Sophie Woodrow

The very notion of culture is an artifact created by bracketing Nature off. Cultures — different or universal — do not exist, any more than Nature does. There are only natures-cultures, and these offer the only possible basis for comparison. As soon as we take practices of mediation as well as practices of purification into account, we discover that the moderns do not separate humans from nonhumans any more than the totally superimpose signs and things.

[…] Absolute relativism presupposes cultures that are separate and incommensurable and cannot be ordered in any hierarchy; there is no use talking about it, since it brackets off Nature. As for cultural relativism, which is more subtle, Nature comes into play, but in order to exist it does not presuppose any scientific work, any society, any construction, any mobilization, any network.

—Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern

The Internet adores this second-person voice. There it is, at every cyber–street corner: Recommended for You, Suggestions for You, Here Is Something You Might Like. Behind each of these You’s, an algorithm sits at an easel, squinting, trying to catch Your likeness. But these algorithms are true Renaissance practitioners. Not only portraitists, they’re also psychologists, data-crunchers, and private detectives, extrapolating personality from the evidence of our past actions: from our online histories and, increasingly, from what they can eavesdrop, without any meaningful warrant, in the physical world. From all those toothsome bytes of behavior, they create an image of You.

Laurence Scott, "Hell is Ourselves"

Emmanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish scientist and mystic, held that the soul of a man was a 'spiritual fluid' diffused throughout the body, and that the medium for its diffusion was the blood, which was thus imbued with power from the divine source. On the other hand the French occultist Eliphas Levi spoke of blood as 'the astral light made manifest in matter', the astral light in this context being the vital principle of the etheric world.

Blood was regarded by all peoples throughout history as a magic substance of tremendous psychic potency and was therefore universally hedged in by taboos. It was the sign of supreme sacrifice; it sealed covenants; it betokened both maidenly virtue and the magic power of virgins. If split on the earth blood cried aloud for vengeance...'There is scarcely any natural object with so profoundly emotional an effect as blood'.

Benjamin Walker, Beyond the Body: The Human Double and the Astral Planes

Theories can be crudely organized into a family tree where each might, at least in principle, be derivable from more fundamental ones above it

Bernard Carr, Universe or Multiverse?

Major Arcana Tarot Card Meanings

The Major Arcana cards include 21 numbered cards and one unnumbered card (the Fool). The Fool is the main character of the Major Arcana and makes his journey through each of the cards, meeting new teachers and learning new life lessons along the way, and eventually reaching the completion of his journey with the World card. This is known as the Fool’s Journey.

When you see a Major Arcana card in a Tarot reading, you are being called to reflect on the life lessons and themes that are currently being experienced at this time. A Major Arcana card will often set the scene for the entire Tarot reading, with the other cards relating back to that core Major Arcana meaning.

Frank Close, Lucifer’s Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry

The Arbatel De Magia Veterum (Arbatel: On the Magic of the Ancients) is a grimoire of ceremonial magic that was published in 1575 in Switzerland. It was likely edited by Theodor Zwinger, and published by Pietro Perna. The actual author of the text remains unknown, but scholars suggest Jacques Gohory as a possible candidate.

The Arbatel mainly focuses on the relationship between humanity, celestial hierarchies, and the positive relationship between the two. The Olympian spirits featured in it are entirely unique to this grimoire. Unlike other grimoires, the Arbatel exhorts the magus to remain active in their community (instead of isolating themselves), favoring kindness, charity, and honesty over remote and obscure rituals. The teachings of Swiss alchemist Paracelsus greatly influenced the writing of this work, though it is also deeply rooted in classical culture, Ancient Greek philosophy, the Sibylline oracles and the philosophy of Plotinus.

Originally written in Latin, these selected ten pages come from a later German translation of the work, dated to 1686.