Friday, January 04, 2008

Where do we go now but nowhere?



one more doomed time and without much hope
going round and around to nowhere - Nick Cave


The genius of the Christian Hell isn't the suffering; it's the suffering in perpetuity.

Most faiths that incorporate into their theologies a place of punishment make it a way station where the souls can be purged of wickedness or impurities or bad karma before they can resume their progress, not a place of torment for the eternally damned. In such underworld afterlifes, the suffering may be great but it has an end and a rehabilitative purpose. In the Christian Hell, the suffering is without end and wholly punitive. Think of it as differing philosophies of incarceration. If nobody gets out of here alive, nobody gets out of there dead or alive.

I can't help it. Hell is what I think about when I think about the Iowa Caucuses. When I think of Hillary or Obama and Mitt or Huck I see only Titanic's deck chairs being rearranged on the bottom of the ocean. The familiar vain hope of another election cycle has turned desperate and evangelical, as though Hell were still only where we might end up, Ron Paul forbid. And Paul's millenarians, who regard him as America's latest last chance, keep doomsday watch against the blue helmets and detention camps of some imagined mongrel-socialist "New World Order." But that's to miss the more profound disorder, and the passing of each tipping point that locks us into its deeper circles.

It could have been another inside joke of the archly ironic universal mind that found Arlen Specter in Rawalpindi when Benazir Bhutto was struck down by her own magic bullet. If nothing else it does have good comic timing, but we've all seen its routine before and heard all the punchlines. Ever since the Roman Republic cut down the Gracchi brothers you'd think the assassination of another patrician reformer should cease to astonish, and perhaps at last it has. We've been living this hell long enough we should expect it, as Bhutto herself almost certainly did.

Our dying oceans incubate slime and bloom strange with jellyfish, North America's birds are disappearing on the order of tens of millions, and amphibians the world over are tumbling to extinction. It's 2008, the "Year of the Frog" to "generate public awareness and understanding of the amphibian extinction crisis which represents the greatest species conservation challenge in the history of humanity." But to too many, 2008 will be a triumph of sorts simply because Bush and Cheney will be out of office by its end. "Change" and "Hope" are great vote multipliers, but to imagine that merely outlasting a term limit could be something like a victory is to misunderstand the meaning of public office in a deep criminal state, and to misapprehend our intractable circumstance whose closest analogy may be damnation.

150 Comments:

Blogger Sounder said...

Universal Mind is trying to speak to us. Yet we listen the crock-O-shit peddlers. Because they have better paid PR people?

1/04/2008 06:21:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dude, you're bumming me out.

1/04/2008 06:37:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous One,Jeff,who is that in the crystal ball?Your right about the passing of each new tipping points.This shit hole they call Merica is being swept away like the good little Germans got swept away,you know"our minds were to full to think about what Hitler was doing".This is looking alot like the document I found one time at the Black Box around 2000.It was called Psy Ops in the Twentyfirst Century,written for the US Navy.We are now locked into the program,the complete control of everything you see and hear in the news.White,gray,and black propaganda are controlled,so that everyone has no idea what is the truth anymore.Throw in a few good ARG's and you have even the few fucks that use'ta know what the fuck is going on,spinnin like a top.Eric Arthur Blair should be proud of himself,I think he hit it right on the head,1984 is just in the future,call it if you will"Stochastic Process",Later.

1/04/2008 06:45:00 AM  
Blogger fletcher said...

though, to be fair, Hell is a mistranslation of the word "sheol"
which means only "grave" and eternity is also a mistranslation of "eonian" which means obviously, "for a time" not "eternal" as most of Christendom would have you believe, and most if not all agnostics, atheists, what have you, would champion the cause, citing their argument, "well, I just cannot believe in a god who would assign billions to eternal torment in some terrorist hellhole simpoly because they never accepted Jesus" well good, see? there is a little light in the forest after all, and that is what lies in the human spirit, a seeking after truth, no matter how elusive, it's there. The seeking is our goal and an end in itself. Never give up, as much as it is so tempting, and Jeff has said it before, that hopelessness is the true beginning of wisdom and change. But.
I believe that is a very negative way. Even in hopelessness there is still hope.
Call me a fool, but either you believe that there is hope for humanity or you don't.
Get busy livin' or get busy dyin' right? there are so many gradations of awareness and life, and of death as well.
And one must question the absolute, absolutely. huh?
and i agree. bummer, dude.

1/04/2008 08:27:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

That about sums it up Jeff. Yer finger is on that long count pulse. They have a calendar out that counts down the days of georgie porgie and puddin head. I remember the Nixon calendar poster in 73. We x'd out his face as each day went by.

1/04/2008 09:08:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What we are seeing is nothing more than the result of the decadence of the United States of America.

Go ahead and read the short essay by Emmanuel Todd "After the Empire".

While I don't agree with everything Todd says, he is right on in saying that the U.S.A. are an Empire, a and a decadent one at that. Percy Kemp said as much in many articles.

Essentially, the USA should get out of the way of the other countries so that they can get busy trying to fix the world... If it's not already too late for that.

But this message will never be accepted by the Americans citizens themselves, stupidly drunk with power and millenarist religion. So, America will sputter on before slowly entering its real decadence. Watch those US subprimes drag the rest of the world economy down. So much fun.

1/04/2008 09:13:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Regardless of how close we get to the truth, those who realize the official story is a lie, are leagues ahead of the sheep who still believe the mainstream media lies without any reservations. They are the ones still offering up their children to fight the crusade in the middle east for the globalists.

1/04/2008 10:32:00 AM  
Blogger Peter of Lone Tree said...

"...Benazir Bhutto was struck down by her own magic bullet."
You might want to take a look at a Times of India report entitled, "Bhutto was targeted by laser beam".

1/04/2008 10:38:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

FWIW, there has been from the beginning in Christianity a tradition of "universalism", or apokatastasis, where Hell is only a purgatory fire necessary to cleanse souls before they are fit to receive Heaven after death.

The doctrine of eternal Hell (which did not really arise in the modern form until the middle ages) is contrary to the Absolute Reality called God.

There is no room in God for Hell.

tentmaker.org has lots of stuff to read about this topic.

1/04/2008 11:01:00 AM  
Blogger fletcher said...

as does bible-truths.org
(don't be spooked by the name)
Religions are subverted, used by assholes like John Hagee and Benny Hinn for their own gain.
The source (if God does, in fact exist) can still transmit the original, unpoluted version, if one seeks it. And there is always room for error. There are absolutely no absolutes, right? see the problem?
The puppet show we all witness, painfully, as our government in action does not for me, anyway, take away from the great experiment America was meant to be...though at what cost? Indian, Indian, what did you die for?
Indian says, "Nothing at all"....

1/04/2008 11:13:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Right on the money Jeff. We should embrace the hopelessness of our situation, just as we should embrace death. Then perhaps we will realize that we have nothing to lose... and make a change.

1/04/2008 11:22:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

y2k? yeah, yeah, doom and gloom. anything can happen at any time. besides, i imagine even a slow, painful death comes with ineffable beauty. don't curse a struggle.

1/04/2008 11:50:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK Bryan Olson, you didn't understand Bertrand Russell so well and this may be embarrassing for you.

In consolation, it is true that there is a "positive solution" for the square root of two, given in the
book "Number: The Language of Science" by Dantzig
(praised by Einstein as the best book on number
theory).

The positive solution for the square root of two
is only found by SQUARING the continued fraction
series of 1.414 which, while an infinite irrational,
does converge to 2, again when squared.

This is the reason that the square root of two
is not considered "transcendental" by mainstream
science but, as Bertrand Russell argued, the continued
fraction to solve the square root of two is not a
closed converging geometric set, rather it is a
COLLECTION OF
THINGS or just pure geometry.

This difference between calculus as geometry and
algebra as number theory is also the focus of the 1999 Philosophy journal article, "Did the Greeks Discover
the Irrational?" by Professors Hugly and Sayward.
The proof by contradiction that combines algebra with geometry is a negative proof referring to AREA and
SIDE (pure geometry notions) not the LENGTH as a
algebraic NUMBER. Again this is why the square root
of two is transcendental, because the algebraic
proof is not logically valid.

What this means is rather esoteric yet crucially
important for the issue of alchemy through
complimentary opposite harmonics.
As I detailed
Stephen Hawkings notes that in India there was no
concept of the GEOMETRY being "incommensurable" or
irregular. Rather the Indians (Babylonians, Chinese,
etc.) understood that the divide and average
continued fraction was infinite as a time-based
iteration but the SACRED geometry was finite and
regular (not incommensurable).

Western science converts time as an infinite process
to space as an infinite process but the space is
IRREGULAR (asymmetric). This means that mathematics
relies on symmetric-based algebraic equations but
the result is a convergence on space through
destructive technology.

In contrast, in alchemy, time is not defined through
distance but rather as something that is listened
to, through complimentary opposite harmonics. Again
this is why the major second, as 9/8 cubed, equals
the Perfect Fifth (YANG) or 2:3 PLUS THE COMMA OF
PYTHAGORAS. Archytas converted the doubling of
frequency through octaves into a SQUARING of frequency
so that there is now a "positive coupling" of
string length (using weight) for time, now as
distance. Now half the octave is the square root
of two, based on 9/8 cubed, in disregard of the
difference between the fifth-fourth inversions and the
octave doubling. In algebra, using the harmonic series,
half of the octave as string length, 2, is 1/2 -- NOT THE SQUARE ROOT OF TWO. What Archytas did is convert
time as an infinite resonance which reverses itself
through consciousness and instead defined space
as an infinite process that is "incommensurable"
or irrational. Time became a linear finite process
that converges to zero or in terms of technology,
the apocalypse.

1/04/2008 12:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love Jacques Tati.

1/04/2008 12:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ha ha ha ha. Yeah when there is no more American ideals to betray then we desperately and ambitiously seek the loopholes and breaks within our anti-American system on the path and towards a modern day utopia. We can proudly dream of landing in that place of truest bliss. Like a permanent out of body experience forever. Sounder the crock-O-shit PR people is the whole bloody establishment. Where else are we going to find any money but with them?

I agree that all we have now is the hopelessness of the American government and big business politics. It is utterly morbid. Now the d and the a and the m. And the n and the a. And the t and the i-o-n. Lose your face, lose your name. Then get fitted for a suit of flame. I believe that there is some absolute truth eternal in the acceptance of America's situation being always incurable. One way to really make it here is to be seen on television for at least 15 minutes. This way you get your 15 minutes of fame in and can celebrate when others do the same. yea for the U.S.A. ha ha ha ha.

Belliosto from Michigan

1/04/2008 01:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Well, many of the songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless." — Townes Van Zandt, after being asked why he only wrote sad songs.

1/04/2008 01:30:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...and i just drink it like it's wine...

1/04/2008 01:44:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As crc+ points out it's all manmade. And that, of course, is the only "truth," that there is.

It would appear that any "solution," has to involve a hive mind of sorts.

Good luck with that.

1/04/2008 01:59:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Thanks fletcher, crc+, jeff and others.

Wonder how long Dr. Musaddiq Kahn will be alive?

We will never touch Reality directly.

Likewise we will never know Truth.

Our representations of Truth, producing truth, or at least consistency within the parameters of our search area are always worthy for reform. Knowing that Truth can have many pregnancies gives hope that change can come at any time.

1/04/2008 03:16:00 PM  
Blogger mc said...

Jeff, Just discovered your blog and so glad I did. I was searching for information about the murder of John Paul I and Rigorous Intuition came up. Finding the truth about this and so many other events inspires me. All is not lost because there are warriors for the truth and you are one. Thank you for all that you do.

1/04/2008 03:17:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

…to imagine that merely outlasting a term limit could be something like a victory is to misunderstand the meaning of public office in a deep criminal state, and to misapprehend our intractable circumstance whose closest analogy may be damnation.

Ah, and Hell it is…and rightly so…………as long as we continue to accept “our intractable circumstance” as being, well, intractable.

Should we be surprised that none of this year’s ass clowns is going to “save us” when we know damned well that it doesn’t matter which personality construct (inflatable, $39.95 at Cheesy Realities ‘R Us) wins? Have we forgotten that our very thin democracy is a duopoly fully funded/controlled by Big Bid’ness? That the rate of overt/covert assassination and other quietly sanctioned undemocratic state actions—our real foreign policy, the one that lurks behind the bullshit we tell ourselves—by the Rogue State never varies regardless of which “side” has “control” in Washington D.C.?

Who’s fooling whom? I mean, knowing what little we do know, why would we even gaze at the spectacle, the second-rate circus that is the American electoral process?

Good thing you bring in Ron Paul, though, because his candidacy does, quite accidentally, pull back the curtain we’ve apparently (hopefully only temporarily) forgotten the existence of. Paul, you see, promises to free us from the shackles of business as usual in Washington by unshackling…(drum roll, please)...Big Bid’ness!

That’s right folks—freedom & truth & justice and all those inconveniently, even embarrassingly egalitarian fairy tales with which we indoctrinate our kids and excuse our genocides are only one broken yoke away: just strip the governments set up and run by corpocracies of the power to regulate those corpocracies and the ineffable economic laws that St. Smith laid down during the Scottish Enlightenment will take care of the rest.

Economic growth, opportunity, free trade and all the rest of the sweet lies of the neo-liberal globalization that’s currently eating the fookin’ planet alive and concentrating wealth at a rate unseen since the last Tsar…are such powerful memetic talismans that we’re blinded by them, even when we know that they’re perfect perversions of the truth. Not only do they blind us, or maybe more conveniently shield us from our conscience and our common sense, but they are so all-encompassing that they even provide the only framework from which we’re allowed to perceive what the fook is going on.

That’s all there is. Socialism failed (remember those horrid experiments that our patriotic freedom fighting agencies so bravely sabotaged?) and there are no other alternatives, right? Forget spiritual solutions—you can only choose between McReligion and Dawkin’s neo-Darwinist smarmy deconstruction of them anyway, right?

Best to be sensible and resign oneself to the facts as they’re presented to us: all those heresies which talk about a universe where everything is connected to everything else, where there is no divide between the material and the spiritual, where we can heal ourselves by healing the planet, where human fulfillment is not only possible but also lots of fun, well they’re all just internet rumors.

Just ask the experts.

1/04/2008 03:28:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff,

You might be interested to note that many Ron Paul supporters not only rally against the Satanic ritual abuse, government corruption and high weirdness that you regularly do, but they also read your blog from time to time. In other words, we're in this together and you'd be surprised just where your support may come from.

1/04/2008 03:34:00 PM  
Blogger Jeff Wells said...

"Jeff,who is that in the crystal ball?"

That's Mengele, when he was known as "Wolfgang Gerhard" in Brazil.

1/04/2008 03:37:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"In other words, we're in this together and you'd be surprised just where your support may come from."

heh

resistance is futile

all your base are belong to us

1/04/2008 04:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey I.C.,

Good to see you back in force. Are you finally feeling better? I'm with you on this side of the heresies....

1/04/2008 08:14:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GGG, who on earth are you commenting with? On topic? Find some holier than thou blog to espouse your answers to harmonics.You chaff my hide dude. Jeff, Ron Paul wants to eliminate the dept of education,he wants a flat tax,wants to destroy much of the federal government and let private enterprise lead the way. Brain dead, dead ends. 10 years a republican from The Lone star state. Yea, such credentials.If the future is doomed why take in breath. The future is your movie, the possibilities are without limit. Shine forth brave souls! Respectfully, Dennis.

1/04/2008 10:44:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If Ron Paul wins, then the U.S. ceases to be an empire. I'm voting for him and I urge all other visitors to this site to do the same.

1/05/2008 12:29:00 AM  
Blogger Myles said...

Hope keeps me reading this blog. Without it I couldn't stomach it, yet with it, I can't quite take it seriously.

1/05/2008 12:47:00 AM  
Blogger Civic Center said...

Oddly enough, I have great hope. We may be on the edge of extinction on this planet which is the real subtext of this blog, but as I said before I'm filled with hope and not despair or fear. The universe will work itself out the way it's supposed to, and we're part of the psychic progression. Accept that and stop whining.

And Jeff, whoever he is, is a wonder. Still, I wish he'd stop being quite so empathic and down. It doesn't do anyone any good.

1/05/2008 02:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff,
Back to the ol' abyss gazing, huh?

Friedrich Nietzche:
"If you keep gazing into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

As for the old shibboleth of eternal "Christian Hell" - I don't believe Jesus taught it. He taught the dichotomy of "destruction" vs. "eternal life". The wicked take the broad course to destruction. [would that not be soul annihilation? The 2nd death. the nothingness of Nirvana? Dissolution of the individual consciousness back into the zero point of the quantum field? The dissolution of total chaos, or utter formlessness and loss of information. The matrix' bit bucket. The void of the Abyss? Metaphorically referred to as the "Lake of Fire" to convey the sense of utter dissolution rather than of the threat of 'eternal torture' so luridly promulgated by the Roman Catholic institution during the Dark Ages, and which still so trenchantly fascinates debauched minds of our current even darker age.]

Those who 'hear' and follow His voice (the voice which says "love thy neighbor as thyself") instead, take the "narrow gate" that leads to eternal life. Everlasting continuation of the individual consciousness, or 'soul'. Salvation in paradise with other spiritual ‘virgins’ with hearts purified through union with God, the creative Source of love.

Hell does exist. A 'place' for the wicked suffering the effects of inner darkness, because they themselves choose the darkness rather than the Light. Perhaps the suffering itself 'destroys' or disintegrates them, with no life giving Light to save (preserve) them. Life requires energy. The Light (the love of God) is the energy, if we will receive it.

You should review the 'Christian' scripture of the Revelation, which teaches that at last Satan and all that pertains to evil will also be cast into the Lake of Fire. And then when Hell is a vast and empty hall, it too, along with Death, will also be cast into the Lake of Fire, where the 'smoke' ascendeth up forever and ever. i.e., they will no longer exist.

You see, it is written in the 'Christian' scriptures that all the devils, and "hell" too, are NOT eternal, and will finally NOT exist. Hell is Hades, where the dead await the final or 2nd death of destruction. But those who belong to God, redeemed by the power of Christ, will live forever. The choice is between Light vs. darkness; Truth vs. meaninglessness; Love vs. emptiness; Reality vs. nothingness; Compassion vs. pre-emptive nuclear strikes, Good vs. evil. Is the choice so difficult?

Oh, but the love of money (selfish avarice) is the root of evil.

But, "love (of fellow creatures) is the only rational act." Stephen Levine

1/05/2008 03:41:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Aurovox..I don't mean to burst your bubble but what the hell let's do it metaphorically speaking. Imagine a bubble just burst. Any bubble. Piss in the toilet and the bubble bubble bursts. There is a physical presence inside the bubble and now the bubble is gone.

The contents of the bubble are now the contents of the non bubble.

By the way, bubbles in the toilet means to much protein in your diet.

1/05/2008 09:20:00 AM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Hey Derek!

I can't say that I'm exactly back yet, much less with any force, but the new meds seem to be working (with MS you have these inexplicable good spells, too, so it's hard to say what's what...)

I was quite astonished to come back here, after some two months' absence, only to find that nothing much had happened while I was gone. I had expected to have to wade through severeal (it'll be a word eventually) piles of obtusely interconnected RI memeworm trails, and it looks as though Jeff and the rest of the ourobusi have also taken some perhaps much needed time off.

Btw, ericswan, I also only yesterday stumbled upon that story you posted about Mary in that last thread I was part of: sure, it's awful, but it's also different for everyone who has it and I'm far better off--so far--than poor Mary. The hope for all of us, whether we're talking folks with MS and other such disablements or just the rest of this human race does not lie in the usual channels, certainly not in the establishments that have accreted around medicine, science & politics.

This is the other cause for the dismay I felt on reading this post from Jeff, the guy who has so consistently championed the open mind when considering the whole of life, even those parts of it that are dismissed as "para-" whatever. Hello, Jeff? Why, brother, why would you, of all people, look to the machinations of 2-D politocos for our deliverance?

To paraphrase that Christian mythos whose vision of Hell prompted this essay, the kingdom of heaven and hell is within us, not out there somewhere. If we do crash & burn, it won't be the result of what some kapo of the Empire does but through a complete and total failure of our imagination, the only faculty capable of seeing a better world.

(Drew, go back to what you were saying about McTaggart's Field, the whole point of which was that Giordano Bruno, our most glorious heretic, was right after all: All is One, each part does contain the whole. You know, holographs and Beings of Light and all that...I'll find page numbers if you like...)

