Contracts with the Gods

 

Jewish magic consists of tricking god into some kind of contractual obligation and then forcing him to do what we want. (Because God never participates in the negotiation, it is all mental fiction.)  When I arrived in Israel, I visited my uncle Moishi in Jerusalem. He told me that his address was Honi Hameagel 6 Mea Shearim. I asked him to translate what is Honi Maeagel. It was about some old fart who drew a circle around himself in the sand and would not move till god opened the heavens and let rain fall. The idea turned around in my mind for long but I could not find any sense. Over the years I realized that this is the principle behind the Jewish religion: I say to myself that god wants me to be "good" and he will then recompensate me. In my twisted mind, I have established that some incantation if said "kavana hazaka" it will move god's heart. One has to be totally desperate to believe this logic. 

Evacuating

Israeli Military Issues Evacuation Order for Lebanon's Baalbek City for Second Day in a Row. October 31st, 11AM 

Wiki: A few kilometers from the swamp from which the Litani (the classical Leontes) and the Asi (the upper Orontes) flow, Baalbek may be the same as the manbaa al-nahrayn ("Source of the Two Rivers"), the abode of El in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle

 discovered in the 1920s and a separate serpent incantation. Baal is the principal Aramean god, although the pantheon includes El which is superior to Baal, and Anath or Oshrat, the sister and consort of Baal. And Mot (the Death god) and Yam (the Sea god).  The serpent incantation appears to be an amulet that consists of an incantation written on a common domestic earthenware.

The incantations are both stylized and structured, and consist of various elements, such as opening formulae, name invocation, sequences in both mystical and liturgical styles, biblical quotations and stories of magical activity located in the distant past in which well known figures of authority, such as great sages and prophets, successfully vanquished demonic forces. At the same time the incantations also have the form of legal documents, and so depict the belief that supernatural beings are subject to a juridical system that covers all created beings. In the Jewish texts, the ultimate authority is the Jewish God; in the Mandaean it is ‘The Great Life’; in the pagan and Gnositc texts the nature and identity of that which holds supreme authority is less clear. This is best illustrated in how adaptations of the legal formula found in the Jewish bill of divorce, the get, are prevalent in the bowl incantations. Simply put, the logic is that just as the get is a binding legal document that affects the separation of man and wife, so too it has the force to separate and banish demon from human.

The Onitsha Market

 

Many years ago Mr Egbo took me in his Mercedes to Onitsha on the mighty Niger.  He had a son in a school and the Headmaster had called him. The Onitsha market was the largest in Africa, and it was well-ordered. I bought lots of locally made iron tools; unfortunately, I had to leave them in Bauchi, which was never sent after me to Buenos Aires. The Ibo had advanced in metallurgy and fabricated wonderful brass sculptures, iron farming implements, and weapons. The Hittites reached the iron age about 3500 years ago, while the Nordics only 1500 years ago. The Ibo were well-advanced on the path to industrial economy. The contact with the Portuguese resulted deadly for them. 

The girls of Caphtor

 

Knossos fresco. Now, they are known as Minoans, an invented name. They were originally from Caphtor (see the Tanach).

Negotiating the 2025 national budget

 

The official picture says it all: Netanyahu, Smotrich, Head of Bank Israel et al. deciding the fiscal year 2025 national budget. Observe all of them with tightly closed fists on the table, muscles contracted to the breaking point, not a paper anywhere, - why should they need tables when it has been decided that they will not release even one shekel? There is no need for Excel tables; it is a fight to the death for each penny. 

British, we are not.    

Fire in Karaj

 The internet reports that a nuclear energy facility caught fire. The Picture shows three cooling towers, so it may be hot. The wind is steady at 14 km/hour toward the East, so the radioactive isotopes may reach Tehran in 4-5 hours. I hope it is not true. 

Claude says Karaj is approximately 20-30 km west of Tehran's western edges. Assuming an eastward wind, smoke or airborne particles take around 1-2 hours to reach western Tehran. That means that by now radioactive smoke has reached the capital.Wow!

De-Cluttering

I took a lot of my beloved books to the waste and observed that the former lot of my books was there. It has been there for three days, and no one wants them. People in this building and on my street are uninterested in my books. Big, new, luxurious dictionaries purchased when I was penniless will be recycled. I had been offering my daughters Please take some books, but nobody reads books these days. 

My shoes and the rest are gradually disappearing. We are an old couple living in a large five-room apartment and my wife is emptying it, starting with me and my things. I shall take nothing with me to the tomb, there will be no place there. In Kfar Saba, three bodies are laid one above the other in every square meter. Like in the old Frankfurt ghetto's cemetery.