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Watching True Blood really was intense tonight. My favorite part though was the scenes between Terry and Andy to be perfectly frank. I don't want to see any of the main vampires die in this show. They lend too much to the storyline. I hope they get Sookie's mostly passive character to step up to the bar and stop Marnie. She has powers. Antonia has turned out not to be the bad one in all actuality. I hope Lafayette and Jesus can do something. Maybe they can wipe Marnie's memory if they can get her under control rather than blowing everybody up.



I really liked the ghost segment in the episode prior. It was a pleasant addition to the program.



I see an estrangement starting between Alcide and his girlfriend. Don't know where that is going but she is being stupid and Alcide is taking her for granted so we shall see how they spin this part.



R.I.P. Tommy

Most won't agree with my viewpoint and that is all right, I don't mind. This movie was a classic to begin with like Lost Boys and that would be updated as well if remade and I probably wouldn't like it much either, lol.



I watched Fright Night and when it was over, I thought the newer generations would like it. It had a more low class vampire, it had sex and sexual jokes, and it had profanity. What more do you need I guess? Some critics are saying it was more stylish...I say Huh? Did you watch the same movie I did? I simply am not fond of Collin Ferrell, that is part of why I thought it only OK. I don't think he fit the part well. I don't like that they made Jerry sort of a low life biker guy.



There is no doubt that they would differ considering there is 26 or so years between the two movies. I also hated the Ed character in this one. He had no humor except in connection to the fight scene and even then I just didn't like the actor much. I didn't feel he fit. Now mind you, this is only my opinion. Those who have never seen the other one may really like it. It was a lot of things but I am in the minority about this movie. The one thing I thought was interesting was the change in character of Peter Vincent and it was a big one but I liked his character and the actor that portrayed him and the little bit of repartee between him and his assistant. I felt his character kind of uplifted the movie. The way they portrayed Charlie's Mom was interesting. I kind of liked when she was oblivious to everything but it was OK. It didn't add much to the movie in my opinion.



Now I watch afterward, The Help. That movie was so good. It was over 2 hours long but the time flew by. It is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. All of them (the actors), I think did a wonderful job. I hope it wins awards.

I think because so many people want to write poetry, many styles are coming back. One has to be wary of the vanity presses who will send out awards to people who send in their poems even if they are not worthy just to get them to pay for anthologies that they will print with their poem in it. They don't care about the quality but making money. One is poetry.com. They will accept anyone.



I want to mention a certain style of poetry. It is called Acrostic poetry. I have an example in my fantasy story in the stories section. It is the only piece I have there. Enchanter of Dreams. If you look for the little poem you will see if you look at the first letter of each line it spells ENCHANTER downward. That is the concept of that type of poetry. It is generally taken from the title. I am going to rewrite that little frivolous short story soon.

I'm getting ready to watch a DVD that was created last night. My daughter is going through college (youngest daughter, I have three and then a son younger than her) She also works in management in a movie theater. On the side she is a stand up comic. She did a show at the Ice House in Pasadena last night. I guess it went over well. She got a lot of laughs. There were around two hundred people there.



I told her I would have caved right after passing the curtains. She said, "No Mom, you have to stand up. That's why it is called stand up comedy." I just said better you than me. I had to stay at home to watch her four year old twins. It's ok because if she did any family humor I would rather watch after the fact, lol.

I thought it funny since I recently posted something on the evil eye that I was watching True Blood and the evil Antonia (Marnie) used the mano cornuto on Eric which is an Italian hand movement to ward off the evil eye. (can be worn as a charm too...a little hand) I thought it very funny. I posted about that only in my coven but what a kawinkydink. I burst out laughing...that Alan Ball...what a guy. Now whose gonna kill that Antonia bitch...oh I meant witch, lol

I had to go looking between the two Orders of the Golden Dawn to see what the differences were, lol. The one in Europe which has Griffin if you watched the first video (the grand mucky muck, lol) is in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and they hold that name legally in Europe and say they have direct lineage to the original group that dissolved for awhile and splintered into two other groups. Sooo this is really the reformed version in Europe. They use a lot of Mathers ideas from what I read. This one may have gone to a strictly men's group in the fashion of Rosicrucian Orders and the Masonic Lodges.



Then there is one in Florida that calls themselves the Hermetic Order ect but follows the writings of Regardie. It appears they include females. I don't think that is the case of the other group but I didn't research that far, it was just from watching their ritual I got that. Even though I own a hardcover edition of the Golden Dawn by Regardie copyrighted in 1971, heh...I have never read it. Glanced through it yes, lol...but read it...eh no. It is a group I was not ever that interested in. It is too well let's say spiritual in make up like a lot of the old grimoire's. Not my cup of tea. It's still interesting to me nonetheless. I was originally looking at something used routinely by magickal groups one could say and stumbled upon their websites. It's not like I have never heard of them but there are factions and they don't get along.



