Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Indonesia Shamanism, Legends & Superstitions

These articles are part of the Indotalisman website and are written mostly by Luxamore. While there are other articles on magic and the occult on this site, these articles are more unusual and details various Indonesian occult practices and beliefs which are not well known in the West.

Articles include:

Some of the other articles are also worth reading through.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Wikibooks - Lucid Dreaming

The Lucid Dreaming Wikibook offers a free source of information on Lucid Dreaming, as well as being wiki-based so that anyone can contribute to it. Included are sections on Dream Recall, Induction Techniques, Using (Lucid Dreams), along with a glossary, appendices, further reading, and a frequently asked questions section. This is worth checking out, and if you have experience in Lucid Dreaming you can contribute to it.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Quotes on Art & Music

These quotes originally appeared in a newsletter from Meditiation Mount.

All audible musical sound is given us for the sake of harmony, which has motions akin to the orbits in our soul, and which, as anyone who makes intelligent use of the Arts knows, is not to be used, as is commonly thought, to give irrational pleasure, but as a heaven sent ally in reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions within us. Rhythm, again, was given us from the same heavenly source to help us in the same way; for most of us lack measure and grace.
from Timaeus by Plato

From the knowledge of Art arises divine knowledge and such knowledge leads to enlightenment. This liberation is truly the essence of the knowledge of Art. He who realizes this attains freedom.
Vastu Sutru Upanishad

"I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness."
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and apostles; - I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible Art; - I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives within the hearts of all illumined men; - I believe that he who once has bathed in the sublime delights of this high Art, is consecrate to Her for ever, and never can deny Her; - I believe that through Art all men are saved.”
Richard Wagner

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
André Gide

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.
Leonardo da Vinci

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley

Sunday, June 04, 2006

EverCrack Open Source Cryptanalysis Engine

Perhaps a little unusual for an occult blog, but nonetheless this could be useful to some people. EverCrack is a set of tools to decrypt / decode various ciphers, including Caesar, Substitution, and Matrix cyphers, along with a Ciphertext Language Identifier. There are various books and manuscripts that include text encoded fonts (alphabets) uncommon to the reader, and perhaps without any real explanation. The text is often English language, yet using characters which are unknown to the reader the message can be considered encoded. It can be difficult to figure out the message without knowing which English letters are represented by the symbols that have been used. While at first glance it may seem difficult to use the online cypher cracker tools if the characters are not English letters, it can actually be quite simple.

Example:

The following is some 'encoded' text in a font which is non-English, but we will work on the assumption that it is English language words using non-English characters.

Step 1:

Convert all the characters into English language, working from A to Z to represent each of the characters as we go along. We end up with:

abc dccaefg hi ajh kclmhfnoeaecm em oepc abc qhfanqa hi ajh qbcdeqno mrsmanfqcm ei abclc em nft lcnqaehf shab nlc alnfmihldcu

This is the slowest part, as it means checking that a letter isn't doubled up. What we have done is create a simple substitution cypher. It could be represented in a similar way using numbers, however this wouldn't decode properly in the online cypher cracker. The first 4 words would like like this:

01-02-03 / 04-03-03-01-05-06-07 / 08-09 / 01-10-08

You will probably notice it is easier to have the words represented by letters...

Okay, so we enter the encoded text, using English letters into the substitution cypher cracker, and in seconds we get the following:

[1] the meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances if there is any reaction both are transformed

[2] the meeting of two personalities is live the contact of two chemical substances if there is any reaction both are transformed

Words: 21
Decodes: 2
Time: 1

Okay, so we have two very similar decoded answers. As the cracker hasn't been programmed with grammar routines, it is purely decoding possible words, and giving us the options. In this case it isn't too difficult to see that the first result was the correct one.

The longer the encoded text, generally the more accurate the result will be. However, the decoding is limited by the dictionary, and if the encoded text contains a lot of words which are not in the dictionary (perhaps Hebrew words relating to the Qabala, Enochian Angels, or Egyptian Gods) then the decoding may also fail also. What could be done then is to try the process on groups of words, and do part of the decryption manually... It would also be possible to use an expanded dictionary using occult and esoteric words that may occur in such texts.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Way of the Dreamer

Tonight I had a read over a few of the articles by Robert Moss on his website, Way of the Dreamer. There is some really good articles there, and I believe he has some excellent concepts and techniques when it comes to dreaming. I like his concept of active dreaming as it makes a lot of sense to make practical use of our dreaming in our spiritual development. The information provided on the site is clear and concise and gives enough pointers to immediately put some of the suggestions into practice. For those who find the articles of interest, Robert Moss has several books, which may well be worth reading.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Warrior of the Light Online

Warrior of the Light Online is a monthly publication by Paulo Coelho. If you are interested in the philosophies and ideas of Paulo then this may be of interest to you.

As of writing the current article is entitled "I am not happy." To me it is a sage bit of advice for those who follow a practical spiritual path. I especially like Paulo's statement at the end, "better forget this idea of seeking happiness at any cost and look for more interesting things like unknown seas, strangers, provocative thoughts, risky experiences."

For some reason this reminds me of a quote from certain Artchetypal entity of pop culture, Tyler Durden: "I say never let me be complete, I say may I never be content, ... I say evolve, and let the chips fall where they may..."


Walking The Path

Walking The Path is the blog of Paulo Coelho. The blog has been set up as "During the months of March, April, May and June, Paulo Coelho is traveling to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1986. He is also holding surprise book signings - announced one day in advance - in some cities along the way, to have a chance to meet his readers."

Anyone walking their own spiritual path or who has been inspired by the works of Paul Coelho may find this blog of interest.