I first met Justin St Vincent via a Mike Patton live-recording swap group back in the early 00′s. At the time, he had a copy of the first Mr Bungle show I went to in London (’96), and I had very little to offer in return. Very kindly, Justin made me a copy anyway, and after a barrage of friendly Patton banter, we forged a friendship.

Justin has always been a champion of the avant garde; be it on his ever-evolving, and interesting site Xtrememusic , or on his University radio show of the same name, he’s always worn his love of exploratory sound on his sleeve.

When I heard Justin was making a book about the spiritual significance of music, based on the huge archive of interviews he’d amassed over the years, I grabbed him by the e-ear, and slung him a boat-load of questions.

Ken Eakins: Tell us the story behind Xtreme Music first, what force sent you down the path of the avant garde?

Justin St Vincent: Xtreme Music began as a radio show freely promoting avant-garde, creative, and experimental music. At this point, your readers may be interested in the original mission statement and purpose:

“On the Xtreme Music radio show we broadcast, discuss, and promote Xtreme Music, performed by highly talented, innovative, and creative musicians. We encourage a radio-friendly entrance for new listeners to explore the fascinating and intriguing world of unconventional music. In addition, we provide hardcore fans with band specials, quality live performances, rare material, and up-to-date news. This show is for anyone with an open-mind and a desire to discover for themselves the true nature of Xtreme Music”.

Xtreme Music became an award-winning portfolio of independent radio programming between 2001 and 2005. I hosted shows on both sides of the Atlantic, and achieved a worldwide listener-ship over a four year broadcasting career. It was my way of exploring experimental music, mainly focusing on the prolific musical works of Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, and John Zorn.

Mr. Bungle was the first band to send me down the path of the avant-garde. Their music opened my world to Xtreme Music, embracing the beauty and diversity of creative music throughout the world. Avant-garde music birthed my own self-discovery of unconventional music. It also opened the door for me to connect with many like-minded music fans around the world, and experience some of the greatest live performances at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and The Tonic in New York.

The website for Xtreme Music then evolved into a music journalism portfolio when I started producing radio interviews in San Francisco, Toronto, and New York between 2003 and 2004. I started interviewing many of the musicians I admire and appreciate, and it was such a pleasure to connect with them in person, especially after several years of passionately promoting their music on the airwaves and online. (ed. This portfolio of excellent interviews can be found here)
During that time I produced artist features for Asva, Daiquiri, Don Salsa, Düreforsög, Eftus Spectun, El Douje, Elysian Fields, Fake No More, God Of Shamisen, Good For Cows, Gymnastic Decomposition, Hemophiliac, Herbie Hancock, Loop!Station, Matmos, Mike Patton Vs. Rahzel, Moe!Kestra!, Prelapse, Richard Cheese, Scott Hull, Sir Millard Mulch, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, The Bleeder Group, The Demix, The Locust, Tipsy, Trevor Dunn’s Trio-Convulsant, Tub Ring, and William Winant. I also arranged interviews with Dave Murray, David Slusser, Kaada, Neil Hamburger, and members of Estradasphere, Farmers Market, Hella, KMFDM, Mondo Generator, Mr. Bungle, Numbers,  Secret Chiefs 3, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Scallions, and Two Foot Yard, among many others.

Xtreme Music then developed into a micro-label to release collaborative projects with Xtreme Music fans worldwide. These included two significant endeavors, a Fantômastique remix CD, and Innominat short-film DVD:

Xtreme Music also produced Special Features for website visitors. These were namely “Mike Patton Parodies” with lyrics by Cosmic Jester, “Music Recommendations” selected by Mike Patton, “Naked City Ephemera” musician testimonials, “Xtreme Cover Songs” of mutated musical mayhem, and the “Exotica History Tour” as an essential guide to Exotica music in Waikiki, Hawaii.

Under the promotional efforts of Xtreme Music, I also freely released a promotional single called “Let Me Be Your Sunlight” by Sarah Marie and Jordan Puleston, a soulfully beautiful love song written for Nova The Musical. This song was perhaps one of the transition points in my life where I started to experience that there was more to music than meets the ear.

KE: That’s quite a portfolio Justin!  I remember you giving me a CD of the radio show that you used to host, and it was great! Can you see yourself returning to the airwaves?

