HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dhardin@bbn.com (Dawn Hardin)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Date: 18 Dec 1992 15:05:43 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com
Keywords: gloom doom magic survival

In article <1992Dec17.224711.14248@u.washington.edu>, grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John Greer) writes:
> 
> a) in order to make it your group is going to have to have sources of food
> and other resources in its control that will meet its needs for the
> indefinite future.  That doesn't mean huge stockpiles -- it means having 
> the necessary skills to create those resources out of naturally occurring
> raw materials.  Farming is an obvious example.  You'll want some stored
> food, in case the processes of collapse involve changes in the weather
> patterns sufficient to wreck your crops a couple of years running, but
> beyond that you're going to want to concentrate on learning how to produce
> food, not just living off an irreplaceable backlog.
> 
> I'm not sure why, but a lot of survivalist types seem to miss this point.
> I've met plenty of people who are feverishly storing freeze-dried foods,
> and plenty of others who are planning on living off the (already severely
> stressed!) natural ecosystems of their retreat area.  Both of those are
> variants on the same sort of consumerist thinking that played such a big 
> role in getting us into the present mess.

I agree with your point, but if I were going to make the switch from going
to the grocery store every week to growing my own food I would want to 
have a full year's plus an extra winter's supply of staples on hand before
I tried it.  That first year of farming is more likely to be supplementing
food stores, building up a seed banks, and getting mistakes out of your
system.  Even if it all went well, you're not harvesting very much to eat
until August or so.  Even if you have the gardening skills and the preserving
skills making the transition to doing it for real is going to be tough.
Especially the preserving, when you can't go to the super market for a
year's supply of rubber rings for your canning.  

A year and a half's supply of freeze dried gunk is a hell of a 
lot of food to be stockpiling.  That alone would probably put you in  
the "crazy survivalist" camp in the eyes of your neighbors.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread and it's subthreads.  Although 
I *was* hoping that there might be more at the end about what kind of 
magickal skills might be useful in this situation.  (I sorta figure that
I'm personally too little and wimpy and neurotic to have much hope of 
being a decent survivalist, but it's still an interesting topic of 
conversation.)

Dawn

Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved.
"Folk Song" by Bongwater
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:27:56 EST
From: <CCS105@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: misc.magick...

...Excellent idea...in fact, just a few days ago I scanned the net, hoping
to find something similar to alt. magick.. I found none..

Perhaps I am going overboard..but it may be nice to have a place where
you could strictly talk about theory of magick. For example, a place where
you could find articles such as RE:qliphoth, and the sephiroth series...
Of course, this sort of thing is done here...(and I would like to thank the
individuals who posted the informative posts like in the example above)
I always seem to run into the problem of conflicting information about a
similar topic, and it is nice to see someone elses description of things..
Ok. enough..
smitty.
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: stanley@verga.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Date: 14 Dec 92 15:07:09 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <1992Dec14.070934.19077@sobeco.com>, ladislas@sobeco.com (Ladislas A.) writes...
>This thread is really attracting a lot of attention.  Very interesting ideas
>have been brought forth concerning the use of nanothechnology, space 
>resources and energy usage.  In one article, there was mention of standards of
>of living and of everyone having enough to eat.
> 
>(This is off the subject of magick, but I think the point is being missed
> when it comes to the subjects I mentioned above)

What is the point then, Ladislas?

> 
>"_Food_First_" by Frances Moore Lappe & Joseph Collins.  Houghton Mifflin
>Company, Boston, 1977.  Copyright (c) 1977, Institute for Food and Development
>Policy.  ISBN: 0-88515-116-X
> 
>I mention the title to a very interesting and somewhat revolting book.  It does
>smack of socialistic views (the way the facts are presented - which is what
>makes the book revolting), but the general information regarding land
>ownerships and use gives a good idea of why third-world countries are in such
>dire straits.  It also makes the reader take a new look at what the real
>problem with the human specy really is: greed.

There are ways around that surely..

> 
>As long as greed (meaning that the industrialized nations just can't seem to
>have enough energy, luxuries et al.) is stronger than common sense (meaning
>a different way of managing the planetary wealth) our civilization is bound
>for self-destruction.  Do not read "total annihilation" though.
> 
>Stopping here since the whole case should end up in some other newsgroup.

