>> The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
>> Identity Thief
>> Gangster Squad
>> Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away
>> Lincoln
>> Zero Dark Thirty
>> Hitchcock
>> The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
>> Hyde Park on Hudson
>> Safety Not Guaranteed

Opening 5.10.13
>> The Great Gatsby (PG-13) [trailer]
>> Peeples (PG-13) [trailer]
>> Aftershock (Limited) (R) [trailer]
>> And Now a Word From Our Sponsor (Limited) (NR) [trailer]
>> Erased (Limited) (R) [trailer]
>> Sightseers (Limited) (NR) [trailer]
>> Venus and Serena (Limited) (PG-13) [trailer]

Coming To DVD/Blu-Ray 5.7.13
>> Safe Haven (2013) [buy]
>> Fringe: The Complete Fifth Season [buy]
>> Jack Reacher [buy]
>> Mama [buy]
>> Superman: Unbound [buy]

Las Vegas: Satan Vacations Here
by Victoria Alexander
November 3, 2008

VegasVortex Weekend, The BoneDance, Via Brasil Steakhouse, Alchemy Conference Part 2, NASA Space Law, Art Kunkin & Frater Albertus, Hallucinogens in Mummy Hair, and more...

“Kill them all; God will know his own.” Arnauld Amalric, Abbot of Citeaux, 1209

VegasVortex Weekend. I have become immersed in magician-alchemist Jeff McBride’s world.

As Katy Perry sings: “And I liked it!”

We started off by going to Jeff McBride’s amazing house last Wednesday for an evening welcoming his mystery school students (magicians and alchemists). I met some very interesting people. On Thursday, instead of returning to Jeff’s for a pot luck celebration, we stayed home watching Survivor.

On Friday evening, we went back to the Sound Traxx showroom at Palace Station to see Jeff McBride’s Magic at the Edge show again. After the show began the 7th Annual The Witches and Wizard’s Ball at Wonderground, a magical, interactive club experience. Special guest magician Jon Randall, editor of the UK’s leading Pagan magazine led a Houdini séance at the beginning of the evening. (http://www.pentaclemagazine.org/pn760/index.php). Randall has been studying Houdini for years and recreates the final séance held by Houdini’s wife Bess in 1936. The costumes people wore were fabulous!

Saturday, October 25th from Dusk til Sunrise. The Bonedance. We gathered at The Temple of Goddess Spirituality in Cactus Springs (dedicated to Sekhmet). The evening commenced with a Desert Moon Circle ritual, a ceremony of honoring the shifting seasons of the year, and honoring the intentions for the rest of the night's magick. The BoneDance is an Alchemical Firecircle Ritual of drumming, dance, voice and sound. The drumming went on for hours and was fantastic! The ancestors were honored with a special Samhain ceremony, and together everyone turned The Great Wheel. (Pictured: Abbi and Jeff McBride officiating at the BoneDance)

There were over 300 people at this event! Celebrants brought tents, altars, and food was prepared. Some people had been at the Goddess Temple all day preparing their area to receive guests. This was a dazzling night. I’m astonished so many pagans are practicing in Las Vegas!

There was no fee for the evening's event.

The November 2008 calendar has ceremonies on Nov. 13 and Nov. 28. The December 3008 ceremonies are on Dec. 16 and Dec. 27. Mark your 2009 calendars! (http://www.sekhmettemple.com/)

Sunday evening, October 26th, starting at 7pm, everyone was invited to Jeff’s House of Mystery for an enchanted evening of Community Relaxation and Re-Integration. There was time for sharing music, magic or other mysteries.

Via Brasil Steakhouse. On Tuesday, before seeing “Changeling”, we went to the grand opening of Via Brasil Steakhouse around the corner from our house. I have been to Brazilian steakhouses in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Brasilia, so I am qualified to make a comparison. Is it really an authentic Brazilian “Churrascaria”? Inspired by Rio’s Copacabana Beach with a massive waterfall wall, the 9,200 sq. ft. restaurant features a large full-service bar, which opens up to an adjacent outdoor patio outfitted with heaters and misters, a private room with a projection screen for special functions and corporate events, and a wine cellar.

