He Plight of the Assyrians

 The Assyrians of the Middle East have had more than their fair share of being oppressed. Throughout history they have been second class citizens in their own land. Events culminate with the 1915 Seyfo in which they were massacred and driven out of their villages in Ottoman Turkey and forced to flee to Nirthern Iran and Nirthern Iraq. The oppression did not end their.

To this day it continues. The Assyrians are trying to set up an autonomous zone on the Nineveh plain and it has traditionally been inhabited mostly by Assyrians. The plans were to give them an autonomous zone. Yet there are forces in the way that are preventing this. One would think that with US troops stationed there things would go easier for the Assyrians. In fact it has been the opposite.

The Kurds under the KRG and KDP are trying to leach the Assyrians away from their land and make it part of their Kurdistan. To weaken the Assyrian political position the Kurds are supporting different parties that go with their agenda. They are also using religion to divide the Assyrian nation. Some Assyrians call themselves Chaldeans, Syrian Othodox, etc.

The Kurds are also using terror tactics to take the land. They are using terror tactics to force the Assyrians away. These include false arrests by Kurdish police. Breaking into houses and killing and raping people.  These terror tactics are forcing Assyrians out of their ancestral lands.

The Kurds may have helped ISIS come to power. Once ISIS came to power the Kurdish peshmerga hardly ever defended the Assyrians. Yet the Kurds are an Israeli and American ally. The Kurds pretend that they are being nice to Assyrians but they are not. The Assyrians once again are being sold out. Their only solution is their own land or an autonomous zone under their control with their own defense force.

Magic Dungeons

 

Lupa and Taylor’s approach to magick is new and refreshing. What follows is a book that combines magic with sadomasochistic practices. Some would think that sex and magick do not go together, in fact they very much do. Sex magick has been practiced for a long time. Sadomasochism is thought to be cathartic and healing for people who have suffered abuse. This book has some of those techniques.

Magick works by raising energy and then directing it towards a certain goal. Magick is defined as changing reality according to one’s will. Sex brings up lots of energy. The build up to the climax makes energy and the climax offers the perfect release of that energy toward that goal. The bodily fluids could be used to charge sigil or other magical implements. In a BDSM situation it is the top who is directing the subs energy toward a specific goal.

The book gives a good introducing into the terminology of BDSM. The terms are very exhaustive, even for someone who practices this stuff. The authors render their own personal experiences into the book. Wiccan practices like perfect love and perfect trust come into play as the authors talk about safety and the need to trust the partner you are playing with.

The techniques they use employ Taoist breathing and definitely charging sigils. Yet there is also exploring past traumas and using the cathartic experiences to dissolve blockages and transform the negative into positive. There are psychic vampire techniques where in energy is exchanged.. Role playing is used to over come previous trauma.

 

There is even a tarot spread to this book. I love their new and novel approach to magic.

 

Iranian Origins of Camelot

 Everyone is familiar with King Arthur and the Knights if the Round Table. Intrigued as we are when we look for the inspiration for these tales we really do not find an adequate source. Searching the Norse and Celtic mythos we fail to find any meaningful parallels. Looking back in History and further to the East, we find that the Romans conscripted several tribes to fight for them and settled them in different parts of Europe. The tribes were all inter related. Scythian, Sarmatians, Iazagese ,Ossetians and Alans.

Not much remains of these tribes. The Ossetians who live in Georgia are descended from the Alans. With them came the Nart Sagas. The Nart Sagas focus around  Batraz, who avenges his father to claim kingship. He is aided by a sword and there is a grail like object that he is questing for. Once Batraz dies he commands a warrior underneath him to cast the sword into the lake. This is very similar to the King Arthur mythology. There is the pulling of sword from a stone and retuning it to the source. 

The parallels are with near eastern mythology from northern Iran. The Scythians were horseback warrior who hailed from the Iranians steps south of Siberia. They are the ones who spread burial mounds through out Europe . They were called the Lizard People due to the scales on their armor. After they settled in motifs started showing scaly warriors. The Sarmatians flew a dragon banner when doing into battle. Hence we can see the source of Pendragon or son of the dragon. The burial mound would have stones with swords driven into them with only the rightful heir being able to pull them out.

These parallels are not found in Celtic or any neighboring mythology. Arthur was modeled off of  Batraz.Batraz lost his father as did Arthur and he had to claim the sword and avenge his father in Order to get his kingdom. Lancelet as well is a reflection of Batraz as well. The lady of the lake correspond to Lady of the Lake. Seems that many motifs come from Ancient Persia.

The Jews of Tunisia

 

The Arab Spring or the Jasmine Spring saw massive change throughout the Arab world. Old and corrupt , secular Arab regimes were replaced with Islamic fundamentalist leadership. With the change of government came the ethnic cleansing of anyone who was not Muslim. Assyrian Christians and Yezidi were massacred in Iraq and the the rest of the Middle East. But this is not the first time this has happened.

The book focuses on the Jewish community of Tunisia yet touches upon other tragedies that occurred in the Middle East. As many of these Middle Eastern governments go if you are not part of the club then you do not belong.

Going back to at least Turkish times , Jews and Christians were treated as second status people with fewer rights then Muslims. They were of Dhimmi status and had to pay special taxes and wear garb that identified them as Dhimi

Despite all this the Jews managed to prosper. Things would get worse around World War 11 when the Nazi allied Vichy French help then round up Jews. With Israel’s creation things became worse , Jews were treated as the Zionist enemy. They were subject to pogroms, land confiscation and imprisonments. Many left for Israel.

Those that remained faced persecution during the Jasmine Revolution. Riots, arrest and torture awaited them. In truth the Jews were never really welcomed in Arab Tunisian society, then again the Berbers have been marginalized.

Once the Jews arrived in Israel things were not much better. They were treated like second class citizen. While Tunisia tried to wipe way its Jewish and Berber past. Seems the Jewish state wanted to erase the Middle Eastern past as well.