JSV: Xtreme Music’s radio productions were broadcast between 2001 and 2004. I’m extremely grateful because it provided me with an introduction to a career in radio broadcasting. Xtreme Music also laid the foundations for developing my interview portfolio exploring music. As much as I’d love to return to the airwaves, my main focus for the near future is on my publication projects. To keep my finger on the avant-garde music pulse, I’ll need to keep connected to Right Where You Are Sitting Now.

KE: When did you get the idea to start mixing your spiritual beliefs, and your eclectic music tastes?

The idea was birthed during March 2006 when I returned from University of the Nations in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. I wanted to develop a project that united my passions for music and spirituality, and would become a way for others to explore their faith and values. I was inspired by the possibility for people to explore music and spirituality, and had a desire to connect with many musicians and writers that I admire.

An interview portfolio provided a perfect platform for me to connect with hundreds of music-makers to consider their thoughts on the spiritual significance of music. My eclectic music tastes was an encouragement to begin reconnecting with many avant-garde, creative, and experimental music composers. I began with almost every musician I had previously had contact with through my Xtreme Music radio productions and journalist portfolio. I then branched further into the field of various musical styles from around the world.

It was wonderful to open these interviews up to musicians that were passionate about the theme, and also contact musicians that I had only recently been introduced to. I then found that so many people loved this project, that they started recommending more musicians to contact, and referring me to their friends in the music industry. The project quickly snowballed into an epic exploration of over 1000 exclusive interviews with over 1000 unique perspectives from many of the world’s most visionary musicians and writers. The idea for uniting spiritual beliefs and music tastes was a natural progression for me to develop a new positioning statement for Xtreme Music: ‘where Music meets Spirituality.’

KE: Is this where the idea for a book formed?

JSV: Yes, the project was always going to grow into a publication. After 1000 interviews, I felt that this project needed a creative outlet to become a blessing to others. I wanted the interviews to no longer be a private exploration for myself, but to become a public exploration for other music-makers and music-lovers to explore music and spirituality.

The new website started to take shape during January 2009 when I first freely published online the entire portfolio of interviews, and started promoting it worldwide. Within 4 days I had over 180,000 website hits and my web server ended up crashing due to bandwidth overload. This happened due to thousands of people downloading the PDF layout preview. I promptly switched web servers and now have unlimited bandwidth.

Throughout the follow months I monitored which were the most popular interviews, and which interviews seemed to get the greatest exposure. For the book it was a difficult selection process to finalize the 102 contributors to be included in the First Edition for print. I wanted to select well-known contributors, as well as showcasing unknown contributors that I believed brought a unique voice to the project, and deserved to be in the spotlight for the first book.

KE: How did you get artists to contribute to the project?

JSV: As much as I’d love to have met every musician face-to-face, it was just not possible for an epic project of this scale and magnitude. Many musicians have commitments on tour, are in and out of recording studios, and working on promoting their next album. My greatest opportunity to connect with them was by arranging e-mail interviews. As this is a text-based project, it meant that the musician could find time within their schedule to consider their personal thoughts on the one interview question: “What do you believe is the spiritual significance of music?”

Contributors to the project could then articulate themselves in the exact words that they felt accurately represent their own beliefs. It also meant that I could produce a brief biography, editorial edition, and layout preview ready for their approval before publishing online. 95% of the project was conducted via e-mail interviews, and the additional 5% either face-to-face or via phone interviews. This was by far the most efficient and rewarding way of producing the book, project, and website.

KE: Now I know that you’re a deeply spiritual person, and that you lean towards the side of Christianity; did you ever find it hard editing peoples writings that maybe grated with your own beliefs?

I have not always been a deeply spiritual person. For over twenty years I would have been familiar with the Christian faith, but had chosen to reject it. I would have considered myself an atheist. My conversion to Christianity occurred during December 2004. There were several events that aligned themselves to a place where I literally experienced a divine revelation of God’s love that totally transformed my life forever. That’s when I truly resonated with the Christian message of faith, hope, and love. It was through this personal transformation that I started to consider God’s amazing grace and loving forgiveness that ultimately pointed me to Jesus Christ. Although my personal spiritual beliefs resonate with the Christian faith, I am passionate about learning from other people’s beliefs, and discovering their faith and values in music and spirituality. Belief is a side of humanity that fascinates me. I’m also intrigued by mankind’s relationship to the divine and the infinite. For me, Christianity is not a religion, it’s a faith-framework for a relationship with God, people, and the world in which we live.

