As most people predicted — quite uncannily, I think — the prediction last month by astrologer Lak Rekhanithet that July 2 would be “a day of hell”, Thailand’s worst day in 30 years, with death, explosions, fires and combat” reaching a climax at 11.07pm, turned out to be, uh, wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Nothing much of anything happened in Thailand on July 2, even in the Deep South, where mayhem is an almost everyday experience.

This was excellent news, of course, for all the people who would have died and been injured had Lak’s prophecy proven correct, but it’s a major disappointment for the rest of us who were counting on something dramatic to happen.

I’d taken heart in an Associated Press story on June 21 headlined “Everything is spinning out of control”. It began, “Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Airfares, college tuition and healthcare border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.”

An American angle to be sure, although the saga did point out the far direr news from China (more than 69,000 dead in the earthquake) and Burma (78,000 killed and 56,000 missing thanks to Cyclone Nargis and the junta).

But July 2? Nothing, even with Thaksin Shinawatra’s endorsement.

I’ve written before about the body blow that Comet Kohoutek delivered to my gullibility by remaining invisible in 1973 when it was supposed to illuminate the night sky as if it were day. And yet somehow I still wish to believe in a greater force.

So what’s next? Perennial faith in the Church of the SubGenius, which also awaits Doomsday, seems misplaced now that I’ve quit drinking. The Doomsday List of likely dates for horrifying apocalypses that’s provided by 2Think.org is far too cynical, and besides, a lot of the links lead nowhere.

According to A Brief History of the Apocalypse, we can next trust our belief to prophetess Lori Adaile Toye of the I Am America Foundation (Google claims to have never heard of it either). She’s promised that a series of planetary changes that began in 1992 will culminate next year with much of the world underwater and two-thirds of the US population dead.

If that doesn’t work out, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has been saying all along that the end is coming in 2010. And then of course there’s the Mayan calendar staring fixedly at 2012.

It wasn’t that long ago that the last holdouts from among the 30 members of the True Russian Orthodox Church emerged from the cave in Russia’s Penza region where they’d sealed themselves up for six months to await the end of the world this past May.

The sect’s founder, Pyotr Kuznetsov, sent them into their hole with food — and explosive material in case anyone tried to force them back out — and then stayed above ground himself.

They’d trickled out in bunches, for medical reasons, out of fear that the roof was about to fall in, and finally, on May 16, because of the stink from the corpses of two members who’d died.

What a disappointment for them after half a year’s hell! Perhaps, though, they could return to their homes and join their Siberian neighbours in worshiping ex-cop Sergei Torop as the reborn Christ. For me, no such luck.

But it seems too pat to simply give up on astrology. After all, there are still a few days left before Mars has its fateful rendezvous with Saturn on July 10.

And coming up next month (last I heard), the boffins in Geneva will finally be ready to flip the switch on the Large Hadron Collider, the mammoth physics experiment (see a post here) that some people think will not only destroy the planet, it will shred the universe.

Fingers crossed, then!

Meanwhile, naturally, nothing’s actually changed, so back to more speculation about the supernatural.

The picture above shows an equilateral triangle superimposed on a Google Earth image of Central Thailand and western Cambodia. Preah Vihear is at one corner, and Koh Kong — the Cambodian island in which Thaksin is allegedly investing — at another. I added a triangle thinking the other point would rest on Bangkok, but it doesn’t. It sits almost exactly on Nakhon Nayok.

Five years ago, when Thaksin was at the height of his power as prime minister, he designated Ban Na, a largely agricultural district in Nakhon Nayok, about 100 kilometres northeast of Bangkok, as the future site of Thailand’s new administrative capital, along with adjacent areas of Saraburi province’s Wihan Daeng and Kaeng Khoi districts.

He called it Muang Mai, meaning “New City”, although the name Muang Sawan — Celestial City — was also kicked around.

The idea was to ease Bangkok’s population burden and, starting in 2005, to move the halls of government to 250,000 rai in the adjoining provinces to the northeast, to be shared with residential and commercial development, a new royal palace, schools, hospitals, first-class hotels, its own mass-transit system linked to Bangkok and Suvarnabhumi Airport, facilities devoted to “environmental tourism” and hi-tech industry — but no polluters.

More than a third of the area was to remain green, with parks or retained farmland. Ban Na means “home of the paddy fields”.