Seems to me that the whole case belongs in this newsgroup.  Who else can
address problems like this?
From: ccdarg@dct.ac.uk (Alan Greig)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: misc.magick...
Date: 17 Dec 92 12:23:03 GMT
Organization: Dundee Institute of Technology

In article <1992Dec16.064254.17948@primerd.prime.com>, jasonp@bungie.Prime.com (Jason Pascucci) writes:
> I've been thinking about it, and it has recently occured
> to me that we may very well have enough people to get
> a 'real' newsgroup out on the net. This will increase
> our readership 10 fold, at least, give access to
> our resources to non-altgroup-carrying sites.

How on earth do you work that out? In reality most sites take alt
groups and some of these groups are among the most read on the net.

From the latest arbitron listing:


This is the full set of data from the USENET readership report for Nov 92.
Explanations of the figures are in a companion posting.

        +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
        |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
        |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
        |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
        |     |     |      |      +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
        |     |     |      |      |      +-- Crossposting percentage
        |     |     |      |      |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      +-- Share: % of newsrders
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      |   who read this group.
        V     V     V      V      V      V    V      V
   1 180000  5379   90%     1    12.1   100%  0.00  10.9%  news.announce.newusers 
   2 170000  4910   83%  1226  1401.3    28%  0.01  10.0%  misc.forsale 
   3 170000  4862   84%   871  1762.7    20%  0.02   9.9%  misc.jobs.offered 
   4 140000  4235   67%  2014  4176.9    51%  0.04   8.6%  alt.sex 
...
...
Note that the fourth most read group is an alt.group.
...
...
 778  15000   445   59%   315   840.0     2%  0.06   0.9%  alt.magick 
...

Possibly the propagation % is a little on the low side for an average
alt group but it still reaches 60% of *all* usenet sites. It might
be worth sending a newgroup for alt.magick and prompt a few more sysadmins
to create it but that's about all.

If the propagation was increased ten fold then this would put the group
into the top five. Which it won't...


-- 
Alan Greig                            Janet: Alan@UK.AC.DUNDEE-TECH
Dundee Institute of Technology	   Internet: Alan@DCT.AC.UK
Tel: (0382) 308810                 Int: +44 382 308810
              -- There is only one true conspiracy --
From: mcm3s@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (If you want to know ASK!)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Hello
Date: 21 Dec 92 03:51:45 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

Merry meet!

I have read this newsgroup for a while now and just got around to finally 
posting. (ie I have a paper to do for tomorrow at noon)  And so I 
introduce myself:

I am a English/Governtment Major with a Drama minor (SO WHAT?!?) at the U of
Virginia.  I am a practicing wiccan trying to finish personalizing my own 
path to suit my style.  I am currently looking for other ppl who are
practicing in the Charlottesville area so if you should happen to know anyone
please let me know.  

I have been disturbed by several posts on this newsgroup tho.  The piece 
about the alternate reality in MUDs should have stayed on the alt.mud group.
Altho new forms of cybermagick may be starting, the post as I read it was
more oriented on the other reality inside the program.  

I was also wondering if anyone knows where I may be able to find Crowley's
third book.  Amazingly our library has the fourth and I think i know where
to get the first 2 but it is the third that I have yet to see.  Was it really
ever published? If so does anyone know where to get a copy?

Sorry this was so long for a newbie poster to this group and NO i dont want 
to compile the intro list for this new FAQ proposal ;)

Casey/Bozo/et al ad infinitum

"Thine own will to do -- To thine own heart be true -- So mote it be."
							--Me
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: tucker@maestro.mitre.org (William Tucker)
Subject: Re: Food for Fasting
Keywords: Re: Food for Fasting
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, USA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:53:26 GMT

Youu heff@apollo.hp.com (Jeff Oesterle) wrote:

So, I'm planning on fasting in a couple of weeks, and I'm wondering
what the best way to go about it is.