But let’s take this opportunity to talk about the Occult, as this is a rare moment for us to connect on the Occult themes throughout this project. I’m sure many radio show listeners and online readers of SittingNow may be interested in this important part of the book, project, and website. So I’d love to point people to the Metal Media Release, which profiles many Metal musicians.

I wanted to select one musical genre that strongly resonates with spiritual beliefs. I found this in Metal music, and the interviews featured in the Metal Edition are some of the most powerful and profound of all the editions. Here is a brief intro to the Metal Edition, freely available here: www.xtrememusic.org/metal.html

METAL EDITION provides an exciting exploration of how music powerfully impacts spirituality, and why spirituality influences music. Readers will discover sincere expressions of spiritual beliefs from the world of metal music. This portfolio includes an eclectic mix of musicians playing many forms of metal music; ambient metal, avant-garde death-metal, black metal, brutal metal, death metal, doom metal, experimental metal, funeral-doom, gothic metal, grindcore, heavy metal, industrial metal, melodic metal, power metal, progressive metal, psychedelic metal, Satanic metal, sludge metal, speed metal, symphonic metal, technical metal, thrash metal, and includes musicians from alternative-rock, avant-rock, and hardcore-punk bands. Metal Edition provides readers with an important introduction to metal music’s affinity with demonology, divination, magic, mysticism, Satanism, spiritualism, the occult, and witchcraft.

Some of the greatest revelations about music and the Occult have come from interviews with members of black metal and death metal bands. Here are some of my favourites:

“Music can open doors within the listener’s psyche and lead them to a journey into mental and spiritual realms.”
- Juhani Jokisalo, guitarist, bassist, and vocalist in Apocryphal Voice

“Music is a place of refuge from the pressures of everyday life… Music is where I find my spirituality, in the mystery, and lack of rationality in the creative process.”
- Forn, vocalist and instruments in Black Crucifixion

“Music is magic. Through the manipulation of the rules of sacred geometry, music builds a chronology (rhythm) of frequencies (melodies) …”
- Saint Vincent, guitarist and vocalist in Blacklodge

“Sometimes I have a strange feeling that Crest Of Darkness is living its own life, and I am loosing the control, but I am not afraid of this dark spirit! I am worshipping it!”
- Ingar Amlien, bassist and vocalist in Crest Of Darkness

From the beginning of this project, I never wanted religion to get in the way or exploring truth. I get a major buzz from interviewing musicians with different beliefs. Each contributor has a unique voice that adds value to this project. It was a real pleasure for me to read their perspectives, consider their opinion and discover their truth, and then learn from them. I never really found it hard to edit people’s writings that may have a different perspective than my own beliefs. The editorial process is relatively easy because I want to remain true to the original intention and important viewpoints from every contributor. Many of the musician interviews will resonate with key themes that start to surface throughout their responses. There are over 70 reoccurring themes, and during my Author Talks, I reveal the top 7 themes that seem to resonate with music-makers and music-lovers.

Throughout the 1000 interviews, I have learnt so many important points that I’ve applied to my own life and spiritual journey. After each interview, I review the response, and try to identify the core truth that the person is sharing. I then feature this as a “quotable quote” to include together with their brief biography and layout preview. These are then freely published online every month, and I save a few gems for future editions. My book series exploring “The Spiritual Significance of Music” aims to embrace the entire spectrum of musical styles, and also covers a diverse range of spiritual beliefs and worldviews. This project exploring music and spirituality has also opened my soul to an increased depth of spiritual experiences with music. I have learnt something new from every interview, and my hope is that others may discover new perspectives as well. This has taught me a lot about the importance of developing a dialogue, pursuing your passions, and enjoying the journey.

KE: The books a great achievement, where are you going next?

JSV: Thank you, this book has achieved success with it’s ability to resonate with the hearts and minds of it’s readers. I’m really excited that “The Spiritual Significance of Music” provides many music-makers with a source of inspiration. I hope the concepts and themes captured in this book will be a blessing to all the read it’s words. There are definitely some revelation moments throughout the book, and I greatly appreciate every contributor that have shared their thoughts on music and spirituality. Each exclusive interview is featured in the book for the reason that I believe they bring a unique perspective to the themes discussed, and every response shares an important truth.

