Sparky: Trying to avoid playing the asshat card — Trying real hard ...

Xemu died for your sins ...

When Sparky was young and 12¢ comics were racked in supermarkets (soon to jump in price to 15¢) - he came across a reissue of The Shadow amongst the Doc Savages and such. He found a book that opened his eyes a little wider than most. Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea wrote these books called the The Illuminatus! Trilogy : The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan. This books were rather frightening. It lead to him reading Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati by Robert and Timothy Leary. In it he read that so-called alien visitors (the Greys and the anal probing dudes) had a transcultural precedent with other strange visitors - among which were the Virgin of Guadalupe that many kids seem to favor along with leprechauns and that sort of ilk.

Those few of you who read this know how I feel about organized religions that focus on misunderstood dogma and hate. Science has shown there are reasons folks imagine that they are paralyzed and see aliens; it is part of a physiological reaction.

Today I read a story (thanks to Warren Ellis) about a loon who claimed an alien shredded his dog. And then he hung out with the fellow for a week and a half afterwards. This guy needs to be committed. There are all sorts of danger signs in his statements.

I hate lying pyschos who hurt animals and then try to escape justice.

Alien abduction: Interpretations, Analyses and proposed explanations

There have been a variety of explanations offered for abduction phenomenon, ranging from sharply skeptical appraisals to uncritical acceptance of all abductee claims. Others have elected not to try explaining things, instead noting similarities to other phenomena, or simply documenting the development of the alien abduction phenomenon.

• Proposed psychological alternative explanations of the abduction phenomenon have included hallucination, temporary schizophrenia, and parasomnia—near-sleep mental states (hypnogogic states and sleep paralysis). Sleep paralysis in particular is often accompanied by hallucinations and peculiar sensation of malevolent or neutral presence of "something," though usually people experiencing it do not interpret that "something" as aliens. Occasionally it is also theorized to be a confused memory of past events (such as sexual abuse).
• Skeptics argue that the raw details of abduction accounts have been featured in science fiction since at least the 1930s, and that these details have had widespread currency, thereby influencing and shaping expectations of what an encounter with extraterrestrials might entail. (Others have argued against this idea; folklorist Eddie Bullard asks, "If Hollywood is responsible for these images, where are the monsters? Where are the robots?" (Bryan, 50)
• It is worth noting that many events reported during purported abductions often have parallels in anthropology, folklore and religion: Especially frequently correlate with certain imagery persistent in shamanic experiences (e.g., surgery-like procedures, foreign objects implanted in the body) and faerie contact stories, for instance. It has also been noted that post-modern anthropologist and modern shaman Terence McKenna described seeing Machine Elves while experimenting with Dimethyltryptamine (a.k.a. DMT). The description of Machine Elves is often consistent with the description of aliens. In a 1988 study conducted at UNM, psychologist Rick Strassman found that approximately 20% of volunteers injected with high doses of DMT had experiences identical to purported Alien Abductions.
• In The Demon-Haunted World astronomer Carl Sagan wrote about the theory that the alien abduction experience is remarkably similar to tales of demon abduction common throughout history. "...most of the central elements of the alien abduction account are present, including sexually obsessive non-humans who live in the sky, walk through walls, communicate telepathically, and perform breeding experiments on the human species. Unless we believe that demons really exist, how can we understand so strange a belief system, embraced by the whole Western world (including those considered the wisest among us), reinforced by personal experience in every generation, and taught by Church and State? Is there any real alternative besides a shared delusion based on common brain wiring and chemistry?" (Sagan 1996 124)

The alien abduction phenomenon has been the subject of conspiracy theory and as such has become a staple of popular science fiction works such as The X-Files. An inventor by the name of Michael Menkin claims to have had success in stopping alien abductions with the creation of a hat known as the Thought Screen Helmet.
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Now Leary and Wilson already made the connection others see earlier in an out of print book called Cosmic Trigger. They were reasonable smart folks.
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Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Roman Catholic icon, is the title given to the Virgin Mary after appearing, according to legend, to Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an Aztec convert to Catholicism, in the village of Guadalupe (the present-day Gustavo A. Madero, D.F.) near Mexico City in 1531. The icon is currently located behind the main altar of the Basilica of Guadalupe.

Less famously, the same name also refers to a statue of Mary that dating from 1326, found in the city of Guadalupe in Spain.

Alleged image of a bearded man found in a magnification of the Virgin's eye by Dr. Javier Torroella Bueno.