Anyway, Derek, I've been working on a big wad of something or other that will be crammed into your in-box soon. Promise.

1/05/2008 01:05:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know, I really like what Great Galactic Ghoul has to say.

I began to read Jeff's blog several years ago at a friend's suggestion. At first I thought Jeff was crazy, full of shit, or both. Humility and curiosity (but mostly repeated application) showed me that my own innocence or ignorance was usually the biggest impediment to my understanding what the fuck he was saying and why.

What Jeff does is a sort of knowledge-sculpture: he's causing to emerge from a great undifferentiated noise of information-media the form of some strange and even terrible being, Reality, as a sculptor causes a fore-existing form to emerge from marble.

I think GGG does the same thing, if in lengthier and more eccentric fashion. But he's obviously thought, read, and meditated (with or without chemical mediation) on a lot of shit, and has apparently picked up on something both subtle and profound. When I stopped simply ignoring his obscure references and clapping at the clown-dance of his outlandish words, I started -- just like with Jeff's writing -- actually making some sense of it.

Sorry I took so much space -- I truly enjoy this blog, -- but I think Great Galactic Ghoul gets crapped on too much, when his ideas should just be approached as they are. Anything that contributes to an understanding of reality as-it-is is welcome, I think.

1/05/2008 02:33:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bubbles in the toilet -- too much protein. haha. Don't worry I crap on people all the time! haha.

Anyway I'm reading The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians, First Freemasons by Tobias Churton. I just finished "Shadow of the Silk Road" which is a new and excellent history and from the ground report on Central Asia (where Gurdjieff trained).

I mention these books because on the internet it's too easy to be cerebral but in real life I'm sitting in full-lotus and people can freak -- just from the energy exchanges that happen naturally. Best to look to these cultures where philosophy was still physiology before it was morphed into logarithmic-based science that originated with Archtyas and Plato. Hidden beneath the traditional Muslim, Buddhist and Persian cultures is tribal trance transduction.

I barely survived the holidays because sitting in full-lotus at the dinner table is too much of a threat! haha. The energy begins to rewire synapses, causing everyone's subconscious intentions to get messed with. That's conspiracy activism.

Someone online mentioned they're reading Chris Knights' Blood Relations book on the origins of language, based on my recommendation. His new book "The Human Conspiracy" (CUP) should be out by now. Anyway Knight emphasizes that primates use analog signals (like full-lotus yoga) but humans use digital signals. This person posted a quote from Blood Relations saying a male chimp "gazed into the distance" to distract his attackers -- so the menacing chimps thought there was a new external threat.

That's EXACTLY what the full-lotus does -- it's a third eye gaze that turns people's subconscious attention to an "attack" of pure formless knowledge. The full-lotus 3rd eye gaze threatens the digital "win-lose" paradigm of technological right-hand, left-brain logic.

So in property law there's the standard of "fraudulent concealment" but in human rights law there's the "right to remain silent." STATUTORY LIMITS validate the second right over the first. Time is on our side.

The "right to remain silent" was first used when a submissive male primate was off in the bushes with an alpha female and both silently copulated -- intentionally silent.

That's what tantra is -- the submissive males secretly understanding not only the intention of alpha females but the uber-female -- the Cosmic Mother as formless awareness -- the gaze into nowhere whose source in space will never be revealed. Full-lotus is a threat because for most people this primate gaze is still subconcious. As Gurdjieff states, modern people are machines but modern people don't understand how their machines work.

Fruit for primates (gibbons) became the first cause for monogamous territorality property law -- the forbidden fruit. Gorillas -- with their small dicks and green leave diet -- are able to sublimate their male sexual energy to maintain a very peaceful lifestyle. The female gorillas, contrary to popular belief, are free to come and go but the males at least know whom they've impregnated. As Professor Robert Sapolsky reports, when he looked into the eyes of a gorilla -- big, black eyes -- Sapolsky felt the need to confess all his sins. That's REAL -- the spiritual gaze. Chimps, in contrast, have big balls used for forceful control -- because paternity is uncertain and this creates a lot of stress. Yet the females, in contrast to mountain gorillas, not only get fruit but also juicy meat.

Orangutans are sort of more like gorillas than chimps (even though alpha male orangutans will kill younger males if they try to get in on the females). What I mean is that arboreality is still based on auditory time perception as dominant, enabling a true 3rd eye gaze -- rather than hand gestures which are increasingly digital. Just as male chimps shake a branch to signal their desire to copulate (which can result in rape if the female does not comply) so do female chimps use spears to hunt meat. There's a coevolution of digital-based signals with technology as tantra for spatial control.

Let's see what Chris Knight's new book, the Human Conspiracy will say about this. Analog is still a visual-based definition of signals using symmetrical or logarithmic measurments. The full-lotus 3rd eye gaze into nowhere is inherently female, resonating as the source of the long-voweled heart-focused emotional signals of tree-based alchemy.

1/05/2008 03:44:00 PM  
Blogger fletcher said...

GGG, you have some interesting info, but your ideas on tantra are sort of erm, how should I put this...imaginative..
I have been studying and practicing Kudalini yoga for over 20 years and the things you say...
you seem to be utilizing the energy in an almost delusional fashion.
While the third eye is an amazing force of insight and can "tune you in" to a greater connection with your own body and your own energy, as far as my albeit limited experience has shown me, it cannot transmit some threatening message to the right/left brain paradigm of others...
maybe I'm misunderstanding and humbly apologize but, who teaches this kind of "conspiracy activism"?
The teachings of some of the great Yogis in the tantric tradition say nothing near to anything you espouse. People already have wacked out ideas about yoga. Please don't mislead others into thinking yoga is to be practiced for your amusement or a sense of superiority over others you deem ignorant.
In Kundalini,
Compassion is the great lesson, connection with the universe... that and action.
So let's talk synthesis.
You said you were reading the Golden Builders...
Based on my own readings on the subject, synthesis is a mystical concept of some deep importance to these groups and perhaps there's a bit of wisdom there. Hiram Abiff and all that jazz..
Everyone seems to have a certain affinity for it, it's obvious. We take certain points from certain philosophies, certain pop-psychology ideas, a book we might have just read on poetry, from religions, and we tend to morph that into our own modus operandi..
but in doing so are we confirming that synthesis of concepts of dare i call them "truths" or are we simply deluding ourselves?
I honestly don't know.
reality at it's most honest and "true" nature seems impossible to really apprehend.
Should human beings be involved in a New search for truth or should we decide that Truth is a lie? It's an individual question of course, but beyond that, as a practitioner of Tantric yoga, what is your insight into the idea of Truth? It may seem like a naive question, but honestly, can you be so sure you aren't just deluding yourself? do you care if you are?
I ask myself that often and I am surprised by what i tell myself at times.

1/05/2008 04:28:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

fletcher said...

"...though, to be fair, Hell is a mistranslation of the word "sheol"
which means only "grave" and eternity is also a mistranslation of "eonian" which means obviously, "for a time" not "eternal" as most of Christendom would have you believe, and most if not all agnostics, atheists, what have you, would champion the cause, citing their argument, "well, I just cannot believe in a god who would assign billions to eternal torment in some terrorist hellhole."



Agreed Fletcher, when the bible talks about eternal damnation or burning in the lake of fire "forever" it cannot mean that those people actually live endlessly there! It means the _effect_ of the fire is eternal, not the fire itself!!

"The wages of sin is death, _not_" eternal life in Hell! (Romans 6:23)

The fire will STOP when all the wicked are "ashes"!

1/05/2008 05:37:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah ha! Deluding your self, truth, tantra. haha. It's very simple as far as truth goes. The mind on it's own, conceptually speaking, is quite weak. Logically people tend to be controlled by their emotions. Memories are stored based on the emotional intensity of a perceived event while language usually is not very effective in countering this process. Western science is not based on logical inference but rather on right-brain geometry (idolized paganism) translated into left-brain rationalism (science), as Freemasonry.

So logically all thoughts are delusion -- except the SOURCE of the I-thought. Full-lotus enables the monkey mind to finally resolve it self, through transduction of kidney-liver-heart energy, creating enough electrochemical brain juice over powering any stress, depression, fear, anger, worry, sadness, etc. Our natural state, thus lost since the forbidden fruit separation of the lower body from the mind, is blissful light that shoots out of the pineal gland, as guided NOT BY THOUGHTS, but by complimentary opposite harmonics. Consciousness is female formless awareness that creates light and electromagnetic fields and bliss.

In such a natural state the mind can then be focused on what we conceptually choose, as we are in peace without distractions from emtionally controlled memories (i.e. demonic possession).

This is well described in a book on a Chan master I just got -- Bones of the Master I think is the title. He travels back to China after being exiled to the U.S. from the cultural revolution. The lower emotions are literally considered to be demonic possession, the equivalent of succubi and incubus in the West, only the church did not know how to exorcise because the church only uses mind yoga (prayer), not transduction of the organs as emotions, through the full-lotus. This is why people freak out around me. Conspiracy activism is "spiral unity" activism that exorcisms minds subconsciously controlled by the lower organ emotions (kidneys, liver, pancreas, heart).

It's rare to study with a true energy master, as I was able to do with qigong master Chunyi Lin who works with the Mayo Clinic in healing people of all types of hard to treat diseases. His website is springforestqigong.com He sat in a cave for 40 days straight in full-lotus with no food, no water and no sleep. He charged up my brain with bliss-light so my pineal gland is permanently magnetized. As his assistant, qigong master Jim Nance states:

The energy knows what to do.

1/05/2008 06:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lurking around this blog has brought me, at the least, hours of entertainment, but at times I'm tempted to never come back.

Mostly this is due to the seemingly despairing and "hopeless" tone it carries from time to time.

My opinions on scriptures, any of them, tend towards harshness, so I suppose I should avoid upsetting anyone here with them. Let me say only that the inaccurate interpretations of the post-lifetime doctrines of JudeoChristisms are about the LEAST troublesome thing I find in the bible. The things that bother me tend to be quite obvious, and not mistranslations....

I am curious, however, as to whether this blog, and its friends, are here to weep for the world, or are actually interested in "changing" it in some fashion. I have seen a lot of theories as to what is wrong, and little in the way of practical solutions.

Is this late Republican Rome, wherein even the dissatisfied seem unable to cope with the changes? That is, unable to conceive of what SHOULD be, as opposed to simply seeing what shouldn't?

My opinion on this, is perhaps more depressing, but less fatalist than those I've seen expressed, insofar as I've understood them anyway.

I only see two ways out of the mess we've made of things, and neither is particularly easy.

One is unlikely, given the tendency of humans to deny the obvious implications of their own realizations.

The other, far more likely, is the one wherein the early twenty-first century is eventually remembered by historians as "the late American-Republican period".

That is, you may think of America as an "empire", but you haven't seen anything yet.

good luck finding whatever it is you're looking for.

1/05/2008 06:09:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

I've heard that, according to the best calculations, Jesus was born in the fall. That would make the conception mid-winter. So when we
celebrate Christmas on the traditional date, we may be actually commemorating the time when Jesus laid aside His divinity and gave up all His power and glory to become a human embryo.
And that was actually when He came to earth, rather than nine
months later, when He was born.

As far as calculating age, Orientals still count from the date of
conception (or earlier), rather than the actual birth.

At Christmas, I like to commemorate Jesus' first
coming and look forward to His second, when He will come in
power and will all the angels and the glory of His Father.

1/05/2008 06:39:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

There is alot to think about but that's because others left a legacy. Not all the legacies were written down and not all the writing is transcribed for eyes to see. The bible was written by the conquerers of pagans. The landmarks of man and his relationship to this planet get erased from time to time unless of course, the landmark is meant to be a sign for the future generations. Many conjecture that the legacy is in each us which could be the spiritual soul or the scientific DNA. It is all those things. When you see the truth, it will smack you up side the head and the tumblers will click into place.

That is why we come. Click...click..

1/05/2008 08:06:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

The real problem with evolution is not that it destroys Biblical authority. Evolution does make it much more difficult to believe in the authority of the Bible. But that is also not the most important theological impact of evolution. Nor is the real problem that evolution promotes atheism. Evolution does make it much easier to believe in atheism, and harder to believe in a God Who cares and can intervene. But that is not the most important theological impact of evolution.

What is meant by evolution

Before discussing the real problem, perhaps I should define what I mean by the term, because evolution can simply mean change or development, like the evolution of weather patterns, stars, or automobiles. This is not the evolution to which I refer. Evolution can mean the emergence of new species or genera. This also is not the evolution to which I refer. Evolution can mean the theory of common descent of all life. This also is not the evolution to which I refer, although we are getting closer. Evolution can mean the idea that nature is a closed system, and that there is no interference with the universe from a God "outside" of it. This also is not the evolution to which I refer, although we are almost there.

The evolution to which I refer is Darwinian evolution and its Neo-Darwinian descendant--the theory that all forms of life are the result of random variations (or mutations). It holds that the variations most successful at leaving offspring gradually (or rarely, more rapidly) supplant the others. Most laypeople know this process as the "survival of ths fittest". The theory does rule out Divine intervention at any stage in this process, but this is not its most important characteristic. The key point is the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations.

Theological implications

Keep in mind that our interest here is not the various scientific problems with the theory. It is rather with the theological implications. The real problem with evolution is that its direct implications destroy altruism. If Darwinian evolution is true, the principle of love is detrimental to humanity's development. For according to evolutionary theory, the way of progress is for every organism to engage in an unceasing struggle to outperform its competitors, first in living, then in leaving viable progeny. Cooperation is allowed, but only as long as there is mutual benefit. Those organisms that allow others to gain at their expense are at a disadvantage and eventually will lose the struggle for survival. They are hosts, and the other organisms are parasites.

Since according to evolution humans are simply animals with a more highly developed brain, if we wish to improve our species, the conclusion follows that we should also not allow other humans to benefit at our expense, unless they share enough of our genes to make it worthwhile. This leads directly to speciesism, as animal rights activists would call it. But it also leads directly to racism and tribalism. In this view, Hitler was basically right. Perhaps the only thing he got wrong was the identity of the master race. It was really the Jews.

On a personal level, psychiatrists have a diagnosis for people who do not let morality or sentimentality get in the way of their personal goals. They have antisocial personality disorder. Many people have a misconception about antisocial personality disorder. They think of antisocial personalities as people who are basically loners, people who avoid associating with other people, or perhaps people who are always angry at someone else. In fact, antisocial personalities can be quite charming most of the time. It is just that when their desires conflict with the rights or well-being of others, their desires take precedence and they feel no remorse for the damage they cause to others. They basically live by the creed of Machiavelli.

That creed has no room for altruism. The golden rule is totally foreign to it, let alone the self-sacrificing love exhibited by Jesus. So if the defining characteristic of God is love, Darwinian evolution strikes at the heart of theology. For the theory of evolution says that the way we have progressed in the past, and presumably the way to progress in the future, is to disregard the principle of love. The only pertinent question when considering a course of action is, "What's in it for me or my kin?"

Evolution destroys the basis for love. That's the real problem with evolution.

1/05/2008 11:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK let's review the basic math again. Simon Stevin used the geometric mean equation for equal tempered tuning as such: A/B=C/X. He assumes that the octave is twice that of the fundmental tone and then states that he can split the scale using cube root of two. 1:5/4=8/5:2.

But, under the harmonic series, the octave does not use the commutative principle, which Simon Stevin relies on. So when Archytas used the same geometric mean equation he did not have 4 terms (A:B:C:X) to solve. To reduce Simon Stevin's octave to the square root of two is just 1 x 2 = square root of two x square root of two. It's the same as the algebraic equation given for the square root two -- but neither equations show the connection to solving for the number value. To achieve a number value for the square root of two equation, Archytas relied on the Babylonian geometric mean equation with only 3 terms needed (not needing 4), thereby demonstrating how math comes from music ratios. So arithmetic mean times harmonic mean equals geometric mean squared. To plug that back into Simon Stevin's equation 1 divided by 4/3 = 3/2 divided by 2.

So this is the equivalent of stating that 4/3 and 3/2 ARE the square root of two, which may be justified as the "divide and average" continued fraction solution but it's NOT justified as the harmonic series which violates the commutative principle. Since the octave as string length, 1/2, does not equal the octave as square root of 2, Archytas' proof violates the arithmetic doubling of the octave as the harmonic series. Archytas relies on using string length as 3/2 and 4/3 (instead of frequency less than 2, or 2/3 and 3/4, because he has to double the octave to justify it's square root value, with the double octave, 4, having the octave value, 2, through string length tension. The same "squaring of the octave" continues using the arithmetic mean x harmonic mean = geometric mean squared equation. In other words Archtyas ONLY justifies a number value solution for the square root of two "divide and average" geometric mean by VIOLATING the complimentary opposite harmonics of the perfect fifth, 2/3, and the perfect fourth, 3/4, of the Pythagorean Tetrad -- or the yin and yang of Taoist alchemy.

Again this means that time has been reduced to space as length (now measured with weight as momentum) and thereby ushering in modern science when rediscovered by Galileo, Descartes and Newton. The square root of two proof by contradiction ALSO relies on the commutative principle, just as Archytas and Simon Stevin used to solve for equal-tempered tuning. But again logically the proof by contradiction refers to geometry (area and size) NOT to length as number. It would appeared justified to equate the two (especially since you can square the "divide and average" number so that the infinite irrational converges to the number two as area) but now that it's been proven that such equation DIRECTLY VIOLATES the complimentary opposite harmonics of number as string length, we can see exactly why science is inherently destructive (not for moral reasons but for illogical reasons).

1/06/2008 10:12:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The great irony of the modern Bible is that the most pertinent parts which explain the true concepts of the afterlife according to Hebrew theology were in fact expunged during the Council of Nicea, when scripture was twisted and perverted by political man (Constantine's empire) to serve the state instead of G-d. The Apocryphal books of Enoch and Ezra both specifically state what happens to the soul upon death and how one's actions during life are revealed and take effect whilst waiting for the final judgement.

Church politicians kept these books out of the gospel in order to increase their Earthly power and authority and ensure the spiritual destruction of those whom they ruled over so as to prevent any serious threats to their hegemony. Like is said in the book of Hosea, "My people are destroyed from a lack of knowledge." I recommend you good people look into these books (Enoch and Ezra)for a better understanding of the true Hebrew theology. At least you won't have Roman emperors censoring the word of the Holy Spirit.

1/06/2008 10:54:00 AM  
Blogger Sounder said...

I saw a billboard on the way to my Uncles funeral this weekend. It was big and bright yellow with little writing on it. The text was in the form of a faux survey questionnaire. The top black bordered white box was followed with the sentence; Bury your head in the sand. The second box was followed with the sentence; Fight global warming. I was afraid I was coming down with ATS (acquired Tourette syndrome). Yeah we are doing so well with that war on terrorism thingy and that war on drugs thing. Yeah I am not feeling quite righteous just yet; maybe another war can do the trick. And why the Fuck do my family and friends always intro any conversation with the assertion that my wife is very beautiful and must be some kind of saint. Yeah well she is, but fuck that, there are serious issues to deal with here. Like this savior guy strung up for (what seems like) eternity, in effigy up on some state torture devise. I mean, what the Fuck, who benefits from that little emotional entrainment device? My good God, ---- or the state? Excepting the good bit of flotsam that gets stuck in my craw, I really liked the service, a respectful connecting of the temporal to the transcendent. Yet I do not deal well with the mixing up of the metaphorical with the literal. My Uncle is now going to see the Lord; face to face? Or that the eating of the flesh of the son of man and the drinking of his blood is metaphorically attested to by literally eating this stuff that can only be received in ‘communion’. Otherwise ‘you shall not have life within you’.

Thanks, but I’ll take my flesh and blood straight up, stirred not shaken.

Thanks a. magnus, anon 6:09 and santiago

1/06/2008 11:28:00 AM  
Blogger surrender said...

IC:

You have no idea how glad I am you are back. Your absence may have had something to do with the weird way thia blog has been going for a few weeks.

Shrub started a blog so maybe you will take time to visit.

Two gems you offered up to us:


"Best to be sensible and resign oneself to the facts as they’re presented to us: all those heresies which talk about a universe where everything is connected to everything else, where there is no divide between the material and the spiritual, where we can heal ourselves by healing the planet, where human fulfillment is not only possible but also lots of fun, well they’re all just internet rumors."