Justin St Vincent is the author of 'The Spirtitual Significance of Music'

Next on the event horizon is a book series. I anticipate producing at least two more books in the series exploring “The Spiritual Significance of Music”. I’ve been greatly influenced and inspired by John Zorn’s “Arcana: Musicians On Music” book series, and I love the fact that he allows every contributor to share their authentic voice. I’m an avid fan of his book series, and I love the depth each of the musicians bring to making, experiencing, and thinking about music. I’ve contacted almost every musician that has contributed to John Zorn’s book series, and I anticipate featuring some of these incredible interviews within future editions of my books. For example, some cross-over contributors from the avant-garde, creative, and experimental music scene include Christopher Adler, Mick Barr, Theo Bleckmann, Anthony Coleman, Noah Creshevsky, Marilyn Crispell, Dave Douglas, Trevor Dunn, Scott Johnson, Butch Morris, and Z’ev. Almost all of these contributors have exclusive interviews that are freely available to download in the World Edition of “The Spiritual Significance of Music”: www.xtrememusic.org/world.html

————————————————————————————————————

Thanks to Justin for giving us some of his time, and do try and get your hands on one of his books. Justin is somewhat of a outlier in the sense that he a Christian, but really doesn’t let that get in the way of producing a really interesting, and thought provoking book!

Ken Eakins

You can get your hands on a copy of Justin’s book by clicking here.

Buy or die!

It seems that Kim Monaghan, our intrepid music reviews editor, and writer of steel has been straying away from the sitting now nest!:

‘Sitting Now regulars will no doubt be familiar with my alter ego, Daddy Tank. Well, that ego has continued to expand almost exponentially and is now too large to be contained in a couple of podcasts and some pseudo-literate review rants. My arrogance has blossomed and matured…it has become a record label.

I have encountered too many bands and musicians lurking in the half-light of the Internet, scavenging for scraps of respect and attention, while some of the utter shit that masquerades as music flourishes. This has, of course, always been the case but with the onslaught of piracy and digital downloading, good music and good musicians are at a nadir. If you are not writing auto-tuned disposable filth, and you don’t have a video fronted by a posturing day-glo imbecile, you will not sell your music.

If you feel, like I do, that an album, an EP or even a song is particularly good, and you also feel that this piece of art has made such a significant impact on you that the person who created it deserves some kind of reward, then visit http://www.daddytank.co.uk‘

The labels first offering, described below, looks to be a belter:

The first release on Daddy Tank Records is the mighty Pang with “Garden of Menace”. This amazing album has been floating around on the internet for free for a couple of years ( http://enoughrecords.scene.org/ ), and while those people who have been lucky enough to stumble across it are inevitably won over by its labyrinthine obsidian splendour, the numbers of people who have heard this album remain unacceptably low. Existing simultaneously in the genres of dark ambient, glitch and electronica, “Garden of Menace” is structurally perfect. Each individual track is endlessly fascinating, whether it is the eerie emptiness of “Hollows” or the post-apocalyptic “Dead Monism”, but the album itself is also a mind expanding and intellectually intoxicating masterpiece from beginning to end. The closest comparisons that can be made would be to Arovane, Bola and Autechre but ultimately “Garden of Menace” sounds only like “Garden of Menace”. If you like challenging, intellectual and avant garde electronic music this is a must have.

The album comes in a limited run of 200 copies, each copy will come with Pang artcard and Daddy Tank Records sticker. The first 10 copies sold will also come with a mysterious free promo item.

Mysterious? Limited?…these words are porn to a music geek. I hope you’ll join me in wishing Kim well for this exciting new project!

Now, get back to work dammit! This isn’t a bloody lounge….etc.

Ken Eakins

Isaac Bonewits with his wife Phaedra.

It is with a heavy-heart that I report the death of Isaac Bonewits. Isaac was a leading figure in modern-occultism, and a true rebel in the scene.

We had Isaac on our show last year, and he was a really nice, and funny, guy. Isaac is a man  that has actually gone out there and blazed a trail, and along the way educated and entertained all that have had the sense to listen.

Isaac’s wife Phaedra released this official statement:

Philip Emmons Isaac Bonewits, founder and Archdruid Emeritus of of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship, one of North America’s leading experts on ancient and modern Druidism, Witchcraft, magic and the occult, and the rapidly growing Earth Religions movement, died today after a short struggle with cancer.

Mr. Bonewits first came into the public eye when he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Magic and Thaumaturgy (1970). During his tenure there, Mr. Bonewits worked with many renowned professors including Nobel Prize Laureate Owen Chamberlain. The work he did for that degree became his first book, Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic (1971).

