Read this post, if you want, as a belated tribute to the World Day of Prayer, observed last Thursday on the day better known as Patriot Day or simply 9/11. Or as a memorial to the late Philip Berg, head of the LA-based "Kabbalah Centre" where the celebs--most visibly, Madonna--learn their … [Read more...]
“Under the Skin” – Thoughts on the Alien Woman
Now that Scarlett Johansson's "Under the Skin" movie has been released in New York and Los Angeles (last Friday), and starting tomorrow will be shown "in select cities," I'll have to make my decision. Do I really want to go see it? As a UFOlogist, I think I ought to. (If only for the imagery … [Read more...]
“Sexualized Spirituality” and the Heretic Rabbi – Jonathan Eibeschuetz and the Moravian Connection
We talked about William Blake, a little bit. We talked a little bit about Jacob Frank, the 18th-century Polish-Jewish cult leader who carried the faith of the long-dead and even longer-discredited Messiah Sabbatai Zevi into previously undreamed of territories of weirdness and erotic … [Read more...]
Extraterrestrial Life – A View From 1797 (Part 1)
I was 13 years old. I'd just become a UFOlogist; I was excited by the idea that ancient documents like the Bible might speak of flying saucers. I asked my grandfather, who was something of a Hebrew scholar, what the Talmud--the great book of post-Biblical Judaism, dating from the early centuries … [Read more...]
Conspiracy Theories Revisited – The Strange Case of Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschuetz (Part 3)
(This is part 3 of a three-part post. For part 1 click here; for part 2 click here.) In last week's post, I began to describe the scandalous book of Kabbalah that surfaced in Germany in 1725, with the title Va-avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin, "I Came This Day to the Spring." Rumor had it that the book … [Read more...]
