Author Archive | David Metcalfe

It Was the Devil Who Sent Me: Leonarda Ferreira Paixão and the Skulls of Sao Paulo

By on May 17, 2013 in News 0

Devil Sent Me“Foi o diabo quem mandou”, roughly translated this means something to the effect of “It was the devil who sent me.” It’s one of the only reported statements from Leonarda Ferreira Paixão, a 42 year old woman arrested on May 10th in relation to a puzzling series of crudely wrapped skulls found placed in various locations throughout Sao Paulo, Brazil since February.

Paixao was caught on camera pulling a skull out of a bag, and placing it near the Consulate of South Africa earlier in the week. Friday night she was caught by guards at the Cemitério da Vila Formosa, Zona Leste, attempting to take two more skulls from the premises. Law enforcement had some idea that the skulls were being taken from cemeteries even before catching her since advanced signs of decomposition made it clear these were not fresh specimens.

From limited reports in the Brazilian press it seems she’s claimed that during some sort of ritual work she was commanded to eat the offerings made during the working, then to proceed to a cemetery, dig up certain graves, and distribute skulls to specific locations throughout Sao Paulo.… Read the rest

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Catholic Church Officially Declares Devotion to Santa Muerte Blasphemous

By on May 10, 2013 in News 0

Santisima Muerte(This summary originally appeared in an alternate form on SkeletonSaint.com )

The battle between the Catholic orthodoxy and devotees of Santa Muerte has hit a high water mark with a visit to Mexico from the Vatican’s Cultural Minister, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. Sarah C. Nelson, writing for Huffington Post UK, reports on the news that Ravasi has given a charge of blasphemy to Santa Muerte in a series of talks he presented where he compared the devotional tradition to those held by Cosa Nostra organized crime families in Italy:

“A Vatican spokesman has declared Mexico’s folk Death Saint (Santa Meurte) is “blasphemous” and should not be part of any religion.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said worship of the skeletal figure of a cloaked woman carrying a scythe was a degeneration of religion, the Associated Press reported.”

This is Ravasi’s third condemnation of the tradition in four days. Up to this point the Catholic Church’s standard response has, at times, favored the devotional fervor, and intent of Santa Muerte’s followers, while expressing concern over doctrinal issues. Quotes from a Spanish language AP report show that that the Cardinal has gone well past any tense acquiescence, and it seems likely that the Vatican is planning to highlight Santa Muerte as a negative foil during the development of upcoming cultural education initiatives:

“The mafia, drug trafficking, organized crime are not religious forms.

… Read the rest

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Exploring the Implications of Sacred Geometry – A Meeting of Minds

By on April 19, 2013 in News 0

Mind and CosmosWhat do you do with a technologically aided telepathic connection to a rat’s tail?

Odd questions like this become more relevant as developments in cybernetics and communication technology allow for strange interactions with the world around us. Without the aid of creative imagination you get a bizarre bit of cultural kitsch, delving deeper you can encounter profound questions that crack into the mystery of mind and body, and the synaptic symetry defining so much of our self perception. If you tread carefully you enter the realm of Sacred Geometry, encountering applications of mathematics and ratio that bridge the gap between material science and the more aetheral realms of human existence.

It may seem counter-intuitive to connect Sacred Geometry to cybernetics, but in this kind of wider application is exactly the domains where theories of integral mathematics can be most fruitfully applied. The neuro-chemical maps that connect our nervous system to our body and allow us to move are predicated on mathematical relationships that can be found throughout manifested reality.… Read the rest

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An Open Letter to TED

By on April 14, 2013 in News 0

arrangementsKen Jordan, Publisher & Editorial Director, Evolver/Reality Sandwich, has written an open letter to TED’s Chris Anderson in an attempt to get the TED organization to stop squirming around for a minute and talk about the real issues at stake in their decision to cordon off large swaths of scientific inquiry:

“TED’s prominence has made it, perhaps inadvertently, into an forum that validates worthy intellectual progress. If a good idea gets momentum, it will most likely end up, one way or another, presented by TED or one of the TEDx offshoots.

That’s why the censure of the TEDx talks by Graham Hancock and Rupert Sheldrake is so dismaying. As you must know, to many of us the reasons behind their removal from the TED YouTube site are just not clear. On behalf of the Evolver community, I’d like to extend an invitation to you to help us understand the reasoning that led to TED’s actions, because we suspect that behind your decision is an uninformed prejudice against groundbreaking research in a critical area of study, the possibility that consciousness extends beyond the brain.”

The issue here is not one of censorship, it’s one of social engineering.… Read the rest

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Embalming Time – The Photography of Invisible Things

By on April 1, 2013 in News 0

It is an egregious,  unavoidable fact that much of the material evidence for unexplained experience is the result of easily explained technical glitches, intentionally or unintentionally invoked. Apparitional double exposures, pollen produced orbs, apophenial faces, and other replicable effects mar the minds of seekers and skeptics confronted with photographs, and other forms of ostensibly objective proof, said to contain traces of some transcendent order of nature.

