Afflicted with angels

Maybe we need to start smuggling seditious rationalist literature into America, because look at the state of our fellow citizens’ minds:

More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion. In a poll of 1700 respondents, 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel.” The responses defied standard class and denominational assumptions about religious belief; the majority held up regardless of denomination, region or education — though the figure was a little lower (37%) among respondents earning more than $150,000 a year.

It’s a weird little article in the interpretation department, too. It keeps saying these numbers indicate something more than belief, and are experiential, whatever that means. It sounds like they are trying to imply that this is something more substantial than just a goofy delusion.

If you ask whether people believe in guardian angels, a lot of people will say, ‘sure.’ But this is different. It’s experiential. It means that lots of Americans are having these lived supernatural experiences.

No it doesn’t.

It means that a lot of Americans are experiencing ordinary, natural chance events and are after the fact, and with no evidence whatsoever, crediting fortunate outcomes to invisible, intangible men with wings in diaphanous robes. It means the culture is so saturated with magical thinking that millions of people are seeing the mundane as the supernatural, in a nicely self-reinforcing lunacy that makes reality a supporting prop for their hallucinations.

Vital news for this sacred day!

I am not yet in Madison, but I am in the Land of the Cheeseheads and am about to hit the road and expect to be there by early afternoon. And then I discover two coincidences, one happy and one mildly problematic.

By my good luck, Ron Numbers is speaking on the campus today, at 3:30 in Science Hall room 180. Hey, I should be able to make that! I just hope he doesn’t dispense some jewel of wisdom that compels me to rewrite my talk on the spot.

One concern: this is September 19th! It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day! This means, of course, that I have to give my lecture in a hokey dialect, which always makes us People of the Pirate sound silly to those who have no respect for our traditions. This is important to us, and I sure hope others around us, even the non-believers, will honor our deeply held beliefs and join us in the ritual. It will fend off global warming, you know.

I hope someone lets Dr Numbers know. I will feel much better if he engages in a little sabre-rattling before the talk, and perhaps punctuates his major points with a holy “Arrrrr.”

Ramtha triumphant

In case you were wondering about that lawsuit by JZ Knight in Seattle — she was claiming that a former student had stolen the teachings of her Atlantean warrior spirit guide for profit — it’s over now. Knight won. Keep that in mind if ever a channeler tells you some flaky secret knowledge someday: it’s protected, privileged speech and the ghostie can sue your butt off.

We’re going to be in big trouble when John Edward‘s spirits copyright the alphabet.

Those wacky muslims

Now one Islamic cleric has declared that Mickey Mouse must die. He’s unclean, after all.

“Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases.”

Mr Munajid seems to be a little confused about what is real and what is fiction, but at least this is a step up from declaring that people should die.

And then there is this:

Last month Mr Munajid condemned the Beijing Olympics as the “bikini Olympics”, claiming that nothing made Satan happier than seeing females athletes dressed in skimpy outfits.

Looks like another bit of evidence that I am Satan, then.

Jeffrey Rowland hurt his big toe!

Yeah, this is one of the weird things about these blogs — you learn about trivial odd things that happen to total strangers far, far away, and you can’t resist offering advice. Rowland dropped a beer bottle on his big toe, the nail is turning black, and it hurts, and now thousands of people know about it. It’s somehow charming.

Anyway, I know all about this. My father was a manual laborer, and he was always getting smashed digits … but he had a treatment that worked really well. I had friends who’d come over to visit when I was a kid, and if they had a black nail, my dad would just chortle happily and fix it right up (Yes! You have a glimmering of what my childhood was like!)

Here’s the solution: straighten out a paper clip, and use a match or a burner on the stove to get the tip red hot. Gently touch it to the center of the nail, which will basically melt away in a small spot. When you’ve just burned through, there will be a sudden spurt of blood that will sizzle a bit, but the pressure will be relieved. It will stop hurting and you probably won’t lose the nail, and the operation is completely painless.

It’s also fun at parties.

Suing over vapor

I’m always tickled and disturbed when I hear news about JZ Knight. Knight, as some of you may already know, is a New Age charlatan who claims to “channel” a 35,000 year old Atlantean warrior, and dispenses ludicrous advice in a growly voice and gets paid big bucks by the gullible. However, now one of her former students dared to turn around and use moldy wisdom she learned from a hokey old invisible friend, and fleece some rubes of her own. So what does Knight do? Sue, of course.

