Life and Living
The Infinite and the Beyond — Episode #22 — Life and Living
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In the latest episode 
of The Infinite and the Beyond, we talk about late Llewellyn author Scott Cunningham in A Corner in the Occult. Many Pagans and or Wiccans often find Scott’s books on their journey as Pagans. Many find his books on magick and religion uplifting and at times pertinent to their growing views on life and existence.
We also look into the idea of human flourishing and happiness and how to create it in one’s life. Are you happy? Are you flourishing? How would you define and list your values and virtues? Would you say that they are serving you and your life beneficially? Learn about virtue and Eudaimonia and how your life lives up to the teachings of Aristotle and other philosophers. See how some of the new virtue systems found in modern Paganism stand in comparison to a tried and true system which comes from Plato as we find an elementary way to update it for modern use.
Mother Bear Kills Cub and Itself to Escape ‘Crush Cage’ Torture for ‘Bear Bile’
Photo: SlimVirgin (CC)
AsiaOne reports:
The Chinese media has reported on an extraordinary account of a mother bear saving her cub from a life of torture by strangling it and then killing itself. The bears were kept in a farm located in a remote area in the North-West of China. The bears on the farm had their gall bladders milked daily for ‘bear bile,’ which is used as a remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
It was reported that the bears are kept in tiny cages known as ‘crush cages’, as the bears have no room to manoeuvre and are literally crushed. The bile is harvested by making a permanent hole or fistula in the bears’ abdomen and gall bladder.
As the hole is never closed, the animals are suspect to various infections and diseases including tumours, cancers and death from peritonitis. The bears are fitted with an iron vest, as they often try to kill themselves by…
Ernest Hemingway’s Final Days and the FBI
Hemingway biographer A. E. Hotchner’s article in the New York Times details the rapid decline of Ernest Hemingway during his final years. Institutionalization, self-doubt and paranoia came to a head on July 1, 1961 when the author took his own life.
Hemingway’s depression and instability has been well-documented, but what is interesting is that the FBI’s monitoring of his phones, correspondence and activities contributed to his sense of fear and paranoia.
This could be the rare case of someone who’s paranoia about “being watched” is actually due to the fact that he/she is actually being monitored. A. E. Hotchner writes:
EARLY one morning, [on July 1st], while his wife, Mary, slept upstairs, Ernest Hemingway went into the vestibule of his Ketchum, Idaho, house, selected his favorite shotgun from the rack, inserted shells into its chambers and ended his life.
There were many differing explanations at the time: that he had terminal cancer or money problems, that…
New York Woman Commits Suicide By Black Mamba
A gruesomely appropriate suicide method for a woman who lived in the company of 75 snakes. Personally, my ideal pet death would be smothering under a puppy pile. The Daily Mail reports:
A woman is feared to have committed ’suicide by snake’ — Aleta Stacey is thought to have deliberately allowed herself to be bitten by a deadly black Mamba. The 56-year-old was found dead at the New York home she shares with 75 other snakes, most of them poisonous.
Friends and family believe Stacey deliberately allowed herself to be bitten. They said she was an experienced snake handler who knew the dangers of getting to close to the fast and venomous snake. They also pointed out that even after being bitten she failed to call the emergency services.
Venom from the black Mamba is lethal unless treated with antivenon. Victims usually die within 20 minutes of being bitten.
Officials removed 75 other snakes from…
South Korean Man Crucifies Himself on Easter
Via UPI:
A South Korean man with a religious obsession crucified himself around Easter, police said.
The body of the 58-year-old taxi driver was discovered Sunday in an abandoned quarry in Mungyeong in North Gyeongsang province, The Korea Herald reported. He was nailed to a wooden cross.
Police said the man went to great lengths to simulate Jesus’ crucifixion. He was wearing only underpants and a headdress resembling a crown of thorrns, had a wound on his right side and had drilled holes in his palms.
Investigators said he had apparently been living in a tent near the quarry. They found plans for self-crucifixion and a whip there.
A pastor in Mugyeong said the man once came to him to talk about religion. He described him as having extreme views.
California Grandmother Sells Thousands Of Homemade Suicide Kits
Hero or monster? Apparently, constructing suicide kits is the new knitting. San Diego’s KGTV reports:
A 91-year-old East County grandmother is getting national attention for making suicide kits. The woman started making the kits after watching her husband die a slow, painful death from colon cancer.
“I’m doing what I can to improve the world,” she told 10News. “There’s a lot of heartache and difficulty here.” Charlotte makes the kits — which cost buyers $60 — by taking large plastic bags and sewing soft elastic bands around the opening. There is a slot in the bag for a plastic tube carrying helium gas to be inserted. Helium — when inhaled in its pure form — is deadly. Kit users are responsible for securing their own helium gas.