Civic planning began in earnest, and public forums got the citizens of Nakhon Nayok excited about the prosperity that development would bring. Land prices immediately jumped tenfold as speculators swarmed in, and at least one newspaper openly accused two of the country’s biggest corporations of hoarding thousands of rai while owners of small parcels were being duped.

Then, in August 2006, there was a larger-than-usual gathering of military officers for the annual anniversary celebrations of the Royal Military Academy in Nakhon Nayok. Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda attended for the first time in years, the Bangkok Post reported, quoting sources close to him as saying his presence “was aimed at fostering unity, amid reports of attempted political interference”.

“Army Chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin told reporters the presence of all officers would remind them of the old days in the school where they stayed together, so they would realise the importance of unity.”

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn was there, as were Privy Councillor General Surayud Chulanond and the chief of the First Army Region, General Anupong Paochinda.

Just over a month later Sonthi had seized power, Thaksin was in exile and Surayud was interim prime minister. Anupong’s promotion to Army chief would come later.

Just before the boot came down, Thaksin with Prem Tinsulanonda, who was prime minister through most of the 1980s.

The people of Nakhon Nayok assumed the Celestrial City had gone up in smoke, but in fact the plan is still on the drawing board, with documents being circulated among government agencies.

It’s not clear whether Thaksin’s eye is on Kong Island itself or generally on Cambodia’s southwestern Koh Kong province, of which the island is a part, but the province is already doing pretty well with its casinos and is developing an Export Processing Zone.

Thais pour across the border at Hat Lek, either to gamble at the Koh Kong International Casino or move on to the beach resort of Sihanoukville. The Thai government has already chipped in on improving the roads and bridges.

Astrologers plot trines in which the three linked components harmonise and foster understanding. “Action triangles”, also called “triangles of gain”, are concerned with worldly goods and accumulated honour, and are tied to the zodiacal houses 10 (mastery of a profession and power), 6 (subjects and servants) and 2 (possessions and the capacity to earn money).

The triangle is a favourite of Christians and Freemasons alike, seen as the essence of stability and yet fomenting change when it moves forcibly. A triangle pointing upward is a “blade”, a symbol of aspiration, rising up, male force and, yes, phallic. If it points downward it’s a “chalice”, symbolising flowing water, the grace of heaven and the womb, as well as female genitalia.

Is Thaksin crazy or clever enough to plan things this way, to try and influence the world with geomantic wizardry? I think my Preah Vihear-Koh Kong-Nakhon Nayok triangulation is a mad notion, but it’s a hell of a coincidence.

And, actually, Thaksin would try anything.

Nation managing editor Thanong Khanthong wrote a column at the end of March 2006, when Thaksin was scrambling to hold on, that summarised the Shinawatra sorcery up to that point.

In January that year, Thanong noted, Thaksin was already complaining that the planets were wrecking his duang — his good fortune — so he took Newin Chidchob’s advice and spent seven nights camping in a tent in the village of At-Samat in northeastern Roi Et province. It made for great TV, the billionaire living cheap, but Thaksin’s real intention, Thaong wrote, was to invert his luck by leaving behind his family and comfortable home in “an act of self-punishment”.

“He would re-empower himself from the harsh environment. The bed and the mosquito net were precisely arranged according to the principles of feng shui …

“While he was telling the At-Samat crowds how to escape poverty, the Shin Corp deal with Temasek Holdings of Singapore was being executed with the precision of a mathematical formula. It was a perfect deal worth Bt73 billion.”

When the offshore sale of the Shinawatra family’s mammoth Shin group was revealed, a large segment of the public went nuts. Street protests became so belligerent that Thaksin dissolved Parliament and called a snap election for April 4.

In March Thaksin spent three weeks on the campaign trail, Thanon wrote, and “some of the routes he travelled were similar to those of King Taksin the Great, who gathered all the feudal states under one Kingdom before founding Thon Buri as the new capital of Siam after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 …

“Thaksin paid respect to the statue of King Taksin in Chanthaburi. In Suphan Buri, he also worshipped the statue of King Naresuan the Great. He was drawing back his lost power.

“But the grand ritual was waiting for him in Buri Ram. Newin Chidchob, now a darling of Thaksin, arranged for him a Khmer-inspired ritual to jump-start Thaksin’s dying political battery. We do not have any details about the Khmer voodoo. But Thaksin did take a ride on an elephant, as if he were about to go into battle in ancient times.”