The latest episode of The Midnight Archive, an award winning documentary series from film maker Ronni Thomas, features an interview with photographer Shannon Taggart  who takes this fact as given, and, moving beyond questions of real or unreal, uses it to capture a more narrative experience of the event. In the interview she discusses her art, and the broader history of Spiritualist spirit photography, in the process providing an alternative approach to understanding these areas of experience that steps past questions of proof:

As an artist and photojournalist Taggart is able to eschew issues of authenticity, in order to embrace the psychological and storytelling aspects of the event.… Read the rest

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The Midnight Archive – Art & the Occult

By on February 15, 2013 in News 0

If you enjoyed the recent conversation between Thad McKraken and Pam Grossman of Phantasmaphile, you might enjoy the latest episode of The Midnight Archive, which also features Grossman in a conversation about her inspirations, and the fascinating interstices of artistic inspiration and occult influences.

The Midnight Archive’s past episodes feature a number of interesting guests including Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America,  Evan Michelson, co-owner of Brooklyn purveyors of the odd  Obscura, and star of the Science Channel’s show Oddities,  Joanna Ebstein, curator of The Morbid Anatomy Library, and a number of other interesting organizations and individuals working on the edges of taboo and transgression.

Make sure to check them out at www.themidnightarchive.com… Read the rest

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‘As We See Sound: Explorations of Audible Color’ – Visual Music 101 Event in Chicago

By on February 15, 2013 in News 1

“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”

– Wassily Kandinsky

Musicians, philosophers, and artists have sought, for centuries, the ultimate translation of sound and vision, the ability to translate one sensual experience into another, from hearing to seeing and back again. This search for “audible color” has taken many forms, from early Pythagorean theories on the harmony of the celestial spheres to contemporary experiments with electronic music, rituals, and coordinated visual effects. Running through it all is a fascination with how existence is interwoven with relationships that often defy our understanding.

“On Sunday, February 17th at 3pm at the Spudnik Annex, Homeroom Chicago, Spudnik Press, and Access Contemporary Music present a public seminar exploring the relationship between color and sound.

As music became the inspiration for the movement towards abstraction in early 20th century European painting, artists searched for ever more meaningful ways to incorporate the language and gestures of music into their work.

… Read the rest

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The Inquisition Can be a Witch’s Best friend – An Open Letter to ‘Occult Experts’

By on January 25, 2013 in News 26

This is a sort of rambling, open letter to all “occult experts” who find themselves in the position to promote panic among the community and law enforcement when something weird pops up in the woods, local cemetery or any other place with potential to be mytho-poetically relevant.  You’ve appeared again in the news, and your presence is as annoying and unnerving as ever. Did you know that the Inquisition can be a witch’s best friend? Well, let me be a bit more direct…by your own definition you are the witch in this situation.

“Oh no! I’m a god fearing scholar,  a concerned citizen doing my duty to inform the public about the nefarious doings of black magic and evil witchcraft!”

Really? If you honestly think so, please go and study some basic psychology before you start ranting to the public about spells and sorcerers. The more media attention that your crazy talk gets the more you’re priming the community for something to actually occur, and I’m not talking supernatural, I’m talking folks getting dumb ideas and getting violent.… Read the rest

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Hunting for Unicorns – Skeptic Challenges & the Illusion of Scientific Inquiry

By on January 17, 2013 in News 9

“The attacks on the million dollar challenge are likely to continue. This is a sign, in my opinion, of the success of the challenge. Con artists know they cannot beat the challenge, and so they have no choice but to try to discredit it. Those who truly believe they have abilities but fail the challenge almost universally make up post hoc excuses for their failure.”

Our writing is an interesting window into our beliefs and opinions, even when we may not be fully aware of what it shows. What does it say to end a critical piece with a manipulative double bind that leads the reader to conclude those who question the JREF Challenge are either gullible or cons?

The opening quote comes from a recent article by Steven Novella discussing Steve Volk’s critique of the James Randi Educational Foundation Challenge. As usually happens when the JREF is brought up, either positively or negatively, Volk has ignited a vigorous back and forth between skeptics and believers.… Read the rest

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Viva la Muerte! Holy Death Comes to Brooklyn

By on December 19, 2012 in News 1

Morbid Anatomy Library Acquisition Number 1,352: New Lot of Santa Muerte Related Materials from Mexico

The Morbid Anatomy Library’s most recent acquisition brings the Boney Lady to Brooklyn, NY:

“The Morbid Anatomy Library is delighted to announce the acquisition of a new lot of materials related to Santa Muerte, which is, depending on whom you ask, a Mexican-based “cult” or “new religion” which worships death as a female saint.

“Santa Muerte,” which literally translates to “Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” is popular in Mexico and the United States with disenfranchised populations for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or safer life. It is thought to have its roots in the rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.

The artifacts donated to the library, many of which you see above, include sacred books and pamphlets, devotional statues, magical soaps and oils, charms, incense, and even “La Biblia de la Santa Muerte.” They were generously donated by Friends of Morbid Anatomy Tonya Hurley and Tracy Hurley Martin as found on their travels in Mexico.”

These items have joined the library’s other “curiosities, books, photographs, artworks, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and society, natural history, arcane media, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered,” and are now on display in their collection.… Read the rest

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