From Slave Girl to Queen: Hurrems Story

 

Colin Falcon at has given the reader an easy to read novel of historical fiction that  gives graphic insight Into the dark inner workings of the Ottoman Empire. The story centers around a slave girls caught in a raid and given over to the Sultan Harem. Burden as she was called rose in power until she ran the empire right from the sultan harem.  She would eventually rise to queen. She rises to power by use of deception, trickery and !murder.

There are some side stories that play into the main story. In Venice a young Moorish Abbas falls in love with a noble woman named Julia. It does  not end well for Abbas. He is !mutilated by the woman's disapproving father. He can never marry nor have children.

Years later they find themselves in Istanbul. Abbas works in the kings harem. Julia is caught in a slave raid. Abbas provides for her release and care under a friend named ludivici.  Abbas to keep Julia alive must play along with her intrigues.

In the end Hurems  machinations lead to civil war and the death of Suleiman sons. She becomes the first woman to become queen. Most of the Sultans wives were slave girls.

Stephen Kings “Otherworld”

 

Stephen King’s “Otherworld” offers a distorted version of our very own world. It has dwarves, mermaid and the living dead. There are wagon, bicycles, tricycles and gas powered lights. It conbines elements of the Wizard of Oz and HP Lovecraft. In fact there is a god down there named Gogmagog. Like Cthullhu he is a tentacled beast with wings who wishes to destroy the world. 

On the surface world in Illinois lives Charles Reade. His father is an insurance salesman. His mother died crossing over a bridge when she was hit by a car. In charlies neighborhood there lives a very strange and antisocial hermit who lives with a vicious dog named Radar. Charlie lives the life of anormal child who has an alcoholic father dealing with the loss of his wife. Charlie prays for a miracle and says he will do anything for his father to get sober. His father gets sober and Charlie has a good deed to do. 

Howard Bowditch falls off a ladder and breaks his leg. Charlie is walking by and heres the cries for help. From this point on his life will change. As he helps the isolated Mr, Bowditch, Charlie find s out that everything the man owns is outdated and old fashioned. Contained in his safe are gold pellets worth lots of money. The once threatening dog is now getting old. There is a shed in the back and every so often weird noises come out from it. Mr. Bowditch and Charlie become friends and Charlie learns an awful secret. 

He learns about it after Mr. Bowditch dies from a heart attack when his kills a giant roach in his shed. Charlie learns there is a secret entrance to another world called Empis or Lilmar. This fairy tale world with iron girders has seen the overthrow of the royal party by a discontented brother. By calling on Gogmagog he transforms his world and almost everyone in it. Charlie come here with Radar in order to make her younger. He gets captured and is forced to fight and he realizes he has a destiny in this world. 

Charlie is a custodian. Meant to keep this otherworld safe from the human being of the upperworld. 

 

Wehrwolves of World War Ii

  In an isolated German village of Shwerag there lived a simple farmer named Uwe and his wife Katya and daughter Liesl.  The allied forces have proven victorious and are combing through the countryside. One morning Uwe wakes up to find the animals on his farm are deeply disturbed. Walking out further into the woods he finds pools of blood and a gypsy man that is torn to shred. Some people talk of legendary animals and monsters, many of which have been hunted out if they ever existed at all. 

The talk in the town is how to prepare for the allied soldiers when they come. To fight is futile yet there is a gnawing fear that that allies will round up all the young men. A man named Hans is putting together a militia to fight them. Uwe is not the bravest sort and Hans is like the village bully. He left his unit and is putting together a militia. 

The militia is rather special. To be initiated one has to spend the night in the cellar with Jager, a man who puts on a belt and becomes a werewolf. Uwe decides to join. At first the pack hunts down allied soldiers and then they start attacking village livestock. Finally the start devouring the people in town they don’t like. This starts to bug Uwe and soon his wife finds out. 

The end is a surprise ending but it is the only possible one. Too bad the story is very short. Would have been great had they developed it more and made it a full length novel. 

Rise of the Jewish Assassin

 

During the second temple time period when the Jewish people were under Roman domination, there arose a group of Jewish assassins who were much the for father of modern day terrorism. Their tactics were not the use of guerrilla warfare to take down enemy Roman soldiers but rather their target were the wealthy Jewish Elite Sadducees who were allied with the Roman, plus some rich Romans themselves.

The book goes into details about the first Jewish Revolt and how Pompei destroyed the first rebellion. The book also goes into some of the power struggles that beset the Roman provinces and the Herodian dynasty. There were many Jewish groups that rose during this time. The three main groups are the Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees.  

