8chan/8kun QResearch Posts (2)
#8691370 at 2020-04-05 05:47:41 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #11128: E-Bake Editio
>>8691296
>Magical spells are a booming business in Myanmar
MIN KYAW THEIN is just 26, but he has a commanding presence. In his home in a suburb of Yangon, Myanmars biggest city, he sits cross-legged on the floor in front of a shrine festooned with tea lights, flowers and magical diagrams. His family and students gather round and listen intently as he explains how he acquired his powers, among them the ability to cure illnesses, boost profits and repel knife-wielding assailants (with his mind he turns the knife back on them).
Mr Min Kyaw Thein is one of a growing number of devout Burmese Buddhists striving to master occult techniques. Interest in magic has soared in Myanmar over the past few years, says Thomas Patton, author of The Buddhas Wizards. For centuries many Buddhists have believed that extreme piety can confer special powers. Supernatural hermits, after all, help the Buddha himself in the scriptures. In Myanmar weizza, or wizards, are also thought to have protected the faith during periods of calamity, such as during British colonial rule. Today it is common to see shrines to the most powerful weizza in pagodas, where they are venerated for their spiritual purity and their devotion to those in need.
But until recently those purporting to be latter-day weizza had been banished to the margins of Burmese society. Ne Win, the strongman who ran Myanmar from 1962 until 1988, feared and envied secret weizza associations, which had powerful adherents and were so opaque that they were regarded as a Burmese Buddhist Illuminati, according to Mr Patton. The dictator is said to have worried that they might overthrow him by, for instance, raising an army of ghosts. He dissolved some of these groups, banned their magazines and books, and had portrayals of weizza scrubbed from films and other media.
Wizards started to make a comeback about a decade ago, when the army began ceding political power to civilians. Since the abolition of the censorship board in 2012, and particularly in the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of publications about the wizards, says Mr Patton. Young, image-conscious weizza market their talents on YouTube and Facebook, where the most popular attract hundreds of thousands of followers. Three weizza to whom The Economist spoke said that they have seen surging numbers of students and clients in recent years.
Their appeal lies in their ability to manipulate the physical world. The greatest wizards can apparently fly, turn base metals into gold and attain immortalityall handy skills. Even the middling ones claim useful powers. Clients come to Saw Lwin, an impish weizza with a ruff of brown hair, to perk up their profits, make them more attractive, banish evil spirits and remove tumours. Myanmars health-care system is rickety, and the sick often turn to weizza when doctors fail to heal them.
Science solves cancer with medicine and surgery, says Saw Lwin. We can cure such things in our own ways. Equipped with his battered book of spells and a laminated red diagram, he dips his index finger in a small pot of perfumed ink. As he does he briefly flashes the faded red tattoosthe source of his healing powersetched onto his inner forearm. He presses his finger into the palm of your correspondents hand, then chants a spell. She has not fallen ill since.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "A wizard wheeze"
https://www.immortalitymedicine.tv/magical-spells-are-a-booming-business-in-myanmar-the-economist/
#5411650 at 2019-02-27 07:16:35 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #6917: It's Going To Be HISTORIC! Edition
UNSEALED: Christensen's lawyers: 'This matter has not been handled competently by the defense'
URBANA - At a hearing Monday and in a recently unsealed motion, lawyers for accused kidnapper and killer Brendt Christensen apologized for how they handled their request to delay the start of his trial to July 1.
U.S. District Judge James Shadid, who also admonished them Monday, is expected to rule today on their request.
"Counsel apologizes to the court and the government," Christensen's lawyers wrote Feb. 8. "This matter has not been handled competently by the defense."
If he is convicted of kidnapping and killing visiting University of Illinois scholar Yingying Zhang, Christensen's lawyers plan to argue that he has a severe mental illness to avoid the death penalty.
They initially asked to delay the trial to October because their retained psychiatrist wouldn't be available until then. They accompanied that Feb. 8 motion to continue the trial, currently scheduled to begin in April, with a sealed motion that was unsealed Monday.
It lays out why the defense didn't seek a delay until earlier this month, even though at least one of his lawyers knew since November that the psychiatrist they retained wouldn't be ready by April.
After being retained Oct. 29 and hearing of the April trial date, the psychiatrist emailed Christensen attorney Julie Brain on Nov. 3 to say he could not "do a trial that soon."
Brain, who is handling the mental-health portion of Christensen's defense, replied that there was "very little chance" the trial would occur in April and that the "psychiatrist's unavailability could be 'an additional' argument for continuing the trial," the defense's unsealed motion said.
The psychiatrist said the earliest he'd be available would be the fall of 2019.
"These email (sic) were not shared with the rest of the defense team," the motion said.
Two days later, Brain told the defense team that the psychiatrist wouldn't be ready in April, and again six days later, that the earliest the psychiatrist would be done was this summer.
"The defense team discussed filing a motion to continue immediately but ultimately decided to wait in order to see how much progress could be made," the motion said.
At Monday's hearing, Assistant Federal Defender Robert Tucker clarified that the entire defense team was not aware until February that the psychiatrist wouldn't be available.
In their motion, they said that on Feb. 4, after they tried to impress upon the psychiatrist the need to be ready in April, "the psychiatrist told the team he had made it clear when he was retained he could not testify at a trial in April," the motion said.
The next day, Brain confirmed this with the rest of the defense team, according to the motion.
The Federal Public Defender for the Central District of Illinois, Thomas Patton, then contacted the psychiatrist, who said that "if he had been told the case would go to trial in April, or that that was a real possibility, he would not have agreed to act as an expert in the case."
Christensen's lawyers said they had "always intended to file a motion to continue" and had shared that with the court, and had "proceeded with the hope the psychiatrist would be able to complete the necessary document review, examinations of Mr. Christensen, and interviews of collateral sources before the scheduled trial date, but with the knowledge that it would be extremely difficult for the psychiatrist to do so."
Shadid denied their October request, calling it "ridiculous" at a hearing earlier this month, and asked for a reasonable proposal.
The defense came back with a request for July 1 after finding a new psychiatrist that could be ready by then.
MOAR:
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2019-02-26/christensens-lawyers-matter-has-not-been-handled-competently-the-defense.html