Dublin Tarot Readers and Raelians in Ireland

A cornucopia – Rael on TV in Ireland, and and guest writer Annmarie O’Connor
gets up close and personal with Dublin Tarot readers.



Tarot Junkies

Life getting you down? Feeling a bit out of control? How do you cope
with the curve balls life throws you? More…



SH*TE


No, we’re not censoring ourselves – not exactly. Last week’s Blather
uttered an evil, heinous word – sh*t, with the ‘i’ intact. It seems
that some email servers didn’t kindly to that kind of Blather, and
sent the issue back. ‘We have scanned your email and find that some
of the content is inappropriate’ we were told. Another message, from
BT Cellnet found that the issue included ‘inappropriate language (i.e.
one or more obscene words’. How daft is that?






EVEN BETTER THAN THE RAEL TING, LIKE

Blather hasn’t mentioned Rael since RTE’s The Late Late Show
interviewed him in February 1998. A former French motor-racing
journalist, Claude Vorlihon founded The Rael Foundation in 1973, after
an extraterrestrial informed him of his pedigree – he was apparently
fathered by the Biblical Elohim, who fly around in spaceships,
creating worlds. There’s loads more – follow the links below.



In Dublin, the Raelians have, of a Saturday, taken to hanging out by
the Bank of Ireland on College Green. As we drifted by last Saturday,
two very ordinary looking 20-something lads were operating the stall,
both wearing Rael medallions and handing out flyers which read:



‘My Religion? Science!



I am Raelian and proud of being one!



The Raelian Movement: For those who are not afraid of the future!!’



The flyer goes on to express The Raelian backing of human cloning,
genetic modification, nanotechnology, the Internet, and the quaintly
put ‘contraception that permits pleasure without reproduction’. The
flyer claims a membership of 55,000 (three years ago, we reported a
claim of 35,000). If this is your bag, the Irish branch are at
irishraelian@oceanfree.net



What is about former sports media people that makes them become gods,
or the sons of? There’s Rael… then former professional footballer
and sports journalist David Icke… who’s next? Formula 1’s Murray
Walker is retiring this year – perhaps he will resurface as a Buddhist
monk atop a chilly mountain, his disciples patiently waiting for him
to utter another Zen-like non-sequitur. F1 driver Mika Hakkinen is
also threatening to call it a day – we can picture him roaming the
Artic Circle, dressed in furs and wearing antlers.



The Raelian Foundation



The Raelly Late Late Show



Clones, Ashes, Exorcism and Drunk Cows



Off the Tracks With British Rael

Mark Pilkington, in Magonia magazine



David Icke: Here Be Dragons

Mark Pilkington, in Blather






WOULD LIKE TO MEAT

We can’t help noticing how certain words or phrases repeatedly appear
in the Blather web logs. These words come from search engines, typed
in by people who, whether they intended to or not, have ended up on
our site. A consistent number 1 has been ‘hairy men’, and while not
figuring largely in the overall scheme of things (‘Alan Moore’,
mothman’, ‘lord lucan’, and ‘hellfire’ are top regulars), this phrase
is followed in weirdness by ‘lactating men’.



A quick search for “lactating men” on http://www.google.com
returns Blather as the third choice. Eh? In our second issue ever, we
discussed the work of Jared Diamond, a professor of physiology who
claimed he was going to make it possible for men to breastfeed.



But ‘hairy men’? The phrase appears in the title Bizarre Cults and
Hairy Men
, and
refers to the Orang Pendek – a mysterious primate reported from the
jungles of Sumatra.



We searched for ‘hairy men’ on Google, but the first ten pages show
nothing but porn sites, so some dedicated fans of the hirsute must
really be working hard to find us.



Blather would like to apologise for misleading any hairy dairy fans
in the course of our duties.



Dave Walsh


October 1st, 2001

daev
Chief Bottle Washer at Blather
Writer, photographer, environmental campaigner and "known troublemaker" Dave Walsh is the founder of Blather.net, described both as "possibly the most arrogant and depraved website to be found either side of the majestic Shannon River", and "the nicest website circulating in Ireland". Half Irishman, half-bicycle. He lives in southern Irish city of Barcelona.