Via Brasil Steakhouse has a huge gourmet salad bar with an extensive array of hot and cold dishes (seafood and Italian dishes), cold cuts, cheeses, assorted salads and sushi made fresh daily. Fourteen different kinds of meats, including “Picanha,” (Brazilian cut top sirloin) are constantly being brought to your table. Poultry and fish, prepared on custom-made “Churrasqueiras” (rotisseries), are carved tableside. Perfectly cooked appetizers are also served (the fried banana is exceptional). And finally, there are decadent desserts (we had two!), coffees, and liqueurs. Vegetarians are also welcomed since the salad bar has a wide selection to choose from.

I’d also like to compliment our host, Wagner.

In addition to its full-service bar (with an appetizer menu available), Via Brasil Steakhouse proudly serves the national Brazilian drink, the Caipirinha. Traditionally served with fresh lime and Cachaça (Brazilian rum), Caipirinhas can also be prepared with such fresh fruit as grape, kiwi, orange, passion fruit, raspberry and strawberry. Cachaça may be substituted with other rums, red wine, sake or vodka, and is also specially prepared tableside.

Dinner Prices: Rodizio ($39.95), Vegetarian’s Delight ($24.95) and Salad Bar + Porterhouse Special ($49.95). Lunch Prices: Rodizio ($32.95), Vegetarian’s Delight ($17.95) and Executive Lunch ($23.95).

Via Brasil Steakhouse offers a Champagne Brunch Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Champagne Brunch features complimentary mimosas, an omelet station, assorted breakfast and lunch options at the salad bar, as well as made-to-order breakfast classics, prepared tableside. 1225 S Fort Apache Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89117, (702) 804-1400. www.viabrasilsteakhouse.com (Pictured: One of my favorite stores in Brazil)

Movies This Week. Saw V (YES), RocknRolla (YES), Changeling (NO) and Quantum of Solace (YES).

James Bond doesn’t open for 2 weeks but the members of the Las Vegas Film Critics Society got a special advance screening at the Rave Theaters.

James is tougher, more ruthless, and is looking very comfortable in his Brioni tuxedo. It’s all action and the great cleverness of “Casino Royale” is gone, but it is still very enjoyable. The villain could have been better and, since I have been to Bolivia, it was a novel location for a Bond movie.

International Alchemy Conference at Palace Station, Part 2. On October 10 to 12, 2008, the International Alchemy Conference was held in Las Vegas. Another fascinating lecture I attended was “Live as an Immortal After Making the Philosopher’s Stone” given by practicing alchemist Art Kunkin. He talked so passionately about sitting fruit on top of a radioactive mineral for longevity that I immediately came home and started a google search. Failing, I then went on ebay.

It was a 4 day misadventure that cumulated in emails to and from an ebay-selling chemist (selling minerals to fund his private research) and then consultant-mystic Vinny Pinto, who has written many articles on Kunkin’s theories. See his article, “An Introduction to Radiation Health Benefits, Often Called Radiation Hormesis: Beneficial Health Effects of Radioactivity from Natural Sources”. I must say, I only put a toe down this Rabbit Hole before changing my mind. If I decide to continue my research into radiation nutrition, I’m going to need a long rope and a headlamp. http://www.vinnypinto.us/ and http://www.coherentspace.info/radiation-hormesis/index.html

Art believes he knows what the Philosopher’s Stone is. Art, 80 years old, has a fascinating history. He was the editor of Essentia, the quarterly alchemical journal of the Paracelsus Research Society in the 1980s. After completing the seven year alchemy course with Frater Albertus, Art became president of a mining company and then, after the passing of Manly P. Hall, became president of The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles.

