Juju

Juju or Ju-Ju are objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa. Juju historically referred to traditional West African religions.

The term "juju", and the practices associated with it, travelled to the Americas from West Africa with the influx of slaves via the Atlantic slave trade and still survives in some areas, particularly among the various groups of Maroons, who have preserved their African traditions.

Juju is sometimes used to enforce a contract or ensure compliance. In a typical scenario, a juju spell will be placed on a Nigerian woman before she is trafficked into Europe for a life in prostitution, to ensure that she will pay back her traffickers and won't escape. The witch doctor casting the spell requires a payment for this service. Juju is also commonly used in an attempt to affect the outcome of football games.

Contrary to common belief, Vodun is not related to juju, despite the linguistic and spiritual similarities. Juju has acquired some karmic attributes in more recent times: good juju can stem from almost any good deed; bad juju can be spread just as easily. These ideas revolve around the luck and fortune portions of juju. The use of juju to describe an object usually involves small items worn or carried; these generally contain medicines produced by witch doctors.

Juju (singer)

Juju (ジュジュ) (stylized as JUJU) (born February 14, 1976) is a Japanese jazz singer. She is represented by Sony Music Associated Records Inc.

Biography

She currently resides in New York City. She dreamed of being a jazz singer while growing up in Kyoto, and participated in all sorts of music-related activities. At age 18, she left for the US alone. While in New York, she was very taken with the "New York sound," including jazz, R&B, hip-hop, soul, Latin music, and house. Around 2001, Juju began to be featured in a number of works by other artists. In 2002, she provided music for the film Kyōki no Sakura. In 2004, she debuted with her first single "Hikaru no Naka e". The same year, concurrent with her musical activities in New York, she started performing live in Japan. When her third single, "Kiseki o Nozomu nara", was released, it topped the USEN charts and remained on the chart for a record length of 22 weeks. At this point, while she received support from a small group of listeners, she remained mostly unknown. On August 23, 2008, with the release of "Kimi no Subete ni", a collaboration between Spontania and Juju, she broke out onto the Japanese popular music scene, with the single receiving over 2.5 million downloads. Again, on November 26, 2008, another collaboration with Spontania named "Sunao ni Naretara" earned her even more fame, with the song receiving 2.2 million downloads.In 2010, Juju released her third album called Juju and it won the Excellence Album Award at the 52nd Japan Record Awards.

Juju (rapper)

Julius Sarisalmi, professionally known as Juju, is a Finnish rapper. To date, he has released four solo albums, the latest of which in June 2014. Juju has also appeared as a featured guest on songs by such artists as Julma-Henri, Teflon Brothers and Aste.

Selected discography

Solo albums

Singles

References

Unholy (2007 film)

Unholy is an independent film about Nazi mysticism starring Adrienne Barbeau and Nicholas Brendon. It was written by Samuel Stephen Freeman, directed by Daryl Goldberg, and produced by Sky Whisper Productions. Its release on DVD was on September 4, 2007. The movie is alleged to be based on fact, and was produced to document the facts surrounding the experiments in mysticism.

Synopsis

The film deals with a grieving mother, Martha (Barbeau), trying to uncover the terrifying secret jeopardizing her family. With her son (Brendon), Martha becomes entwined in a conspiracy involving a fabled witch, Nazi occultists, and the United States of America (U.S.) government.

The film purports to be inspired by an actual military document. The document is viewable on the movie's website by simply clicking on the interactive image of the document. Following World War II, a classified U.S. military document was uncovered that recounted a Nazi experiment of an occult nature smuggled into an underground facility in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. The film's website purports to "have provided the only known copy of a portion of that document ... we strongly advise that you do not download it;" however, the document can be found on the same website.

Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is a dish, plate, stone, or cup that is part of an important theme of Arthurian literature. According to legend, it has special powers, and is designed to provide happiness, eternal youth and food in infinite abundance.

A grail, wondrous but not explicitly holy, first appears in Perceval le Gallois, an unfinished romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It is a processional salver used to serve at a feast. Chrétien's story attracted many continuators, translators and interpreters in the later 12th and early 13th centuries, including Wolfram von Eschenbach, who perceived the grail as a great precious stone that fell from the sky. The Grail legend became interwoven with legends of the Holy Chalice. The connection with Joseph of Arimathea and with vessels associated with the Last Supper and crucifixion of Jesus dates from Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie (late 12th century) in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Great Britain. Building upon this theme, later writers recounted how Joseph used the Grail to catch Christ's blood while interring him and how he founded a line of guardians to keep it safe in Britain. The legend may combine Christian lore with a Celtic myth of a cauldron endowed with special powers.

Grail (women's movement)

The Grail is a community of about a thousand women from 24 countries, many different cultures and very different backgrounds and work situations. The Grail was started in 1921 as the Women of Nazareth by Fr. Jacques van Ginneken, a Dutch Jesuit. He felt that many new possibilities were opening up for women and that a group of lay women, unconfined by convent walls and rules, could make an immense contribution to the transformation of the world. By 1939 the Grail had become a colourful movement involving thousands of young women in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany, challenging them to deep personal and spiritual commitment. Pioneers in Catholic feminist theology, the Grail in the USA voted in 1969 to admit women of other Christian denominations, and in 1975, to accept Jewish women as members.

The Grail was started in Australia in 1936, in the United States in 1940, in New Zealand in the late 1930s, in Brazil and South Africa in 1951, in Uganda in 1953, in Portugal in 1958 and subsequently in Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Italy, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Mozambique, Kenya and Sweden. Grail members are also working in Belgium, Belize, Cape Verde, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Switzerland, Ecuador and Zimbabwe.

Stalking the Nightmare

Stalking the Nightmare is a 1982 collection of short stories and nonfiction pieces by Harlan Ellison. The short stories are interspersed with "Scenes from the Real World" sections, which are essays on a variety of topics. Although most of the stories had not previously appeared in any of Ellison's books, four of them were taken from his out of print 1970 collection Over the Edge.

The story "Djinn, No Chaser" was later adapted by Haskell Barkin into an episode of the 1980s television series Tales from the Darkside with the same title.

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