This week’s recommendations include: a thoroughly disturbing expose — written by a medical doctor — of the unsafe conditions in America’s hospitals that frequently lead to permanent injury, destruction of health, or even death; an examination of the possibly shaky foundations of medical science; a review essay on “the oldest self-help book,” a 19th-century grimoire…
Doom from Above: When the End Arrives, Will Anyone See It Coming?
The Extinction Papers â Chapter Three So few humans look to the sky these days, engrossed as they are with the glowing box on the wall, the interconnected device held in their hand, and the cracks in the pavement in front of them as they count each step to the grave. Add to this…
The Gloaming (SHORT FILM)
It may be giving away too much in advance to describe this short masterpiece of visionary animation as a religious metaphor that channels and encompasses not just the entire history of human civilization but its possible future as well. Or maybe not. Judge for yourself. Indie film site Directors Notes included “The Gloaming” among its…
Welcome to Gattaca: The rise of consumer-priced genetic sequencing
 Ever since James Watson and Francis Crick cracked the genetic code, scientists have been fascinated by the possibilities of what we might learn from reading our genes. But the power of DNA has also long raised fears â such as those dramatized in the 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca, which depicted a world where “a…
Music, Meditation, and the Skull as a Sound Chamber
The ancient Tibetan metaphysical texts state that all sound is music, all music is mantra, and mantra is the essence of all sound. Through the use of ritual and mantric power, the Tibetans use sound to effect a specific change in the individual and the environment. Mantra is a pattern of sound or sound vibration…
H.P. Lovecraft, Literary Hackwork, and the Horror of a Malevolently Indifferent Universe
Yesterday Geoffrey Pullum, Gerard visiting professor of cognitive, linguistic, and psychological sciences at Brown University and professor of general linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, penned a blog post for the Lingua Franca blog at The Chronicle of Higher Education about his recent visit to a couple of Lovecraftian sites in Providence. I was pleased…
The daemonic discipline of Vincent van Gogh
The mythic potency of a life that is veritably (or literally) possessed by a daemonic creative force is beautifully and terrifyingly illustrated by the life, work, death, and legacy of Vincent van Gogh. So is the fact that a deliberate dedication to channeling this force through a discipline of strict technical training can result in…
Christianity, Islam, and a call for evangelicals to practice what they preach
The attitude and ideas expressed in this excellent op-ed, aimed specifically at evangelical Christians and co-written by Teeming Brain friend John W. Morehead (proprietor of the always-fantastic Theofantastique), are so very necessary amid the current international conflagration over that hit-job of a negative propaganda film about Islam. Much of the conservative commentary on this event,…
Recommended Reading 25
We have quite a varied assortment of reading this week, including: an article about a brilliant reclamation of an abandoned Wal-Mart building for a wonderful counter-purpose; an analysis of Burning Man’s sociocultural-mythological function; a report on widespread distrust of the United States around the world; a fascinating interview with a psychologist on the nature and…
Resist Dystopia: Learn to Enjoy Reading Shakespeare
At the conclusion of Technopoly, Neil Postman lays out his concept of the “loving resistance fighter,” someone who keeps an open heart and a strong hold on the symbols and narratives of liberty, honor, intelligence, etc., that made America (and, by extension, other modern democracies) great, while deliberately resisting the coarsening, dumbing, soul-killing influence of…