The options available seem to be water only, varieties of juices, 
and/or vitamins.  I've heard different recommendations, and would
like to get more information.   A FOAF who studied nutrition as an
undergrad seems to think that drinking juices would be worse on the
ole digestive system than drinking just water.  Does this make sense?



I tucker@maestro.mitre.org (William Tucker) respond:

It all depends upon why you're fasting. Fruit juices have a lot of 
sugar in them, which can throw you out of whack. If you just drink 
water, be sure not to drink distilled water as it will leach minerals
from your system. I would think that fasting for two weeks is a little
long, the most I've fasted for is three days, and I quit eating meat a
couple of days in advance to avoid any nasty stuff sitting in my system.
I would also consider doing a colonic or an enema beforehand to avoid 
creating a concrete plug in your system, which may have to be removed 
with a roto rooter after you get through. I believe those are the greatest
dangers on a fast, electrolyte depletion and blockage. Although if you
are overweight you need to drink a lot of water to remove the byproducts
of metabolizing all the fat and sometimes stored in the fat are things
that are not too good for you. I think that if you take excessive amounts
of vitamin E it is stored in your fat and will give you problems during a 
fast. Hope this is useful to you.


Wm T.

.standard disclaimer

Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: joshua@cpac.washington.edu (Joshua Geller)
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Organization: Institute for the Study of Ancient Science
	<1992Dec15.010325.17173@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:55:19 GMT


the thing is, you haven't really offered a solution. in fact,
you have said that you don't think there is a solution (or
rather, that you don't think the solution is feasible (reducing
consumption, the whole lifeboat thing ... I agree, it is not
feasible)). you merely cry 'doom doom' and recommend heading
for the hills.

tell you what, I'll bet you $1000.00 that civilization will not
fall by any date you care to name. I'll go further; I will bet
$1000 against your $10 that civilization will not fall by any
date you care to name.

josh
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: grimoire@byron.u.washington.edu (John Greer)
Subject: Re: Merkabah Mysteries
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:57:20 GMT

In article <mcnair.48.723765823@slab.unt.edu> mcnair@slab.unt.edu (SEAN MCNAIR) writes:
>	I read a book last summer about the Merakbah Mysteries. Some people 
>believe that biblical figures such as Moses and Jesus achieved their 
>supernatural powers through the study of the Merkabah. Does anybody know 
>more about this?
>
>
>			Sean Jeffers Mc Nair


I don't have my references with me here at work, but I'll give it a shot...

Merkabah is Hebrew for "chariot", and refers to the vision seen by the 
prophet Ezekiel at the beginning of the biblical book of the same name.
Back before the Qabala as we know it was devised, there were two major
schools of Jewish mysticlism, and one of them, the _Maaseh Merkabah_ or
"Work of the Chariot", based itself to some extent on this vision.  (The
other, the _Maaseh Berashith_ or "Work of Creation", was based on the
first chapter or so on Genesis; it's been suggested, although I forget
by who, that the _Sepher Yetzirah_ is the one surviving piece of this
tradition.)

The point of the Maaseh Merkabah is that it was thought to open up the
secrets of the geography of heaven, and to make it possible for the
adept to quite literally travel there.  There are stories in the 
Talmud -- most of what's known about this tradition comes from there
-- that make it clear that some kind of visionary journey was involved
in which the adept had to be able to give secret words to angelic
guardians, and so on.

To my knowledge, all that's left of this tradition is fragments, not
enough to form a workable system.  You might check some of the writings
of Aryeh Kaplan, who does a good job of interpreting this stuff in
terms of the Qabala, if you're interested in more...

-- John Michael Greer
   grimoire@u.washington.edu

Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: mimir@hardy.u.washington.edu (Al Billings)
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Organization: The Friends of Loki Society
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 02:10:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.161411.8221@engage.pko.dec.com> stanley@verga.enet.dec.com (My name is legion) writes:
>
>Are you sure you're not a Certified Public Accountant, Stock Broker or
>Psychologist?  You appear to think like they do.