The only thing that could make the trial sillier is if the court put Ramtha on the witness stand.

Ooops, it’s vanished from the Seattle Times site. Here it is:

Yelm channeler JZ Knight testified Tuesday she was so “disturbed” at reports that spiritual teacher Whitewind Weaver had “taken my school’s teachings, changed them around a little and then started teaching them” that she authorized a lawsuit.

“It wasn’t anything I wanted to do,” Knight, founder of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, said during a civil jury trial in Thurston County Superior Court. “We usually tend to assume people are impeccable.”

But Weaver’s attorney, Robert Kilborne, of San Diego, grilled Knight about why the channeler would sue when Weaver had been so supportive of her school.

Weaver, founder of Lacey-based Art of Life Coaching Inc., sent a letter to her students in Oregon telling them she was moving to Washington to study at the Ramtha school, urged the students to do the same and enrolled in more than $8,000 worth of classes, Kilborne said.

Knight, self-proclaimed channel of a 35,000-year-old male spirit warrior entity Ramtha, was the second witness in her case accusing Weaver of breach of contract in connection with a seminar Weaver taught in August 2006. Knight claims the seminar violated terms of a registration Weaver signed that says teachings at the Ramtha school are for the students’ personal use only and cannot be disseminated for commercial gain.

Weaver’s attorneys deny the allegations.

Seattle attorney David Spellman, representing Weaver, pummeled school administrator Mike Wright.

Knight’s attorneys claim Weaver copied seven school processes, including Fieldwork, an exercise designed to improve ability to focus attention and intuition by finding a symbolic card on a fence while blindfolded.

“Is Pin the Tail on the Donkey focused attention?” Spellman asked Wright.

“It could be,” Wright replied.

“So, then is it Fieldwork?” Spellman said.

“No, it’s Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” Wright said.

Knight, under direct examination by Tacoma attorney Rick Creatura, told the jury how Ramtha first appeared to her in 1977. In visits during the ensuing years, she said Ramtha used her body to speak at seminars, in books and on tapes around the world.

Kilborne, on cross-examination, was not impressed.

“Isn’t it the flat truth that there is no Ramtha?” he asked.

“That is incorrect,” said Knight, who hosted a conference of scientists at her school to investigate the Ramtha phenomenon. “And science proved in 1997 that Ramtha was not me.”

Apparently, we hate Wisconsin even worse than the Dakotas

One of the quirks of this small town is the music I sometimes hear in the local grocery store. We don’t get the usual boring muzak that was screened by some beancounter to maximize inoffensiveness — I was quite charmed the first time I went shopping there, and instead of boring old 1001 Strings soft-soaping pop, I actually heard them playing Patti Smith belting out “Gloria”. Now it usually isn’t so transcendently magnificent — in fact, it’s still usually the kind of thing you might hear on a soft-rock or easy-listening or country station — but at least now and then you get to hear something with character.

Which isn’t always good.

So this afternoon I zipped over to pick up some fresh tomatoes and provolone for dinner, step in the door, and hear this horrible adenoidal voice with a Minnesota accent singing this:

Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
We are all rejoicing
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!

Not just once, not twice, but over and over again, for the entire duration of my visit (which was short: there may be something to this idea that background music can influence market behavior.) It was incredibly annoying, but everyone else in the store was going about their business in a perfectly normal fashion. Weird.

I guess there is some football game tonight that has the region riled up. There’s nothing quite like bizarre, understated Minnesota patriotism to highlight some of the strangeness of local culture.

Denmark is now on my list of emigration destinations

Or, at least, future vacation destinations. How could I resist a place that has a Devil’s Brewery, Bryggeriet Djævlebryg, and markets a godless beer?

Gudeløs
Type: Imperial stout

Data: 8.9% alc/vol, OG app. 1.090, IBU app. 65

What? Bryggeriet Djævlebryg and the Danish Atheist Society have entered into an unholy alliance and the result is “Godless”: This first batch is a somehow accessible imperial stout with its 8.9% abv. It offers burnt notes from the malt mingled with sweet nuances and a warming depth from the alcohol. This brew is primarly aimed at members of the Atheist Society, but it will also be available in selected shops and bars. In these times, when companies are expected to show social responsibility, we in the brewery have decided to follow suit: For each bottle or draft sold we donate 1 danish crown to the Danish Atheist Society.

It sounds like the antithesis of Coors…and that’s a good thing all around.