This week: Download real objects on the pirate bay, Invasion of the blue goo, Islamic urban legend, Gingrich will fly you to the moon, Why was Megaupload really shut down?, The billion-Euro house, Occupy goes postal, strapping diodes to Republicans, Overcast censorship, farewell to Raymond and Joe, and the return of the Krampus…or is it?

Personnel - Joe Nolan,  Kim Monaghan, and Ken Eakins.

Email us with stories you think we should discuss here.

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Heads up, witches, wizards, and Harry Potter fans! Saudi Arabia’s Anti-Witchcraft Unit has been mobilized again, this time in response to the discovery of the severed head of a wolf wrapped, apparently, in women’s lingerie.

Those unfamiliar with Saudi Arabia’s witchhunters should not be surprised to learn that the frighteningly conservative and mind-bogglingly religious state treats claims of its citizens meddling with dark forces very, very seriously. Established within the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in 2009, the elite Anti-Witchcraft squad is devoted to investigating and eliminating alleged sorcerers, witches, and astrologers, breaking spells, and teaching the populace about the dangers of seeking after Forbidden Knowledge.

According to Abdullah Jaber of Al-Jazeera “In accordance with our Islamic tradition we believe that magic really exists. The fact that an official body, subordinate to the Saudi Ministry of Interior, has a unit to combat sorcery proves that the government recognizes this, like Muslims worldwide.”

In the case of the wolf’s head, the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in Tabouk claims to have broken the spell. The Saudi daily Okaz reported on Monday that the unknown family that had fallen victim to the spell had been “liberated from the jaws of the wolf.” No word yet on the methods used, but if I had to guess, I’d say they probably weren’t combating dark sorcery with the power of rainbows and friendship.

The Saudi Press Agency claims that The Anti-Witchcraft Unit was created in order to educate the public about the danger of sorcerers and “combat manifestations of polytheism and reliance on other Gods.”

TNT would not return our calls regarding the possibility of a new hit series, Law & Order: AWU.

Austin Gandy

Frater Gandy resides at The Invisible College.

Austin Gandy is the only man I know that can wear a long black coat in the middle of summer, and not look like an obsessed fan-boy of ‘The Crow’. He’s also a practising magician of the highest calibre; some would say the leading Occult expert in the South-East. You can hear his ominous tones resounding through our own podcast, as well as his Invisible College™ segments on OutThere Radio and The Disinformation Podcast

Hoodoo Voodoo?

For better or for worse, Freemasonic and Rosicrucian orders have boasted members at all echelons of political power since the birth of the nation, and Illuminist ideology forms the invisible backbone of our countries most fundamental principles. But despite its pervasiveness, these influences remain a part of the secret history of America, as historians continue to idly ponder whether we were conceived as a christian nation or a republic of secular humanism.

Hoodoo’s place in history suffers even worse than many other magickal practices; its value (or even existence!) is widely ignored by occultists and mainstream historians alike. As a young magician coming to my power in the States, I consider this a terrible shame. It is a sad fact that the vast majority of occult knowledge available to the modern student of the Mysteries comes to us from the pens of dead white englishmen. The libraries of even the Invisible College, woefully underrepresent anything but old english twats writing about the magickal systems of older english twats, unless you’re in the Comparative Literature section, in which case we get to read hamhanded attempts to explain magickal systems from the exotic Orient to old english twats. I’m sure this situation would be less of a personal problem if I was standing on a fog-swept moor or whatever the hell English magicians do for fun, but there is a certain incongruity in reciting a ritual that resorts to ‘Thee and Thouing” as I stand on a hill overlooking a dirt road and powerlines, traintracks, red clay, bait shack, shoggoth of kudzu winding its way over old farm equipment.

All Faulknerian romanticism aside, what I’m talking about here is the idea of a genius loci, the spirits of a place, and the class of spirits that linger around my neck of the woods are of a very distinctive character. Sure, there are the familiar angels and demons of the great western canon here, but down here the Devil’s less likely to show up in your Triangle of Manifestation, than he is to show up at the crossroads and teach you to play the blues. There are spirits in the dry riverbeds and poplar trees, and honeysuckle that remember a time not so long ago when a Conjureman would call on them to take the wart off a child, to bewitch a lover, to send an opponent off in style, to fix a mojo hand, or to hex someone good; and I’ll tell you what, they’re not impressed by: bossy white folk with entitlement issues. You just can’t talk to these guys like you do the same old pile of Solomonic lapdogs that we’re all so used to reading about.

I’m ranting at this point, so let me bring it back a bit. Hoodoo is an amalgam of Central-African traditions, Native American herbal lore, Pennsylvanian Dutch hexmeistery, and European folk remedies. But it is more than the mere sum of these parts. It is a robust magickal tradition whose focus is on intensely practical, effective, and applicable methods of achieveing worldly power. It’s not a religion, nor does it pretend to be, and many of its methods are shockingly amoral. It’s sorcery, pure and simple, and for a long time it was one of the only avenues of power at all for enslaved blacks in the American South. After Abolition, poor blacks and whites alike used the conjurer’s Arts to rise quickly to heights of power that they could not hope to reach by conventional means. It’s messy, and confusing, and sometimes involves getting your hands a good deal dirtier than many of us cerebral wizard-types are used to. But it is also immediate, and vital, empowering, free.

Let’s add to the painfully short list of great American magickians Doctor Buzzard, Doctor Jim Jordan, Aunt Caroline Dye, the Seven Sisters, and all the rootworkers and conjuremen whose names are lost to history, but who warded off an overseer’s whip, or threw a fix, or who gave his community hope out of his bag of tricks.

For more information and resources check out www.luckymojo.com, and visit their ongoing project on Hoodoo in Theory and Practice.

Austin Gandy

This week we mark the end of our holiday break by discussing some of our ‘favorite bits’ of 2008. Topics covered in this show include Anonymous, The end of Neo-Paganism as we know it?, Patriots and the Georgia Guidestones and of course Obama (or in this case OBAWWWWMA).

Joining me for this episodes banter is Sir Raymond Wiley and Lord Austin Gandy from ye olde Out There Radio and the all new Disinformation The Podcast.

Of course Lady Claire Lumiere delivers us the latest Weekly Weird News and the Nobleman that is Daddytank serves up another great MySpace Heroes in the shape of:

[podpress]

District Of Evolution - New Paper Crusader
Magnetic Stripper – set 5a
Zabutom – Leningrad Vodka Rush
A Boy And His Recorder – Ice Cream Chuck

The episode of Out There Radio that Raymond plugs with no shame throughout the show can be found at www.outthereradio.net

Join us weekly again from now, as we examine counterculture, the Occult, underground and all the usual good stuff…so you don’t have to.

Enjoy

Austin Gandy

In this weeks show we chat with the fantastic Austin Gandy about the basics of Magick. Austin knows his subject and delivers the goods this week in another great interview. Fans of our friends Out There Radio will know Mr Gandy from his work on the ‘Invisible College’ episode of the show, as well as being their guest for some of the best episodes. In this episode we look at the real basics of magick, as if the listener was a would-be adept, walking through their local occult bookstore, pondering where to get stuck in!

Claire delivers once again with her awesome Weekly Weird News, and we make a desperate plea for attention from our fans! Next week we’ll hopefully be heading back into the paranormal world with an interview about Crypto-Zoology!

Music this week comes in the shape of Kid606, you can download this track for free here, background music this week comes from Earth and Don Cab!

See you next time!