Then came the destruction of the Thao Maha Phrom statue at Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine, supposedly by “a man with a record of mental illness”. Thaksin expressed outrage at the news. “However, on that day, he crossed the border through Tachilek into Burmese territory. His self-banishment was completed.”

Thaksin returned to Bangkok and prayed at the damaged statue, releasing nine caged birds to make merit.

“The talk of the town was that a high-ranking politician has linked his duang at the base of the Phra Phrom at Government House and at the Erawan Shrine. So every time the people prayed to the Phra Phrom, his life would be lengthened and his power would become stronger.

“But [anti-government protest leader] Sondhi Limthongkul has another theory. He said a politician wanted to destroy Thao Maha Phrom so that he could rebuild it by himself and then bury ‘his stuff’ in the statue. This would be a way to avert the politician’s ill omens, Sondhi claimed.

“Quietly, Thaksin sneaked into Government House yesterday [March 28] while the protesters remained complacent elsewhere. The timing of his arrival to reclaim his commanding position was exactly 9.19am!”

Other nations can find their own ways to cope with earthquakes, floods, cyclones and the plague of Big Oil. Thailand deals directly with God.

“God”, that is, in the sense of the spirits of the land, the Hindu pantheon and whoever’s in charge of the stars and planets.

Thaksin “Ousted” Shinawatra, who should be done with his pilgrimage around 99 temples and become fairly enlightened by now, said on June 16 that Thailand’s once-again-lethal political mess will be well and truly sorted out by July 2, and here we’ll extrapolate to include all the world’s current problems.

You see, he said, Mars — the planet but also the god of war and all things military (like coups d’etat) — would be “moving away” on June 21, and then there’d be no more danger. “After July 2, confusion in the country will ease. Let’s be patient. We will have headaches until July 2,” he said.

Apparently, by “moving away”, he meant that Mars will have caught up to and passed beyond Saturn as they run the million-kilometre dash across the constellation of Leo. Saturn, far bigger, a whole lot farther away and thus a much slower orbiter, is the tortoise in this celestial footrace. There could be trouble when the two planets meet en route.

The local star-gazers were quick to point out, though, that it’s not as simple as that, Mr Know-It-All-Who-Can’t-Even-Hold-a-Job. International Astrology Association president Pinyo Pongcharoen said the anti-corruption People’s Alliance for Democracy now massed around Government House is likely to clash violently with the defenders of Thaksin and current Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej between June 21 and August 29, with the Interior Ministry “targeted” in particular.

Another astrologer, Lak Rekhanithet, was much more dire: July 2, he said, will be “a day of hell”, Thailand’s worst day in 30 years, with death, explosions, fires and combat. He couldn’t have been more specific: “The situation will reach a climax at 11.07pm.”

Earlier Siamese spook stories

Another shrine destroyed
Thaksin consults the spirits
Post-coup shivers
Tsunami magic
My superstitious medium

Actually, Dorseyland has received a press release announcing that the world will end on July 5.

Apparently the Church of the SubGenius issues the same press release every year, which may be why Wikipedia seems to think it’s a “parody”. But, as with everything in Wikipedia, I’m not so sure.

The church predicted in 1980 that the world’s end would come on “X-Day” — July 5, 1998 — in the form of an alien invasion and global destruction, from which only church members would be rescued (by alien “Sex Goddesses”). When nothing happened in 1998, church theorists suggested they’d got the year upside down (it should be 8661), or that the calendar was wrong and July 5, 1998 hasn’t yet arrived, or that Earth and Mars were switched in 1998, and we missed “the Rupture” because we’re now actually living on Mars.

At any rate, the “SubGenials” will again be gathering this July 5 at the Brushwood Folklore Center in Sherman, New York, to await the outcome amid rock concerts, bonfires and random mayhem. Their sins will be ritually washed away in a baptism and they’ll “receive new ones in return”.

“Random mayhem” might be a good description for what’s been happening in Thailand lately, but what follows is a synopsis of certain events, all of which lead me to one inescapable conclusion: Thaksin Shinawatra is attempting to regain power through magic. And there’s very little about it that’s random.

On April 5, to celebrate his birthday, Air force Commander-in-Chief Chalit “Big Toi” Pukphasuk led an entourage to several religious sites around Thailand’s North and Northeast, which are Thaksin’s stronghold, and at Prasert Phanom Rung, a Khmer temple in Buri Ram, he declared — loudly enough for everyone to hear, including the local politicians — “I hope the situation in this country will soon improve, and that His Majesty the King will remain in good health.”

