Modern Mummification

Raised on a steady diet of mail-order esoterica, weirdos need to go the extra mile to impress me. Here's one: the cult of modern mummifiers called Summum.

Cat Mummification in Progress (Wikimedia)

 

Founded in 1975 in Utah by Summum Bonum Amon Ra ('Corky Ra' to his friends), Summum is a cocktail of neoplatonism, early 20th century hermeticism, and the special revelations Corky Ra received from small blue extraterrestrials. A bunch of his lectures are online, some with great titles like 'Mummification, Kung Fu, and Ale'. It's pretty good stuff as far as new age groups go. They also sell special meditation wine that is aged inside a pyramid:

The sacramental nectars of Summum are just such natural condensers of charged elemental energies. Based upon an ancient pre-Egyptian formula, these soma nectars are produced in a large pyramid in Salt Lake City, Utah. Within the pyramid, they are left in a creative state for seventy-seven days, then aged from one to fifteen years. The nectars are called "publications" because they contain spiritual concepts and information.

This paragon of infographics helps us visualize the process. This is definitely the world's only pyramid that is also a bonded winery.

This is what I really mean when I tell my wife that I'm working on a 'publication' (summum.org)

This is all very entertaining, but what we're really here for is the mummification. The 'modern mummification' process (which they call 'mummification of transference') is different from the ancient Egyptian equivalent:

“The ancient Egyptians turned people into a dried-out object like beef jerky. But our wet process keeps the body fresh and supple,” said Ra. “When, after several months, we remove the bodies of animals that have been kept in my special preserving solution in a sealed tank, their owners are surprised to find their pets have soft fur, eyes that look normal and healthy and there is a total absence of rigor mortis.“ The body being mummified is taken from the preserving liquid vat, cleaned, covered in soft lanolin cream. It's then wrapped in 27 layers of gauze, the only similarity to a typical mummy. The body is then encased in resin (like the natural amber holding dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park) and then painted over and sealed in with a plastic paint. They are next covered in plaster used in broken bone casts and finally, if an animal, covered in gold leaf paint or any other color. 

Finally, they are put into solid metal mummiform containers, like the one holding 'Rooster', a bull mastiff (shown here as the gold leaf was being applied). Once finished, you can put the mummy on display in your home, or wherever.

This public access TV video has some great images of the process:



More video from Nat Geo (with some truly goofy moments) and Discovery (who get Corky talking about the little blue extraterrestrials).

It seems like Summum's bread and butter is pet mummification; so far it seems only Corky himself (who died in 2008) has been given the full human treatment. (He and his mummiform rest inside the pyramid, presumably not far from the wine.) According to an interview in Edit International, almost 1500 people have paid up in advance to be mummified after death, including British tycoon Mohammed El-Fayed! According to Corky,

We are dealing with 167 of the rich and famous and their children, some of them movie stars who want their bodies to last as close to forever as possible. They have contracted with Summum to be perfectly preserved with their genetics and DNA to become the advanced beings of the future. We had to sign special agreements with their lawyers that their names would not be used.

One of the implications of 'modern mummification' - or so everyone hopes - is that it will preserve the body and DNA well enough for later revival and pave the way for immortality. It's an archaeopop twist on cryonics and other flavors of 70s futurism - supporting my contention that archaeology and science fiction are more or less the same thing in popular culture.

Corky Ra with a friend (source)

I find myself totally liking these people. They're new age but in no way sinister, and provide a bizarre but interesting service. They seem so All-American. Hopefully one day I can make it to the pyramid!

600-year-old underwear found in Austrian Castle

It sounds like a punchline to a very nerdy joke, but the science checks out: a cache of linen found in Lengburg Castle in East Tyrol is the 'missing link' in underwear history. Carbon-dated to about 600 years BP, the find was kept on the down low until it could be authenticated. 

Physorg reports:

Fashion experts describe the find as surprising because the bra had commonly been thought to be only little more than 100 years old... Although the linen garments were unearthed in 2008, they did not make news until now says Beatrix Nutz, the archaeologist responsible for the discovery. Researching the items and carbon dating them to make sure they were genuine took some time. "We didn't believe it ourselves," she said in a telephone call from the Tyrolean city of Innsbruck. "From what we knew, there was no such thing as bra-like garments in the 15th century."

