TIM is a work by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye that sold for over 100,000 euros in 2008. The work took approximately 40 hours to complete and has been showcased in museums around the world including the Louvre and MONA. TIM is a tattoo. For now, a man named Tim Steiner is the frame for TIM. [...]
The Last Question is a short story by Isaac Asimov that tackles concepts about whether or not entropy, the irreversible tendency for everything to die and deteriorate, can be stopped or reversed. In this work of science fiction, Asimov gives readers fleeting glimpses into the evolution of humanity as it learns to harness the power [...]
In Inca culture they believed that man was first birthed from the waters of Lake Titicaca. The Inca god, Viracocha, was the creator of all life in the universe, and had a son named Inti, who was considered by the Inca to be the sun god. Inti also had two children, Manco Capac, and [...]
The ancient Egyptians believed that a person's death indicated their departure to the next world. The soul would leave the body, if only for a short time. Death was a temporary interruption of living, and soon the soul would reunite with the body. This is why preservation or "mummification" were so central to the burial [...]
Astral projection is a phenomenon where the conscious mind transcends the human vessel during sleep and has out of body experiences. One is perfectly aware of their surroundings and their physical body during the event. It is something you can exercise during a lucid dream or even while awake. During these experiences, the physical [...]
Endocannibalism is a form of learned cannibalism, wherein human remains are ritually consumed by members of their kin. While endocannibalism is implemented and understood in many different contexts, I will be looking specifically at the practices of the Fore people in Papua New Guinea. I then want to compare practice of post-mortem ritual cannibalism [...]
“This place is a message...and part of a system of messages...pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor...no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here...nothing valued is here.” -from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New [...]
Bhavacakra, or srid pa'i 'khor lo in Tibetan-- also known as the wheel of life or the wheel of becoming-- is a symbolic representation of saṃsāra, or cyclical existence, in Tibetan Buddhism. It is believed that the Buddha himself created the wheel in order to explain his teachings. Divided into various sections, the different parts of [...]
Dragon Ball, and its continuation Dragon Ball Z, is a manga/anime series written by Akira Toriyama that debuted in 1984 and ran until 1995 as a weekly feature in the magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump. The story’s main character Son Goku was somewhat based off of the main character in a 16th century Chinese novel Journey [...]
In 1973 a study in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion surveyed 434 people in the Greater Los Angeles area and found that approximately 44 percent of respondents had experienced some sort of encounter with the dead. Respondents reported contact through direct visits from the dead, séances and most often dreams, which accounted [...]