^[1]This marks the second edition of Saturday Signal, ahrfoundation.org ^[2]’s attempt to sift signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

Last week ^[3] Beth ^[4] (author of Sacred Sonoma ^[5]) asked “how our “fun day” (Saturday) got named after the least fun god/planet of the week”.

Fun facts: Saturday was named in the second century, and is the only day of the week whose name comes from Roman mythology.^{1 [6]}  According to Wikipedia ^[7], it was “called dies Saturni (“Saturn’s Day”), through which…it entered into Old English as Sæternesdæg and gradually evolved into the word “Saturday”.”

Which day is considered the last day in the week varies by culture, but it appears the order of the seven classical planets^{2 [8]} assigned to each day began with the Sun “perceived as the most important”, and continued through to the one considered least important. Thus, the least important day received the last fun god.  Hrm.

This explanation seems a little suspect (shouldn’t Jupiter feature more prominently?), but I’ve not been able to find a better one, yet.  We’ll see what we can dig up for next week. Until then, an odd hodge-podge of linkage:

• John Scalzi’s amassed and encouraged an ever-growing collection of terrible zombie puns in “Toward a Canonical List of Zombie Rhymes ^[9]” in his blog, Whatever ^[10]. They run something like this:
  • Q: What do zombies like to eat? A: BRAAAAAAAAAAINS.
  • Q: What do vegetarian zombies like to eat? A: GRAAAAAAAAAAINS.
  • Q: What do vegetarian zombies eat when they’re on vacation in Jamaica? A: PLANTAAAAAAAINS.

  My husband, with uncommon delight, came up with a few occult-themed ghastly puns of his own:

  • Q: Where do esoteric zombies travel? A: ASTRAL PLAAANES
  • Q: How do zombies tell the future?  A: NOSTRADAMUS’S QUATRAAAINS.

  Oh dear…

• Scott Michael Stenwick, in his blog Augoeides ^[11], responds to a piece by Donald Tyson originally published in Llewellyn’s online encyclopedia titled “What You Should Not Expect from Magic ^[12]“, deconstructing Tyson’s superficial account of why one gets into this business in the first place.  Posted yesterday it’s titled, “Magical Expectations ^[13]“.

• Dean Radin, a senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences ^[14] posted an article on “intentional blindness” and the role it may play in recognizing “anomalous cognition” or psychic phenomena.  It reads as a bit of an insider’s rant on “big science” versus parapsychology.  It’s published at Reality Sandwich ^[15], titled “What Gorilla?: Why Some Can’t See Psychic Phenomena ^[16]“.^{3 [17]}

• Lovecraft fans: prepare yourselves.  A new film about Cthulhu Mythos, simply titled “Cthulhu ^[18]“, will begin a “limited theatrical release” August 25th according to the genre film site Quiet Earth ^[19].  You can watch the trailer here ^[20] on the film’s official site ^[21].  My tentacles are all a wriggle with excitement.

• Jason Pitzl-Waters wrote a sweet piece about pseudo-Satanists in the Pagan blog The Wild Hunt ^[22]recently that’s just, well, sweet. In “Remnants of the Ex-Satanist Movement” he waxes nostalgic about times when Satanic Panics were a little more blunt.

Once again, if you find something weird, cool or somehow noteworthy, please e-mail me ^[23] about it.^{4 [24]} If you’re pro-promotion, include your name and website for extra credit.  Thanks!

Footnotes:

1. The rest, of course, come from Anglo-Saxon polytheism. [back ^[26]]
2. Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. [back ^[27]]
3. I wanted to contrast this with an account of perceptive filters that allow us to take particular notice of what we’re looking for, omitting items which don’t fit a desired pattern, but nothing jumped out this week.  Help? [back ^[28]]
4. Note: Remove “.nospam” from the e-mail address before hitting send.  Thanks! [back ^[29]]