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Teaching Speciesism: The McDonald’s Talking Fish schools Consumers on Complicit Complacency

August 30, 2009 / 0 comments

The McDonald’s “Talking Filet-O-Fish” commercial opens with a wide shot of a garage. A heavy, bearded man sits with a McDonald’s bag and drink on the table in front of him. He seems comfortable, content, and average as he holds a sandwich in his hand. When he takes a bite of the sandwich the shot…

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Peer-to-Peer Blessing

August 27, 2009 / 0 comments

The web site myblessingcircle.com is launching as a self-described “Peer-to-Peer Anonymous Blessing Community.” “Blessing-receivers are invited to upload a photograph or symbolic image and/or short bio of themselves, specify a particular spiritual/religious tradition they turn to for support, as well as request blessings focused on a particular theme or issue. Blessing-givers can review pending requests,…

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Vincent Callebaut Architectures

August 21, 2009 / 0 comments

Vincent Callebaut Architectures is designing entirely new spiritual spaces. Many of his recent designs are buildings that function as eco-technology. They integrate with the multiple environments that overlap in our cities: human, mechanical and Gaian.

Slayage

August 21, 2009 / 0 comments

I came across “Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies” today. It’s difficult to look at any neo pagan online community without finding frequent references to Joss Whedon’s television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” One of the most often used quotes about wicca, for example, is this exchange between the characters Willow and Buffy…

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Psychiana

August 21, 2009 / 0 comments

Mitch Horowitz writes about Psychiana, a “mail order” New Thought religion created by Frank B. Robinson in 1928. Robinson ran the religion from his office in Moscow, Idaho. “Robinson was probably the first religious figure of the twentieth century to fully grasp the power of advertising and mail-order marketing. But he was more than just…

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Crossing The River: The Journey of Death in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

August 21, 2009 / 0 comments

The religious traditions of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were born on the banks of rivers. How did this alluvial geography contribute to their notions of death and the afterlife? In what ways did the rivers, cycle of the sun and other environmental phenomena help construct these ancient cultures view of the journey into the next…

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Neopagan Technology

August 11, 2009 / 0 comments

My research this summer has been focused on NRMs. Most recently, I’ve been looking at Neopaganism. This includes the general new age-isms, the 2012 movement, some UFO religions, Druids, Ásatrú, Ceremonial Magick and Wicca (in no particular order). Many of these NRMs reside at an intersection of religion and technology. Witchvox, a “neopagan news/networking” web…

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Stellar Religions

July 28, 2009 / 0 comments

The University of Wales, Lampter is now home to the Sophia Center for the Study of Cosmology in Culture. Formerly housed at Bath Spa, the center offers an MA program in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. See the fascinating courses here.

“The Swastika in America”

June 7, 2009 / 0 comments

dotshell.net posts about what happened when he tried to put up a Jain poster with a swastika on it.

Is Earth becoming Mars?

June 3, 2009 / 0 comments

Perhaps a planet dies so slowly that it isn’t noticed. Is there a point of no return? These time lapse images from space show the disappearing Aral Sea.

OGMA

May 31, 2009 / 0 comments

OGMA releases his his first album. His ecstatic music can be heard on myspace.

Pogo

May 31, 2009 / 0 comments

One year ago I blogged about Pogo’s youtube video “Alice” – here’s an insightful post about his music on Poemocracy thanks to Our Future Environment for sending this to me. You can download Pogo’s amazing creations on last.fm.

Earth2 and The Gaia Hypothesis

May 21, 2009 / 0 comments

Karla Tonella has constructed an online document where she is looking at Earth2, an NBC television series from the 1990s. “Set 200 years in the future when the depleted Earth(1) is mostly uninhabitable, this series turns us back on ourselves to reconsider our relationship to our own planet, indigenous peoples and other species. While post-colonial…

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Vatican iPhone App

May 19, 2009 / 0 comments

“Titled “The Pope Meets You on Facebook,” the new Pope2You application lets people send and receive “virtual postcards” of Pope Benedict along with inspiring text culled from the pope’s various speeches and messages.” Via Cult of Mac, via Catholic News.

Experience of a “Contemporary” Christian Church in the American South

April 13, 2009 / 0 comments

I asked the writer to recount their experience of visiting a “contemporary” church in Arkansas, Easter 2009. The photograph they showed me of the coffee shop was so interesting, I wanted to know more. Here is what they sent me: The last time I went to church it was in a bar in Brooklyn. Yesterday…

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