Science of the SpiritS


Cross

Gen Z women are booking convents, embracing vows of silence instead of beach houses this summer

Ashley Fike
VICE
Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:08 UTC
British nuns
© Reuters / Ammar Awad
Move over, shared beach houses and Aperol spritzes. This summer, a growing number of Gen Z women are checking into Catholic convents and monasteries instead — on purpose.

In an unexpected pivot from rooftop parties and dating app exhaustion, young women are opting for peace and quiet. Literal quiet. The latest trend, dubbed "vow of silence summer," has people voluntarily giving up speaking for days at a time, communicating only by writing or gestures while living alongside nuns. And demand is high.

"I booked a vow of silence at a Catholic monastery late last year, and the booking process is really straightforward — you just email the nuns," said TikToker @mc667868 in a video that's now been viewed over 700,000 times. "When I went to book again for this summer, they were fully booked for the next three months."

Comment:



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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Psywar: AI bots manipulate your feelings

Robert W Malone MD, MS
Malone News
Wed, 28 May 2025 21:20 UTC
grok persistance of memory splintered psyop social media
I asked Grok to draw a splintered version of "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali. This is what it came up with.
The next chapter in the Social Media battle to splinter reality, the internet, and your own mind

Splinternet (as defined per Grok):

The splinternet refers to the fragmentation of the internet into separate, often isolated networks due to political, cultural, technological, or commercial reasons. It describes a scenario where the internet is no longer a unified global system but is instead divided into distinct "splinters" or subnetworks. This can happen through government censorship (like China's Great Firewall), regional regulations (such as the EU's GDPR), or tech companies creating walled gardens (e.g., Apple's ecosystem).

The term highlights how these divisions limit universal access to information and create digital borders, often reflecting real-world geopolitical tensions or differing values on privacy, security, and free expression.

Elon asked a key question. This is not dark humor or sarcasm; this is today's reality:

Comment: Despite the citation of a less-than-stellar example of social media manipulation, Malone raises excellent points. Social media users be awake and aware!

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Book

Mikhail Bulgakov: How a terrible Russian tragedy shaped this legendary writer's fate

Artemiy Pigarev
RT
Fri, 16 May 2025 12:15 UTC
Mikhail Bulgakov
© Unknown
From saving lives in the trenches to capturing Russia's tragedy in timeless novels - here's how the chaos of revolution and civil war shaped one of Russia's greatest writers

On May 15, 2025, we commemorate the 134th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the most enigmatic and precise chroniclers of the Russian tragedy of the twentieth century. Today, he stands as a literary giant, but in 1919, Bulgakov was merely a young military doctor, wading through blood, mud, and despair.

His journey into literature didn't begin quietly in an office, but amid the chaos and flames of Russia's Civil War. In the twilight of a collapsing empire, Bulgakov the writer was forged.

Comment:
Driven by a profound need to process his experiences, Bulgakov turned to writing.
There are many articles that point to the benefits of writing, and not just for writers able to make a name or a profit from their works: See also:
Meet the man who taught Russia to fear - The comments have links to articles about other Russian writers.

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Family

The unique parenting philosophy of the Arctic Sámi people

Suvi Pilvi King
BBC Future
Tue, 22 Apr 2025 21:46 UTC
arctic tribe sami child reindeer
© Paadar ImagesA unique parenting style prepares children for life in the Arctic
For centuries, reindeer herders have used a unique parenting philosophy to prepare their children for survival in the Arctic. Here's what we can learn from them.

Every year in June or July, under the Arctic midnight sun, Sámi reindeer-herding families in northern Finland, Norway and Sweden come together for one of the biggest social events of the year: "earmarking", which involves marking the new reindeer calves to identify them.

On foot, in all-terrain vehicles and even helicopters, they gather the semi-wild reindeer from vast areas stretching out dozens of square kilometres. Even young children are expected to join in. The youngest boys and girls help catch the calves. From the age of about 10, they take their own earmarking knives, grab a calf, and mark both ears with a unique pattern of notches. Children receive their own personal earmark pattern at birth, and use it to mark their herds for the rest of their lives.

Among the Sámi, an indigenous people spread across the northernmost regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia's Kola Peninsula, children not only participate in herding work, but are also encouraged to act independently in most other areas of life. They have a say in deciding when to eat, when to sleep, and what to wear, even at temperatures of -30C (-22F). To outsiders, that independence can be surprising. Missionaries who visited the Arctic in the 18th Century and later, wrote in their diaries that it seemed like Sámi children could do whatever they liked, and that they lacked discipline altogether.
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Wolf

From red flag to red line: What is the limit?