In 1983, he founded and became the first Archdruid of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF) an international fellowship devoted to creating a public tradition of Neopagan Druidry. In 1995, he retired from a leadership role due to complications from eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. ADF has grown to become the best-known Neopagan Druid group based in North America. At his death, Mr. Bonewits held the title of ArchDruid Emeritus.

During his forty years as a Neopagan priest, scholar, teacher, bard, and polytheologian, Isaac Bonewits coined much of the vocabulary and articulated many of the issues that have shaped the rapidly growing Neopagan movement in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Bonewits was internationally known as a speaker who educated, enlightened and entertained two generations of modern Goddess worshippers, nature mystics, and followers of other minority belief systems, as well as explained these movements to journalists, law enforcement officers, college students, and academic researchers.

His personal papers will become part of the American Religions Collection at the Library of University of California at Santa Barbara.

One of his most influential contributions was the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (the “ABCDEF”), developed in 1979 as a response to the Jim Jones People’s Temple tragedy. It has been translated into many languages and used around the world to evaluate how dangerous or harmless an organization might be. It was the first such scale to use theories of mental health and personal growth to judge rather than theological or ideological standards.

His other books include Authentic Thaumaturgy (1979, 1998), The Pagan Man (2005), Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca (2006), Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism (2006), Neopagan Rites (2007), and Real Energy (2007), which was co-authored with his wife, Phaedra, as well as numerous articles, reviews and essays. As a singer-songwriter, he released two albums, Be Pagan Once Again (1988), and Avalon is Rising (1992).

He is survived by his wife, Phaedra, his son from a previous marriage, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits of Bardonia NY, his mother Jeannette, his brothers Michael and Richard, and sisters Simone Arris and Melissa Banbury.

I’m sure I speak for everyone here at SittingNow in wishing Phaedra, and his family, our deepest condolences.

RIP Isaac.

Ken Eakins

Kenneth Anger is a seminal avant film-maker

This is a bit insane. Kenneth Anger, occult-savant, and legendary avant garde film-maker has produced a 2 and half minute film for a fashion house. Dangerous Minds reports:

Rather astonishing news from the fashion and film world. Dangerous Minds’ favefilmmaker Kenneth Anger has released a two-and-a-half-minute film dealing with the fall/winter collection of the Varese-based house of Missoni, produced by filmmaker/Anger manager/Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler and scored by French composer Koudlam

.

Vogue Italia‘s Mariuccia Casadio provides some details:

A man of few words, this fascinating former actor who still takes care of his appearance first filmed the settings for his film “Missoni”: mostly locations near bodies of water in the Sumirago countryside and part of Rosita and Ottavio’s garden. For the indoor sequences, he built a set in the Council Room of the Sumirago Town Hall, a basement room with a vaulted ceiling. The mood of the film and the poses and movements of Margherita, Jennifer, Angela, Rosita, Ottavio, Ottavio Jr. and all other [Missoni] family members are reminiscent of Sergei Parajanov’s “The Color of Pomegranates”, a 1968 film that inspired Anger to create his Chinese box-style storyboard.

Do yourself a favor and go full-screen with this one. And if you’re unfortunate enough to not be familiar with Anger, do yourself another favor and click one or both of the links below. You’ll be glad you did.

By Eakins

We have spoken at length about Kenneth Anger with the producer of this film, Brian Butler,  on our show. Check the interview here.

That'll learn her

If you haven’t heard of it before, Foursquare is a new social-network thingy that has taken the Internet by storm. Put simply, you go to a place, and you ‘check-in’. Once you check-in, a Twitter-esque post appears on your profile with your geographic location, and the details of the venue.

What’s the incentive? Good point, I don’t know either. I used the service for a while, and justified it to myself thusly; “If my other friends use it, they’ll know where I am, and come and hang out”. I soon figured out, however, that the only friend of mine that did use it, lived about 40 miles away, and was unlikely to come a join me on a whim. Needless to say, I have stopped using it.

All is not lost, however, as my favourite phone-phreakers over at The Phone Losers of America (PLA) have found a much better use for the service:

By going to search.twitter.com, you can type in 4sq.com and you’ll get a list of everyone on the planet that is currently checking in to someplace. You can even modify your search to include only local businesses. This is great for creepy stalkers who want to keep tabs on random pretty girls. A creepy stalker could jump in his car and speed to the pub for a chance to meet the girl of his dreams. Everywhere she goes.