The university said the four bras were among more than 2,700 textile fragments — some linen, others linen combined with cotton — that were found intermixed with dirt, wood, straw and pieces of leather. "Four linen textiles resemble modern-time bras" with distinct cups and one in particular looks like today's version, it said, with "two broad shoulder straps and a possible back strap, not preserved but indicated by partially torn edges of the cups onto which it was attached." And the lingerie was not only functional. The bras were intricately decorated with lace and other ornamentation, the statement said, suggesting they were also meant to please a suitor. While paintings of the era show outerwear, they do not reveal what women wore beneath. Davidson, the fashion curator, described the finds as "kind of a missing link" in the history of women's underwear

Lest the lads feel left out, also discovered was this sexy number, which is a pair of men's underwear:

"We didn't believe it ourselves," she said in a telephone call from the Tyrolean city of Innsbruck. "From what we knew, there was no such thing as bra-like garments in the 15th century." The university said the four bras were among more than 2,700 textile fragments — some linen, others linen combined with cotton — that were found intermixed with dirt, wood, straw and pieces of leather. "Four linen textiles resemble modern-time bras" with distinct cups and one in particular looks like today's version, it said, with "two broad shoulder straps and a possible back strap, not preserved but indicated by partially torn edges of the cups onto which it was attached." And the lingerie was not only functional. The bras were intricately decorated with lace and other ornamentation, the statement said, suggesting they were also meant to please a suitor. While paintings of the era show outerwear, they do not reveal what women wore beneath. Davidson, the fashion curator, described the finds as "kind of a missing link" in the history of women's underwear.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-year-old-linen-bras-austrian-castle.html#jCp

 Good for budgie-smuggling and not much else!

Modern Charioteers: Robot Obama

Last week we saw some sick modern motorcycle chariots. I wouldn't want you to think the chariot revival is only for manly biker men, so here's something for you Berkeley types:

A SOLAR POWERED CHARIOT DRAWN BY ROBOT OBAMA.

via Wackymobile

Drink it in.

This chariot previously came in George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger models. Designer Bob Schneeveis is a neurobiologist and longtime alternative energy designer. Watch his hysterical interview with the 'Hippie Gourmet' here (embedding disabled) to see robot George Bush in a gladiator outfit pulling two hippies in tie-dyed shirts and funny hats around Schneeveis' neighborhood.

Here's the chariot in action at Maker Faire SF 2011! (Sans Obama head)

The Modern Charioteer

In my usual morning reading about the global economic meltdown my mind was blown by this modern-day charioteer cruising on the interstate. He's driving this thing with reins. Note the NASCAR billboard!

via Art Car

Chariot racing was the main spectator sport of Greek and Roman civilization, complete with heroic riders, politicized racing factions and city-destroying sports riots. Our anonymous driver above isn't the only one to feel the magic. Youtube user Magician132 has video of his awesome motorcycle chariots in action at Sturgis. He sells these things!




Says Magician132:

I build three a year and the price range is around $100,000.00. It's worth every penny. You can have three or four people with you and carry a bunch. The best way I can describe riding on my chariot is as follows, especially doing about 70 MPH, that's when you really get this feeling that comes over you, picture yourself standing on a flying carpet as everything goes floating by, it's awesome. That's the feeling, nothing like it.

They were going to do an exhibition at Daytona Beach in 2008, with WCW wrestler Buff Bagwell as the celebrity spokesman! But the shipping company lost some crucial parts so it didn't happen. Bummer. This looks like a sickeningly awesome ride.


Because I'm a nerd, I have to point out that this idea was first explored back in the early days of motoring. Check out this German four-bike chariot from 1938.

via Silodrome

Archaeopop in PORK: Occupy the Anthropocene

I've been doing an Archaeopop column for PORK, the Pacific Northwest's magazine of Rock n' Roll, Weirdo Art, and Bad Ideas. Issue #7 is out now, read it online here. This month, a meditation on Occupy, trash, and the anthropocene.