Harrison Koehli
Political Ponerology
Sat, 19 Apr 2025 19:08 UTC
mean streets movie johnny boy mook
Johnny Boy being a mook.
Announcement: On May 3rd, we will have a special guest for our paid-subscriber Zoom meetup: Ilya Khotimsky, translator of Russian economist Mikhail Khazin's Recollections of the Future: Modern Economic Ideas. I wrote about his summary of the book here. If you want to the chance to ask Ilya about the book, and Khazin's economics, you know what to do!
I recently watched Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973), in which Robert DeNiro plays a low-life psychopathic mafia parasite, Johnny Boy, who is coddled and protected by his friend Charlie, played by Harvey Keitel, past the point where any sane person would've broken Johnny Boy's legs purely out of principle. For those who haven't seen the film and don't want to, here's the plot summary: low-level mobster doesn't pay his boss, doesn't do anything of substance for the next couple weeks, then gets shot in the neck after telling said boss to his face that he's a sucker who's easy to rip off, and no, he's not going to pay him. Charlie, the actual main character, repeatedly makes excuses for Johnny Boy, vouching for him, spotting him a few dollars here and there, and believing he can get him to get his act together. After Johnny Boy's final confrontation with their mutual boss, Charlie tries to get Johnny Boy out of town until things cool down. It's while making their getaway that Johnny Boy gets shot in the neck, flailing around like a stuck pig, and Charlie gets shot in the arm. Roll credits.

In media and in real life, we have all seen examples of wives, children, parents, and siblings stick by a relative after he is accused or convicted of a serious crime — or exposed for a noncriminal act that severely violates behavioral norms.
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Wolf

A psychopath wouldn't hesitate to cause another global financial crisis - if there was something in it for them

Clive Roland Boddy
The Conversation
Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:31 UTC
corporate psychopath stock market finance business psychopathy
© Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Would you want a psychopath looking after your pension? Or what about your shares? In a recent talk at the Cambridge Festival of Science, I spoke about the latest research relating to a psychopath's love of money, greed for power, and willingness to harm other people financially for personal gain.

Since I began researching corporate psychopaths and the global financial crisis, the idea of the financial psychopath, an employee in the financial sector acting ruthlessly, recklessly, greedily and selfishly with other people's money, has gained traction.

The theory won support because psychopaths are more commonly found in financial services than in other sectors. It has even been argued that up to 10% of employees in financial services could be psychopathic. That is to say they have no empathy, care for other people, conscience or regrets for any damage they do.

These traits make them ruthless in pursuit of their own agendas and entirely focused on self-promotion and self-advancement.

Comment:

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Magic Wand

Handwriting Lights Up Your Brain - Here's How

Makai Allbert
Epoch Times
Sun, 20 Apr 2025 13:13 UTC
Hand writing
Pick up a pen to activate neural pathways that might otherwise remain dormant.

Picture two brains: one buzzing with activity, connections firing across regions in a synchronized neural ballet. The other shows only scattered flickers of engagement — isolated islands of electrical activation.

Both belong to university students sitting in the same lecture trying to capture the same ideas. The difference between them isn't intelligence, attention span, or interest in the subject — but the tools in their hands.

One holds a trusty pen poised over lined paper, while the other's fingers hover over a laptop keyboard.

This neural contrast, shown in a study in Frontiers in Psychology, is just one piece of mounting evidence suggesting that our rush toward digital convenience may be coupled with significant cognitive costs. From neuroscience labs to classrooms, research comparing traditional and digital learning tools finds that pens are not quite yet old school.
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Bizarro Earth

The NWO religion: How the woke postmodern "faith" glorifies evil

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.us
Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00 UTC
Satanic mob
© UnknownSatanic Mob
It's not as if it was ever a secret: The very core of the woke movement is fundamentally rooted in evil. The general definition of "evil" being a conscious act of deception and destruction, the deliberate victimization of others for the sake of personal power, pleasure and gain. When I try to imagine what a religion of evil might look like I consistently come back to the far-left woke movement along with its rabid mantras, agendas and self righteous narcissism.