And this:

"To paraphrase that Christian mythos whose vision of Hell prompted this essay, the kingdom of heaven and hell is within us, not out there somewhere. If we do crash & burn, it won't be the result of what some kapo of the Empire does but through a complete and total failure of our imagination, the only faculty capable of seeing a better world."

It makes wading thru GGG's long irrelevant and inauthentic rantings worth it just to find IC's
name.

I really missed you as did Shrub, Richard and the rest who tried to stave off the hateful and distracting posts that got us nowhere with banterings of whose ego reigns supreme.

Our imagination and ability to create are the gifts of a God that does not belong to the Christians and other religions who seek to control the masses thru the fear of a hell and the reward of a heaven that does not exists.

When we humans realize we are not separate and experience that the Unity of our existence is the real calling forth of Paradise on Earth, we will then know the true meaning of Eternal LIFE.....

IC: I love you and I thank you from my heart for the thoughts and points of view that you always contribute here. If the energy of that love and gratitude contributes to your health and well-being, then so be it......

1/06/2008 12:50:00 PM  
Blogger Mark said...

1.

Welcome back IC.

2.

For the complaints from the abyss staring folks, if you want something different, which I think this blog always touches on as well, there's the bioregional state to look into, and I welcome you there. There are additionally many material choices that you might be inspired to move over to as well at commodity ecology. If only a small portion of the angst was converted to action instead of dispair, the dispair would dry up?

So while the edifice (ecologically and in terms of political legitimacy) seems to be falling apart in the Jeff post above, there is more that is gelling than oceanic slime he mentioned: global opinions are gelling and are nearing a 'watershed' (no pun intended) where many governmental forms are starting to be seen as illegitimate because they keep bringing only more corruption and environmental degradation.

The percentages of disquiet globally about unsustainable development is approaching 75%-80% in many countries globally.

At that link:

"This is a continuing series of polls about global opinions and attitudes toward environmentalism. It shows that supermajorities of the world are in agreement already on environmental issues, and that a supermajority of the world considers their current forms of state doing poorly on getting to sustainability. This would be a good basis to achieve what the bioregional state promotes: green constitutional engineering to get to sustainability.

The previous three polls [1] [2] [3] showed a huge global agreement for greening politics and economics.

The argument of the bioregional state is that sustainability is unachivable without formal democratic institutional change (that would interact with other institutional additions in educational frameworks, local consumptive issues, and financial issues).

Other people have offered other methods to get to sustainability of course. What about these different methods to get there? Other routes are only indirect, susceptible to corruption, and have a history of backsliding.

First, however, the bioregional state argues that a single informal party is a poor strategy for change to sustainability. A single party can be corrupted like the fading greenness of Die Grunen in Germany (discussed at that [another] link above).

Second, a single party it is a poor strategy for sustainability because support for greenness comes from across the left-right spectrum seen in above polls for global supermajorities supporting green politics. This makes a single informal party a poor strategy for mobilizing toward sustainability. It is perhaps ultimately self-defeating and self-divisive of the commonality of views on greenness to attempt to fit 'green' into one party framework. (That being said, I do support various forms of green parties however just without expecting that the model of political change for sustainability can ever be achieved by a singular party).

Third, the bioregional state argues that with so many solutions already in evidence though simply unapplied, it is unable to be said that there is a lack of solutions that is keeping sustainability from occurring.

On the contrary, it is political, economic, and technological corruption and gatekeeping against the massive supermajorities of the world that is keeping us from sustainability. Corruption is keeping us from living in representative democracies and maintaining a representative developmentalism. This corruption keeps us living within crony raw material regimes instead of arrangements more democratic and consumer-choice driven that would look closer to the commodity ecology arrangement instead of commodity arrangements that destroy the planet.

In existing democracies many conflicts of interest keep unsustainability in place. Only by creating additional formal 'ecological checks and balances' can we address these conflicts of interest and innately allow our political economies to be more directly 'in sync' with this global support for environmentalism, sound economics, and sound health practices.

To summarize, [1] unsustainability is corruption and conflict of interest. [2] This corruption is created by 'out of sync' formal institutional arrangements in states that create an informal gatekeeping on politics, instead of formal institutions creating representation in politics. [3] This gatekeeping and unrepresentativeness has a developmental effect toward environmental degradation and self-destruction [4] contrary to public support. [5] It is additionally contrary to polls showing sustainabilility to be the supermajority and popular concern of the world.

This is why the bioregional state approaches sustainability as requiring a more competitive democracy--to remove the informal corrupt gatekeeping frameworks to make the state a democratic institution 'in sync' with environmental concern, formally. The bioregional state would do this through over 60 additional 'ecological checks and balances'...


More at the above link.

And GGG said:

"Anyway I'm reading The Golden Builders: Alchemists, Rosicrucians, First Freemasons by Tobias Churton.

I smiled. I've read it as well.

1/06/2008 01:46:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

1/06/2008 02:01:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The West occult scene is obsessed with the idea that there are these spirits in the sky which have immense power and by incantations and rituals a person can "call" down these spirits.

This approach is typical in the West occult scene and it's really just the same as what the Holy Roman Empire preached -- that true bishops of the Church could call down the holy spirit, through rituals and bible incantations. This is after the early church monks relied on PHYSIOLOGICAL transformation -- fasting for one thing and those early monks were gotten rid of as heretical.

So then the whole concept of there being consciousness that is nondual and FEMALE is lost -- instead the West Occult scence is this sophmoric male fantasy world that sees Nature as a fear of the Female and the power of these spirits are just the subconscious projection of male fears. Because of this male fear projection the spiritual world HAS TO BE CUT UP INTO PIECES as spirit-monsters, etc. and the overall ONE FEMALE AS FORMLESS AWARENESS is not acceptable.

In fact the only real way to make contact with female formless awareness is through physiological transformation of the body -- not these priestly incantations and church-turned occult rituals (or creepy stories) which is exactly the type of foolish b.s. that the Holy Roman Empire wants people to think is power.

1/06/2008 02:18:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

In 2004, I read Nancy Pearcey's "Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity". In Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey identifies an often felt but rarely clearly verbalized split into sacred and secular realms. Many identify the realm of facts with the secular, and the realm of values with the sacred. In this view, the realm of facts and science—the secular—belongs in the public sphere because it is objectively true. The subjective realm of religion and values belongs in the private sphere and should never intrude into the public sphere. Pearcey discusses Process Theology, Legal Pragmatism, Dewey’s philosophy of education, and Constructionism in education as examples where secularism has taken over entire areas of public life. As more and more subjects are claimed by the realm of “science” and “fact,” eventually nothing will be left for the world of “religion” and “values.” Pearcey traces the history of this destructive dualism, starting with Plato and moving through Thomas Aquinas to Romanticism-Enlightenment dualisms such as the Cartesian dualism of Kant. Valuefact
dualism has given rise to modernist science and post-modernist English departments in universities. Although they have proven to be powerful cultural ideas, none of these dualisms completely solve the problems they were intended to address. Pearcey states, “This is the great intellectual lostness of our age: that many are forced to hang their entire hopes for dignity and meaning on an upper-story [faith] realm that they themselves regard as noncognitive and unverifiable”. The major foundation of modern dualism is the modernist scientific image of nature as strictly mechanical and resulting from an amoral, Darwinian struggle for survival. Pearcey notes that the implications of Darwinism eventually destroy the authority of any ethical system, giving examples where Darwinists excuse not only abortion but also infanticide, rape, and bestiality. But, as Pearcey notes, citing Tom Bethell, the secular critics of these extreme views “were disarmed by their shared worldview”. However, the “universal acid” (Daniel Dennett’s phrase) of Darwinism ultimately attacks itself philosophically. If evolutionary psychology explains all other thought as a product of evolution, and thus not necessarily true, it also explains itself in the same terms. Darwinism has no good defense against a postmodernist deconstruction of itself. In addition, Darwinist philosophy has to explain away as illusions such phenomena as human consciousness, morality, altruism, religion and even the success of mathematics in science. Following Thomas Reid, Pearcey notes, “the purpose of philosophy is to explain what we know by direct experience, not to contradict or deny it”.
Darwinism’s grip on the realm of facts is not as tight as the majority of the scientific community would have one believe. Pearcey’s lucidly stated arguments will sound familiar to those who have followed the Intelligent Design movement closely. In the face of these difficulties with Darwinist theory, Pearcey quotes several Darwinists who have admitted that philosophical presuppositions drive their position. Thus Christianity is not automatically excluded from the realm of facts by any analysis of the facts themselves. On the contrary, it is more defensible than materialism, both philosophically and experimentally. Pearcey argues that choosing a worldview is extremely important, and modernism or postmodernism should not win by default. She observes that many modern “secular” worldviews have a religious structure (as opposed to content) remarkably similar to that of Christianity. That is, they have a story that includes a Creation resulting in an ideal state, a Fall, and a Redemption. For example, for Marx, there was Darwinian evolution leading to the state of primitive communism. Mankind fell from this state of innocence through the creation of private property. Redemption comes from the proletarian revolt and destruction of all private property. Giving a detailed and interesting history of the evangelical experience in America, Pearcey argues that because most explications of evangelicalism have been at least latently anti-intellectual, evangelicalism has tended to support the separation of life into the sacred and secular spheres. Even though evangelicals would be horrified to think that they are cooperating with the agenda of naturalism, she sees this as fitting in with that agenda. Total Truth does contain some minor errors. There is at one point a stress on the word “cultivate” which the word itself will not sustain in relation to “culture.” And there is the relegation of Islam to a status near Hinduism and neo-Platonism primarily because of its non- Trinitarian God without the realization
that the same argument would apply to Judaism. These are more than offset by the author’s integrity, evident particularly when she calls on Christian leaders not to deprive ghostwriters of the rewards of their efforts, and then unobtrusively credits her husband for a phrase he had created. I would like to sharpen Pearcey’s thesis slightly. In fact, there is a partial separation between religion and science. A comprehensive doctrine of the atonement or Christology from nature or even secular history seems improbable. When fixing my car, I do not get out my Bible to find out what to do. However, facts and values do not have a watertight separation. Religion (at least true religion) should permeate all of life, and all of thought. Any divisions should be natural in the sense of being unforced, and it should be expected that these divisions are not absolute. Rather than calling for the complete abolishment of dualism, I would argue for recognition of the porous boundary between the elements, which can thus become integrated. Finally, I would like to call attention to the soul-body dualism which Pearcey apparently accepts. This dualism is the basis of Cartesian dualism, which she rightly rejects, but without explicitly rejecting the bodysoul dualism itself. Perhaps the division between body and soul is not as watertight as is commonly believed either. Total Truth made one of the best cases against the sacred-secular dualism prevalent in our society. It deserves to be read by anyone seeking to integrate his or her worldview.

1/06/2008 02:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of the most theologically confused subjects in the Bible is that of hell. It has been fumbled by the clergy and distorted by the laity until the word has become best known as a common vulgarism and expletive. If the wicked live eternally in the fire, then they have the same thing as the righteous except in a different place. Who could give them eternal life but Christ John 3:16 settles this issue so clearly and simply. Those who do not believe in the only begotten Son will perish. They will die. They will die the second death-an eternal death from which they will never be raised. That death will never end. It is an endless, eternal punishment, because it is an endless, eternal death.

1/06/2008 05:29:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

Holy smokes! I, well! I can't find keystrokes here to convey the emotional charge I just got from reading surrender's words...synchronously enough, it was also in McTaggart's Field that I happened recently to have read about the possibility of real--that is to say emotionally substantive-- interaction through the supposedly anonymous & ethereally antiseptic internet, something like an entanglement of souls (modeled loosely on that phenomenon among particles in the laboratory.)

We do become linked through all forms of interaction and exchanges of information. Similarly, when we try to get others to read books we've read, it's because those books can "impregnate" (or infect, depending on your perspective) your friends with the same memes with which you've been saturated, the result of which is that you now have even more in common--you inhabit more of the same spaces. (That must be why I always give books as gifts...)

McTaggart also described clinical studies on the effectiveness of remote healing (it works!) and the more sinister possiblity of making someone ill from a distance (Jeff, have you considered such a voodoo causation for your increasingly frequent colds & flus?)

Well, I now have proof positive that something along those lines really does work: the jolt I received from surrender's thoughts wasn't any sort of ego gratification, either. It was a sensation I'd recognize anywhere. Love, the engine of the cosmos.

I love you surrender, and I realize that you already know this, but I wanted you to experience what I felt. And thanks, I really needed that. Not only has it been one hellish time for me, but I just had my MS meds denied today by the state insurance I have, which means that things are going to be getting rough again real soon. (Although, I do also have to report that I took the advice of a friend of a friend who told me she just smokes pot whenever she gets cut off by the state--it happens a lot, apparently [and under President Paul, when we're all on our own...?])

It might not stop demyelination, but the royal hogweed does give me back my balance, my appetite and even my memory, contrary to all that gub'mint propaganda. Hell, it might even stop the demyelination for all I know...anyone seen any studies on that?


Thanks also to Derek, ericswan & wwwdotnet (and others) for the flow of emails, even when I couldn't write back.


I also wanted to comment on the inevitably intelligent call to arms from Anonymous 1/05/2008 06:09:00 PM, fletcher's yogic compassion (absolutely right on!) and Santiago's excellent posts concerning the misuse of evolution as a butchery tool, as we see here:


The real problem with evolution is that its direct implications destroy altruism. If Darwinian evolution is true, the principle of love is detrimental to humanity's development. For according to evolutionary theory, the way of progress is for every organism to engage in an unceasing struggle to outperform its competitors, first in living, then in leaving viable progeny. Cooperation is allowed, but only as long as there is mutual benefit.


Santiago,

Your assessment is correct, which is one of the (many) reasons that neo-Darwinism is an empty, self-serving rationale for the rape of the world. I hate to have to post something on this topic that I've many times used, but this particular passage from Chapter 13, The Principles of Life, in Wm. Kötke's very much still relevant Final Empire ties together many of the comments and questions raised by you and the anonymous person who is tired of despair and even Drew, even though he gives the appearance of having already figured everything out. (By which I mean no insult but rather a return to the question of what to do: the full lotus is not for everyone and rightly so, for reality is far too complex to be contained or explained by any single framework or series of equations.)

Anyway, here's part of what Bill had to say about the absurditiy of the trussed & corsetted neo-Darwinist worldview (the rest of the chapter has a lot more on this...and please scroll by if it's too familiar, although, again in the specific frequency of synchronicity, the whole short chapter just happens to touch on nearly everything we're talking about here--I even had to re-read it myself, for the hundredth time, so amazing & uncanny were the parallels):


Final Empire Chap 13: The Moral Basis of the Life of the Earth (Page 205)


...The mind-set of industrial culture is conditioned by the cult of scientism. The reductionist view that matter is the only reality has become the cultural "common-sense" view. This is not in fact what the scientific method says. Empirical science observes, measures, quantifies and performs tests on things, with the understanding that the "things" have to be matter or none of this could be done. The actual scientific method makes no comment on anything outside the realm of matter that it tests. What has happened is that the body of repeatable experiments and "scientific laws" (one must be aware there is much dubious material travelling under this banner) has been raised to the level of "truth" and dogma. Science has become the bible by which truth and reality is verified by a mass culture influenced by years of classroom conditioning. Love, creativity, hope, consciousness, in fact much of the real non-material reality of life and activity has been relegated to insignificance by the cult of science.

The quest for power (military and other) through science has become the central focus of the industrial empire. In the broad view, science is the means to power whereby the empire culture more efficiently extorts the life force of the planet. (Scientific agriculture does not concentrate on building the life of the soil; it concentrates on producing heavier tonnages for market). The reality that science is an integral component of the imperial social system is shown by the fact that more than half of the working scientists of the U.S. are employed in the military-industrial sector. This is hardly a dispassionate search for truth, as the propagandists would have it. The scientific establishment is deeply implicated in the social apparatus of coercion and death as a means of political control.

The control of the public definition of reality- what humans are, what nature is, even the definition of life itself- is not just a matter of scientific dialogue, it is an item of central importance to the power of empire itself. If the context of reality in the public mind is narrowed to a chemical reaction, people will more willingly march in lock step than if they were to realize the mystery, awe and immensity of reality.

If the public is conditioned to believe that humans are with original sin, have an African primate genesis that is vicious and brutal, they will be more willing to agree to a military/police state. It will be just "common sense" to them that humans are so brutal that they can only be controlled by strong governmental force.

If the public were to understand that each of us is a conscious being living within other conscious beings, such as Gaia, the whole life of the earth, the purpose of public life would change. This would threaten the status of the scientific/military/industrial elites who now control and profit from the production of material goods and the control of money.

Materialist science, is a cult. It is a mass social institution and also a method of knowing. It continues the split between Being and Doing and between body and mind. When we look at Natural cultures we see great attention to Being- in relationship to the world. When we look at the scientific ideology we see great attention devoted to abstracted Doing, with little attention paid to our inherent being. Da Free John (a.k.a., Franklin Jones) summarizes this difference which underlies the struggle of empire to control the life of the earth:

"The scientific establishment has been organized in league with the highest levels of concentrated political, economic and propagandistic power in the world today. Science is simply the primary method of knowing in modern societies, and its rule is established in no less an irrational and authoritarian manner than was the case with any religious or philosophical principle that ruled societies in the past.

"The method of science has now become a style of existence, a mood or strategy of relating to the world and to other human beings. That method now describes the conventional posture taken by 'Everyman' in every form of his relationship to the conditions of existence. Science has become a world-view, a presumption about the World-Process itself. It has become a religion, although a false one. And modern societies are Cults of this new religion. Can this new religion establish us as individuals and communities in right relationship to each other and to the World-Process? Absolutely not! Science is only a method of inquiry, or knowing about. It is not itself the right, true, or inherent form of our relationship to the conditions of existence, we cannot account for existence itself. And we are, regardless of our personal and present state of knowledge about the natural mechanics of the world, always responsible for our right relationship to the various conditions of experience, to the beings with whom we exist in this world, and to the World-Process as a whole. Relationship is inherently and perpetually a matter of individual responsibility, founded in intuition, prior to the analytical mind."10

The cult of scientism and empire has brought us to the brink of the death of the planet and the cult figures have no adequate response. The sad, one-dimensional leaders of empire challenge any new strategy meant to lead to health. If they don't like ecological restoration, what do they have to offer our collective grandchildren? If they don't like permaculture, let them then defend industrial agriculture. If they don't like population control, let's hear from them what they have to offer in view of the reality that we all see. Every patriarch in a position of power in every mass institution bears responsibility. It is obvious now that their refrain of growth and material wealth is not the answer.

We need to maintain perspective on the cult of scientism. It is discredited by its works. We live on a rapidly dying planet. We can't let the group that has led us to the brink of annihilation convince us that more of the same is a solution.

All Is Mind

The philosophical materialists of the modern empire, including mechanist/reductionist science, Marxist and Capitalist political theory and even such things as modern industrial medicine, would have us believe that we are simply the manifestation of chemical reactions in the cells. In the estimation of the philosophical materialist, the knowledge that seeds have of when and where to germinate, the migration of birds, the complex self-regulation of organic bodies comes about because of chemical reactions. They assume that consciousness is a result of chemical reactions in the brain.

This, we would say is part of the whole accomplishment of empire culture to denature and de-sacralize life to the point of meaninglessness. If we are conditioned to experience our lives as only marginally meaningful, we certainly will invest little meaning in the life around us. The awe, mystery and wonder of the teeming life of our earth is reduced to a meaningless movement of substance.

Yet it is precisely the non-material that makes life real and meaningful. The test is in our awareness. Do we intuitively feel that our conscious awareness is some unexplained process of chemical and electrical reactions? It is joy, ecstasy, love and other feelings that make life worth living. In opposition to the dry pronouncements of science there is a rich fund of inherited wisdom. The large bulk of forager/hunters and aboriginals say they perceive a non-material, spiritual reality. They give varied impressions and descriptions of non-material dimensions.

Hindu yogis of ancient tradition, Hermeticists and others assert that All is Mind.11 All is mind say the ancients. Form is created by the imaging power of consciousness. Form is created using consciousness as material. Consciousness is light. Form is congealed light vibrating at a lesser vibration than pure light.

When one looks out into the cosmos at night, one sees points of light. This light is the refraction of pure light striking the cells in our eyes. We know intellectually that the cosmos is full of pure light going in all directions from those stars but most of us cannot perceive that light that is not first refracted from something material. We see darkness.



The next section is also great--From the Unseen to the Seen: The Manifestation of Material Reality in the Hopi View--but I'll just have to show some retraint here...Sorry!!


