
Although the Cuban babalawos usually avoid making statements with political implications, this year they raised eyebrows when they called for more care and attention to the island’s youth “because today’s youth will be called to rule from a house to a country in the not-too-distant future.'’
The babalawos’ comments coincided with recent statements by Raúl Castro that the generation that fought in and led the Castro revolution is reaching the end of its time “and we must give way to new generations.'’
Meanwhile, the Cuban Council of Senior Ifá Priests, considered to be more loyal to the government, said its predictions “speak of legal problems and their repercussions, which could bring as a concequence an increase in corruption and crime.'’
A third group of babalawos in Miami, which will make its own predictions public today, said the true forecast falls somewhere between the two Havana groups. ‘’If we take a piece of each letter to make up one real letter, if out of all this mess we take a little bit of each, this year, simply put, the letter is predicting something bad,'’ said Miami babalawo José Montoya.
City Weekly’s copy editor tries his hand at divination—but are his predictions accurate? Only time will tell.
The cards never lie. Well, that is, unless you lose control of the deck while shuffling and they end up all over the floor. Then the cards lie—not lay—on the carpet.
It’s the job of a copy editor to make such piddling distinctions—and to bear the wrath of militant grammarians who write angry letters every time small errors of syntax or punctuation go to press. This week, however, I’ve been allowed to slip the surly bonds of The Associated Press Stylebook and turn my attention to more spooky and ethereal matters: The I Ching, Runes and other divinatory tomes.
Through these, mystics throughout history have earnestly sought to foretell events yet to come—and charlatans have cynically endeavored to bilk many a gullible victim. During this exercise, I’ve tried to stay more on the “earnest mystic” side of the fence so as not to anger the spirits and suffer the fate in Hollywood ghost stories of all who dabble in the occult—they end up possessed, struck by lightning or burnt to a crisp. Still, if any readers care to slip me a $50, I’ll be happy to consult the oracle on their behalf.
City Weekly asked some real psychics if they’d answer some questions of local import about the year to come. Can I do any worse than they? Undoubtedly. But, who knows? Maybe I’ll strike psychic gold. Here are Swami Brandonanda’s predictions for 2007:
What sort of bumps in the road does Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s presidential bid face? Any new scandals?
Method: I Ching.
Result: Hexagram 16 (Yu), with no changing lines: “In this state, feudal princes and other delegates may be set up, and the hosts put in motion, with advantage.”
Prediction: “Feudal princes?” “Delegates?” Looks like Romney’s ambitions to be No. 1 Big Cheese aren’t written in The Book of Changes this time around! Still, after he bows out of the race, he could curry favor with the real Republican candidate by donating his war chest to the presidential campaign, setting him up for a cabinet appointment should a Republican—spirits forefend!—win in 2008.
Interestingly, though, another symbol for this hexagram is the elephant. Once the GOP realizes how far to the right of mainstream American thought it’s placed itself, it’ll want to shake things up and put a slippery little bugger in charge—one who can manage to be both for and against just about anything. So I predict Romney will get the nod for RNC chairman. Not bad, Mitt!
Will LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley receive a revelation in 2007 that would allow full church membership to gays and lesbians?
Method: Runes
Result: Raido: “To ride; motion, a journey; transport or communication.”
Prediction: “Journey” could, of course, denote a spiritual journey—which in this case makes sense. The entire church seems to be journeying from a place where it tortured its gay and lesbian members with electrical devices to its present state: torturing its gay and lesbian members with ill-founded psychological treatments. This is progress.
Still, I don’t recommend that any gay man or lesbian should belong—and contribute money—to an organization that strenuously opposes equal rights for gay men and lesbians. There may be hope, however: If this rune also denotes communication, we can expect more from LDS Church leadership on this topic come spring General Conference. My prediction: After discovering a trusted assistant is gay—sort of a Mr. Burns and Smithers situation—President Hinckley will have a change of heart on the whole subject of homosexuality. He will announce in April that members should accept monogamous gay and lesbian couples in full fellowship.
What will Rocky’s new job be?
Method: Stichomancy using George Orwell’s 1984.
Result: “The route she gave him was quite different from the one by which he had come, and brought him out at a different railway station. ‘Never go home the same way as you went out,’ she said, as though enunciating an important general principle. She would leave first, and Winston was to wait half an hour before following her.”
Prediction: The reference in this passage to the London Underground, and to public transportation in general, is unmistakable: The Democrats will win the White House in 2008 and Rocky will be appointed Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. He’ll develop the country’s antiquated rail systems, providing incentives for light-rail construction in cities nationwide, and thus reduce the country’s dependence on oil and the need for unsightly and environmentally catastrophic freeway-and-road expansion.
Speaking of not going out the way he came in, a 2010 midterm reappointment to Secretary of the Interior means water bottles will be banned not only from public meetings but also in national parks and on all forms of public transportation.
Brandon Burt lives in the present. He may be your friend, but he is not your Psychic Friend, and he is possessed only by the love of a well-placed apostrophe.
If you walk too fast, you might miss it — the quaint, little shop nestled between Maly’s Beauty Supply and an Army surplus store on busy South B Street.However, spiritual seekers from all walks of life know to pop into Sacred Paths Bookstore when in need of divine solace, hope, and even intervention.
Susie Ughe and business partner Nancy Connolly created the ethereal haven a little more than a year ago — making it the newest place in San Mateo County to cater to all faiths, mysticism and New Age ideas.
It is one of a few spiritual bookstores dotting the county, as more and more people are starting to question their true purpose in life, without the restrictions of a specific religion.
Ughe, a San Mateo native, was raised Catholic, but lost touch with her spirituality in her 20s. She said it was the 9/11 attacks that lit the spark for her, and many other people, to start searching for the meaning of life.
“We’re here for a purpose, to find compassion in all human beings, and from the Catholic perspective, it’s to see God in everybody,” she said.
Ughe said the New Age movement has been slow in the Bay Area, a place where people typically have more of a progressive view on political and social issues. But Ughe, 37, believes it is the next logical place to be forward-thinking, as is Los Angeles, where every other block seems to have a New Age store. For now, it’s a grassroots movement on the Peninsula, she said, going as far back as the 1960s, when Mountain View’s East West, the area’s oldest spiritual bookshop, opened in Menlo Park. Angel Light Books and Gifts in Redwood City and Full Circle in Belmont opened later.
“The community is definitely here,” said Corinne Marcus, an astrologer. The Hillsborough resident adds that if there weren’t any spiritual bookstores, people would feel isolated.
“These bookstores give a sense of community, a sense of belonging and the ability to exchange with others looking for something bigger than themselves,” Marcus said. “They want to establish their spiritual practice without following a religious dogma.”
New Age teachings gained popularity in the 1970s, but mellowed under criticism from established religions in the 1980s. Ughe said the big push toward spirituality returned over the last 10 years, with more people interested in also learning about the mystical aspects of Christianity, Gnostic traditions, Taoism, Buddhism, as well as Wicca and other neo-pagan traditions.
According to a recent Baylor University Religion Survey, 44 percent of Americans spent money in the past month on religious and spiritual items such as devotional books, sacred texts, jewelry and greeting cards. Of these, 16 percent of them claim no religious affiliation.
“The world’s more chaotic now,” said Valencia Chan, owner of Angel Light Books and Gifts. “People are seeking a sanctuary within themselves so they can find peace and harmony.”
Ughe said her store has gotten nothing but good feedback from people who are happy the shop exists.
“It’s a safe place for them to search,” she said. “They don’t have to change their religion, they don’t have to be different. It doesn’t have to stop them from going to church.”