Another use for Foursquare is for burglars to know when houses are empty. If @sexygirl535 is out having fun with her friends at a bar, then she’s not home, right? So quick, drive over there and break into her house! You know she doesn’t have roommates because she constantly tweets about how it sucks to live alone. A website called Please Rob Me has been set up for just this purpose.

And then there’s the PLA’s favorite pasttime – making prank calls to people. Foursquare is the perfect tool for this. In that search box up there, you click on the Twitter username which probably gives you the name of the person checking in. Then you click on the link in their post and you’ll have the phone number of the business they’re at. Now you can call the business, ask for that person and say something crazy to them. They’re almost always surprised that anyone could know that they’re there. It rarely occurs to them that just minutes ago they transmitted their location to the entire world.

The PLA are behind some of the most ingenious phone pranks in history, and their Foursquare staking effort is as good as ever – check it out here

The PLA have been around for a very long time, and their antics have attracted the attention of the mass media:

The PLA make an amazing podcast called PLA Radio, as well as their weekly ‘Phone Show‘, subscribe now!

Ken Eakins

Screenshot of hacked YouTube

Google-owned video hosting giants YouTube were hacked earlier today, and fingers are pointing at 4chan.

The social networking news-site Mashable has this to say:

Today, members of the Internet communities 4chan and and other enterprising computer whizzes hacked YouTube using a vulnerability in the site’s comment system. While the hack was used on a variety of videos, striking music videos featuring teen pop idol Justin Bieber was the most popular activity.

Twitter lit up with complaints about the problem, Google support got some concerned posts on its forum, and we received tips in our inbox. The event caused quite a Sunday-morning stir.

The bug allowed users to inject HTML (the code that most websites are built with) that could be executed on the site, whereas HTML within comments is supposed to be restricted. The hackers did everything from force pop-up messages to appear over the site declaring that it had been hacked to redirecting Bieber video pages to sites hosting pornography and malware.

Google disabled comments within an hour of the start of the attack, then corrected the exploited bug within two hours, according to a statement sent to The Next Web.

Internet community 4chan has been waging a small cultural war against Justin Bieber, and its members exploited the bug to target the artist’s videos specifically. Last week they conspired to try and send Bieber to North Korea.

**update**

Chatter on 4chan is showing further evidence of their involvement in the vandaism:

This seems, at least to me, to be the work of  a certain ‘Tetris Online playing community’ rather than the mighty chan. Time will tell, and we’ll keep you posted.

Ken Eakins

Burn it!!!

Lady Gaga for the cool kids, FUJI MINX, has felt the firey hand of Google Justice. The new video, ‘The Music Made Me Do It’, has apparantly been taken down by the Googs owned YouTube due to ‘inappropriate content’ which apparantly is a ‘terms of use violation’. The video depicts Miss Minx as a catholic nun, and a Baphomet-like green demon:

“YES… After 11,943 views (103 likes, 1 dislike) in LESS THAN 6 DAYS, “The Music Made Me Do It” video was taken down because of it’s Anti-Pope message and it’s content deemed “inappropriate”. Apparently free-speech is inappropriate if you aren’t coming from a major record label who can pay youtube money, like Marilyn Manson or Lady Gaga. And it doesn’t matter that you are talking about someone who is condoning child molestation. AND it doesnt matter that we only got 1 dislike. Well fret not. We are uploading the UnCensored video to vimeo and it will be up shortly. Please help pass the new video around as soon as it’s up. xxx, Gv”

Below if the uncensored video, be warned, it has painted breasts…so make sure you watch it on your iPhone instead of your work moniter:

Wow, that is the coolest Baphomet I have ever seen! It’s hard to tell right now if this is just an engineered publicity stunt, or a real case of censorship. We’ll just have to wait and see if the advertising giant (that’s what Google are don’t forget), release a statement.

I wonder if YouTube would take down videos of that rat-faced scoundrel The Pope, I don’t know anout you, but I find his racist, sexist, anti-humanist messages way more offensive.

In the mean time, enjoy the green boobies.

Ken Eakins

What?? This guy seems legit!

seriously!

Personally, I tend to stray away from superstition where possible. However, there are a few superstition-based-rituals that have been so engrained in my subconscious that I still, to this day, practise them.