Lest one come away with the impression that Kötke is only concerned with some theoretical level of discourse, yet another level of abstraction, I'd also like to say that the purpose of Chapter 13 is to show what's wrong with the worldview that informs how we live and to describe how life really works. And the point of that is to give us a starting point for remaking the world. (Or at least to try something other than non-stop despair.)

Anonymous is rightly concerned about this: what is the point, after all, of detailing the deceptions, corruptions and cruelties which are the current socio-economic & political structures under which we live if we don't then examine the alternative(s)?

Another resource on this whom I've quoted in the past is Frans de Waal, who turns Darwin, Malthus, Smith & Machiavelli on their pointed little heads in Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. Love and consciousness are the agents of life, the ground of being, not tooth, fang & claw (or Standard Oil or the "global economy").

So, where to, if not the "nowhere" that Jeff suggests as the only direction our "leaders" have in mind?

In the past, we've talked here about how we could change all that's wrong with us and the world through some very basic, easy-to-grasp, hands-on activity, and that is what it's all going to come down to--actually building some stuff and physically moving into our new worlds--but information is still crucial at this stage, since most folks only vaguely realize that anything is wrong and have even less of an idea of what else is possible.

One good starting point for both the constitutionally incurious and those who've fallen down enough rabbit holes and want to finally act is the work of writer/activist Frances Moore Lappé. You can visit her SmallPlanet website here. I talked to Lappé a few months ago about one facet of my vision of a better world--a world based on abundance, instead of the scarcity regimes which reign unchallenged or even unrecognized for that matter--and I asked her how she would move us into that very differrent world.

She answered by talking about the extreme coincidence of my question, in that she'd just written a book exploring that very thing. It's called Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage and in a World Gone Mad. In it, she considers the problem this way: Why do we keep building a world we do not like?

Sure, we might bitch about what's wrong (if we've gotten the point where we're questioning things as they are), but every day we spend at our stupid jobs is just placing one more brick in The Wall. The reason Lappé puts forth is that we can't conceive of any other way to live.

Why else, for example, do we persist in giving our attention to so-called elections when we know that there is no significant difference between any of the candidates? Lappé has more faith than I do in the possibility of political reform, but that's not saying too much...

So, check her out, and sorry for the saga. (Oops! Forgot to thank Mark & Sounder for being such good tribe-mates. Great good vibes to the rest of y'all--it really works if the message is sincere!)

1/06/2008 06:30:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Some interesting work on the early alchemists can be found at this link........Talk about intelligent design..

http://www.johndee.org/

with special consideration given to chapter 6 of the Calder essay.

Dee was a cabalist and most interested in the development of the "alphabet" from sources not of this planet.

Michael Tsarion has a book out this month that discusses the origins of civilization being of Irish descent.

He doesn't mince words when he says that Jews and Christians stole their religion from the Irish. Let the light in. You don't have much time.

http://www.irishoriginsofcivilization.com/

1/06/2008 06:39:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Wow, you really are back IC, and you are welcome to speak for this tribe anytime.

Santiago, your stuff is strong. Thanks.

1/06/2008 07:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's my take on Lappe, Kotke, etc. (as posted at http://gnn.tv):

OK I, (yes drew hempel, MA), am hanging at a local Dunn Brothers cafe in Minneapolis. This coffee chain – about 10 stores in the Twin Cities — buys its coffee from a St. Paul company called “Cafe Imports” which has some fair-trade organic brands. “Cafe Imports” is trying to use biodiesel fuel and become “sustainable,” using, basically, total cost accounting while offering field trips for cafe owners to see where the coffee is from.

Now I just bought some El Salvadoran fair-trade organic for a xmas present as my brother-in-law was in Reagan’s military down there where he was forced to have gay sex while he was 14 or so. My dad’s a big Reaganite, former corporate lawyer, so it all comes full circle.

I recently read Larry J. Kolb’s book “America At Night: The true story of two rogue CIA Operatives, Homeland Security Failures, Dirty Money, and a Plot to Steal the 2004 U.S. presidential Election — by the former intelligence agent who foiled the plan” (NY: 2007).

As a former GNNer, I’d be curious to see what the GNNers think of Larry J. Kolb, considering the book crosses the whole liberal-progressive business angle of GNN and Anthony’s mom — treading into CIA territory as “progressive.”

I was reading Francis Moore Lappe’s recent book that was plugging Organic Valley — the largest organic farm cooperative in the U.S. I had helped invest in the beginning development of that business while I was living at Lothlorien co-op in Madison WI.

Wayne Madsen exposes the CIA’s use of cooperatives in East Timor and Ethiopia — creating slave labor conditions — through a national cooperative board that is now part of an anarchist cooperative workers association. A former anarchist cooperative organizer in Minneapolis now sits on that national workers cooperative association, Tom Pierson, and he told me he would investigate the CIA ties to this workers cooperative association member. Too little too late.

Meanwhile the only real “grassroots” cooperative in the Twin Cities, North Country Co-op, shut-down due to too much dependence on bank loan micro-management restrictions. The bank stated: You must upgrade to the highest technology available despite the cost.

Even though Larry J. Kolb worked to save John Kerry from being sabotaged by a former CIA, turned dirty agent operative for the Republicans…. it seems that this is all wasted effort.

I was just talking to an Egyptian restaurant owner about this — he completely understands how Bin Laden, Sadam Hussein, etc. were created by the CIA and oil money but then turned out bad, just like Bush and Nasser — of his country, Egypt.

I pointed out that the Democrats are just as much controlled by the CIA as the Republicans — just the Democrats are focused on more high tech industry while the Republicans are more extraction and construction, etc.

I appreciate the exposes of the CIA drug dealing on GNN and the continued good alternative news but I need to inform you all of some developments in the progressive activist scene.

As GNNers know I work at Clean Water Action. I was written up for “spreading misinformation” because I read the National Board of Director notes and found out to what extent this “grassroots” nonprofit relies on “restricted” corporate grants.

Just as Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair have detailed — when the Rockefellers sit on these Environmental Grantmaker Association type boards — like the Beldon Fund which gives Clean Water Action $1 million a year — then these “progressive groups” inevitably have their policy lobbying and organizing watered down.

The Beldon Fund shuts down next year (which has up till now funded some 30 different progressive groups for a total of about $10 million a year in grants). But luckily our new director formerly managed the Sierra Club’s 80 million dollar stock market fund. I’m sure it’s completely socially responsible! EXCUSEMYSARCASM.

Just as Robert Kennedy exposed that the CIA controls the progressive movement through national grant foundation fronts — so too has this continued ploy become even more nefarious, as I’ll explain.

There’s a new book out:

Activism Inc.,: How Outsourcing Canvassing has Strangled Progressive Politics in America by Columbia University Professor Dana Fisher (Stanford U Press, 2006).

I wrote Professor Fisher that what she describes — how the Democrats’ use of AMERICA VOTES has undermined local progressive organizing — is exactly what happened in my office. America Votes was created in 2003 for the John Kerry campaign and is continuing for the upcoming election.

I’ll spare you my office details, but suffice it to say the Progressive Action Network, which organizers several canvassing offices into a sort of “company union” mentality — while ostensibly “progressive” is actually anti-independent unions — sent out a manager memo attacking the focus of “Activism, Inc.”

Not surprisingly of course — but again this just shows that the “progressive” politics scene (even grassroots and ostensibly working FOR labor and social justice) is rife with hypocrisy that can not be solved through techno-fixes. In fact canvassers are increasingly being asked to read pre-arranged scripts from which they are not supposed to stray — national standardization. This just happened with the Sierra Club recently — “outsourced” canvassing with standardized pre-arranged politics. America Votes forced progressive activists into situations requiring “gag rules” — no discussion of personal politics while working as a grassroots activist!

In other words because America Votes relies on corporate donations (which are protected for election donations as free speech) — activists do NOT have free speech.

What could be more Orwellian.

These foundation-dependent grassroot nonprofits are too scared of being fined by the IRS for misuse of corporate restricted grant money on which they are now dependent. So this means watered-down campaigns, meanwhile the nuclear power plants are having their fuel rods crack unpredictably.

These once locally-based nonprofits are forced to compete with the new national Democratic America Votes corporate-funded “gag rule” canvassing (which does not require canvassers to fundraise).

So the situation — now with constant email surveillance, camera surveillence, the new FBI biometric database, new automation of workers (downsizing while speeding up work rates); the, as of 2000, FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, etc.) — is moving towards the Actual Matrix Plan as I first focused on here at GNN.

Now small companies, like the Cafe Imports mentioned above, are traveling around the world doing independent eco-tourism and social justice business, a la the Peace Corps, but, just as with GNN — these efforts are quickly co-opted by eco-fascism.

Medium-sized businesses selling organic food are now requiring biometric worker fingerprint i.d. scans — like LUNDS grocers here in the Twin Cities. You, as a worker, are tied to a particular computer, through your fingerprint.

Just as the Peace Corps is used by the CIA so too do the progressive democrats, like Keith Ellison, the only Muslim US Congressman (and whose campaign I worked on at Clean Water Action) just get used by the DLC — the Blue Dogs.

We might say that Paul Wellstone was the last of the old-school progressive democrats. He started out idealistic yet somewhat naive. He started criticizing the CIA and he got offed — conspiracy style. Now no one is innocent and the grassroots scene has been automated.

America Votes is now using new databases that are very similar to what Homeland Security relies on — targeting voters based on personal spending habits, etc. People are being treated as “ex-spendable.”

The Progressives have turned into Eco-Fascists just as eugenics used to be progressive: Sanitation and Sterilization = Mental Standardization.

Joining “Cold Mountain” spin-off “back to the land” alt-country music groups (or similarly styled businesses) will not solve this eco-fascism-techno-fix problem, just as Hitler’s “back to the land” Nazi youth groups did not alter the trajectory of that imperialist regime.

I told the director who wrote me up for “spreading misinformation” that I am willing to get microchipped if it makes me a more efficient worker.

What alternative do we have?

The Natural Resonance Revolution. Which, of course, means that this blog entry will self-destruct soon after you read it. There will be no responses on my part.

1/06/2008 07:22:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Nearly your first effort at 'resonating' GGG, and you threaten to erase it and you will not respond?

Puzzling, but this is your first writing that lets us see that you may not be the social retard that you appear to be most of the time.

1/06/2008 07:59:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah there's a lot out there on harmonics and healing and shamanism, etc.

I've corresponded with professor Joscelyn Godwin about my research on yin and yang as complimentary opposites. It amazes me that this angle is still left untouched by all these occult harmonic, sacred sound analysts! This site has a lot on this issue -- geometric mean, ratios, etc. but completely ignores this violation of the commutative principle as the secret of the law of three.

http://hanskayser.com/EZ/kayser2/kayser2/index.php

There is one way in which Godwins' analysis is justified: The Pythagorean Lambdoma or the Law of Pythagoras frequency as inverse of string length 1/2 to 2/1, 2/3 to 3/2, etc., as a graph, is the SAME as Cantor's "domain of rational numbers." Cantor argued that the domain of real numbers is a greater infinity even though it can't be graphed, since there's a greater number of irrational roots than there are rational roots of squares. This paradox was first recognized by Galileo who relied on the "inverse square" secret of Pythagoras.

This argument would be the acceptable counter-explanation to my analysis on harmonics except that, as I've pointed out, there is a fundmental difference between geometry and number, whereby the first irrational root is not justified as a number. This fundamental difference also exposes the asymmetry built into the rational number domain (because of the comma of pythagoras), thereby disproving Cantor and Galileo, etc..

1/06/2008 09:30:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cantor defines a lower infinite as that which does NOT include -- without defining what it does include. Cantor is relying on the proof by contradiction -- the conversion of number to geometry.

1/06/2008 10:34:00 PM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

"Economic growth, opportunity, free trade and all the rest of the sweet lies of the neo-liberal globalization that’s currently eating the fookin’ planet alive and concentrating wealth at a rate unseen since the last Tsar…are such powerful memetic talismans that we’re blinded by them, even when we know that they’re perfect perversions of the truth."

For what it's worth IC, I spent some time over the holiday with my brother. The company he wage-slaves for recently bought a company in China. So, pre-Xmas, they had a company meeting where the CEO shared some of his thoughts on his China trip.
These " thoughts" revolved primarily around the photos he took of some Chinese workers. One showed a Chinese welder wearing sandwich wrap & sunglasses instead of the standard welder's face-shield while he welded.
Another showed a Chinese fellow wearing a "hardhat" which consisted of a baseball cap with 3 phonebooks tied to the top of his head.
The CEO evidently found these photos hilariously funny in a laughing at rather than laughing with kind of way.
The only thing the CEO found more enjoyable than these photos was the fact that he only had to pay these folks 42 cents an hour.

Reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaal fucking funny, eh?

Another victory for "our way of life."

What I find especially interesting is the fact that since they started acquiring their raw materials from China, only about 2 months, they've had to scrap 2 million dollars worth of product because by using Chinese raw materials their product no longer passes US inspection standards.

I suppose if it were a sane world these gents would look at this and just scrap the whole project, but you and I both know they'll just finagle a lowering of the inspection standards.

Here's another factoid I heard recently. Evidently the human body adapts to any diet. For instance, say you grow up in Asia & your diet consists primarily of fish & rice, the body adapts.
The only diet the human body doesn't adapt to is the Western (i.e. American) diet.

So dude, should we strike up the band now, or wait for more evidence that we are right, always were right, & always will be right?


& Ericswan, this:

"The bible was written by the conquerers of pagans."

is right on the money.

Christmas doesn't have squat to do with Jesus.
This Xmas festival is old pagan magick, celebrated long before Jesus was a twinkle in Jehovah's eye. The Church fathers just grafted Jesus onto these pagan shenanigans because they really didn't have a choice.
The common folk were still holding their Wild Man festivals & fucking amongst the crops no matter how much the priests tsk-tsk-tsked.
Naughty common folk.

Santa is nothing more than a cleaned up & prettified version of The Wild Man. The Wild Man being the human representation of the god Pan.
Surprisingly, the church fathers found all this fucking in service to Pan & fertility a bit distasteful so, with Pope Gregory I's help, they took this goat-skinned Pan with cloven hooves, beard, horns, humpback, and stick, & magically transformed him into Satan.
Since Santa is an offshoot of Pan also, this would make Santa Satan's brother.

Before Gregory, Satan, when portrayed at all, was visualized as being beautiful since he was originally an upper-caste angel until his "dismissal from Heaven."

Curiously, there isn't much mention of Satan in the Old Testament. I suppose that's because old Yahweh was a crochety old bastard who didn't really need any help in fucking up your day.

The Yule Log, being a phallic symbol, should actually be called The Yule Dong. In essence, they lopped off Pan's huge wanker & made a decoration out of it.

Just like Christians, eh?

Even Old Saint Nick, Santa's Catholic alter ego has been scrubbed squeeky clean.
For instance, here's how the Old World Dutch portrayed Saint Nick:

"Far from being a fun-loving gift-giver, this seasonal visitor was a stern, dour, judgemental bishop who visited homes in full episcopal attire and demeanor. His purpose was a sober one: to judge good and evil. This grim man's visit was preceded by some anxious hours; to prepare for his visit, children crammed on church lessons, hoping to pass the ecclesiastical quiz that always preceded any candy or gifts...or sticks or pieces of coal.

"Five minutes before the saint's scheduled visit, children in Holland sang a ritual song welcoming him and praising his goodness. A shower of sweets thrown through the doorway signaled Nicholas' presence. Then he entered, somber and straight.

"His demeanor and mission were doleful enough, but there was also a note of terror in the person of Black Pete, the hairy, chained, horned, blackened, devilish monster who was Nicholas' servant.


"Black Pete's job was simple: He glared at the children while the saint drilled the tense youths in Christian verse. As Nicholas rattled off his questions-"What is the first commandment?" "Name the twelve apostles"- and the children struggled with their suddenly faulty memories, Black Pete stared balefully, clutching a gaping sack in his hairy claws. (Santa Claws?)
Every now and then he flashed his enormous canines and leaped, growling, toward the frightened children, threatening to beat them with his rod.

"If a child had been appallingly bad, Nicholas warned the youth that Black Pete would stuff transgressors into his yawning sack and carry them to some unknown hell until next Christmas. For the children, the message was clear: Know your scripture or be damned. Saint Nicholas always saved the "bad" children, however, and they received sticks or ashes instead of Black Pete's ultimate vengeance. Far from being a delightful custom, this visit from Saint Nicholas had all the festivity and lightheartedness of the Day of Judgement."


Maybe it's just me, but I see a visit from this religious psychopath putting a hell of a crimp in everyone's holiday shopping orgy. I doubt that the kiddies would be all that sparkly if they knew their gift recieving fate relied on playing early morning Bible quiz.


& triple Gee, I'm reading a book about Alexander Csoma De Koros, someone you should thank everyday for your interest in all things Tibetan. Mr. De Koros, a 5 foot tall masochistic Hungarian, spent 16 months in 1823 crouched in a freezing monk's cell on the fringe of the Tibetan plateau, subsisting primarily on tsampa,the Tibetan national staple made of rancid butter, water, tea, salt, and yak's blood, while he learned the Tibetan language. He then published the first Tibetan-English dictionary.
While De Koros was undoubtedly a nut, he was also a genius, and without him we wouldn't know a chakra from a Chaka Khan.

1/07/2008 01:53:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some of us neo-darwinist atheists find it offensive that our "philosophy" (how is it you know how I think?) gets blamed, by implication for everything wrong with the world.

From my point of view, all the things being blamed on Darwin here, were around long before he was born. Things like "abortion...infanticide, rape, and bestiality" are OUR fault? Please. All of these, excepting bestiality are commanded by "GOD" in the bible in one place or another, or in several...

Amoralists might believe that your emotions/abstractions aren't "REAL" in a literal sense, but we don't deny their existence as abstracts. Contrary to the idea that Darwinism supports a loss of these ideals, it merely attempts to explain how/why they arose. Indeed, darwinism would be forced to argue FOR most of these things, as their very existence proves their validity...

Although, I like the selective treatment of our beliefs, it seems right in line with a generally religious approach, historically speaking...

1/07/2008 10:48:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you neo-darwinist atheists don't like being accused of things, then perhaps you shouldn't be doing so yourselves. Please specify where in the Bible "abortion, infanticide and rape" are commanded by G-d and maybe you'll have a valid point. Describing the infanticide carried out by the Pharoah and Herod isn't the same thing as saying G-d commanded them. And I think you'll be REALLY hard pressed to find instances where abortion and rape are proscribed in scripture.

I myself was a quasi-agnostic/ atheist for a couple of decades until things finally clicked for me otherwise. However unlike you, I'm not trying to beat you over the head with my religious beliefs nor claim any special victim status because of them. All I'm trying to say is that until and unless you fully comprehend the tenets of a faith (and I make no such claim of expertise), you shouldn't throw stones.