“If heaven is so wonderful, you know you’d naturally want to go there, wouldn’t you?” said Charlotte. Charlotte said her sales were nearly $100,000 last year. That’s…
The Happiest Places Have The Highest Suicide Rates
The Danish royal family: Are they really so happy? Photo: Bill Ebbesen
From ScienceDaily:
The happiest countries and happiest U.S. states tend to have the highest suicide rates, according to research from the UK’s University of Warwick, Hamilton College in New York and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.The new research paper titled “Dark Contrasts: The Paradox of High Rates of Suicide in Happy Places” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. It uses U.S. and international data, which included first-time comparisons of a newly available random sample of 1.3 million Americans, and another on suicide decisions among an independent random sample of approximately 1 million Americans.
The research confirmed a little known and seemingly puzzling fact: many happy countries have unusually high rates of suicide. This observation has been made from time to time about individual nations, especially in the case of Denmark. This new…
Pakistani Teenager Tells Of Failed Suicide Bomb Mission
Coat of Arms of the Taliban regime (1996-2001). Photo: Falerístico (CC)
With the increasing number of suicide bombing, it is often asked, what were they thinking? Why did they do this? After 14-year-old Umar Fidai’s explosive vest failed to detonate, he discusses how the Taliban trained him and his regret towards his actions. BBC News reports:
In early April a suicide blast ripped though a Pakistani shrine packed with thousands of devotees, leaving scores dead. Both attackers were schoolboys in their early teens. But one survived and told the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool what made him want to take his life and the lives of others.
“All I was thinking was that I had to detonate myself near as many people as possible. When I decided it was the right time, it was a moment of happiness for me,” said 14-year-old Umar Fidai.
“I thought that there would be a little bit of pain, but then…
Self-Immolation and the Heart of Revolution
“It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” — Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International, at a Human Rights Day ceremony on 10th December 1961
In November, 1990 a man set himself on fire in front of the U.S. capitol, the news reports from the time say that the reasons for the man’s act were unknown, no riots were forthcoming. Last year the cultural shifts in Egypt, Yemen and Algeria proved a different outcome in light of similar self-immolation. As individuals express their anger, alienation and rejection in self willed conflagration it is igniting their communities into violent uprisings shaking the foundations of global culture.
As I’m writing this a young man sits in protest in a Palestinian Mosque, part of the March 15 Youth Coalition who set up tents in the Bethlehem municipality to demand a new Palestinian national council and a unified Palestine. He is threatening to set himself…
Facebook To Add Suicide-Risk Alert System
BBC News reports:
Facebook is launching a system that allows users to report friends who they think may be contemplating suicide.
The feature is being run in conjunction with Samaritans, which said several people had used it during a test phase.
Anyone worried about a friend can fill out a form, detailing their concerns, which is passed to the social networking site’s moderators.
It follows reports of several cases where Facebook users announced their intention to commit suicide online.
The reporting page asks for the address (URL) of the Facebook page where the messages are posted, the full name of the user and details of any networks they are members of.
Suicide-related alerts will be escalated to the highest level, for attention by Facebook’s user operations team.
For Second Straight Year, Military Suicides Outnumber Combat Deaths
The U.S. military continues to experience a disturbingly high suicide rate, arguably the deadliest hazard that troops now face. Via Congress.org:
For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included? But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war.
Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle.
Last week’s figures, though, understate the problem of military suicides because the services do not report…
Suicide Rate Doubles For Army National Guard
Some disturbing news out of Washington. CNN reports:
The U.S. Army announced Wednesday that the number of suicides rose again last year to almost one a day, despite major efforts to identify and help at-risk soldiers.
Suicides among active-duty soldiers actually declined for the first time in six years but the numbers increased among other soldiers, doubling in the Army National Guard.
The overall number of suicides for the 2010 calendar year was 343 — an increase of 69 over the previous year — and included self-inflicted deaths among active-duty soldiers, the National Guard, the Army Reserves, civilian employees of the Army and family members. The Army reported 156 active-duty suicides last year and 112 in the National Guard.
“The bottom line is this is a significant issue and clearly there is much to be done,” Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said in a Pentagon briefing.
While active-duty and deployed soldiers are under…
Suicide Tourism Booming In Switzerland
If you’re desperate for assistance in ending your life, Switzerland is your best bet, per this report from Bloomberg News:
Switzerland is the destination of choice for people from abroad who want to die. The office of the country’s top legal official is pushing to change that.
While assisted suicide is permitted in the Netherlands, Belgium and the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Montana, only Switzerland allows doctors to help foreigners end their lives. More than 25 percent of the 380 assisted suicides in Switzerland during 2009 involved foreigners, most of whom died after drinking water laced with a lethal dose of barbiturates.