The Sadducees were the elite temple priesthood who were allied with Rome and helped them keep the grip on Judea.  The Essenes were troubled by the corruption of the temple practices, so they moved off towards En Gedi and the Dead Sea area. They practiced celibacy and wore all white. The Pharisees are the only sect to have survived and they morphed into Rabbinic Judaism.

Out of all this there arose the zealots. They fought against the Romans by using terror, and guerilla warfare tactics. It is not sure if the Zealots were the same as the Sicarii or if the Sicarii are an offshoot of the Zealots.

One of the main historians to record the deeds of the Sicarii is Josephus. Since he was a Greek Jew allied with the elite. Per his background he wrote rather negatively of the Sicarii. He thought of them as rogues, poor bandits. In reality some the zealots may have been bandits. The defenders at Masada were supposedly Sicarii. They chose death over surrender.

The revolt against the Romans may have been nationalistic but there was a class struggle going on as the pro-Roman Jews were wealthy while those in opposition were from the poorer classes. During the siege of Jerusalem the Sicarii took over the temple and fortified it. The siege against Jerusalem by the Romans was long lasting. Not only was it Jews against Romans but it was also Jews against jews. After the siege and the defeat at Masada some of the Sicarii fled to Alexandria in Egypt and other places in Libya.

There was anti Jewish sentiment in Alexandria. The Jews were forced to put up images of Cesar in their synagogues.  Jewish refusal fueled programs against the Jewish community. Josephus likes to blame the Sicarii for the revolt and all that befell the Jewish people. I would say it was Roman oppression and interference of Jewish life that sparked the revolt.

Isobel Gowdy's Book of Charms

 

The Black Book of Isobel Gowdy

By Ash William Mills

During the 15 hundreds toward the 16 hundreds there lived a magical person named Isobel Gowdy. She was accused of being a witch a long with hundreds of others. Being accused of witchcraft meant torture, death and sometimes other bizarre things the priests could imagine. Most of the confessions were extracted through force or torture and are hence not reliable.  For Isobel Gowdy she was captured and interrogated without torture. What she yielded over was a treasure trove of Scottish folk magic.

Her confessions tell how she became initiated into a coven by the devil himself. He wrote he name in a black book and then sucked blood from a teat on her body. When done he spit the blood on his hand sprayed it on her head. Her revelations include ding with the king and queen of faerie. She also told how she used magic to sabotage her neighbors crops, cow milk and fishing. Sometimes she redirected the wealth to herself and at others she did for spite or revenge.

If you are looking for anything Pagan you will not find it here. The spells used old gaelic or old English and they do not call on Cernunnos or Hekate but rather they call on God, Angels, Saints and even the devil. The spells are simple to enact and there is no elaborate ritual like you find with Wicca or Ceremonial Magic. The Book consists of magical workings taken from Isobel Gowdy and a collection of Scottish spells. It is an easy to read book but there are typographical errors.

Magical workers were always the same in the mind of Scottish authorities whether one is a witch or not mattered not at all to them. In the old country there were all sorts of magical workers. There were the cunning folk who fought against witchcraft. You had healers, wisewomen and midwives. Not to mention you also had wizards in the mix. They were all treated the same. Burned at the stake.

Magical workers back them did not write stuff down in grimoires. First off most of the people were illiterate and could not write. Second to have a written book period would put one in danger much less a book of spells. But witches did sometimes possess blackbooks. Black books were not grimoires. In fact they are said to be magical items in and of themselves. They could protect a person and give them blessing. If one tried to get rid of it by burning it or throwing it in a lake it would always come back to them. The only to be rid of it is to give it to someone or sell it for less then you bought it for.

The book consists of a brief history of Isobel gowdy and what her background was. No one knows what ultimately happened to her. It is assumed that she was burned at the stake or hung in the gallows. The book contained the working of Isobel Gowdy and then goes into the magical operations of other Scottish witches . Finally at the end the manual from another witch is included. It tell  how to tell someone’s fortune from palm reading and how to tell fortunes from regular playing card.

By and large most of the working can be done today. Some of them call for ingredients you cannot lawfully obtain. Either forget the spell or tweek it. Most of the working deal with weather control, there are some curses to be sure and some are even death curses. There are working for shapeshifting and night flights. All in all a great historical reference and good book for simple workings.