1/07/2008 12:16:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

A common debating tactic, and a successful one in the eyes of many, is to say that whenever religion and science have a dispute about some question of fact, religion always loses. The implication is that religion should never make any factual claims, and it is even implied that religion has no contact with reality. Supporting evidence for this claim is said to include the physics of Galileo, the geology of Hutton and Lyell, the biology of Darwin, and the psychology of Freud and others. Religion, especially supernatural religion, has always lost in the past, and it will always lose in the future. We should either abandon it or at least adopt a liberal version that makes no testable claims. There are several problems with the above scenario. First, strictly speaking, the disputes were not really between science and religion; there were scientists on the “religion” side, and theologians on the “science” side. It would be more proper to make the claim that the argument was between naturalistic and supernaturalistic philosophies. If so, the Galileo affair does not really belong with the other examples. The Galileo affair resulted from the reaction of the Catholic Church,which had just been rocked by the Protestant Reformation, to the cosmology of Copernicus. The only issues which might impact the conflict between naturalistic and supernaturalistic philosophy were whether incidental details in the Bible were to be treated as ontologically (really) accurate, or merely phenomenologically (only describing appearances) accurate, and the authority of the Catholic Church. As far as I know, it does not even involve the authority of the Pope speaking ex cathedra, as I know of no such pronouncement of the Pope on the Galileo affair. It could be (and has been) argued that the other “advances” listed above were not really advances. Certainly a creationist will not find them very persuasive. But there is a more basic flaw in the argument. Specifically, there are important counterexamples to the argument. Religion does
not always lose. We need to rephrase the above statement to give it more empirical content, because we can never be completely certain that science has a particular theory. Even if a theory appears to be well ahead of another, it is always possible that more evidence will tip the scales in favor of the currently out-of-favor theory. Thus a believer in naturalism could always claim that in a given subject where a supernaturalist explanation fits best with the known facts, more facts will tip the scales. Just wait a while; your supernatural explanation will turn out to be wrong or unnecessary. Of course, a supernaturalist could argue in a similar manner. And both statements are basically faith statements. The only evidence we can have for them is that the same process has occurred in other areas of knowledge in the past. So we will rephrase the proposition more carefully. Scientific and historical hypotheses arising from and/or compatible with supernaturalistic philosophy sometimes have considerably more empirical support than hypotheses arising from and/or compatible with naturalistic philosophy. Perhaps more importantly, this support has, in some cases increased with time. In the domain of history, one counterexample to the “religion always loses” argument is the reliability of the chronology of the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Bible. For a long time, skeptics believed a “Biblical” chronology did not exist, and that what confused pieces of chronology did exist were totally incompatible with the “real”, secular chronology. After Thiele, the chronology of Kings and Chronicles was (and is) seen not only as coherent, but able to serve as a corrective to secular chronology. A Biblical approach has won, or at least has shown itself to be much better at explaining the data. Religion did not lose in this case, and it appears unlikely to lose in the future here. Another counterexample is the book of Daniel, where skeptics originally confidently stated that Belshazzar never existed, that the chronology was hopelessly confused, and that since the entire book was fiction, there was no point in looking for the characters in history. With time, that view of history has been forced to change. Belshazzar not only existed, but also turned out to be the crown prince (also king in Hebrew parlance), able only to offer the third rulership in the kingdom. The chronology of Nebuchadnezzar taking captives from Jerusalem turns out to have been precisely correct. Perhaps most interesting, the names of Daniel and his three friends have been found in Babylonian documents. This does not mean that every statement in the book of Daniel has been confirmed. The identity of Darius the Mede is still in doubt (although we have not eliminated all candidates). But the case for the historicity of Daniel is clearly better than it was in the past. Religion is winning here. These cases are from history. Can the same be said of science?

If one is a Seventh-day Adventist, it can. For over a century, Adventists defended, on the basis of what they believed to be inspiration, the view that tobacco was an insidious but deadly poison. At the time this view was not shared by the scientific community, but over the last 50 years the evidence has become overwhelming that the hypothesis originally associated with religion was correct. Religion did not lose here. The same comments, although not quite as vigorously, can be made about vegetarianism. But it could be countered that these supernaturalist positions were sectarian, and in any case did not deal a major blow to naturalism. Are there any cases more directly relevant to the creation-evolution controversy? It turns out there are. The first example is in cosmology. The question at issue was whether the universe extended backwards in time indefinitely or if there was a finite limit to the age of the universe. The former was strongly favored by most scientists, often with an explicit anti-supernatural bias expressed as the reason for their preference. This bias formed a major part of the objection to Big Bang cosmology. If the universe had a beginning, it at least suggested that it might require a Creator. The desire to protect an eternal universe was so great that in attempting to do so, Einstein made what he later called his “greatest mistake”, introducing a cosmological constant into the equation for the universe to keep it roughly static. However, the weight of evidence now is solidly behind the concept that the universe did have a beginning. Religion is not losing here. Another example is the existence of vestigial organs. Vestigial organs have been used as an argument against design, and therefore against a designer, since Darwin. In the classical exposition, Wiedersheim listed over 150 structures that he considered vestigial. He was careful to note that some of them, such as the thyroid and adrenal glands, probably had some function, in which case they might not be truly vestigial, and that this could be the case with other organs. But some of his followers were not so cautious, and it was not uncommon for such organs as the thymus, the pituitary, and the appendix to be written off as completely useless. This lack of caution was necessary if vestigial organs were to be used against believers in design, because if there was some function that could be attributed to them, then their existence in a designed organism would not count as evidence against a designer. However, this lack of caution was ill-advised, as further investigation has found a reasonable function for all these structures, destroying, sometimes dramatically, the argument against design. It could be argued that in this case anti-supernaturalist prejudice actually was detrimental to science, tending to cause scientists not to investigate possible functions for a structure because the prejudice was that it had no function. It could be further argued that anti-supernatural prejudice actually killed people. The spleen was written off as a practically useless organ that we would be better off not having, as it tended to bleed when it got injured. Its only use was to show that humans and dogs, for example (where it stores blood for autotransfusion in case of bleeding), shared a common ancestor. As a result, when it did get injured, it was commonly removed, without any attempt to preserve its function. It was only later that it became apparent that not having a spleen predisposed one to overwhelming pneumococcal infections. Surgical practice today is to preserve splenic function whenever possible, either by repairing the spleen, or failing that, by leaving small bits in the abdomen and hoping that they attach themselves. History repeated itself with the “junk DNA” controversy. When DNA was discovered, many evolutionists predicted that there were vast quantities of totally useless DNA in the genome of various organisms including humans. They were perhaps ignoring evolutionary theory in their anti-supernaturalist bias. But the point remains that supernaturalists generally made a better prediction about the extent of “junk DNA”, and that in this case an anti-supernaturalist bias actually hindered research (the reverse of what is usually claimed). This brings up an important point. One of the reasons “science” (naturalism) claims not to lose is that it incorporates findings which were originally thought to favor “religion” (supernaturalism). Thus the temporality of the universe, and some other ideas such as the harmfulness of tobacco, are simply incorporated into the naturalistic model, and the modern believer in naturalism often may not be aware of the religious overtones to the previous controversies. The topic is viewed as simply another example of the steady advance of science. The same could have been true for religion. For example, most theologians have incorporated a heliocentric view of the solar system into their theology. But the believers in naturalism will not let them forget that at one time the majority of Christians (not all) disagreed with the heliocentric theory, and the Catholic Church disagreed strongly enough that it forced Galileo to recant and banned his books, an action it has been forced to repudiate. The Church was in error here. But if one can hold modern Christianity accountable for the mistakes of the majority of its predecessors, one can also hold naturalism accountable for the mistakes of the majority of its predecessors.

This brings us to a final point. The argument that “religion always loses” is used to avoid having to deal with some subject where supernaturalism is apparently winning at present, and where if it wins, naturalism is dead. Naturalism can survive the historicity of the numbers in Kings and Chronicles, or the toxicity of tobacco, or even (as deism) the Big Bang. Naturalism cannot survive without a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. And yet there is not such an explanation, not even a remotely plausible one. The more we know, the worse it looks.
Naturalism implicitly recognizes this. The best evidence for this is the insistence on the monophyletic origin of life. In the face of the Cambrian explosion and different genetic codes for some organisms (e.g., Paramecium), naturalists continue to insist that all organisms on Earth share a common ancestor. If they really believed that life were that easy to start, they would simply accept the hypothesis that it started a number of different times. The fact that they insist on the monophyletic origin of life is testimony that they implicitly recognize that it is extremely difficult to get life started even once, let alone multiple times. But believers in naturalism are absolutely committed to a naturalistic origin for life. Some idea of the strength of the commitment can be gathered from a passage in an excellent (and still accurate) book by Robert Shapiro entitled Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth. In it he points out the flaws of the various theories, finally opting for a theory of short non-modern peptides as the least problematic. But on p 130 he displays his own viewpoint: Some future day may yet arrive when all reasonable chemical experiments run to discover a probable origin for life have failed unequivocally. Further, new geological evidence may indicate a sudden appearance of life on the earth. Finally, we may have explored the universe and found no trace of life, or processes leading to life, elsewhere. In such a case, some scientists might choose to turn to religion for an answer. Others, however, would attempt to sort out the surviving less probable scientific explanations in the hope of selecting one that was still more likely than the remainder. So naturalism requires a defense against the obvious. And the best defense is, “We have never lost yet. You always do if you wait long enough.” In the case of the origin of life, it appears that naturalism would have lost a long time ago if its adherents had not refused to recognize the loss. The major problem with the “religion always loses” defense is that it is not true. Even in hindsight it is not true without distorting the record, and from a prospective point of view (the only point of view from which we can currently view the future), it is certainly not true. It should be recognized as what it is, a faith statement disagreeing with the apparent lessons of history. Religion does not always lose.

1/07/2008 12:33:00 PM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

"Religion does not always lose."

Gee whiz, considering that something like 90+% of the world's population professes belief in a creator entity, I don't think religion ever loses.
If anything science has barely made a dent in the world's supernatural belief system.

In 1889, the Italian Arturo Graf proclaimed that the Devil had been killed off by the progress of science: "Civilization has conquered Hell and has forever redeemed us from the Devil."
A quite premature & unsubstantiated claim since many Christians still regard the Devil as a living entity.
In 1964, a survey of Americans showed a 37% belief in the literal reality of Satan, which increased to 48& by 1973 & then to 60% by 1982.

In the 2nd book of Saint Augustine's On The Christian Doctrine, he discusses what arts and sciences are suitable for a Christian to study. He states that logic can be helpful for a better understanding of Christianity, but it must be used with caution, as it can lead to opinions contrary to the true faith.

While I find it refreshing that his Saintness outright admits that religious belief can't stand up under logical scrutiny, I think most Christians, or religious folk in general, have obeyed his warning quite well by doing a bang up job of not letting anything as troublesome and annoying as reason or logic stand in the way of their belief in fairy stories.

I don't foresee that changing anytime soon.

1/07/2008 02:46:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

WTF...Jeff, is the board being hacked or attacked or some shit? Got the SUSPENDED screen, then a simpler error "can't connect" screen, now when I click on the board a popup asks me to "download" something.

1/07/2008 05:27:00 PM  
Blogger surrender said...

From the Final Empire:

"If the public were to understand that each of us is a conscious being living within other conscious beings, such as Gaia, the whole life of the earth, the purpose of public life would change. This would threaten the status of the scientific/military/industrial elites who now control and profit from the production of material goods and the control of money.

We live at a time of dissolution of human social bodies as well as the unraveling of the life force of our planet. This gives us all a sense of confusion and contradiction within existing social realities. Our response must be to turn to the enduring cosmic patterns of life, toward the healing of life. Because of the depth of the crisis our response must be equally fundamental. We are proposing to create no less than a completely new human culture that relates to the earth in a completely different way. We seek power, the power to endure. We are coming out of a position of weakness in which the power to kill and coerce was seen as the road to utopia. Now that the weakness of that conception is displayed in the planetary suicide of this final cycle of empire, those who choose to respond in a positive way need gather the seeds of Natural cultures and the truly beneficial things created by civilization and carry them through the apocalypse.

Our effort is to regain personal, social, ecological and cosmic balance. We propose to do this by adopting the natural pattern of life on this planet as our guide. The natural world is a world of shared energies. The life giving sunlight is captured by the green plants for transformation into living vegetation. The life energies circulate, transform and continue to circulate through the web of life. With this circulation, a slow build-up of the soil occurs to provide for the planet's further ability to support green plants that can capture more energy, driving the system to its climax of biological succession, its dynamic balance within the life of the planet.

Just as the balance of energies within the human organism is consciously maintained among a vast array of different substances and nutrients, dynamic balance is maintained in the planetary organism by multi-billions of constantly interacting life processes. Just as the intellect alone could never guide and administer the functions of the human body, there is no way that human intellect could make decisions about the life of the Earth that would be superior to the Cosmic Intelligence that has created and maintained it."

It seems to me, stated in the most simple way; science and religion have separated humans from each other and nature.

With the gift of imagination and creativity, science and religion can and will unite us when the Source becomes the primary focus of our consciousness.

1/07/2008 05:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Specifically the popup says...

"Do you want to save this file?

Name: board
Type: Unknown File Type, 14.3 KB
From: rigorousintuition.ca"

1/07/2008 05:30:00 PM  
Blogger Jeff Wells said...

"WTF...Jeff, is the board being hacked or attacked or some shit?"

I don't think it's being hacked. It looks like a server-side Apache error. I can't see anything on my end that is causing it.

1/07/2008 05:35:00 PM  
Blogger sfnate said...

I'm seeing the same "prompt to download" message using both IE and Firefox... I'd love to download the whole discussion board into my computer, but I don't think there's room for all of you. ;-)

1/07/2008 05:37:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...

can't access the discussion board


hmmmm...

1/07/2008 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger Joe Adams said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

1/07/2008 05:57:00 PM  
Blogger Joe Adams said...

This stuff happens all the time.
No need for hysteria :)

I blame Clinton.

1/07/2008 06:02:00 PM  
Blogger Jeff Wells said...

The problem with the forum has been corrected. The host was doing some upgrades.

If you're still getting an error window or a download popup, just clear your cache and that should do it.

1/07/2008 06:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just saw "The Orphanage" which is way better than the director's earlier "Pan's Labyrinth." So I doubt you'll hear much about "The Orphanage."

I've been dissing the whole trendy "cosmic horror" genre over at webofmimicry.com -- it's the same problem with Kotke's "The Final Empire" only in reverse.

The West is based on dismissing the concept of harmony as FORMLESS awareness -- not some balance of ecology or justice but only something can be heard as the source of time.

So in Cosmic Horror (Algernon Blackwood's "The Willow" to H.P. Lovecraft, etc., and, of course this new "Orphanage" movie) there's this obsession with spirits that can be called down while the reality of a nondual "empty awareness" -- the female foundation -- is lacking.

1/07/2008 08:07:00 PM  
Blogger Mark said...

This is amusing: Fox News' Hannity being chased by a bunch of Ron Paul supporters. Looks like a revolutionary mob is getting mad at the media, though the media (surprise, surprise) is not covering it.

Background of interest on Hannity: He admits he was invited to Bohemian Grove, though...


Sean Hannity Fox News Shills for Bohemian Grove (Mark Dice)
05:41
Added: 1 year ago
From: TheResistance
Views: 86,101

Sean Hannity Chased Down By Angry Republicans [I think this was in New Hampshire a day ago, Fox surely won't show this.]
02:03
Added: 18 hours ago
From: mabusmojo66
Views: 6,840

Fox Debate Results: Paul Supporters Driving Hannity Crazy
00:25
Added: 4 months ago [i.e., not recent news or poll]
From: danconia3873
Views: 89,719
[IT shows the Fox poll with Ron Paul very much ahead--over double the percentages--of the official state terrorism party candidates of Giuliani and McCain.]

Ron Paul and Sean Hannity Spar (09/05/07)
05:20
Added: 4 months ago
From: danconia3873
Views: 28,618

Meanwhile, it's all cosmetic. The vote machines will elect the next president, not the Americans.

New York State is being sued by the (Bush Administration's) Justice Department because the State has not implemented the unverifiable vote machine instant coup infrastructure in that 'blue state' despite it being required before 2008 to pass that State's voting machines to fascist Republican operatives.

With the vote machines in someone's pocket, expect a Clinton/CIA lineage or its proxy to continue domination of the left wing Republicans (aka the Democratic Party) and the New York State (Senator Clinton's state), and the right wing Republicans (aka the Fourth Reich Nazis) to continue to dominate the Republicans.

1/07/2008 10:54:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Santiago, not so strong this time. First off, historical accuracy is not proof or even evidence of supernatural origin. Also, natural as well as supernatural explanations both suffer to the extent that their initial assumptions are unexamined. You may assume that the Bible is ‘the word of God”, while I assume that it is the word of man, shopping around for greater credibility. There is wise stuff in it and I do consider that God works in mysterious ways, but the corruption and fawning to authority it seems to engender cannot be ignored. Religion, for me, is the claiming of dictates of men as being the dictates of God. Because this is blasphemy to me, I am not inclined to look to religion for spirituality.

G3 said...

“In such a natural state the mind can then be focused on what we conceptually choose, as we are in peace without distractions from emotionally controlled memories (i.e. demonic possession).”

A conceptual choice still seems to come from thought. And how can something that is formless also be female?

G3, good call on the corrupting elements within activism. How long did it take for you to figure that one out? G3 you are better when you pull the leash on your obsession.

Anon 6:09

"I am curious, however, as to whether this blog, and its friends, are here to weep for the world, or are actually interested in "changing" it in some fashion. I have seen a lot of theories as to what is wrong, and little in the way of practical solutions."

My solutions center on the creating of new criteria for understanding. It is my opinion that our current pictures are crude (scientific and religious) and creates all too much room for psychotic actors. I am always open to critique or editing help for the writing on my blogspot.

1/08/2008 06:10:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Mark..Happy New Year. I would like to suggest that you add neighbourhood activism to your repertoire.

Richard..Your Santi sounds like my Santi. It's almost a given that as soon as "Truth" pops up it's head, someone's going to take it off. The bible is a cook book.

1/08/2008 08:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://letaripper.blogspot.com/

potential open source magnetic engine

if tis true

it may change everything

1/08/2008 09:43:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This question: "how can something be formless that is also female?" is an excellent one that has been asked elsewhere.

Female does not refer to physiology or sex but rather to the inherent desire within the complimentary opposites of number.

Number and language in the West is based on a MALE axiom: "I Am that I Am" whereby time is MALE (the image of eternity) reduced to distance as geometry that contains infinity in form.

So the question can be reversed -- why is time male? Why is one as number (Simon Stevin) when originally, by Euclid, number was a "collection of units." Again the issue is a switch from right-brain sacred geometry to left-brain axioms using the I-One-Eye, as I call it.

In contrast 2 is the first female number as form, one is not a number, but the male symbol of infinity with a female formless source that resonates one into two, which then resonates into 3, the first male number of form. 2/3 is the first physical product of form, resonating as the infinity spiral with time as frequency of complimentary opposites (in contrast to Western-based "containment of infinity" through male time as geometric distance).

The two is the water of the body -- turned to heat-bliss, the three is the electromagnetic-light of the upper body. The one is the earth or man -- in the heart chakra -- with it's source as "essential nature" or female formless awareness.

Keep in mind that the octave, 1:2, does not line up with the fifth, 2:3 which inverts in violation of the commutative principle, in regard to the octave. Therefore reality is inherently gendered.

1/08/2008 01:30:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

There is a lot of confusion about methodological naturalism. Most people, and most scientists, can see that there is a naturalism that is a philosophy, and could therefore be called philosophical naturalism. Many scientists (including some Christians) say that whether they believe in naturalism or not, when they do science, they take only naturalistic causes into account. They label this "methodological naturalism" and assert that it is not philosophy, but only method. Thus in their view it does not have to be defended as philosophy. There are two major problems with this approach. The first is that it is not accurate. It is appropriate to look for natural causes for a given phenomenon. That is methodological naturalism. But as soon as one says that methodological naturalism is the only proper way to do science, one has stepped over the line of methodology and into philosophy, and is now espousing philosophical naturalism. That is because there is no scientific way to demonstrate that methodological naturalism is the only way to do science. As soon as one drops the requirement that methodological naturalism is the only way to do science, methodological naturalism can no longer classify supernaturalism as pseudoscience, let alone superstition, at least *a priori*.

The second major problem is that methodological naturalism cannot do the work that its proponents wish it to do. It cannot exclude intelligent design. For the theory of intelligent design is
compatible with space alien design, which would not strictly speaking be excluded by methodological naturalism. Space aliens would, after all, be natural. The problem believers in naturalism have with admitting this is that, once one agrees that the evidence we have overwhelmingly argues for an intelligent cause for life, or even for any part of life (say, the bacterial flagellum or the Cambrian explosion), then they have to admit that the evidence overwhelmingly argues for the supernatural. For if life on this earth required intelligence to get it going, then would life on some other planet, or outer space, not also require intelligence to get it going? And one can only go back some 13 billion years and the intelligence cannot be dependent on the structure of matter, which pretty much requires it to be supernatural. The usual argument against intelligent design is in fact not that of methodological naturalism, but philosophical naturalism. It goes
like this: There is no God (philosophical naturalism). Space aliens are not a final answer (that's why they want them off of the table). Life is here. Therefore there must be some explanation for the origin of life, the bacterial flagellum, the Cambrian explosion, etc. And it must be naturalistic, otherwise we would have to go back to God, and we can;t go there. Like it or not, methodological naturalism does not solve the problem. The claim that methodological naturalism is foundational to science is a philosophical claim, no more valid philosophically without
supporting evidence than the claim that the Bible is true. And in fact, the evidence for intelligent design strongly argues that it is not valid.

1/08/2008 01:55:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah Americans purchase merchandise from the East and men from the U.S. military are being picked off a little bit at a time in the Middle East. We live in a nightmare world. I'm wondering if the depleted uranium has damaged the life of the Euphrates River? The reader may know about the damage that has been done to the Nile River in Egypt. Now possibly the Euphrates as well. Both of the major rivers in the Middle East suffer.