The image

The apron Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin wore was studied by Philip Serna Callahan in 1981 (The Tilma under Infra-red Radiation) with infrared rays. He reported that the portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no paintbrush strokes. The Nobel Chemistry prize recipient Richard Kuhn said in 1936 that the colouring was not from a mineral, vegetable, or animal source. Studies started in 1956 and continuing to the present by several ophthalmologists, including Dr. Javier Torroella Bueno (1956) and Dr. José Aste Tonsmann (El Secreto de sus Ojos, 2001), claim to have found images reflected in the eyes of the Virgin after amplifying the photographs to 2500x magnification. The pupils reflect a group of Native Americans and Franciscans. Some experts from the textile industry said they cannot understand how the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been conserved since 1531, exposed to dust, heat, and humidity, without wearing down, and without discoloration. On November 14, 1921, a factory worker placed a bomb a few feet away from the apron. The explosion demolished the marble steps of the main altar, the windows of nearby homes and it bent a brass crucifix, but the fabric suffered no damage. Since 1993, the apron has been protected by bullet-proof glass in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Other studies dispute these assertions. The claim of a supernatural painter is challenged by a formal investigation of the apron conducted in 1556, in which it was stated that the image was "painted yesteryear by an Indian", specifically "the Indian painter Marcos". This may have been the Aztec painter Marcos Cipac de Aquino, who was active in Mexico at the time the Image of Guadalupe appeared. Disputing the claims that the paint used on the apron could not be identified, the Spanish-language magazine Proceso (2002) reported the work of the art restoration expert José Sol Rosales. He examined the cloth with a stereomicroscope and identified calcium sulphate, pine soot, white, blue, and green "tierras" (earths), reds made from carmine and other pigments, as well as gold. All in all he found the work consistent with 16th century materials and methods. Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer, reporting in Skeptical Inquirer in 1985, found that the images seen in the Virgin's eyes may be the result of the human imagination's ability to form familiar shapes from random patterns, much like a psychologist's inkblots, a phenomenon known as pareidolia.

Origin of the Name
The origin of the name "Guadalupe," in the American context, is something of a mystery. According to a report at the time, the Virgin identified herself that way in a later apparition to Juan Diego's uncle. Those who doubt the story of Juan Diego and the apparitions argue that the 1533 church was dedicated to the Spanish Our Lady of Guadalupe (see above), with the American version developing later. Others have suggested that the name is a corruption of a Nahuatl name "Coatlaxopeuh", which has been translated as "Who Crushes the Serpent". In this interpretation, the serpent referred to is Quetzalcoatl, one of the chief Aztec gods, whom the Virgin Mary "crushed" by inspiring the conversion of the natives to Catholicism. This explanation has been adopted by some who hold that the motive of the Catholic Church in the Americas was to harshly wipe out native beliefs.

Popularity of the Virgin of Guadalupe

Despite disputes as to the veracity of claims about the image, the Virgin of Guadalupe has proved very popular in Mexico over the years. A church was built in 1533, dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Thereafter, Spanish missionaries used the story of her appearance to help convert millions of indigenous people in what had been the Aztec Empire. Our Lady of Guadalupe still underpins the faith of Catholics in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, and she has been recognised as patron saint of Mexico City since 1737, with her patronage extended piece by piece until it included all of America by 1946. Much of the recent increase in Marianism in the Catholic Church, including the call to recognise Mary as co-redemptrix, stems from the cult of Guadalupe. Today many make the pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe, on the Cerro of Tepeyac, some crawling on their knees for kilometres, or even from their homelands in other cities, or even states, to pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe. It is said that she can cure almost any sickness. Also, many problem drinkers, instead of going to Alcoholics Anonymous or similar programmes, go there to promise her that they will never drink again, or abstain for a certain period; it is reported that the majority of these find the strength to fulfill their promise. That can illustrate how much love Mexicans pay to their Virgencita, the affectionate diminutive by which she is called.

The apron containing her image has been hung in the church built on the spot through the building's various versions, including today's Basilica of Guadalupe. The picture is of a woman with olive skin, rather than the white skin of European iconography, that appealed to both indigenous Mexicans and their mestizo descendants as one of them. Similarly, the man to whom she is supposed to have appeared, Juan Diego, was an Indian, not a Spaniard. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been used by advocates of indigenous rights throughout Mexico's history, most recently by the Zapatista movement.

Replicas can be found in thousands of churches throughout the world, including Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and numerous parishes bear her name. Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe today is widespread among Catholics in every part of the globe.

María Guadalupe or just Lupe is a frequent female name in the Spanish language.

External links

• Official website (in Spanish)
• A Catholic site dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe
• 12 December festivities in San Miguel de Allende, Gto. (BBC photo essay)

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Thanks for reading the ramble .... - Sparky