Thaksin has been tarred with an anti-monarchy brush, or at the very least it’s said that he abhors the King’s privy council for its perceived meddling. It’s widely believed that another former PM, Prem Tinsulananda, now head of the privy council, triggered the 2006 coup that dumped Thaksin.

Nation photo by Watcharachai Klaipong
Sorcery in Chiang Mai: Chalit Pukpasuk, left, and Warin Buawiratlert.

On April 7 Chalit joined astrologer Warin Buawiratlert (sometimes written as Varin Buaviratlert) in Chiang Mai for a ceremony designed to bring the country good fortune.

His various rituals, it’s been suggested in the press, were intended to send a message to the politicians of the Northeast — Thaksin’s lieutenants in particular — that their disruptions won’t be tolerated by the military. And what came next is seen as their response to the threat:

The sacred images at Phanom Rung were bashed up, the shrine desecrated.

The wholesale destruction was “startling” even for superstitious and politically polarised Thailand, wrote Nation columnist Chang Noi on June 9. “The intention seemed highly aggressive … Not only did it damage a historical treasure, it seemed to indicate a shift from [magical] defence to attack.

“Of course, the desecration might have nothing to do with the current political situation. But the knee-jerk reaction was to make that association … As the monument is of Khmer origin, the trail quickly led to Newin Chidchob — Thaksin Shinawatra’s lieutenant for politics and magic.”

Politicians, Chang Noi said, now compete aggressively over access to supernatural powers.

Astrology has always been a key to power in Thailand, as it was elsewhere in mediaeval times. In the 18th century King Rama III rebuilt Bangkok’s already ancient Wat Pho as a university of astrology, among other subjects. The Brahmin star-watchers employed by the Siamese royal court selected the best times for coronations and battles. But back then, as Chang Noi pointed out, it was an exclusive science, all the moreso for its mystery.

Today anyone can consult an astrologer, or at the very least hire a monk to perform an arthan blessing ceremony, like the one that takes place annually at my condominium building. The rite is ostensibly Buddhist but, like holy amulets, the roots are in Hindu mysticism.

Wealthy and powerful Thais, though, play tug-of-war over a select few “authentic” rune-readers, like Warin, who in April also made a pronouncement that Prime Minister Samak actually took the trouble to denounce on his weekly television show.

Warin had said Samak might be ousted in May, and Army Chief Gen Anupong Paochinda could replace him “if he makes more merit” — even though, according to Warin, the premier and Anupong had been friends and colleagues in a previous life, both working at the royal palace.

Warin, as it turned out, was wrong about Samak being in serious danger in May, wrong about street violence erupting at the end of April or beginning of May and wrong about the country losing a well-known senior figure in May.

Surely there’s more to it.

DISORDER IN THE COURT

On July 8 the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling on whether his pal Yongyuth Tiyapairat pulled a fast one in last December’s national elections. The accusation cost Yongyuth his cushy job as parliament speaker, and the court’s decision will cast a shadow over how Thaksin fares in the slew of corruption charges he’s facing.

Sometime this week the same court is supposed to reveal the results of its investigation into an apparent attempt to bribe the judges. Either Yongyuth’s or Thaksin’s or former interior minister Vatana Asavahame’s lawyer dropped by on June 10 with a bag of pastries wrapped in Bt2 million and told the clerk he should share the goodies among his colleagues.

The clerk either summoned a judge, or one happened to be passing by, and — in a move that has dumbfounded commentators — the judge had the bag’s contents photographed and then handed back to the lawyer, who then walked away. Only in the midst of its investigation did the Supreme Court decide that the lawyer should be called back in to explain himself.

Surely there’s more to it.

THE MANSION ON THE HILL

On July 2 UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee begins a week-long meeting in Quebec City to consider new contenders for World Heritage Site status, and there are 10 in Cambodia, including the 11th-century Khmer temple Prasat Khao Phra Viharn, known to the rest of the world as Preah Vihear, which sits at the edge of a 525-metre cliff on the Thai border. It’s now once again causing considerable heat in Bangkok.

There were huge street protests here in 1962 after the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Cambodia owned the Hindu temple, not Thailand. Arguing the case for Cambodia was former US secretary of state Dean Acheson, who evidently did a better job than Britain’s former top justice, Sir Frank Soskice, representing the Thai side.