President George Bush Sr. invades Iraq and the price of oil eventually skyrockets in U.S. with his son leading the way. All the death and destruction has been caused by George Bush Sr. as truest leader of the New World. How's this for a pick me up. Try all the American CEOs for treason and all high level politicians and former political leaders. If found guilty then lethal injection for them.

Those rich men from the East are getting wealthier every day. Wow China has gotten the world's attention again. We can simulate peace in the world with yet another Olympic games. Or we can try the high placed Asian CEOs for treason and political leaders and former politicians and if found guilty inject them with deadly poison. That is better than watching the world's people compete in sports.

Ah-so to you and good nite. May your hopes and dreams be a good reality.

1/08/2008 04:58:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

I wonder why I bother linking you to www.johndee.org? His argument is intellignet design but his designers were the living planets plus sun and moon. His math for formless is the monad. I Am That I Am is precessional. We have actually evolved the "I Am" thought in the Trinitarian tradition.

To put the dot on the i, Pythagoras processed creation from a dot to a line to a triangle which is not feminine formless but the holy holy Tetratkys. The effects of precession produce the effect of spiralling energies found in the key of Solomon symbol of the two triangles and represented by the mathetmatical constant called the quaternarion which is where the energy of the capstone we call ZPE is in the time/space constant which defines the math of throwing a stone into a pond and before that one disapates it's energy, throw another.

And to answer the question of first cause, rest assured, it's not God. It's zero and zero is infinite.

1/08/2008 05:04:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

The Catholic rosary originated in paganism; it was used by the ancient Mexicans, the Brahmins of hindustan, the tibetan priests of the tartary, and in the cults of Greece and Rome. Beads were commonly buried with the pharaohs of Egypt and used by the pagan cults of the east. They are used by Moslems today.

1/08/2008 10:05:00 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." "I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done."

1/08/2008 10:12:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/20308/lawrence-douglas-harris-sr



more witchcraft death in sioux city

1/09/2008 10:43:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Now this is a blog...

http://labyrinthofthepsychonaut.blogspot.com/

1/09/2008 12:07:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

it's the same problem with Kotke's "The Final Empire"…

Drew,

I don’t know whether to laugh or comment here, but I guess I’ll choose the latter, since that’s actually doing something.

What exactly is the problem with Kötke’s analysis? That he didn’t use your arcane theory of asymmetrical numerology engendered by formless awareness of the femininity of the universe to arrive at his conclusions? That he was using his left-brain to form his outlook and then delivered it via harmful male technology?

What do you think you’re doing when you dive into your mathematical model of reality? Is that really right-brain thinking, or do you open your consciousness to the formless format and derive your model intuitively, while no one else is able to be inspired, to have an intuition because they don’t have your secret decoder ring?

The first and most fundamental problem with your whole shtick is that you confuse your framework (all that endless babbling about even & odd numbers) with reality itself. Don’t you realize that it’s just a model of the universe and not the universe itself? Do you really believe that yours is the only valid, true representation of reality, that if we don’t look through your lens, then we’re not understanding anything?

A monopoly on truth, Drew?

All the great writers & thinkers, all the little people with their surprising epiphanies—none of them are worthwhile, none of their insights are true?

The second problem with your methodology is your conclusion: that there’s nothing to do, nothing that can be done, other than pretzling yourself in order to disrupt the Muggles’ mundane synaptical firing and maybe give any women lucky enough to find themselves in your vicinity an anonymous orgasm.

I know, I know: you practice the Taoist action-through-inaction. Very cosmic. Spoken like a true guru.

Can you really be so oblivious that you don’t realize that your descriptions of your antics and your superior knowledge reek of egotism? I would think that any self-respecting Zen master would realize the importance of putting the ego in its place; that, in fact, it’s precisely the preeminence of the ego in the world’s current Dominator culture that is the root of all our problems.

Strangely enough, old unenlightened Bill Kötke recognized this. In the passage that surrender quoted he talks about the need to shift our consciousness away from the ever desirous, never satisfied ego toward the greater whole, the earth itself, which includes all those little people who are never going to read your serial, mind-numbing abstractions and who don’t give a rat’s ass about your crystal ball.

You see, Drew, right action is possible. You might argue about the nature of Beauty, Truth and Goodness, but they exist as over-arching goals, ends in their own right (das Ding an sich) in everyone’s mind. A shovel may be a piece of technology, but it can be put to any use you want: it’s what you choose to do that constitutes Good or Evil, not the tools you employ.

And yes, you can find problems with the attempts that we humble peons make when we strive to make a better world, but it’s the striving toward the Good that embodies the human impulse to move toward the Light (Goethe’s streben nach). The question is whether one misstep by Frances Moore Lappé (or the sabotage on her work by your secret agencies) somehow negates the whole of her efforts.

When she talks about the dangers of the current acceleration of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a select, privileged elite or the thinness of our so-called democracy when the whole show is run by corporations, is this all invalidated because she once supported some coffee distribution outfit that she didn’t know was crooked?

This is another of your rhetorical tricks—if there’s one defect in a person’s thought or action, then the whole of their work must be suspect, right? You’ve dismissed Sheldrake, Bohm, Schauberger, Kötke...well, now that I think of it, every single person who attempted to change the world because of some technicality, some arcane transgression, some ignorance of your special, secret knowledge.

I’ll bet the CIA is really worried about your activities: “My God! That Drew Hempel is going to stop all those hippies and non-complacent wage slaves from trying to dismantle the plantation! We’d better keep an eye on that SOB!”

On the other hand, a super guru like you could obviously just give any approaching agent an orgasm, thus preventing him from harming you through the embarrassment of having creamed his jeans in the public. Oh, yeah, I forgot about your other super power: you could just scramble his synapses, make him forget why he’s in your coffee shop.

I guess you don’t need my advice after all. Keep up the good work.

(Btw, could you possibly tell me what’s wrong with Kötke’s assessment without whipping out your decoder ring, maybe in plain English; you know, actually talking about the things, the actual, down-to-earth ideas & things that he discusses? Or is the material realm—all that suffering & such-like—just an illusion, maybe an object lesson in our road to Nirvana? Are you a closet Cartesian metaphysician or does this duality not exist because this veil of Maya, this valley of tears isn’t really real?)

I'm so confused. What is real? Who could enlighten me? Oh, yeah. I just have to swallow all that bullshit and I'll be a super hero, too. (Where do you get the ring, though?)

1/09/2008 01:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm reading George Crane's 2000 book "Bones of my Master" about Ch'an monk Tsang Tsui who escaped the Cultural Revolution, travelling by foot across China. The Ch'an Monk now lives in the Catskill Mtns in New York and returned to inner Mongolia with George Crane who also lived nearby the monk.

This monk is the real thing and he states that everything comes from number -- using yin and yang. Contrary to Western interpretation Buddhism is not humanism but is shamanism. It's difficult for humans to accept that we live within Nature and we can not save Nature and that modern civilization is destroying Nature, replacing it with desert.

Nonwestern harmonics empties out physical and psychological ailments so that left-brain, right-hand dominant humans (civilized people) can return to their natural ecstasy with light emitting from their heart-mind, as expressed through the pineal gland. This is a physiological transformation best expressed while in the full-lotus. The result is direct, conscious resonance with female formless awareness -- pure knowledge that creates light and creates space and creates time.

This natural resonance process was the dominant practice for the Bushmen culture, representing 90% of human history. There was a lineage of this practice in the mystic traditions coming from the tantra practices of Dravidian culture spreading out of Africa.

Nonwestern music is not an ideology -- we can listen to the source of time as female formless awareness. Our bodies resonate with the 12 notes of the nonwestern music scale as the 12 notes along the outside of the body, the small universe practice. The lower half of the body is water-yin energy, electrochemical while the upper half is fire yang energy, electromagnetic which gets stronger when combined with the yin and then the yang energy resonates to the formless awareness which is also yin.

1/09/2008 03:13:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad to see you back IC. And thanks for articulating what perhaps most of us would have liked to have said. But then, whether Gee3 is oblivious (reads like it), deliberate or both, it's equally offensive and tiresome.

It requires an effort to create or encourage real communication within these artificial domains and to raise things above the collective expression of the Monkey Mind, (such as typically found in you-tube comments...)

If I wanted to find people to help me talk to myself, would I come here? (Okay...I'll think about that.)

But I want to push on some of the ideas you raised. One thing that worries me greatly is eco-fascism.

You know, Rothchild wanting a new global religion where people turn away from their selfish interests (not sustainable you see) towards some kind of earth worship. Gaia First, with the angelic children offering themselves up for sterilization, for the sake of the planet (and the carbon tax break for the family).

Reading "..the need to shift our consciousness away from the ever desirous, never satisfied ego toward the greater whole, the earth itself.." sets off alarm bells.

I still don't see what safe-guards there can be to stop us becoming the useful idiots of a global agenda if I have to digest the whole of The Bioregional State to understand the difference.

I'd also like to point out that shifting our consciousness to something bigger, like the Earth, has not necessarily got anything to do with transcendence of ego. Think of Nazi Youth putting the party first. Think of the whole new age moment, it's stage management, and the fascination the KGB had with the Americans returning from India as politically impotent navel gazers and what that has led to...gee.

Yes, let's dismantle the plantation, let's find out how, let's see just how much work is needed and if we are up to the task. But let's not help build another one.

1/09/2008 03:26:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

tazmic,

Absolutely right about the danger of eco-fascism and the possibility of transcending one's ego without necessarily embracing someone's idea of Gaian consciousness. These swords always seem to have two edges...

On the other hand, and in defense of both Bioregionalism and global consciousness, if the basis of the big change were autonomy on a personal level--including freedom from want and the ability to exercise one's creativity & imagination wheresoever one chooses--we wouldn't end up with a Leader but rather with a network, a living web of entangled souls. (I think we already constitute such an entity and just don't realize it yet...)

1/09/2008 03:40:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can humanity envision a better reality for both rich and poor? For people in high authority or not? Yes.

Glad you are typing again IC. Hope things are getting better for you.

All people that trust in their wealth cannot use it to save their fellow man from death. The wise man dies as the fool dies as the ignorant dies. But we think that our houses will continue for an eternity for the generations to come and we name our cities and towns by our own names. Those that are revered by us die as animals die. Because we are mammals all of us. We are not better than the other mammals on earth. We are equals with them and breathe the same air as our mammalian cousins do. We talk as people in our past had communicated believing that our lands and homes are forever. When we die we take nothing with us to the grave. For we bless ourselves and though men praise you when you do good for yourself we all go to the grave to where our ancients had gone to. If a man is highly respected and does not understand this he too is buried as a mammal is buried.

All go to one place and all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. If what you do gives you peace and contentment alive and you are happy as a result of this you can do no better in this short life on earth.

For some it is finding this happiness that has been frustrating. Still searching for peace as the heart grows ill suffering one disappointment after the next. Life can be as unforgiving as a stone. Drugs, sex, and disco, I mean rock and roll is the answer for most young people. Simply to have fun but consequences can be most difficult to bear and arrogance is the easiest path to tread. All parents know that patience is always better than pride. We need to practice this truth in our daily lives as best as we can. Because patience has always been better and always will be.

Ding ding a ding. The end. May you be blessed by the power behind the endless cosmos forever.

1/09/2008 05:10:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Death happens to all of us: Our hearts are full of calamity and loss of self control while we are alive and after that to the dead! For who is excepted? To all the living there is confidence: for a living coyote is better than a dead lion. For we know that we will die: but the dead do not know anything, neither do they have any advantage; for they do not have the ability to remember anything. Their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now clean gone forever as their ability to remember anything is. They have nothing to do with anything that happens with the living on the earth forever.

There is no work, or plan, or knowledge of anything, or understanding that all human labors deteriorate, in the grave to where we all go. We all need to go our ways, to eat, drink and be merry. When we have the time to do whatever we choose to do we need to do it while we are able, and have time to do it. Because we have a destiny in the grave that is final and once and for all. We do not know when calamity happens to us but it does and will happen to all of us alive. We all suffer misfortunes and traumas alive. But when we are dead we know of nothing.

1/09/2008 06:23:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The clearest and most concise inspired definition of death was written by Solomon, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
Immediately we are struck by the word “return.” After death everything seems to go back from whence it came. The dust returns to the earth from which it was taken, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Death is just the opposite of creation.
It is easy for us to picture the process of bodily decay and decomposition. We understand very well that the physical components of the body are the very same as the earth itself. When it is buried, the body reverts to the chemical elements of the ground from which the Creator took it in the beginning.
But what about the spirit which goes back to God That is not so easy to understand. There is not a man in the world who can explain it with human wisdom. Nevertheless, many verses in the Bible throw light on this crucial point. James wrote, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). The word “spirit” has a marginal reference which reads, “or breath.” This is very important. The actual root word in the Greek is “pneuma,” a word which means “breath” or “air.” We take our English word “pneumonia” from pneuma because it is a disease of the lungs, or of breathing. We have pneumatic tires, also derived from pneuma, because they have air in them. But that same Greek word “pneuma” also has another meaning. It means “spirit.” For example, the Greek term for “Holy Spirit” is “Hagios pneumatos,” “Holy Breath” or “Holy Spirit.”
This brings us to a very interesting conclusion. The words “breath” and “spirit” are often used interchangeably in the Bible. Job said, “All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27:3). Now, it doesn’t take a high degree of intelligence to know that Job was describing the same thing by the words “breath” and “spirit” Man has only breath in his nostrils. In fact, that is what God breathed into man’s nostrils at the time of creation. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
Now the picture begins to clear up. When Solomon described the spirit returning to God, he had to be referring to the breath, because that was what God gave in the beginning, and therefore, it was the only thing that could now “return” to the One who gave it. The marginal note for Genesis 7:22 refers to the breath of life as “the breath of the spirit of life.”
The psalmist describes death in these words, “Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created” (Psalm 104:29, 30). Here the order is reversed, and their breath returns to God at death. Solomon said the spirit returns. Here God gives the spirit to create, but Genesis says He gave the breath to create. It only makes sense when we understand that the two words are used interchangeably and mean the same thing.
Please take note that this “spirit of life” is not necessarily the same as the Holy Spirit, neither is the “breath of life” the same as the regular air we breathe. This breath or spirit is the special, life-giving power of God which makes the body a functioning organism. Read Genesis 2:7 again, and try to visualize the act of creation. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” We have no difficulty with this. We can see that dead body, perfectly formed and containing the very elements necessary for life. But there was no life. The heart wasn’t beating. The blood was there, but it wasn’t flowing. The brain was there, but it wasn’t thinking.
Then God added one more thing to the body He had made. He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Do not miss the significance of these words—they are often misconstrued. God did not put a soul into the body. He added only one thing—breath or spirit. Then, as a result of the body and breath uniting, man BECAME a soul.
Millions have accepted the false, traditional view that God put a soul into the body to create man. This is based entirely upon the common, erroneous doctrine of all non-Christian religions. In the Bible, except in poetical or allegorical usage, the soul does not go in and out of the body; neither does it have an independent existence outside of the body. Because the Greek word “psuche,” meaning “life,” has sometimes been translated as “soul” in our King James Version, some have drawn wrong conclusions; but only because they apply a false definition to the word “soul.” Millions have been taught that the soul possesses a natural immortality, and every time they read or hear the word they assume something that is totally false and unbiblical. Not even one time in the Bible is the soul referred to as being immortal or undying.
The fact is, the soul is the conscious life which resulted when God added the breath or spirit to the body. A simple illustration will help us see this truth more clearly. Let us liken the body to a light bulb. The electric current flowing into that bulb represents the breath of life which God put into the body, and the light itself will represent the soul which man became after the breath joined the body. As we look at the shining light we see a perfect representation of the completed creation. Now we press the button and turn the light off. What has happened The current has left the bulb, just as the breath leaves the body at death. Now where is the light Did it go up into the electric socket No, it simply ceased to exist when the current separated from the bulb. Then let us ask, where is the soul when the breath separates from the body There simply is no soul until, in the resurrection, God restores the breath of life to the body.
That should not sound so strange to us, now that we have discovered how everything “returns” at death to the way it was before. Before creation, man did not exist in some disembodied form. There was no personality, no conscious emotions before God added the breath to the body. At that moment man “became a living soul.” If the soul came to be as a result of that union, when does the soul cease to be Surely as a result of the breaking of that union.
Suppose we have two things before us: boards and nails. We take a hammer and drive the nails into the boards, making a box. Now we have three things instead of two; we have boards, nails and a box. Later, we carefully pull out the nails and lay them down beside the boards. Again, we have only two things before us: boards and nails. What happened to the box There is no box, because it requires the two things together to cause it to be.
In the same way God started with two things, the body and the spirit. When He put them together, the soul “became”—it came into being, it began to exist. At death, the wise man tells us, the spirit returns to God, and the body returns to dust. And nowhere in the Bible are we told that any soul survives the body, or continues to exist without a body. The soul, or the life, has no existence without the power of God residing in the body. At death that power is removed; it returns to God; and the state of that man is exactly what it was before the breath joined the body. That means no life, no consciousness, and no personality.
Even animals are referred to as souls in the Bible, because they have the same power from God to make them live (Revelation 16:3). The wise man wrote, “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other, yea, they have all one breath; ... All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20). This does not mean, of course, that man and animals have the same ultimate end. There will be a resurrection and judgment for God’s moral creatures, but life comes only from God, whether it be human or animal. And that life is often referred to in the Bible as the soul.

1/09/2008 07:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah it's a steep learning curve for some. I saw Polly Mann today. She co-founded Women Against Military Madness and I had interviewed her about 10 years ago for an activism zine I put out (co-produced by famed "terrorist" Sarah Jane Olson, aka Kathleen Soliah, victim of Cointelpro's SLA scheme).

Anyway I asked Polly Mann if she knew what kind of background checks Minnesota does when you get your driver's license renewed (my check to pay off an warrant for 60 days in jail after protesting the Navy's nuclear antenna system in WI has still not cleared). Not only was Polly Mann's husband a judge but she has a long history of civil disobedience connections. She didn't know but she asked me what I was doing these days, etc.

I recommended to her the book "Activism, Inc." by Columbia U Professor Dana Fisher. Polly then asked me if I'd read "Conjuring Hitler." She said it documents how the British and the U.S. created the Nazis, through overseas investment. I said, yes that's an excellent book but it references Anthony C. Sutton's "Wall St. and the Rise of Hitler," just as does best-selling author Kevin Phillip's "American Dynasty." Polly told me she was about to write a review of "Conjuring Hitler" for the WAMM newsletter (and also for her church peace network she organizes). I told her it's intriguing because Sutton was writing for the right-wing Hoover Institute and his sources are sketchy. So she immediately ordered the Sutton book from the reference librarian.

Now I mention this because in the U.S. we so commonly slip into "identity politics" without seeing the structural trajectory of technological investment that drives the war machine. Just as the U.S. and the U.K. wanted to cash in on the Nazi high-tech war machine (while the Nazi Youth Party preached back-to-the-land ideology) so too does the "progressive" movement preach "back-to-land" bioregionalism while ignoring (and sometimes even promotiong) the STRUCTURAL high-tech investments into genetic engineering (Paul Hawken's Natural Captialism gives a tenative green light to genetic engineering) or nanotechnology, etc.

It's just naive bourgeois techno-fixes without seeing the simple big picture: Synergistic destruction of nature by the oh-so pleasant, friendly power of the internet, cell-phones, lap tops, dvds and all the other high-tech goodies embraced by the left.

There's no turning back. Time in the West is controlled by mathematics which is only resolved through apocalypse. Time can be reversed through complimentary opposite harmonics though, again, only by examining the logical error at the foundation of Western civilization: Plato and Archytas.

1/09/2008 07:15:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Belliosto, what are you talking about? Are you quoting something? Using a cliche generator? What are you trying to say?

IC, is that what this is all about? To be free of want and to stretch our imaginations like children at play, (or to look at it differently, have the lifestyle of the landed aristocracy of 19th century britain available to all)?

If the 'big change were autonomy on a personal level' I doubt it would achieve anything in a divisive society where people can no longer relate compassionately with one another, where the greatest emotion is fear.

If there's going to be a big change to benefit everyone, then I'll happily give up my want free life and reign in my unimpeded imaginations, and limit my rampant creativity, in order to see it.

But I wont be bowing down to any man made idols along the way.