Yes I am jumping on this Occupy bandwagon, because it’s for real. As philosophy, it’s a serious upgrade of the hippy ‘be here now’: because it’s not just being, but OCCUPYING. Don’t be the navel-gazing wallflower, get in the pogo pit. Be French Canadian and go around banging on a pot. Whatever you do, live your life in full view.

Human history is filled with daring occupations, big and small. I was reading in Science magazine today about the first people to occupy the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. They showed up 9,000 years ago, as soon as the glaciers melted – even before plants started growing out there – and made lives for themselves. In fact, humans got everywhere in really ancient times with nothing but stone tools, and knowledge of the stars. Last issue I wrote about how maybe people came to ancient America from the east as well as the west. Even more impressive is the people that made it from Africa to Australia 50,000 years back, or the Polynesians and Melanesians who journeyed to the Pacific islands and even Madagascar. Those people weren’t just sitting around ‘being’, they were occupiers.

Now let me get to the other half of the title. The anthropocene is the geological age we live in right now. It means ‘new human age’. That’s right, we’ve changed the chemistry and geology of the earth enough to have a whole new age named after us. Like it or not, the world we live in is made by our own hands. We’ve been terraforming the planet for at least 50,000 years and even the deserts of Australia and rainforests of Brazil have the stamp of humanity on them. After thousands of years of thinking of nature as either our implacable enemy, or our utopian Eden, we have to come to terms with the fact that nature… is us.



Now a lot of people left and right are seriously invested in pretending that humans are just spectators in this world of ours. The fundies think that climate change can’t happen because it’s not in the magic book. Deep ecologists have the idea that the world is some kind of holy virgin being raped, so everyone should castrate themselves to make it stop. We live in a culture of propaganda and delusion, where driving a Prius saves trees and coal is clean. Occupying the Anthropocene is about cutting through this haze by naming and claiming all that we do as humans. If we think of the world as one big archaeological site – because it IS one – then we can use an archaeologist’s eye to understand what’s really happening. What do you find at a dig? Human acts and the traces they leave. It’s garbage, but it’s also treasure – because it tells us about things that really happened rather than what others want us to believe.

A vignette: Archaeologist Bill Rathje ran an excavation for 20 years in a Tucson landfill. Then he went and talked to the families whose trash they were digging up. Guess what? The truth was in the trash! People recycled less and threw away much more. They ate more junk food, drank more booze, and looked at more porno magazines than they admitted. But they weren’t lying, they just didn’t want to remember the truth. As Rathje said: "That what people have owned -- and thrown away -- can speak more eloquently, informatively, and truthfully about the lives they lead than they themselves ever may." (Rathje died in May at age 66. I think he’s a hero of the Anthropocene.)

You get it, don’t you? You know you’ve felt like garbage for a lot of your life. Maybe they literally threw you in a dumpster at some point. But listen – it’s good to be trash, because trash where the truth is. If you can see the people and things that have been discarded, you can lift the veils of propaganda about ‘how the world really is’. To do that, you need to become an archaeologist and learn to see patterns in a random stream of waste.

Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher, once visited a British garbage dump and found the meaning of love. He said, “to recreate, if not beauty, than an aesthetic dimension in things like this – in trash itself – that is the true love of the world. Because what is love? Love is not idealization. Every true lover knows that if you really love a woman or a man you don't idealize him or her. Love means that you accept a person with all its failures, stupidities, ugly points, nonetheless the person is an absolute for you, everything that makes life worth living. You see perfection in imperfection itself. and that's how we should learn to love the world. A true ecologist loves all this.” [Points to huge pile of garbage.]



Our Anthropocene era is a hot mess, a glorious ruin, and it is sometimes dirty and ugly. But turning away in shame is a betrayal. We’re all hideous bags of mucus and blood, bacteria and crap, but we still love and are loved. In that spirit we have to Occupy the Anthropocene, jump in the mosh pit of the world, wade shamelessly into environmental degradation, get a bloody nose from the fumes, and write it a love note anyway. To kick a destructive habit you have to look the problem in the eye, challenge it to a fight, and keep punching until you win. It’s an alchemical process: Occupy, archaeology, and everything else worth doing takes base matter – ancient trash, hippies, whatever – and tries to transmute it something eternal. Lead into gold, garbage into history, and – we can hope – discontent into revolution.