Thailand had grabbed the temple as soon as the French abandoned Indochina in 1954, but the colonists’ 1907 map had marked Siam’s border along a watershed, placing the temple in Cambodia, and the court said Thailand really ought to have protested earlier. Cambodia got the ruins, but the surrounding 4.6 square kilometres remained in dispute, with Thai and Cambodian nationalists bickering over pride and Thai and Cambodian entrepreneurs scuffling over the lucrative tourist-souvenir trade on the site.

Various governments dithered, but Thailand’s still-new-though-seemingly-doomed People Power Party coalition government has a minister of Foreign Affairs who’s a motivated man. This month Noppadon Pattama, Thaksin’s former lawyer, hammered out an agreement with the Cambodians that he’s touted as a great deal for everybody, although the shadow of doubt obliterates his good cheer.

He’s been charged with trading off Thai territory for offshore oil or natural-gas concessions, or for a sweetheart business arrangement on or leading to the Cambodian isle of Koh Kong for his former client (who could well be the next king of Cambodia, having failed in that ambition in Thailand).

Surely there’s more to it.

NOT IN THE STARS?

On July 10 Mars will pass less than a degree below Saturn.

“Governments have thought that they know what’s best and many pieces of repressive legislation have been passed. The new laws were designed to ‘protect’ us, but in this new phase, we the people are going to feel as if there is just too much restriction on us with Saturn having moved into such a strong and fixed Fire sign. These two years ahead will be very challenging for those in authority.”

Richard Giles was writing for Astrology.com about Saturn moving from Cancer into Leo, on July 16, 2005. Every two and a half years the planet — the Lord of Karma, he called it — rolls into a new constellation.

Whereas Saturn’s transit of Cancer had given world leaders free rein to “play a parental role”, Giles said, its passage through Leo — which is every bit the control freak that Saturn is, but also rules children, “the creative issue of their parents (the leaders)”– will foment a “youth” rebellion.

“This can signal clashes as those in authority try to squelch the natural exuberance of people who are exerting their good nature or their native creativity … [but] when healthily integrated, we get the combination of constructive leadership in government and management.”

Giles then lapses into pointless “predictions” of events that can and do happen anytime anyway, but the Indian website Sify gets a little more specific about 2008, especially if you know your moon sign (or the government’s).

Both Saturn, already in Leo, and Mars, just entering, are “first-rate malefics capable of causing sorrow and pain”, the star-gazers there say. “Mars is a bundle of energy representing, like the younger generation, aggressiveness, fury, differences, disagreements and confrontation. Saturn, on the other hand, like the elder generation, is identified with suffering, difficulties, impediments and problems.”

Barbara Palliser is considerably more optimistic on her website, Silver Wheel Astrology:

“Mars conjunct Saturn is about constructive action. There’s no frittering away time and energy when Saturn is project manager. It settles well to hard work because it isn’t held up by the need for immediate gratification. This is a planet into long-term results, and is into a slow build-up, a visible progression. Meanwhile Mars adds the va va voom … It’s not an easy partnership, but when it works, it’s unbeatable.

“The downside is that Saturn puts pressure on what it contacts, so there’s a strong pressure to act, which can be difficult for Mars to come to terms with. Saturn is also associated with fear… of success, failure, disapproval, you name it, and Saturn can get the jitters about it. Put that next to action-planet Mars in the sign of Leo and you’ve got something like stage-fright, or similar rabbit-in-headlights responses.”

THERE’S MORE TO IT

A denouement that doesn’t involve bloodshed would be nice, but many Thais now believe there has to be a sacrificial blood-letting. They’re not so much superstitious as they are weary of wheels grinding pointlessly and expensively. There was widespread hope that the bloodless 2006 coup would muscle Thailand out of its cycle of corrupt feudalism, but nothing changed. So much for bloodlessness.

From the above list of coinciding events and musings, let’s subtract the Church of the SubGenius and add the strange (though unconfirmed) report that Thaksin wants to alter the iconography of his football team’s crest, and all we’re missing is a map showing all the temples he visited in his bid to overcome the bad karma accumulated during his regime. I’m betting that the map, with all points connected, would be a picture of some significance.

Just as, while prime minister, he scheduled the inaugural flight departure from the new Suvarnabhumi Airport “auspiciously” for precisely 9.19am on opening day, Thaksin is now casting magical spells on a grand scale, and I mean that literally. Whether they work — whether magic works at all — remains to be seen, but I believe this is wizardry afoot in the modern world unlike anything attempted in centuries.