Former Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, who was replaced by Simonetta Sommaruga in November, has proposed making the practice more difficult by demanding oversight by doctors who aren’t connected with one of the country’s four right-to-die organizations. Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942.
“Those Swiss politicians who want…
Suppose Suicide Bombers Are Motivated By Suicide, Not Religion?
What makes a person willing to give their life in the name of holy war? A Boston Globe piece offers a novel theory on the inspirations of suicide bombers: rather than being the most rabid of true-believer fanatics, many may be individuals who are severely depressed and eager to kill themselves, and see “martyrdom” as not technically being suicide:
Williams is among a small cadre of scholars from across the world pushing the rather contentious idea that some suicide bombers may in fact be suicidal. At the forefront is the University of Alabama’s Adam Lankford, who recently published an analysis of suicide terrorism in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. Lankford cites Israeli scholars who interviewed would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. These scholars found that 40 percent of the terrorists showed suicidal tendencies; 13 percent had made previous suicide attempts, unrelated to terrorism. Lankford finds Palestinian and Chechen terrorists who are financially insolvent,…
Ustream Shows Live Suicide On Web
What kind of sick people encourage someone with serious problems to commit suicide so they can watch him die in real time on the web? The Telegraph reports on a Japanese man who used Ustream to broadcast his suicide to the world:
The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was found dead in his apartment in the city of Sendai early on Tuesday morning. Police had been alerted by viewers of the Ustream web page and were able to locate the man’s apartment. By the time they arrived at 8am, however, the man was already dead.
The man had announced his intention to kill himself in online chat rooms last week, according to the Yomiuri newspaper, after complaining for some weeks about problems he had been experiencing at work.
Employed by a bank, the man had been suspended from his duties since August. The man, who lived alone, started a live stream on…
A Thoroughly Modern Suicide
Blame the messenger if you like, but if this isn’t a sign of the times, I don’t know what is. Story everywhere, this version from the New York Post:
It was a fatal blow struck from cyberspace.
A shy Rutgers freshman was so humiliated when two cruel classmates secretly streamed live video of his gay encounter that he leaped to his death from the George Washington Bridge, authorities said yesterday.
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry,” Tyler Clementi, 18, posted on his Facebook page just eight minutes before his plunge at around 8:50 p.m. on Sept. 22…
Man Pens 2,000-Page Suicide Note, Kills Himself
A Massachusetts man shot himself to death with a silver bullet in Harvard Yard after penning what may go down as one of history’s great suicide notes, published online at SuicideNote.info. The New York Post reports:
New York native shot himself to death in Harvard Yard last week — after penning an epic 1,905-page suicide note.
Mitchell Heisman, 35, quoted Thomas Jefferson, Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Einstein as he attempted to explain his motives in the rambling missive, which included a lengthy preface and 1,433 footnotes.
Heisman put the encyclopedia-sized note online and asked that the Web page be kept up after his death, so that everyone could know his feelings about life and the universe.“I propose opening your mind towards the liberation of death; towards exposing the blind faith in life as a myth, a bias, and an error,” he wrote.
The massive document contains little information about his life, but includes many long…
Suicides In Japan Cost Economy $32bn
I would think the number one problem is that Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world, not the fact that it’s hurting the economy. BBC reports:
The government in Japan says suicides and depression cost its economy almost 2.7tn yen ($32bn; £21bn) last year.
The figures refer to lost incomes and the cost of treatment. It is the first time Japan has released such figures.
Japan has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, with more than 32,000 people killing themselves last year. PM Naoto Kan sees it as proof of an economic and emotional downturn.
The government is setting up a task force to try to reduce the rate.
From Friday, it will run a video clip of a footballer from the J-league on its website, urging people to be more aware of the problem.
Continues at BBC News …
U.S. Army Report: Crime, Prescription Drug Use Makes Soldiers ‘More Dangerous Than the Enemy’
The content of the report is not as shocking as its source: the U.S. Army itself. ABC News investigates:
After nine years of war, the U.S. Army is showing signs of stress because of repeated deployments and inadequate support for soldiers when they return, according to a blunt internal report released today. It blasts the Army’s leadership for failing to recognize the problem.
The figures in recent years are staggering.
The number of soldiers committing suicide has increased since 2004, surpassing civilian rates in 2008. Use of prescription drugs has tripled in the past five years; prescription amphetamines use has doubled between 2006 and 2009. One third of soldiers take at least one prescription drug and 14 percent of soldiers are on some form of powerful painkiller.
Crime is rising every year as well. Each year has seen an increase of 5,000 misdemeanors over the previous year, meaning soldiers are expected to commit around 55,000…