 Are you sure you aren't a deadhead or some other form of new age granola?
You seem to think like they do.
From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: TeXBook of Lies, v1.1 announcement
Date: 18 Dec 1992 14:49 CST
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rigel.tamu.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

David Serhienko writes...
>What is Slopoke?  An ftp site?  Can I get the address if it is?  E-mail it 
>if you can.  advaTHANKSnce
>David W Serhienko

+----------------------------------------SubG----------------------------------+
Slopoke is the ftp site at SLOPOKE.MLB.SEMI.HARRIS.COM, which maintains some
of the texts oft mentioned here in alt.magick.

As far as email goes, lots of people have asked me to email them copies of _The
Book of Lies_ but I'm afraid I can't, as my system's MAIL buffer is
considerably smaller than the considerable bulk of the text.







Yours etc.,




SubGenius


Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: rtsumn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: Re: misc.magick...
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:41:46 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville

Misc.* groups impress me as being concerned with dull-but-
necessary parts of life (taxes, jobs, education, etc.). I'd
go with talk--there seems to be a little more flexibility.
Misc.* is bearable; it's just about the last place I'd look
for a magick group (right before bio.*).

Of course, you could try to push it as a soc. group. Then
someone would point out that magick is a religion, and 
you'd have to call it soc.religion.magick, and moderate it.
This could be detrimental or beneficial, depending upon your
views (you know who you are :)

Myself, I don't like moderation, even in moderation. I don't
think moving this group would generate enough extra volume
that it would be a total disaster. Magick is not as
controversial as, say, abortion.

But then, I guess my opinion doesn't count for much on this,
since I'm not too likely to be here next year. But if I am,
I'd vote for misc.magick as well as talk.magick. I *would*
like to see more distribution.

--Semhaza
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: joshua@cpac.washington.edu (Joshua Geller)
Subject: Re: widening gyre
Organization: Institute for the Study of Ancient Science
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 23:05:04 GMT


I probably wouldn't have such a hard time taking this post seriously
if 'fascism' wasn't mispelled throughout.

josh
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: jasonp@bungie.Prime.com (Jason Pascucci)
Subject: misc.magick...
Organization: Prime Computer R&D
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 06:42:54 GMT

I've been thinking about it, and it has recently occured
to me that we may very well have enough people to get
a 'real' newsgroup out on the net. This will increase
our readership 10 fold, at least, give access to
our resources to non-altgroup-carrying sites.

However, the drawbacks are that our readership will
increase 10fold :) And we'll have to go through a double-bout 
of screaming morons, similar to the one we go through every
school term, but worse, until things start to settle down 
again.

About the name...my pick is misc.magick. Comp.magick
is right out (easily confused with comp.unix.wizards:), and
the talk.* groups are all annoying as hell, only
a little worse than the soc.* groups. Rec.Magick
came in as a close second, but it's infinately more
likely to get confused with Recreational Magic 
(Prestidigitation, et al.), and in my opinion, it
gives the wrong image...Magick being a way-of-life
moreso than a hobby (for most). 

Sci.Magick would get flamed up and down the net, for
one thing, because in the general populous's eyes, Magick isn't 
a Science, period, end of sentence, and I don't think it
quite fits either. While I might be convinced this is the better choice, 
I feel that we are more likely to get 'No' votes here than in misc.magick. 

My thought process goes something like...if we were going
to create a group called '*.christianity', about the
practice and philosophy of xtian belief (as opposed to,
say, all the psychological problem an xtian belief system
embodies :), for example, where would we put it? Sci.christianity 
seems wrong for the purpose, Rec.christianity seems wrong. 
Misc.christianity is probably the best I could come up with. 

If there I get a trend of 'Hey...not a terrible idea',
then I'll start an official RFD on news.groups,
and the subsequent CFV if it doesn't look like we'd
get drilled....

To make it stick, it's fairly likely we'll have to open it up
a little more to the Wiccan and other religion-belief-systems, although
we can show our standard contempt for much of the new-age
community :). Regardless, we should be able to slant it such that the 
current format is unchanged. (Question, Comment, Flame, Counter-Flame, 
etc, etc.)

Comments? Negative, as well as Positive: I need encouragement. :)

--
Jason R. Pascucci
jasonp@primerd.prime.com
From: taarna@hrnowl.lonestar.org (Taarna savet)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Daath
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 15:56:56 CST
Organization: Horned Owl BBS, Houston Texas.