Preah Vihear is a major key. Another stylised representation of Mount Meru, the home of the Hindu gods, it’s unusually aligned for a Khmer temple, running 800 metres north-south rather than facing east, a positioning that could have been simply dictated by the cliff outcrop, or could indicate geomancy.

Often characterised as a “fortress” or “castle”, it was indeed the last hold-out for government troops in the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 and then for the Khmer Rouge when the Vietnamese invaded three years later, although KR remnants regained control in 1992. They were persuaded to surrender after six more years.

Is it the last stand for Thaksin too? At base a possible gift to Cambodia in exchange for a casino on Koh Kong, there seems to be as much symbolism at this deal’s heart as there is in the seemingly crude “bribe” offered to the Supreme Court. That was no bribe — that was a time bomb packed with magic powder.

Lapwings to golden plovers: “Desert coming through! Clear aside that congregation!”

Dug out of an old box, here’s what the hell you call different groups of birds when the word “flock” just won’t do.

Plurality of Birds

A siege of herons or bitterns
A plump of wildfowl
A gaggle of geese
A skein of geese (when flylng)
A badelyng of ducks
A sord (or sute) of mallards
A spring of teal
A company of widgeon
A cast of hawks
A bevy of quaiI
A covey of partridges
A muster of peacocks
A nye of pheasants
A covert of coots
A congregation of plovers
A desert of lapwings
A wisp (or walk) of snipe
A bazaar of murres (guillemots)
A flight of doves or swallows
A murmuration of starlings
An exaltation of larks
A watch of nightingales
A building of rooks
A chattering of choughs

“Swans” by MC Escher. See his biography at Dali House.

Wait, there’s more!

A flock of ships is called a fleet.
A fleet of sheep is called a flock.
A flock of wolves is called a pack.
A pack of thieves is called a gang.
A gang of angels is called a host.
A host of porpoise is called a shoal.
A shoal of fish is called a school.
A school of buffalo is called a herd.
A herd of seal is called a pod.
A pod of whales is called a gam.
A gam of lions is called a pride.
A pride of partridge is called a covey.
A covey of oxen is called a drove.
A drove of peacocks is called a muster.
A muster of doves is called a flight.
A flight of starlings is called a murmuration.
A murmuration of bees is called a swarm.
A swarm of foxes is called a skulk.
A skulk of pigs is called a stye.
A stye of dogs is called a kennel.
A kennel of cats is called a nuisance.

It reads, “Forgot to say that we find Magic Baking Powder is O.K. It is different to most, as it does not contain Alum.” It’s printed on there, of course.

I was shaking my brain trying to recall what the hell was wrong with alum. Wikipedia tells me they used it in skin whiteners in Shakespeare’s time and as a hair stiffener in the 1950s, and it’s still used in hair-removing wax in the Middle East, as a deodorant in many parts of the world including Thailand (sahn-som!), to stop shaving cuts from bleeding, as a home remedy for pain and canker sores, for fireproofing paper and — here we go — in pickling veggies and keeping them crisp.

Another website says potassium aluminum sulfate, also known as potash alum, and sodium aluminum sulfate, which is the one in baking powder that gives a vague metallic taste, are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration as a food additive, but if you swallow an ounce or more it’s toxic, so its use is discouraged. And yet another site points the finger at calcium aluminum phosphate — “now being phased out, owing to current beliefs that aluminum may be bad for us at much lower levels than was previously known”.

Regardless of the enemy’s name, yet again, advertising saves lives.

Magic Baking Powder is the brand now owned by Kraft that’s made and sold in Canada, where the envelope originated, but by the time the EW Gillett Company started producing it in Toronto in 1897, commercial baking powder for quickly leavening batter had already been around for half a century.

Its invention is credited to Justus von Liebig in 1835, as a blend of baking soda, cream of tartar and starch and marketed as Royal Baking Powder. Eight years later British chemist Alfred Bird’s wife was allergic to eggs and yeast so he “improved” baking powder for her and ended up selling warehouses of the stuff to the army.

In the 1850s the cream of tartar was swapped for slower-acting calcium aluminum phosphate, and then in 1885, sodium aluminium sulphate was discovered, and it waited to react until the dough was actually in the oven. Calumet Baking Powder became America’s choice in 1889, but today the favourite there is the quaintly named Clabber Girl Baking Powder, a brand that’s also more than a century old.