Mary Queen of Angels oracle deck

My brand new deck from Doreen Virtue; the Mary Queen of Angels oracle. Very lovely! Two powerful three card readings so far. It definitely has a heavy Chrisitian religious vibe, but I don't have to buy into that, I go with the beauty of the cards and a Goddess/UFO Mary kind of vibe.

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Tonya Hurley: Santa Muerte: My Search for the Bony Lady

On The Huffington Post, from Tonya Hurley on a deity of many names: Lady of Shadows, Holy Girl, Santa Sebastiana, ..

.Tonya Hurley: Santa Muerte: My Search for the Bony Lady (PHOTOS): While in Mexico recently for a book tour, I visited a market in Guadalajara where I encountered a skeletal figure, robed, with long black hair holding a scythe and globe standing in a shop window. A Grim Reapress of sorts, standing shoulder to shoulder with statues of Jesus, St. Jude and The Virgin of Guadalupe. I'd been doing research into the lives of the saints and martyrs for my new young adult book trilogy, "The Blessed," but here was one I'd never come across. Many revered as saints and martyrs were regarded as misfits and people that actively sought death, however, none actually embodied death as far as I'd ever heard.

Video emerges of Pope Francis reportedly performing an exorcism - Europe - World - The Independent

Video emerges of Pope Francis reportedly performing an exorcism - Europe - World - The Independent

The Threat of Literalism - Catonsville, MD Patch

Very good and interesting article by Ken Kovacs.  And for those of us who are anti-skeptoid, this goes for those debunkites as well. I don't share the author's religious views -- ie, that JC is the "fullest revelation of God the world has ever known" -- but that's beside the point.

The Threat of Literalism - Catonsville, MD Patch: James Hollis, Jungian analyst and writer, suggests that literalism is actually a form of religious blasphemy because it seeks to concretize (nail down, define) and absolutize the core experience of the Holy, of God – a God, if God, who cannot be controlled or defined; a God, as theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) insisted, who was Wholly Other, a God who remains ultimately a mystery. And a mystery is not the same thing as a puzzle (which can be solved); a mystery is always enigmatic and is therefore inherently unknowable.

It gets down to the following, which really touches on the gist of these "literalists" including anti-paranormal/ufo skeptoids:

Hollis, whose writings I admire and enormously respect, even argues that literalism is a kind of psychopathology in need of deep healing (redemption?). From his many years as a psychotherapist he has come to see that a way to gauge mental health and emotional maturity is the degree to which one is able to tolerate what he calls the triple A’s – ambiguity, ambivalence, and anxiety. The ability to hold these in tension – and not escape into literalism and fundamentalism, into strategies of avoidance – is a way to test our psychic strength. I can certainly resonate with this. The literalists (of all varieties) I have known and know (and love) have difficulty tolerating ambiguity, ambivalence, and anxiety. They use their faith or their political ideology to bolster themselves against, hide themselves from the triple A’s that define the human condition.

NC woman accused of beating woman with Bible | MyFOX8.com

We don't know why Ms. Moore was beating the victim with a Bible, but it doesn't really matter does it?

NC woman accused of beating woman with Bible | MyFOX8.com: KINGS MOUNTAIN, N.C. — Authorities said a North Carolina woman was arrested and charged with beating another woman with a Bible.

The Shelby Star reported that Evelyn Mills Moore, 57, of Kings Mountain, was arrested Saturday on a charge of assault inflicting serious injury.

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Mary, Queen of Angels Oracle Cards

Video of Doreen Virtue going through her Mary, Queen of Angels oracle deck. The cards are beautiful. Mary, Queen of Angels Oracle Cards [C1042] - $15.95 : Signs of Angels, Your Angel Resource - Learn, Shop and Readings

From Yahoo News: Pope Francis Names 800 New Saints In One Go

Pope Francis Names 800 New Saints In One Go - Yahoo! News: Pope Francis's first canonization ceremony was a record-breaking one. The new pontiff named over 800 new saints on Sunday. That's already almost double the number of saints declared by Pope John Paul II, whose 480-odd canonizations were, at the time, more than those of all of his predecessors since 1588, combined. But the latest canonization bonanza is notable for another reason: most of the 800 new saints are 15th-century martyrs, who were approved as a group for sainthood by Francis's predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Given Pope Francis's previous public commitment to improving the Catholic church's relationship with Muslim communities worldwide, Benedict XVI's unfinished business put the new pontiff in a delicate position. The 813 "Martyrs of Otranto" were beheaded by Ottoman soldiers for refusing to convert to Islam.

Two new female saints:

The pope also canonized two women from Latin America, which seems to be a more fitting way for the first pope from the continent to kick off his tenure. Those two new saints are Laura of St. Catherine of Siena Montoya y Upegui (also the first saint from Columbia) and Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala of Mexico.

Is Disney Seeking to Trademark Dia de Muertos? | TDG - Science, Magick, Myth and History

Red Pill Junkie at The Daily Grail on Disney's possible intent to appropriate (steal) Dia de Muertos. Disney's history is such, sadly. Amazing and astounding but not surprising. Is Disney Seeking to Trademark Dia de Muertos? | TDG - Science, Magick, Myth and History

David Bowie's New Video

Well, I'm not offended. Banned from YouTube then reinstated. But I'm a Bowie fan from decades past. And it's too funny and even silly; campy to be sure. "Sexually explicit?" --- nope. But it's the hint, the references to religious self-flagellation, etc. that offends some who put it into a sexual context. (Hey, bit of synchro here; watching Jeopardy and just when I wrote " self-flagellation in a sexual context" the category was: "Hit me.") Which, of course, is sexual. And so it goes.  And is that Marie Cotillard and Gary Oldman I see in the video? Of course it is!

Vatican On-line: 'Digitizing history: 82,000-manuscript collection Vatican Library goes online | Toronto Star'

Vatican on-line:

Digitizing history: 82,000-manuscript collection Vatican Library goes online | Toronto Star: Little things slow down the process of putting 40 million pages of ancient manuscripts in the Vatican Library online: gold or silver in the illuminations, bindings that disintegrate if you open them, getting the synergy right.

“It is important to realize if there is gold or silver in a manuscript. That requires a very particular process because the light will be different,” said Luciano Ammenti, who is in charge of IT at the Vatican and the project to digitize the storied library’s 82,000 manuscripts.

The project, finally up and running a year after its announcement, uses an armada of equipment to capture the vast range of pages amassed by the Vatican over five or six centuries into one of the world’s most valuable collection of books and manuscripts.