I know I have read this in the past. Not at this site but in books prior to the internet. It isn't something I would retain other than some of the principle people involved. Here is an excerpt from a history of the forming of the group:



The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn



The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or "Golden Dawn", as it is commonly referred to) is a tradition of magical theurgy and spiritual development. It is probably the single greatest influence on 20th century western occultism. Concepts of magic and ritual that became core elements of many other traditions, including Wicca, Thelema and other forms of magical spirituality popular today, are drawn from the Golden Dawn traditions.



Origins



The original "Order of the Golden Dawn" was a magical fraternity founded in London in 1888 by Dr. William Wynn Westcott, a London physician and municipal coroner. His partners were another physician, Dr. William R. Woodman, and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. All three men were Freemasons. Dr. Woodman was the head of a reputable Rosicrucian fellowship made up of well respected, high ranking Masons in London. The three founders were also members of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A.), an exclusive lodge founded by the noted Grand Lodge Freemason Kenneth MacKenzie, author of The Royal Masonic Encyclopedia. The S.R.I.A. was established in 1866 with Lord Bulwer-Lytton as honorary patron. Important members included Frederick Hockley, who collected esoteric writing and engaged in practical experimentation; he is reliably known to have been taught by a pupil of Francis Barrett, and was a teacher of Kenneth MacKenzie. The Christian spiritualist leader Rev. William Stainton Moses was also a member of the S.R.I.A.



Westcott, also a member of the Theosophical Society, seems to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. Woodman, as Supreme Magus of the S.R.I.A., was undoubtedly recruited to lend credibility to the new organization. Mathers was an antiquarian, translator, researcher and had a great talent for composing ritual works and integrating occult symbolism. In addition, Mathers insisted on women being allowed to participate in the Order in "perfect equality" with men. This was a marked change from the men-only tradition of Masonry. And unlike the S.R.I.A., which required its members to be Christian, the Golden Dawn was open to any man or woman who professed "belief in a Supreme Being or Beings".



The Cipher Manuscripts



According to its founders, the Golden Dawn was based on a charter from a supposedly ancient German Rosicrucian Lodge, which had written a coded record of their secret occult rituals into a document dubbed the Cipher Manuscripts. Westcott claimed to have acquired these mysterious manuscripts in 1886, from the effects of Reverend A. F. A. Woodford, an elderly Masonic scholar. Copies of these records were subsequently discovered by Westcott among assorted papers of the Swedenborgian Rite that MacKenzie had left to Woodford after his death in 1886, which were turned over by Woodford's widow to Westcott, in his capacity as an Officer of the S.R.I.A..



According to Westcott, the Cipher Manuscripts also contained an address of an aged adept named "Fräulein Sprengel" in Germany, to whom Westcott wrote inquiring about the contents of the papers. Fraulein Sprengel responded, and after accepting the requests of Westcott and Mathers, issued them a charter to operate a Lodge of the Order in England. Westcott's first Golden Dawn Temple was the Isis-Urania Lodge, styled "No.3". Temple No.1 would have been Fraulein Sprengel's lodge, and No. 2 was supposedly an abortive attempt at a lodge by some unnamed persons in London, (possibly a reference to MacKenzie and other S.R.I.A. members some years earlier.)



The Golden Age of the Golden Dawn



In its heyday, many cultural celebrities belonged to the Golden Dawn, such as actress Florence Farr and Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. Some well known members included Arthur Machen, William Butler Yeats, and Aleister Crowley. (Bram Stoker is rumored to have once been a member.) But many men and women of the 19th century Fin de siècle social culture were members of the Golden Dawn.



The original Lodge founded in 1888 did not teach any magical practices per se (except for basic "banishing" rituals and meditation), but was rather a philosophical and metaphysical teaching Order. This was called "the Outer Order", and for four years the Golden Dawn existed only in "the Outer". The "Inner Order", which became active in 1892, was the circle of Adepts who had completed the entire course of study and Initiations of the Outer Order contained in the Cipher Manuscripts. This group eventually became known as the Second Order (the Outer Order being the "First" Order).



Mathers and Dr. Westcott have been credited for developing the ritual outlines in the Cipher Manuscript into a workable format. Mathers, however, is generally credited with the design of the curriculum and rituals of the Second Order, which he called the Rosae Rubae et Aureae Crucis ("Ruby Rose and Golden Cross", or the RR et AC.) Some Golden Dawn practitioners believe that Mathers received his materials from the "Secret Chiefs" connected to his German Rosicrucian predecessors, which is what he stated to his followers. Some believe that S.L. Macgregor Mathers and his wife Moina channelled the materials, and later refined and developed them, as was done with the Cipher Manuscripts. Mathers' exegesis of the Cipher materials as practiced by the original Temples is known as the "Z-2". The Order tradition is to designate it's important "secret" instructional papers as "Z Documents".