The most annoying one is the ‘three-drains’ ritual. Stop me if you’ve already heard of it. If I step on a collection of three drains in the street (joined), then I am in the ‘bad-luck  zone’ and awful things will occur; however, if I step on two drains, it cancels it out the bad luck, and I am fine to go about my business.

Utterly stupid, I know. But what are superstitions, and do they have any tangible effect on the performance of a practitioner?

A recent study by Psychologists Lysann Damisch, Barbara Stoberock and Thomas Mussweiler of the University of Cologne, empirically tested the effectiveness of superstitious sayings, actions, and charms in a scientific setting. The researchers wished to examine if the belief in these superstitious practises, would in any way improves the effectiveness of the believers. The test was broken down into four micro-tests.

For the first test, the subjects were randomly given either a ‘lucky golf ball’, or a ‘normal’ golf ball, and then given a golfing duty to perform.

In the second test, the subjects were given a cube containing 36 ball-bearings, and 36 holes. The fairly standard motor-dexterity test, in which the subjects must match the balls in the holes, was preceded by one of the researchers letting a random selection of the subjects know that they had done the German equivalent of ‘crossing their fingers’ for them (‘pressing thumbs’ in Germany).

In the third test, the subjects were asked to bring along their own lucky charms. The researchers then took away the charms, claiming that they would ‘photograph’ them for their records. A random 50% selection had their charms returned, and the remaining half had their charms withheld. The subjects were then asked to fill out questionnaires. The questionnaires asked the subjects how confident they were that they would be able to successfully complete their next task. The task in question was a card-based memory game, in which the subjects were asked to attempt to match cards that were faced down.

Finally, the subjects were asked again to fill out a questionnaire, and again to allow the researchers to ‘photograph’ their provided lucky charms. Again, the researchers gave back 50% of the charms, only this time the subjects were given a selection of 8 letters, and were asked to form as many words as they could out of them. In this test, however, the group were also asked to set themselves goals with the anagram.

It’s worth pointing out that the subjects that did not receive the ‘superstionised’ prompts (the lucky ball, the pressed thumbs, or the return of their charms), constitute a ‘control group’. A control group is a standard in scientific testing, allowing a researcherto minimise the influence of other variables when attempting to study a single variable – in this case ‘the effects of superstition on performance.’

Interestingly, the results of all four micro-tests showed that superstition does seem to boost effectiveness in believers. Those with the ‘lucky’ golf balls performed far better than those in the control group. The group that were encouraged with pressed thumbs were far more efficient than those that were not. The final two tests showed that those not in the control group were more confident with both their performance, and in their speculation, and self-set goals.

The test in itself not only shows us that superstition can be activated by either a pre-set belief, but also by outside influence (the pressed thumbs, the golf ball el al). Most interestingly, the test shows us that superstition itself seems to boost performance in believers.

So, what does this say about my drain hopping? Very little annoyingly. That said, the researchers are planning on testing ‘bad-luck’ superstitions next. So maybe I’ll get more joy from that.

Until then, you’ll see me hopping around high streets like a demented human bunny, desperately seeking two-drains.

read ‘Keep your Fingers Crossed! How Superstition Improves Performance‘, via Sage Journals Online, or from your local academic library that stocks the ‘Psychological Science’ journal.

Ken Eakins

Our Strange World is reporting that a Romanian man killed his brother in law, as he was convinced he was werewolf:

Thomas Masaryk has been charged with first-degree murder in the bizarre case, but he plans to plead innocent under a 500-year-old Transylvania law that says it’s not murder to kill a werewolf.

“We’ve obviously got to prove the victim was a werewolf to take advantage of the law,” Masaryk’s attorney told reporters. “My client and I feel sure we can do that. We’ve got his personal testimony and the eyewitness account of a priest to back us up.”

Not a man to jump to conclusions, Masaryk recruited a nearby holy-man to witness the shooting:

Father Batistei told reporters, “It’s true. I heard the man threaten to kill Mr. Masaryk and saw him change before my eyes. Hair sprouted on his face and hands and fangs grew right out of his mouth. His eye glowed fiery red – and he began to grown and moan like a caged beast.”

Masaryk put a stop to the horrifying transformation with a single shot from a .38 caliber revolver.

The bullet he used to kill Serghiescu had been made from a silver crucifix that reportedly had been blessed by the Pope.

Read the full story over at Our Strange World

Ken Eakins

(Thanks for Ollie for sending this to me)

To get the low-down on werewolves through the ages, check our interview with Bob Curran.