1/09/2008 07:31:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The law of love being the foundation of the government of God, the happiness of all created beings depended upon their perfect accord with its great principles of righteousness. God desires from all His creatures the service of love--homage that springs from an intelligent appreciation of His character. He takes no pleasure in a forced allegiance, and to all He grants freedom of will, that they may render Him voluntary service.

But there was one that chose to pervert this freedom. Sin originated with him who, next to Christ, had been most honored of God and who stood highest in power and glory among the inhabitants of heaven. Before his fall, Lucifer was first of the covering cherubs, holy and undefiled. "Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering. . . .Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee." Ezekiel 28:12-15.

Lucifer might have remained in favor with God, beloved and honored by all the angelic host, exercising his noble powers to bless others and to glorify his Maker. But, says the prophet, "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." Verse 17. Little by little, Lucifer came to indulge a desire for self-exaltation. "Thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God." "Thou hast said, . . . I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation....I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." Verse 6; Isaiah 14:13, 14. Instead of seeking to make God supreme in the affections and allegiance of His creatures, it was Lucifer's endeavor to win their service and homage to himself. And coveting the honor which the infinite Father had bestowed upon His Son, this prince of angels aspired to power which it was the prerogative of Christ alone to wield.

All heaven had rejoiced to reflect the Creator's glory and to show forth His praise. And while God was thus honored, all had been peace and gladness. But a note of discord now marred the celestial harmonies. The service and exaltation of self, contrary to the Creator's plan, awakened forebodings of evil in minds to whom God's glory was supreme. The heavenly councils pleaded with Lucifer. The Son of God presented before him the greatness, the goodness, and the justice of the Creator, and the sacred, unchanging nature of His law. God Himself had established the order of heaven; and in departing from it, Lucifer would dishonor his Maker, and bring ruin upon himself. But the warning, given in infinite love and mercy, only aroused a spirit of resistance. Lucifer allowed jealousy of Christ to prevail, and he became the more determined.

Pride in his own glory nourished the desire for supremacy. The high honors conferred upon Lucifer were not appreciated as the gift of God and called forth no gratitude to the Creator. He gloried in his brightness and exaltation, and aspired to be equal with God. He was beloved and reverenced by the heavenly host. Angels delighted to execute his commands, and he was clothed with wisdom and glory above them all. Yet the Son of God was the acknowledged Sovereign of heaven, one in power and authority with the Father. In all the councils of God, Christ was a participant, while Lucifer was not permitted thus to enter into the divine purposes. "Why," questioned this mighty angel, "should Christ have the supremacy? Why is He thus honored above Lucifer?"

Leaving his place in the immediate presence of God, Lucifer went forth to diffuse the spirit of discontent among the angels. Working with mysterious secrecy, and for a time concealing his real purpose under an appearance of reverence for God, he endeavored to excite dissatisfaction concerning the laws that governed heavenly beings, intimating that they imposed an unnecessary restraint. Since their natures were holy, he urged that the angels should obey the dictates of their own will. He sought to create sympathy for himself by representing that God had dealt unjustly with him in bestowing supreme honor upon Christ. He claimed that in aspiring to greater power and honor he was not aiming at self-exaltation, but was seeking to secure liberty for all the inhabitants of heaven, that by this means they might attain to a higher state of existence.

God in His great mercy bore long with Lucifer. He was not immediately degraded from his exalted station when he first indulged the spirit of discontent, nor even when he began to present his false claims before the loyal angels. Long was he retained in heaven. Again and again he was offered pardon on condition of repentance and submission. Such efforts as only infinite love and wisdom could devise were made to convince him of his error. The spirit of discontent had never before been known in heaven. Lucifer himself did not at first see whither he was drifting; he did not understand the real nature of his feelings. But as his dissatisfaction was proved to be without cause, Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong, that the divine claims were just, and that he ought to acknowledge them as such before all heaven. Had he done this, he might have saved himself and many angels. He had not at this time fully cast off his allegiance to God. Though he had forsaken his position as covering cherub, yet if he had been willing to return to God, acknowledging the Creator's wisdom, and satisfied to fill the place appointed him in God's great plan, he would have been reinstated in his office. But pride forbade him to submit. He persistently defended his own course, maintained that he had no need of repentance, and fully committed himself, in the great controversy, against his Maker.

All the powers of his master mind were now bent to the work of deception, to secure the sympathy of the angels that had been under his command. Even the fact that Christ had warned and counseled him was perverted to serve his traitorous designs. To those whose loving trust bound them most closely to him, Satan had represented that he was wrongly judged, that his position was not respected, and that his liberty was to be abridged. From misrepresentation of the words of Christ he passed to prevarication and direct falsehood, accusing the Son of God of a design to humiliate him before the inhabitants of heaven. He sought also to make a false issue between himself and the loyal angels. All whom he could not subvert and bring fully to his side he accused of indifference to the interests of heavenly beings. The very work which he himself was doing he charged upon those who remained true to God. And to sustain his charge of God's injustice toward him, he resorted to misrepresentation of the words and acts of the Creator. It was his policy to perplex the angels with subtle arguments concerning the purposes of God. Everything that was simple he shrouded in mystery, and by artful perversion cast doubt upon the plainest statements of Jehovah. His high position, in such close connection with the divine administration, gave greater force to his representations, and many were induced to unite with him in rebellion against Heaven's authority.

God in His wisdom permitted Satan to carry forward his work, until the spirit of disaffection ripened into active revolt. It was necessary for his plans to be fully developed, that their true nature and tendency might be seen by all. Lucifer, as the anointed cherub, had been highly exalted; he was greatly loved by the heavenly beings, and his influence over them was strong. God's government included not only the inhabitants of heaven, but of all the worlds that He had created; and Satan thought that if he could carry the angels of heaven with him in rebellion, he could carry also the other worlds. He had artfully presented his side of the question, employing sophistry and fraud to secure his objects. His power to deceive was very great, and by disguising himself in a cloak of falsehood he had gained an advantage. Even the loyal angels could not fully discern his character or see to what his work was leading.

Satan had been so highly honored, and all his acts were so clothed with mystery, that it was difficult to disclose to the angels the true nature of his work. Until fully developed, sin would not appear the evil thing it was. Heretofore it had had no place in the universe of God, and holy beings had no conception of its nature and malignity. They could not discern the terrible consequences that would result from setting aside the divine law. Satan had, at first, concealed his work under a specious profession of loyalty to God. He claimed to be seeking to promote the honor of God, the stability of His government, and the good of all the inhabitants of heaven. While instilling discontent into the minds of the angels under him, he had artfully made it appear that he was seeking to remove dissatisfaction. When he urged that changes be made in the order and laws of God's government, it was under the pretense that these were necessary in order to preserve harmony in heaven.

In His dealing with sin, God could employ only righteousness and truth. Satan could use what God could not-- flattery and deceit. He had sought to falsify the word of God and had misrepresented His plan of government before the angels, claiming that God was not just in laying laws and rules upon the inhabitants of heaven; that in requiring submission and obedience from His creatures, He was seeking merely the exaltation of Himself. Therefore it must be demonstrated before the inhabitants of heaven, as well as of all the worlds, that God's government was just, His law perfect. Satan had made it appear that he himself was seeking to promote the good of the universe. The true character of the usurper, and his real object, must be understood by all. He must have time to manifest himself by his wicked works.

The discord which his own course had caused in heaven, Satan charged upon the law and government of God. All evil he declared to be the result of the divine administration. He claimed that it was his own object to improve upon the statutes of Jehovah. Therefore it was necessary that he should demonstrate the nature of his claims, and show the working out of his proposed changes in the divine law. His own work must condemn him. Satan had claimed from the first that he was not in rebellion. The whole universe must see the deceiver unmasked.

Even when it was decided that he could no longer remain in heaven, Infinite Wisdom did not destroy Satan. Since the service of love can alone be acceptable to God, the allegiance of His creatures must rest upon a conviction of His justice and benevolence. The inhabitants of heaven and of other worlds, being unprepared to comprehend the nature or consequences of sin, could not then have seen the justice and mercy of God in the destruction of Satan. Had he been immediately blotted from existence, they would have served God from fear rather than from love. The influence of the deceiver would not have been fully destroyed, nor would the spirit of rebellion have been utterly eradicated. Evil must be permitted to come to maturity. For the good of the entire universe through ceaseless ages Satan must more fully develop his principles, that his charges against the divine government might be seen in their true light by all created beings, that the justice and mercy of God and the immutability of His law might forever be placed beyond all question.

Satan's rebellion was to be a lesson to the universe through all coming ages, a perpetual testimony to the nature and terrible results of sin. The working out of Satan's rule, its effects upon both men and angels, would show what must be the fruit of setting aside the divine authority. It would testify that with the existence of God's government and His law is bound up the well-being of all the creatures He has made. Thus the history of this terrible experiment of rebellion was to be perpetual safeguard to all holy intelligences, to prevent them from being deceived as to the nature of transgression, to save them from committing sin and suffering its punishments.

To the very close of the controversy in heaven the great usurper continued to justify himself. When it was announced that with all his sympathizers he must be expelled from the abodes of bliss, then the rebel leader boldly avowed his contempt for the Creator's law. He reiterated his claim that angels needed no control, but should be left to follow their own will, which would ever guide them right. He denounced the divine statutes as a restriction of their liberty and declared that it was his purpose to secure the abolition of law; that, freed from this restraint, the hosts of heaven might enter upon a more exalted, more glorious state of existence.

With one accord, Satan and his host threw the blame of their rebellion wholly upon Christ, declaring that if they had not been reproved, they would never have rebelled. Thus stubborn and defiant in their disloyalty, seeking vainly to overthrow the government of God, yet blasphemously claiming to be themselves the innocent victims of oppressive power, the archrebel and all his sympathizers were at last banished from heaven.

The same spirit that prompted rebellion in heaven still inspires rebellion on earth. Satan has continued with men the same policy which he pursued with the angels. His spirit now reigns in the children of disobedience. Like him they seek to break down the restraints of the law of God and promise men liberty through transgression of its precepts. Reproof of sin still arouses the spirit of hatred and resistance. When God's messages of warning are brought home to the conscience, Satan leads men to justify themselves and to seek the sympathy of others in their course of sin. Instead of correcting their errors, they excite indignation against the reprover, as if he were the sole cause of difficulty. From the days of righteous Abel to our own time such is the spirit which has been displayed toward those who dare to condemn sin.

By the same misrepresentation of the character of God as he had practiced in heaven, causing Him to be regarded as severe and tyrannical, Satan induced man to sin. And having succeeded thus far, he declared that God's unjust restrictions had led to man's fall, as they had led to his own rebellion.

But the Eternal One Himself proclaims His character: "The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." Exodus 34:6, 7.

In the banishment of Satan from heaven, God declared His justice and maintained the honor of His throne. But when man had sinned through yielding to the deceptions of this apostate spirit, God gave an evidence of His love by yielding up His only-begotten Son to die for the fallen race. In the atonement the character of God is revealed. The mighty argument of the cross demonstrates to the whole universe that the course of sin which Lucifer had chosen was in no wise chargeable upon the government of God.

In the contest between Christ and Satan, during the Saviour's earthly ministry, the character of the great deceiver was unmasked. Nothing could so effectually have uprooted Satan from the affections of the heavenly angels and the whole loyal universe as did his cruel warfare upon the world's Redeemer. The daring blasphemy of his demand that Christ should pay him homage, his presumptuous boldness in bearing Him to the mountain summit and the pinnacle of the temple, the malicious intent betrayed in urging Him to cast Himself down from the dizzy height, the unsleeping malice that hunted Him from place to place, inspiring the hearts of priests and people to reject His love, and at the last to cry, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!--all this excited the amazement and indignation of the universe.

It was Satan that prompted the world's rejection of Christ. The prince of evil exerted all his power and cunning to destroy Jesus; for he saw that the Saviour's mercy and love, His compassion and pitying tenderness, were representing to the world the character of God. Satan contested every claim put forth by the Son of God and employed men as his agents to fill the Saviour's life with suffering and sorrow. The sophistry and falsehood by which he had sought to hinder the work of Jesus, the hatred manifested through the children of disobedience, his cruel accusations against Him whose life was one of unexampled goodness, all sprang from deep-seated revenge. The pent-up fires of envy and malice, hatred and revenge, burst forth on Calvary against the Son of God, while all heaven gazed upon the scene in silent horror.

When the great sacrifice had been consummated, Christ ascended on high, refusing the adoration of angels until He had presented the request: "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." John 17:24. Then with inexpressible love and power came forth the answer from the Father's throne: "Let all the angels of God worship Him." Hebrews 1:6. Not a stain rested upon Jesus. His humiliation ended, His sacrifice completed, there was given unto Him a name that is above every name.

Now the guilt of Satan stood forth without excuse. He had revealed his true character as a liar and a murderer. It was seen that the very same spirit with which he ruled the children of men, who were under his power, he would have manifested had he been permitted to control the inhabitants of heaven. He had claimed that the transgression of God's law would bring liberty and exaltation; but it was seen to result in bondage and degradation.

Satan's lying charges against the divine character and government appeared in their true light. He had accused God of seeking merely the exaltation of Himself in requiring submission and obedience from His creatures, and had declared that, while the Creator exacted self-denial from all others, He Himself practiced no self-denial and made no sacrifice. Now it was seen that for the salvation of a fallen and sinful race, the Ruler of the universe had made the greatest sacrifice which love could make; for "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 Corinthians 5:19. It was seen, also, that while Lucifer had opened the door for the entrance of sin by his desire for honor and supremacy, Christ had, in order to destroy sin, humbled Himself and become obedient unto death.

God had manifested His abhorrence of the principles of rebellion. All heaven saw His justice revealed, both in the condemnation of Satan and in the redemption of man. Lucifer had declared that if the law of God was changeless, and its penalty could not be remitted, every transgressor must be forever debarred from the Creator's favor. He had claimed that the sinful race were placed beyond redemption and were therefore his rightful prey. But the death of Christ was an argument in man's behalf that could not be overthrown. The penalty of the law fell upon Him who was equal with God, and man was free to accept the righteousness of Christ and by a life of penitence and humiliation to triumph, as the Son of God had triumphed, over the power of Satan. Thus God is just and yet the justifier of all who believe in Jesus.

But it was not merely to accomplish the redemption of man that Christ came to the earth to suffer and to die. He came to "magnify the law" and to "make it honorable." Not alone that the inhabitants of this world might regard the law as it should be regarded; but it was to demonstrate to all the worlds of the universe that God's law is unchangeable. Could its claims have been set aside, then the Son of God need not have yielded up His life to atone for its transgression. The death of Christ proves it immutable. And the sacrifice to which infinite love impelled the Father and the Son, that sinners might be redeemed, demonstrates to all the universe--what nothing less than this plan of atonement could have sufficed to do--that justice and mercy are the foundation of the law and government of God.

In the final execution of the judgment it will be seen that no cause for sin exists. When the Judge of all the earth shall demand of Satan, "Why hast thou rebelled against Me, and robbed Me of the subjects of My kingdom?" the originator of evil can render no excuse. Every mouth will be stopped, and all the hosts of rebellion will be speechless.

The cross of Calvary, while it declares the law immutable, proclaims to the universe that the wages of sin is death. In the Saviour's expiring cry, "It is finished," the death knell of Satan was rung. The great controversy which had been so long in progress was then decided, and the final eradication of evil was made certain. The Son of God passed through the portals of the tomb, that "through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Hebrews 2:14. Lucifer's desire for self-exaltation had led him to say: "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: . . . I will be like the Most High." God declares: "I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, . . . and never shalt thou be any more." Isaiah 14:13, 14; Ezekiel 28:18, 19. When "the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;. . . .all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Malachi 4:1.

The whole universe will have become witnesses to the nature and results of sin. And its utter extermination, which in the beginning would have brought fear to angels and dishonor to God, will now vindicate His love and establish His honor before the universe of beings who delight to do His will, and in whose heart is His law. Never will evil again be manifest. Says the word of God: "Affliction shall not rise up the second time." Nahum 1:9. The law of God, which Satan has reproached as the yoke of bondage, will be honored as the law of liberty. A tested and proved creation will never again be turned from allegiance to Him whose character has been fully manifested before them as fathomless love and infinite wisdom.

1/09/2008 08:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

GGG, how's the OD going these days?

1/09/2008 08:25:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's excellent. Actually today I tested myself as it had been awhile and the past few days I had ate too much rich food. Anyway I've had no food today even though I've biked maybe 5 miles and read all day and also got my drivers license renewed. The "O at a D" test is to experience no hunger at all while increasing my bliss levels. I've had maybe 10 "O at a Ds" -- most of then mild. One was with a female who had a bad cough until she said loudly to her friend, "It's hard! It's hard! Yes! Yes!" right when we both fully climaxed. This was confirmed when I went to use the can and there was some clear preseminal fluid dripping off me.

Anyway her cough was gone after that.

I just sit in full-lotus, shoot yang bliss-light out of my pineal gland with my right-side vagus nerve pulsating and as my full-lotus pressure builds up it sucks up the yin electrochemical bliss energy.

What enables this yin-yang exchange is the female formless awareness.

1/09/2008 09:48:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

And here I am still...going...no..where.

I have to wonder who or what is pulsing my "space" with RF's. My "Zapchecker" spikes every 12 seconds and the charge builds into my body and is noticeably "charged" when I'm close to the Zapchecker. The delivery system has to be GPS programmed to my sleep time. It doesn't happen anywhere else except where I sleep.
My dreams of last night were nightmarish with both feet being cut off and eaten.

My problem with this is that I am testing a theory and using very complex scientific instruments that you the travelling public, either have no interest, no knowledge or no access.

The supplier of "Zapchecker" makes no claims. My interest in the technology was an article by Amy Worthington and it was mainly focused on the deleterious effects of RF radiation. I wanted to know where the exposures were coming from and how strong these sources are. Then I discover over the past several months that I'm being "targetted" and have no idea who or what that means.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/103107HA.shtml

1/10/2008 08:41:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm hoping there's a Limbo for idiots.

1/10/2008 10:55:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

10:55:00 AM,

Their is no "limbo" or "purgatory" either. These are not biblical, but occult (hang on to your hats) beliefs propagated by the leadership church of Rome...VICARIUS FILI DEI - LATEINOS - ITALIKA EKKLESIA - HELATINE BASILEIA. SAVVY

1/10/2008 12:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have we forgotten the basic framework on our gilded house of imaginary cards???

All is permissible!

Everything perceived (especially the written word) can almost always be more fully understood a fiction!

Read everything as a fiction!

Accept the inherent paradox of human communication and move on!

There are no answers!

The "enlightened" worldview has no particular worldview!

GGG--

Btw, this is the one and only time I will allow myself to waste time communicating to you.

Here's why you need to check your shit, my man.

Spend waaaaay more time extolling the virtues of female formless awareness in Minneapolis and not on the computer. In fact you should just stop wasting your time on the computer altogether. Maybe then you'll actually do some good.

Up until now it seems quite obvious that you are only succeeding in a narcissistic masturbation of your right hemisphere and and appear to have no tantric wisdom at all since you spew it onto all of us instead of letting it rise into your higher chakras.

But at least you are having fun I guess?!

Yet I find it sad that you are going to have to untangle the intellectual knots of attachment you have obviously created before you will be able to experience the reality that you are so intent on dogmatically displaying to the rest of us.

Once again, you remind me of a chimp in a zoo: frantically masturbating to all the visitors who are halfheartedly amused.

Are your orgasms a release or are they just tightening the chains of your spritual/intellectual overanalyzed bondage?

Good Luck you clever primate.

Love, muddy.

IC:Nice to have you back!

1/10/2008 02:00:00 PM  
Blogger iridescent cuttlefish said...

IC, is that what this is all about? To be free of want and to stretch our imaginations like children at play, (or to look at it differently, have the lifestyle of the landed aristocracy of 19th century britain available to all)?

tazmic,

No, but that's certainly part of it--the playfulness, anyway. Unlike the upperclass twits of the twilight of the British (incarnation of the) Empire, however, I was thinking there would be both work--a modest amount, say that of the typical hunter-gatherer, about 20 hrs/wk, or just enough to satisfy that half of neurotic old Freud's excellent definition of sanity: the ability to work and to love--and a much deeper sense of belonging, which would foster a very different set of perspectives & behaviors.

Consider, for example, what belliosto is saying about the relative value or importance of the other species on this Earthship: how many of us realize that the current set up (fast food, land speculation, institutionalized governmental corruption, etc) is based on, or at least requires the extinction of 200 species per day?

