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2.12.14

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Teller Reveals His Secrets | Arts & Culture #magic. Burgess Shale Expedition #science. Alchemy May Not Have Been the Pseudoscience We All Thought It Was | Science. Throughout much of the 20th century, the academic community had little patience with alchemists and their vain efforts to transmute base metals into gold. Any contemporary scholar who even dared to write about alchemy, historian Herbert Butterfield warned, would “become tinctured with the kind of lunacy they set out to describe.”

But, in the 1980s, some revisionist scholars began arguing that alchemists actually made significant contributions to the development of science. Historians of science began deciphering alchemical texts—which wasn’t easy. The alchemists, obsessed with secrecy, deliberately described their experiments in metaphorical terms laden with obscure references to mythology and history. For instance, text that describes a “cold dragon” who “creeps in and out of the caves” was code for saltpeter (potassium nitrate)—a crystalline substance found on cave walls that tastes cool on the tongue.

Other scholars have at times responded to this idea with outrage. The Incredible Power of Music. "The Lost Symbol" - Magic Squares and the Masonic Cipher. Perfecting Horizons Library. Lorde’s Suppressed Grammy Award acceptance speech (Full Transcript) 26 January 2014 | Snoopman News. Queen Bee Sting: Grammy audience told to read more Update: Lorde’s suppressed Grammy speech makes front-page news in New Zealand Lorde’s censored handwritten Grammy speechFull Transcript (with citations) of Lorde’s speech Lorde Censored: The Queen Bee’s Suppressed Grammy See the Full Story: Royal Pencil in Print: Lorde’s suppressed Grammy speech makes front-page news in far-flung New Zealand Lorde: Thankyou soo much everyone for making this song explode because this world is mental.

As American journalist Chris Hedges has identified, a corporate totalitarian core thrives inside a fictitious democratic shell.[2] This core yields an ‘inverted’ totalitarian state that few recognize because it does not look like the Orwellian world of Nineteen Eighty-four.[3] This corporate totalitarian core is spreading outward from America. Thankyou soo much everyone for giving a shit about our song, ‘Royals’ . [3] Orwell, George. (1993) . [7] Engdahl, F.

Sonic Geometry: The Language of Frequency and Form. How social media can make history. What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun? | David Graeber. David Graeber [from The Baffler No. 24, 2014] My friend June Thunderstorm and I once spent a half an hour sitting in a meadow by a mountain lake, watching an inchworm dangle from the top of a stalk of grass, twist about in every possible direction, and then leap to the next stalk and do the same thing. And so it proceeded, in a vast circle, with what must have been a vast expenditure of energy, for what seemed like absolutely no reason at all. “All animals play,” June had once said to me. “Even ants.” She’d spent many years working as a professional gardener and had plenty of incidents like this to observe and ponder. “Look,” she said, with an air of modest triumph. Most of us, hearing this story, would insist on proof. This would be the reaction of most professional ethologists as well.

That’s why the existence of animal play is considered something of an intellectual scandal. Why do animals play? Survival of the Misfits This, anyway, is how the Russian challenge was understood. Why Me?