The primary Lodges were the original Isis-Urania Temple in London, the Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh, and the Ahathoor Temple in Paris. It is unknown how many members the Order had in its heyday, as some lodges' records were lost or destroyed, but estimates range from three to five hundred. Only a small group, probably well under one hundred, ever became part of the Second Order. There were a few other Temples, consisting of small groups scattered in Europe and America, generally meeting in private homes. Mathers left London in 1894 to live in Paris, and his temple there became the nominal center of the organization, though it was notable chiefly for his presence. Westcott remained in London as Chief Adept in Anglica (England.)



By the end of the 19th century, Dr. Woodman had passed away, and Dr. Westcott had curtailed his participation in official activities after several occult manuscripts of the Order, in a case bearing his address, had been left in a London taxicab and came to the attention of his superiors in the city government. Not wishing any hint of scandal over "secret occult societies" that had officials of the Crown in their ranks (especially a coroner, who could conceivably cover up a suspicious cause of death), Westcott's employers insisted he disassociate himself with the Order. There are accounts of a similar incident in 1889 which caused him to stop lecturing for the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society. Aleister Crowley later alleged in his autobiography that Mathers deliberately planted the documents to consolidate his control of the Order by forcing Westcott's resignation, as this was rumored at the time. While there is no proof of Mathers's complicity, it appears that the relationship between Mathers and Westcott all but ended after this point. After Westcott's departure, Mathers appointed Florence Farr to be Chief Adept in Anglica. (Although Westcott publicly resigned, he must have continued in some capacity since there are Lodge documents bearing his signature dated years after his "resignation.")



This left Mathers as the only active founding member and in charge of the Order. Due to personality clashes with other members, and being absent from the center of Lodge activity in Great Britain, challenges to Mathers' authority as leader began to develop amongst the members of the Second Order.



The Breakup of the Original Order



After 13 years of operation, a majority of the high-ranking members in London fostered a schism of the British lodges from Mathers in 1900, which led to further schisms and more splinter groups. The original Golden Dawn ceased to exist under that name in 1903 but which continued under at least two spin-off organizations, the Stella Matutina (Morning Star) and the Alpha et Omega, as well as a renamed faction headed by Arthur Edward Waite.



http://www.new-age-spirituality.com/philos/goldawn.html



You can read the rest at that URL if interested.

I mentioned this and I guess it was thought that Thor would return in the Avengers and he will BUT they are making a sequel of Thor since it was so successful.



"June 2011, Walt Disney Pictures set a July 26, 2013 release date for Thor 2 with Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as the title hero. Kenneth Branagh, who directed the first film will not be returning as helmer but will likely be involved in some producing capacity. The Los Angeles Times cited the marathon devotion required for a major visual-effects epic and the urgency to get the script process underway as reasons for Branagh's departure although the director was initially enthused by the prospect of a sequel. The following day, Marvel hired Don Payne, one of the credited writers of the first film, to script the sequel."



Of course it could fall through or have problems but I doubt it.

There are experts and then there are experts. Having a piece of paper and taking a zillion mostly boring classes to get one doesn't really make one an expert. It does create a lot of work though. I've been there. Some people are better at reciting back information than others. Some things I have been studying in libraries and now online for years. Buying books as well but seems I am going to be limited to ordering them off the net soon.



No one can remember the details to things forever. One moves on to new interests and things get sketchy after awhile. It is all relative anyway. An example is, for years, most of my life they have been teaching in (American at least) schools that it was Columbus that discovered this place. I mean my whole life but now they say not and plan to change the text books because of archaeological finds. Therefore it is relative to what you think you know until proven otherwise, bias and culture and/or nationality. Man thinks they know a lot of things but as time passes it gets revised. We also know things from personal experiences as well. I spent years with spiritualists in America and I found when I left one circle of them to go to another it wasn't always the same viewpoints. Sooo, to say one is something and consider the beliefs or what something like Wikipedia says to be the facts and all the facts is a little naive. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying like a lot of people do that Wikipedia is wrong all the time, but that in general nothing is chiseled in stone and we don't know as much as we think we do including me. I do have my own opinions about a lot of facts.



When I research I use the sources of other researchers and then I research the authors and so on to see how others thought of them. It is how I know if someone is a little out there and take a leap to look into their views and why they say (write usually) what they do. I have read so many things on certain topics with research coming from the same sources yet the authors theories are not the same or exactly the opposite. I guess you could call that schools of thought but it makes researching really difficult. To top that off, many don't look into the validity of things they think they know or believe.



I am interested in Northern beliefs but, I don't see why I have to commit. I am trying to tie some things together but could I write about it or explain at the moment, nope. Sometimes things just have to float around in my head for awhile and then I have an "AHA" moment.