 

 

On Becoming a Teacher

 Robert Jackson is a motivational speaker, mentor, and educator. His first ambition was to be a football player, but things did not pan out. So, he went into teaching. His life story is rough. He faced bullying, mugging, molestation, and physical abuse. As a student the school system was against him and anyone else who was African American.  Most of the teachers where Caucasian as were the students. His school years were full of torment as Caucasian students would bully him and then he would get blamed. 

Robert Jackson wants to teach educator a new way to reach out to Latinx and African American students. First off, many students are dealing with issues at home which could mean physical and sexual abuse, friends getting shot and drug usage in the home. Educators need to understand their student’s background. There are 6 guideline an educational professional must use to reach out to students. 

The first concept is love; the students must know that you care. The second concept is trust. The students must trust the educator and the educator must give the student benefit of doubt. The third concept is fairness. Students must be treated in the same manner and their can be no favoritism. The next concept is support.  Teachers must encourage their students and honor the students’ choices and to be able to listen without judging. The next concept is accountability.  Educators must accept responsibility for there actions and attitudes and expect the students to do the same. Both students and educators must admit when they have made mistakes. Finally, there is safety. Students must feel safe, and teachers should not manipulate and intimidate their students. Physical space should always be respected. 

Educators must over come biases against their students. At times teachers will judge a student based on race, clothing, and background. There are ways to overcome these implicit biases and for a teacher to bridge the gap with their students. A teacher must understand the student’s background. The student’s home life travels with them. Often, they are in pain, and they will mask their pain by misbehaving and joking. They cover it up. Students can be very smart but being too much of a schoolboy can cause humiliation amongst their peers so they will cover it up. Educators need to have one to one discussion with the students to find out what is going on and students need someone who will listen to them. As teachers we need to resist the urge to stereotype our students based on biased media and perceptions we were taught growing up. 

The classroom set up is super important in making students feel safe. Setting up a daily routine provide structure for the students which lets them know what to expect and helps them feel safe. Color schemes are super important to motivate students. Teachers must also put in a positive message and be mindful of how negative images may be perceived.  

In terms of fighting bias and racism teachers must lead by example. If we hear racist comments, we have to speak out and correct it.  Bias is present in education as in other fields. Our students have different backgrounds then we do. Our biases might impact how we educate them.  

Being an educator can tough. It offers up a lesson In humility and one must be open in order to be a caring teacher. Education is tough but rewarding. 

Missipian Star Cult

 In the area of the American South East there thrived up to 1000 AD the Missipian Culture of Native Americans.  They were called mound builders due to the burial mounds they left behind. The Native Americans, if you should ask them would say that they were built by the people who came before us. Who were these people that came before the Native Americans. When the mounds were excavated, or should I say destroyed, they turned up many interesting artifacts and many skeletons. Some of the symbols they found were the  eye in the hand symbol, raptor birds and monuments that would seem to represent Cygnus or Orions belt. These excavations stirred up lots of controversy. 

The biggest controversy dealt with the large skeletons. It was believed that a race of giants used to rule America, that is until a Native American tribe eventually wiped them out. These giant skeletons , of course would change the way history was being recorded.  Pseudo Archaeologists claim that the Smithsonian Institute was concealing them or covering it up. While there were several large skeletons even more than usual for a population there was no race of giants found. 

The severed hand with the eye in the middle once thought to be a universal symbol in fact represented the stars of Orion or Cygnus and the eye was the vortex the soul travelled through to reach their ancestors. Beneath the eye and hand was a spider that trapped unworthy souls and sent them to the underworld. In other mythos a large raptor bird stood in the path and blocked souls from traveling through the milky way. 

The beliefs were maintained by tribal leaders or elites who had absolute sway over the population. They were larger then the rest of the population and it was believed that they could determine where one went after they died. Eventually in many instances these giant elites were overthrown. 

Examining monuments one wonders whether they point to Cygnus or Orion. The author favors Cygnus and he gives his reasoning. Figuring out who the mound builders were we take what we know of Asians traveling across the Bering Straight during the Ice Age. We are talking prehistoric times here. The author speculates that these people were a mix of different populations. 

The first and most obvious is homo sapiens, the second Neanderthals , the third Denisovan and finally and unknown group called X. The giant height, two rows of teeth, high eyebrow bridge could all be throwbacks from the earlier interbreeding. Another groups of people called the Salutreans may have crossed over the Atlantic when it was frozen over. 

Going across the sea one sees many common beliefs, parallels and even art work the same on both sides of the Atlantic. One sees mounds, an obsession with the three stars (Cygnus or Orion), similar artwork and religious beliefs. Moreover the genetics were the same as well.