In article (1992Dec11.075001.1@vax.somona.edu) mccalld@vax.somona.edu
writes:
>>  Why is Daath, knowledge, considered the false sepheroth?

I believe it was Josh who responded with:
>>  In the simplest terms, because it is artificial, that is, constructed 
>>  by each qabalist.

I felt that Josh's answer was perhaps the closest to the truth.  However,
I think that the word "artificial" is a bit misleading.  To be even more
precise, I feel that instead of using the word "artificial" we might try
to think of it as being "achieveable".  Daath lies at the heart of the 
"Path of the Priestess".  This path is by no means easy and represents 
the changeover from "mother" to "crone".  To make a long story short,
Daath, or knowledge, is not a __false__ sepheroth, but rather a 
__hidden__ sepheroth, one that can only be revealed after the passing of 
numerous experiences and time.

Four Winds,
  TAARNA SAVET
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: joshua@cpac.washington.edu (Joshua Geller)
Subject: Re: Daath & Tzaddi ??
Organization: Institute for the Study of Ancient Science
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 13:50:12 GMT


In article <1992Dec11.075001.1@vax.sonoma.edu> mccalld@vax.sonoma.edu writes:

>	   Why is Daath, knowledge, considered the false spheroth?

in the simplest terms, because it is artificial, that is, constructed by
each qabalist,


>			   Why is Tzaddi not the star?

heh! heh!

josh
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: mcnair@slab.unt.edu (SEAN MCNAIR)
Subject: Re: widening gyre
Organization: School of Library & Info Sci, UNT
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:29:16 GMT

	I beg to differ. In Pound's case at least, his "inner vision" was 
facism. An examination of the texts proves this to be so. The modernist idea 
of disjointed texts juxtaposed in such a way as to produce uncertainty, 
ambiguity, and a sense of chaos leads directly into the concept of Facism. 
Because the real world, at least as seen by Pound and his lot, (it's been 
demonstrated that Pound ghosted much of The Waste Land,) was seen as what 
Frost (an entirely different animal) termed "a momentary stay against 
confusion,"  i.e. form surrounded by and continually broken down by chaos, 
the Poundians believed that Facism would provide a response to the forces of 
chaos. By building form in a strict an powerful way, the forces of chaos 
would be thwarted, at least as much as was possible. Actually, Pound was 
more of a Futurist, a brand of Facism espoused by Italian intellectuals. In 
fact, Pound himself was convicted of war crimes, he was the Propagandist for 
major Italian radio station that broadcast during WWII. You really should 
read the Pound biography on this. Also, read a little Pound. Some say that 
a poet only writes one book in his life, he tells it a little differently 
each time. Definitely true of Pound.

		Sean Jeffers Mc Nair
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: jasonp@bungee.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Jason Pascucci)
Subject: Re: Hello
Organization: Prime Computer R&D
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 03:04:43 GMT

In article <BzL6o7.Gpy@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe) writes:
|> harish.reddy@factory.com (Harish Reddy)  writes:
|> Two good reasons *not* to respond to this person.

All roads lead to amber. 

|>                       --Br'anArthur

--
Jason R. Pascucci
jasonp@primerd.prime.com
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: anzlovar@wl.com (Bob Anzlovar)
Subject: Re: Singin' Those Apocalypse Blues
Organization: Warner Lambert / Parke-Davis
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:43:23 GMT

>> 
>>tell you what, I'll bet you $1000.00 that civilization will not
>>fall by any date you care to name. I'll go further; I will bet
>>$1000 against your $10 that civilization will not fall by any
>>date you care to name.
>> 
>>josh
>
>:-)... Can I get in on this action too?  I'm with Josh.

Yeah, sure, like the $1000 is gonna do me any good after civilzation
collapses. Are you willing to pay iin $1's so it's at least usable for
wiping after visiting the bushes? :-)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bob Anzlovar                    | I wrote COBOL once, but I didn't like
(anzlovar@wl.com)               | it. I didn't compile.
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bob Anzlovar                    | I wrote COBOL once, but I didn't like
(anzlovar@wl.com)               | it. I didn't compile.