He is a former Professor of Journalism at the Northridge campus of California State University. Art founded the Los Angeles Free Press in 1964 and has edited it since then. He presently is on the advisory board of The Institute of Mentalphysics, a 400 acre meditation retreat in Joshua Tree, California. Art is the author of the eBook, “Alchemy: The Secret Of Immortality Finally Revealed”. www.alchemyrevealed.com

Vinny Pinto emailed me the following very interesting information: “[Art’s] method merely exposed a fruit to small amounts of radioactivity for a few days, and so the fruit itself is NOT rendered at all radioactive. I have several similar devices, but I never bother to use them. In my case (and also that of many of my colleagues who are scientists or medical doctors), I go much further, and I built a dispensing jug filled with radioactive ore which dispenses drinking water which is actually radioactive -- that is, it contains very high levels of radon gas and of about fifteen radioactive elements which are breakdown products of radon gas, uranium and thorium; I drink that water.

“And, I sleep at night on a "radioactive bed", that is, a futon under which I have emplaced chunks amounts of radioactive ore and other radioactive materials. We also take large chunks of highly radioactive ore and hold them over parts of our bodies that might be inflamed or otherwise in pain.

“In fact, one of my colleagues in Colorado, who is an ordained Native American medicine man, regularly dispenses radioactive rocks and ores and other radioactive material to clients around the world to allow them to heal themselves of cancer, arthritis and other chronic ills. And, a good number of us actually sit in radioactive mines and caves in order to breathe air containing high levels of radon gas and other radioactive elements in gaseous or particulate form.” (Pictured: Radioactive chocolate from Germany and a radioactive rock)

Frater Albertus Spagyricus (Dr. Albert Richard Riedel) (1911–1984) was the founder of the Paracelsus Research Society in Salt Lake City, which later evolved into the Paracelsus College. Based on the Paracelsian concept of three essentials, Body, Soul and Spirit, Frater Albertus developed a system of teaching alchemical concepts using the spagyric technique of separation and cohobation. The unique gradated courses allowed students to explore aspects of the vegetable, mineral and animal kingdoms in an understandable and accessible way. Previous to this, one had to be a member of a fraternity or secret society in order to gain access to structured teaching.

NASA Space Law. And, while on the subject of minerals…What will happen if we actually get a message from ET? What if something bumped into the Phoenix Mission, NASA's newest Lander? Phoenix arrived at Mars on May 25, 2008. What are the protocols for contact?

A dear friend of mine was a NASA lawyer and gave me her internal copy of Space Law. The UFO Community hasn’t bothered getting and reading a copy. There will be no secrets.

On October 22, 2008 India launched Chandrayaan-1 (Chandrayaan means "journey to the Moon").

This is India's space agency’s first mission to the Moon. The spacecraft will carry an instrument, The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), provided by NASA to map the mineral composition of the lunar surface.

A detailed map of lunar resources, possibly including water, will be of great practical use to future astronauts who may live and work on the Moon for extended periods of time. Perhaps in the more distant future, the information might be helpful for using the Moon as a way station en route to other planets. The mapping mission will last two years and will continue through 2010. http://moonmineralogymapper.jpl.nasa.gov/

Hallucinogens in Mummy Hair. Andean mummy hair has provided the first direct archaeological evidence of the consumption of hallucinogens in pre-Hispanic Andean populations. The little known Tiwanaku, the ancestors of the Incas, established a civilization around 1200 B.C. that prevailed for almost three millennia, becoming one of history's longest-running empires. Their burials often contain elaborately decorated snuffing trays and panpipes.

In view of the grave goods, the Tiwanaku people were using hallucinogenic drugs. A previous chemical analysis of some snuffing tablets' powder found in the Acatama desert showed the presence of Vilca tree (Anadenanthera colubrina), a plant with seeds rich in hallucinogens.

Analysis of the chemical composition of hairs from an adult male and a one-year-old baby, both dating between 800 and 1200 A.D., revealed the presence of the hallucinogenic alkaloid harmine.

The adult male appeared to have suffered sniffing lesions near the nose and was buried with an elaborate snuffing kit.

The identification of harmine in the hair of these two Azapa Valley mummies is a very important finding. The only plant in South America that contain harmine is the jungle vine Banisteriopsis caapi, also known as ayahuasca. But this plant does not grow in the Azapa valley. The presence of harmine suggests the Tiwanaku traveled in search of exotic hallucinogens, and brought the Banisteriopsis vine from as far as the Amazon rainforest, some 300 miles away. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27441890/

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