The majority of human beings have an inherent sense of good and evil; we often refer to this condition as conscience or moral compass. The intuitive inner voice that guides us and warns us when we stray into "the dark side" is a product of archetypal knowledge - What psychologist Carl Jung described as a set of inborn complexes or symbols that tap into our deepest emotions and sense of identity. All our social interactions are in some way affected by these archetypes.

These ideas are universal, present in nearly every culture in every part of the world at every point in time in the world. Societies with zero social interaction and separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles all have these symbols and principles present in their mythology, academia and ideologies. The building blocks of everything from language, to mathematics to religion and morality are influenced by inherent psychological imprints present in our minds from the moment of birth.
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Book

Meet the man who taught Russia to fear

Denis Lukyanov, writer, book reviewer
RT
Fri, 04 Apr 2025 08:42 UTC
Gogol
© Culture.ruNikolai Gogol (1809-1852)
How Nikolay Gogol invented Russian horror

Nikolay Gogol invented the horror story - or at least Russian horror. This statement might seem bold, but it's not far from the truth. As we celebrate his birthday this week, [Born March 20 (Old Calendar)/April1 1809] it's fitting to reflect on how his literary legacy shaped the genre in Russia.

The first work that inevitably springs to mind is Gogol's "Viy," along with its chilling Soviet adaptation. Let's set aside the questionable quality of the modern remake; I vividly remember a school tour to Mosfilm studios, where merely glimpsing the sets from the original film gave me goosebumps. But "Viy" is not only about witches, devils, or other folkloric creatures. Indeed, much of horror literature draws from such themes - from Hoffmann's unsettling tales of monsters and demons to the contemporary, predictable vampire stories. Folklore, after all, prepares us to confront death and the afterlife.

Comment:
The Wiki on Gogol states:
Many writers and critics have recognized Gogol's deep influence on Russian, Ukrainian and world literature. Gogol's influence was acknowledged by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Franz Kafka, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Nabokov, Flannery O'Connor and others.[9][10] Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé said: "We all came out from under Gogol's Overcoat."
Some of the titles mentioned in the article, have been made into films, though mostly in Russian, for a list see this Wiki. If one searches the titel and then looks up video, it is possible to find some of them online. In general, the YouTube page that hosts the embedded video has many other Russian movies, though only some are with English subtitles.

See also:
Westerners don't understand Russia - Putin

The most featured authors on SOTT are Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn: On the topic of horror movies:

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Arrow Up

Jesus' Face on a Potato

Todd Hayen
Off-Guardian
Sat, 29 Mar 2025 14:40 UTC
Pareidolia
© Off Guardian
You've all heard tales of the face of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Pope, or maybe even Trump, showing up on the surface of a potato, on a burnt piece of toast, or even a kumquat or some other odd fruit, implying their likeness.

Then, when you actually see such a manifestation, you wonder how in the hell anyone could mistake some weird burn mark, growth malformity, or whatnot for the face of any human, let alone Jesus, Mary, or Trump.

But there 'ya have it. People love to manufacture reality from non-reality. And they do this with little provocation. If the potato has some sort of malformation, it is easy enough to push that into looking like a nose, a mouth, a cheek, then voila, it's Jesus!! (or Trump!) They aren't lying when they tell you that is what they see. They honestly see it. They would stake their life on it.

Sometimes, you may see it, too. Especially if they explain it, "See how this part of the potato turns up, and this little black mark here makes that turn up look like a nose," "Oh yeah," you might say, "It does look like a nose." The more information you get about how the potato should look like something in particular, the more you are apt to believe it, and then see it the same way the person explaining it sees it.

Particularly if you like the person who first shows it to you. And most certainly if that person is in the "mainstream," or has a whole gaggle of folks around them who see Jesus' face on the potato as well.

All of us are familiar with the Solomon Asch Conformity Line Experiment Study, which consisted of "experiments by Solomon Asch designed to investigate how social pressure from a majority group could influence an individual to conform." These experiments have been referenced again and again in an effort to show what is probably happening in the world today.

The "group" that influences all others to see the world a particular way is the "mainstream" group — the massive group of people who swear by whatever narrative is being blabbed out by mainstream media. We, on the other side of this, continually wonder why the mainstream is consistently blabbering out untruths, lies and "non-facts."

Of course, the irony of all this is that the side believing the mainstream is saying that we are doing the same thing — following an alt-stream media that is blabbering lies, untruths, and "non-facts"!

Do you know how to tell the difference?
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