Not only do we literally not know what we're losing before it's gone, but we don't even understand how these life-forms contribute to the biosphere. It's like a boatful of lunatics ripping up boards everyday without realizing that each board helps keep the boat afloat! (And with a captain who assures them it's alright 'cuz this old ship is unsinkable--the Master Shipbuilder will certainly return in time to sort it all out.)

I could continue the nautical analogy even further by discussing the plight of the third-class passengers in steerage, about whose conditions the lucky ones in first class don't want to know, but I've got a baby on my arm who rather wants me to get to the point today and see to her needs...

The most galling aspect of the whole sick way of life we have is that it's all so bloody unnecessary. And even among those who do have some environmental and/or social consciousness, the "solutions" are primarily austerity measures because we've all been so thoroughly indoctrinated in the inevitability of scarcity regimes!

This is why Mark keeps talking about Gaviotos(sp.?)--until people see actual, working models of a very different way of living, they're not going to be able to imagine it, much less build it. Even among our professional imagineers--sci-fi writers--there are only a handful who've been able to imagine the sort of world I'm attempting to describe here. (Iain M. Banks' Culture series is one that manages a civilization based on abundance, while Julian May's Galactic Milieu trilogy does a great job of describing the evolution of a sort of telepathic and truly cosmic global consciousness--complete with those who resist what they fear as a "hivemind".)



Great to see you again, too, Muddy!

1/10/2008 04:06:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Re: Great Galactic Ghoul,
Forgive me for being a bit anal rententive, but considering your verbose and high-minded post regarding the nature of 2 squared and it's transcendental qualities et al., I can't help but dismiss you due to your lack of understanding of the notion of LENGTH when it comes to the nature of the field on which posts are written, having apparently pressed the ENTER key at the end of every line rather than let the autoformating do the work for you. While the subject matter is interesting (even though I am not fluent in the material - or perhaps because of?), I cannot bring myself to take you seriously. I do not intend this as a personal attack, since I do not know you and will not judge a personality based on one ambiguous post alone - only an observation.
P.S.: My anonymity is not a result of cowardice, simply laziness - I have not registered.

1/10/2008 07:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obviously the "O at a D" full-lotus 3rd Eye energy exchange is quite radical but as someone here asked me about it, coincidentally on a day I used the "O at a D" to not need food, my response was timely to say the least. As for people's negative reactions about the impersonal yin-yang-female formless awareness dynamics, I'm sure that those who read this blog regularly would rather not have me repeat, ad naseum, the beating of a dead horse. I've spent one year total going through just about every possible "O at a D" situation and posting it online, in full open communication, so that all critical eyes could freely debate the yin-yang-female formless awareness dynamics. You can just search "O at a D" or my name, "drew hempel," etc. Yes sitting in full-lotus in the West is dangerous, I admit this, but it's not illegal yet, thank you very much. On the contrary, full-lotus yoga is now considered the cutting edge of bourgeois commodity-fetishism, thereby rendering the "O at a D" all the more subversive, as the cutting edge of tantric technology.

Have fun grasshoppers.

1/10/2008 08:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Old Floyd Smoots said:
Well, Anonymous 1/08/2008 08:25:00 PM, when Judgement Day comes, at least Jesus cannot say to you that you didn't try your very best to warn them. They just wouldn't listen.
Alas, Babylon!!!

1/10/2008 09:21:00 PM  
Blogger Sounder said...

Great to hear from you Muddy.

Muddy said to Gee...

"Are your orgasms a release or are they just tightening the chains of your spritual/intellectual overanalyzed bondage?"

He He He Hah. I love how Drew’s every response oozes with narcissism, -grasshoppers. Apparently the expression of a quite rarified level of spiritual development. Oh yeah, you bet. More likely Drew’s lawyerly daddy berated him a bit too much growing up and Drew is in the process of really showing him that he is bigger than daddy is. Daddy is likely quite a narcissist himself.

1/11/2008 08:25:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As much as I like reading Jeff's take on things, I find the comments here to be pretentious, delusional, and elitist. It seems that most of you have become what you have beheld and are just taking it in another direction.

This does not make you any better than the devils you rant against and fear.

Wow. I can't even stand coming here anymore and reading these banal comments dressed up as some pseudo-intelligentsia cum enlightened and illumined ideas. And this is a shame as Jeff's articles really do have some valid ideas and point-of-views to them, but then a lot of you clowns chime in off-topic and completely whacked out on your egos or pride at your attempts at trying to kill your egos and desires and rail on and on about...Crap.

And the problem isn't Jeff's monitoring of comments or disinfo agents stirring the pot. The problem is the same with everything else: Greedy, attention hungry users polluting and corrupting whatever they feel is theirs to soil instead of making something more than what Rig Int could actually be.

Please get a hold of yourselves and exercise some restraint, or just keep on being the hungry ghosts that most of you truly are as you drive more curious and concerned people away from Rig Int.

1/11/2008 10:58:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yesterday I was talking to my buddy Truman about his Chinese studies. I asked him how to pronounce "Tsung Tsai." As he explained the alternative routes to finding this out I then remembered it means "Ancient Wisdom." Tsung Tsai is the Ch'an Monk who returns to inner Mongolia in George Crane's amazing 2000 travel book: "The Bones of the Master."

Today I was looking at my book on Tibetan Tantra (the dominant form of Buddhism in Central Asia). Sure enough "Ancient Wisdom" means FEMALE FORMLESS AWARENESS. That's the beauty of discovering what Tsung Tsai teaches, that all of reality is Number and Harmony -- that the answer to the question, "Why is Ohm?" or "Wisdom" is the source of 1:2:3:4 (yin-yang-emptiness) as formless awareness.

Here's my Ch'an Koan of the day:

How can a vibrating string be a diverging series of number?

1/11/2008 02:26:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeeeaaarrrggghhh - y'all wearin' oot me scroll-wheel. TripleG I suggest you convert all future posts to rap lyrics. Be so much more fun, and flighting is where you're best. Don't stain the screen now.

1/11/2008 10:14:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also - Bhutto a reformer? Heehoohah. More likely she caught something terminal and traded in a gray-spray on some family favours. Can't see someone at that intelligence grade stepping out of a car in a crowd by mistake. Only question is - who wanted the disorder caused more? All roads lead to InterServices - but who will get the launch codes? Tune in next week for 'House of Saud nukes Tar Sands' (subtitle 'Atta seen riding Mothman by scorched onlooker). You think the frogs are disappearing - they are merely massing underground. Tremble, mammals.

1/11/2008 10:28:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

Ahaha! We underfolk are even signing up on google now....the first step toward domination of monkey domains. Now, to find a keyboard proof against my skin secretions....

1/11/2008 10:34:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll try Baltic Bhangra Gypsie music instead.

1/11/2008 10:47:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

I dunno Gster - sounds like Southron trickery. How about posting everything in good Northern kennings? (e.g. toaster = uuuummm... 'silver-sided bread destroyer'). Gotta keep it fresh, man.

1/11/2008 11:07:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Regarding the idea of the Holy Spirit as female. I would just like to add a few thoughts.

God must use all kinds of human realities and relations which we see and with which we are acquainted to teach us the unseen, which is beyond our earthly experience; but it is important that we bear in mind that the unseen far transcends that seen, which is used as a medium to help us transcend and in a degree comprehend divine and heavenly realities. Thus, the latter must not be confused with the former. For, while we speak of God as Father, He is not our literal father, but our Creator, Whose love and care for us is vastly beyond that of any human father. Indeed, whose love is the very source of our love.

Moreover, the same is true of Christ, Who is identified as Son. Unfortunately, many are unable to recognize His eternity of Christ, for they fail to recognize that, though human terms and relations are used to help us grasp that which is beyond the scope of human knowledge, yet these terms are but metaphors that point us, by the Holy Spirit's aid, to grasp those higher, divine principles and relations that are beyond our comprehension.

And again, it is over-literalizing metaphorical terms, such as Father & Son that leads us to seek a corresponding understanding of the Holy Spirit as Mother. Not only does such over-literalism distort the Bible concept of the trinity, it is just such over-literalism that leads to pantheism -- in both non-Christian cultures, who create their gods in the form of creature concepts, and in Christian cultures, who fail to transcend the metaphors used to help us grasp the transcendent nature and character of God.

Metaphors are essential to speak of the unseen by identifying some element in common with human experience; but the metaphor, whatever it be, is not that thing itself, but the use of a particular human element or experience which in a specific way helps direct our minds to that which is beyond our experience and comprehension.

Since nothing on earth and no human experience is sufficient to portray the divine, God uses many metaphors and analogies, intending that we see that one element in the context of the many. Thus, each gives us some dim suggestion, but its literality is corrected by the many other metaphors. For example, Christ is both the Shepherd and the Sheep; He is the Path (Way) and the Door; He is both the Sun and the Light that streams from the Sun.

Moreover, He is scores of other things relating to human experience, including the Head of the body and the Cornerstone of the building. But though He is all these things and many more, He is none of them. It not only takes all of them to portray Him, but all of them together fall far short of portraying Who He is. Indeed, the Holy Spirit must bring all these together in our minds in a manner to correct the distortion of each, and even then, we only "see through a glass darkly" and must walk humbly before Him, ever seeking a clearer understanding of Him through His whole Word as we cultivate ever more intimate relations with Him.

Instead of giving us greater insight into God, over-literalism, which focuses unduly upon particular metaphors, perverts His attempt to teach us by the seen. Indeed, the difference between true Creator worship and idolatry is simply that in the former, our worship is directed to the Unseen, who warns us against making any kind of image, and those who identify God in terms of human elements and or experiences -- the very things God seeks to use in helping us transcend the seen.

Returning now to the issue of the Holy Spirit as Mother, it is significant that God deliberately chose not to identify Him with any tangible human being or experience, but rather, with the unseen air all about us. Indeed, while there are several designations for the Father, including that of mother, and scores of metaphors for Christ, yet, the Holy Spirit is not identified with any name; for it is God's purpose that our focus not to be upon Him but upon Christ, Who reveals the Father Who cannot be known except by the One Who became Man in order to reveal the One Who transcends all human knowledge. To identify the Spirit as Mother, which Scripture never does, is thus to impose an over-literalism that directs our minds away from God, rather than to Him, and encourages false worship.

Besides the universal human tendency to over-literalism, from which God sought to insulate us by the second commandment warning against visualizing God in human terms, a major modern inducement to think of the Holy Spirit as Mother is the women's lib movement which, on one hand, seeks to remove the concept of God as Father and on the other to make the godhead altogether in the sexual form of man, with Father, Mother, and Son.

Finally another significant contributing factor is the New Age atmosphere that has invaded, surrounds, and threatens to control Christianity in a reverse "re-formation," moving us back to worship of the created elements rather than the Creator of those elements. Nor should this be surprising as we come to a climax of the battle between Christ, Who calls upon us to choose to worship Him as Creator and Satan, who seeks to enforce universal worship of the creature. Who will you worship.

1/12/2008 04:00:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What are you talking about? What do you mean?... As if you care tazmic. You are belittling me because you think that it is funny tazmic. That is what I think you mean. You are not that funny. I think the post was direct and straight to the point. If you have a problem with my post then please do not respond or read my posts anymore. I'd appreciate that.

I'm planning on visiting Dennis Kucinich soon at a Q & A session. Is there any question that might be beneficial of asking him Great Galactic Ghoul or anybody else? Thank you. Thanks for the post about Polly Mann, Sutton, and Plato GGG.

1/12/2008 12:30:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

Yo - to the anon. Christ-paster - pantheism far predates your Bronze Age herder text. There is no differerence between your brand of labelling and another. Ineffability is like a flame - good luck touching it. I hope TripleG is busy setting his autosexual, mathemakundalinical wandering to music. Drown out the scrollwheel. Brevity is the soul of, an' all that. God (and I use the term very loosely) I sound like a bitch. Must be the coffee. Makes me mean. I don't mean to be mean - I just want to be able to get the sense of a comment in less than ten minutes. Although I do kind of wish Mr. Christ-is-a-woman-I-know or whatever would find some personal space to post his spammy prayings in. Or just shorten the damn things.

1/12/2008 01:27:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

And even the elect...??

What is wrong with the bible? Umm. It's manmade? It's fiction? It's mind control? It's evil?

Why does the bible support slavery? Did Satan come to earth before Christ? Is the bible a miraculous conception? Give your head a shake.

I believe in God. I believe he sent his Son. I don't believe either had anything to do with the bible. If I were to cast around to find Jesus Christ I would do it on faith. My faith in God tells me that the real Jesus Christ will be revealed. Here's the link to the real Jesus Christ.

And Jesus answered: “Seek not the law in your scriptures, for the law is life, whereas the scripture is dead. I tell you truly, Moses received not his laws from God in writing, but through the living word. The law is living word of living God to living prophets for living men. In everything that is life is the law written. You find it in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain, in the birds of heaven, in the fishes of the sea; but seek it chiefly in yourselves. For I tell you truly, all living things are nearer to God than the scripture which is without life. God so made life and all living things that they might by the everlasting word teach the laws of the true God to man. God wrote not the laws in the pages of books, but in your heart and in your spirit. They are in your breath, your blood, your bone; in your flesh, your bowels, your eyes, your cars, and in every little part of your body. They are present in the air, in the water, in the earth, in the plants, in the sunbeams, in the depths and in the heights. They all speak to you that you may understand the tongue and the will of the living God. But you shut your eyes that you may not see, and you shut your ears that you may not hear. I tell you truly, that the scripture is the work of man, but life and all its hosts are the work of our God. Wherefore do you not listen to the words of God which are written in His works? And wherefore do you study the dead scriptures which are the work of
the hands of men?”

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=194

1/12/2008 02:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah I'm not talking the Holy Spirit as female -- nor any political leader as knowing any answers. Female formless awareness is beyond any spirit (light-information). Female formless awareness can only be listened to as the source of time, pure consciousness, resonating as time to bend space as an electromagnetic holographic blissful peace.

First you can do the small universe excerise, along with some simple standing tai-chi exercise. Then sitting meditation in half-lotus and as you continue the three above exercises you move into full-lotus, 20 minutes of which is worth 4 hours of any other excerise.

The small universe cassette or c.d. is the level one sitting meditation at http://springforestqigong.com

1/12/2008 03:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well it's all very interesting. $300 for two 4 hour classes is about twice as what qigong master Chunyi Lin charges for his classes which are through a community college in Minnesota -- http://springforestqigong.com

Of course if you're not in Minnesota you have to fly (or drive, etc.) and stay in a hotel making it about the same cost or more.

The main advantage to a class -- the real reason -- is the energy transmission from the teacher.

As for "masturbation" -- in fact the WHOLE point is to convert the water (semen) into bliss-heat that ionizes into electromagnetic fields then shot out of the pineal gland as light. So slapping the monkey is the exact OPPOSITE of practicing alchemy because any physical stimulation creates water.

If you feel the desire to create water -- that's the best leverage to sit in full-lotus. Just leverage that desire into an internal climax.

The bliss is an internal climax but the water shot up the back is further ionized into great heat (called N/UM by the Bushmen, the human culture for 90% of human history, when every male learned how to do this).

It's true that if you convert the water into bliss-light it's still "yang" and attracted to yin (female) energy.

So with enough practice you can also do energy transmissions through the pineal gland, but focused through the eyes, which cause a yin-yang exchange. I do this by sitting in full-lotus all the time. The yin (electrochemical) and yang (electromagnetic) is guided by the female formless awareness -- which is also called "ancient wisdom." There are different "levels" of emptiness (or female formless awareness) but the different "levels" just refers to how much yin-yang energy you have stored up in your body and then are able to transmit into a deeper "level" of emptiness or pure consciousness (formless). The alchemical agent is the combination of the electrochemical (yin), electromagnetic (yang) and the female formless awareness.

The subconscious desires (electrochemical) are guided by the harmonics of 1:2:3:4 -- 2:3 is yang and 3:4 is yin -- it's the perfect 5th and perfect 4th music harmonics as complimentary opposites (NOT western tuning).

The process relies on listening to the source of the sound in your head -- which then creates ultrasound, which then ionizes the electrochemical energy, thereby creating blissful heat.

This is why there is always a direct connection between sound and pure consciousness. Sound is the expression of the electrochemical or generative force energy (also called jing or lead). Alchemists state that the process starts and ends with jing.

The other alternative is called the "direct path" of jnana -- this is also the secret of hinayana buddhism. The direct path relies on left-brain logic, inference of the source of the I-thought as pure consciousness. A person literally continues to resonate the source of the I-thought to it's source in the heart-mind, until the I-thought NEVER arises again through the heart-mind, but only as a direct resonance with female formless awareness. The mind is literally killed (and so is the body) but they both start up again, only now with a permanent resonance past their physical source.

The person, now a jnana, has literally stopped their heart for over 10 minutes -- consciously, through logical inference -- and then the heart restarts, but now as eternal liberation. Sri Ramana Maharshi describes how this happened to him after only 9 years in solitude, thereby making him a jnana -- read his book "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi." Even the modern followers of Sri Ramana Maharshi do not admit that this is the moment, after he physically killed himself, that he "cut the knot" of his heart-mind and finally achieved eternal liberation or permanent sahaja samadhi. I read all of Sri Ramana Maharshi's books at the AMES south asian library at the U of Minnesota (one of the books was a hand wrought publication straight from his ashram, while he was still alive, and the book emitted this amazing vibration).

For a more "Kunlun" version of these teachings -- I recommend the book on Ch'an Master Tsung Tsai: THE BONES OF THE MASTER: A Journy to Secret Mongolia by George Crane (2000).

Just north of Kunlun there are Indo-European skeletons dating back to 3000 BC. (see the book "Shadow of the Silk Road"). Taoism is also thought to originate from this area as well. Central Asia is the true cross-roads of the East and West.

1/12/2008 03:34:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Well Drew...Think again..You need to do a bit more of that open minded stuff and less of that open ended. I suggest you check out the origins of Civilization by Michael Tsarion. Cogent stuff. West to east and it fits all known megalithic history to date.

1/12/2008 04:28:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Considering Tsarion only goes back to post-Hittite controlled Egypt -- he's living out over 90% of human history (pre-10,000 BCE). Bushmen culture is established to 80,000 BCE.

1/12/2008 04:59:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

Dang, man, TripleG, if you combine the whole bliss-heat thingy (I know, it's "masturbation", not masturbation) with this jnana idea of suicide and reincarnation by mental force (true masters can drink a glass of water at the same time) - you could become the DeathWankDisciple.

1/12/2008 06:14:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes this is the true trick. Jnana is left-brain mind yoga which means that females must be repressed externally through technology (originally through the caste system). This is the origins of patriarchy. Right-brain full-lotus tantra is a conscious transduction of electrochemical energy so that females both give their yin energy while receiving the yang energy (originally through the Bushmen healing training). Both Jnana and Tantra can only happen after the third eye is opened -- relying on the female formless awareness to guide the process.

Both Jnana and Tantra have the same goal, female formless awareness, only in the former case it requires being separated from females so that enough energy is stored up for personal death (Shiva killed by Kali). Tantra, using external technology, is the continuation of jnana -- the subconscious repression of sex energy, (or the separation of mind from the lower body) but now this separation from females is projected as oppressive technology. So under tantric technology (or late capitalism) there is increased focus on sex, controlled by our subconscious desires, yet justified through external force. This would appear to be liberation (commodity fetish in the free market) but is the exact opposite -- the separation of the mind from the body, resulting in the same death as the jnana, only now projected onto the whole planet. Mathematics is just projecting left-brain logical axioms to right-brain visualization, as an expression of the subconscious repression of sex energy. This is why logical inference is primary to mathematics and also why science is freemasonic paganism.

An excellent book examining these paradoxes in a real life expression is George Crane's "Bones of the Master: Journey into Secret Mongolia" about his travels with Ch'an Master Tsung Tsai. Crane's second book is about his failure to understand Tsung Tsai, as is the case with most modern males in regards to the female formless awareness or "ancient wisdom," the meaning of Tsung Tsai.

The only solution to these logical Jnana-Tantra paradoxes is to LISTEN to the source of the I-thought, through the full-lotus 3rd eye. The source is beyond all left-brain or right-brain imbalances, either expressed through right-brain subconscious lower emotions projected onto others as lust, anger, fear, sadness, worry or as left-brain rational, cold mathematics projected onto others as "missile envy." (the current race for nuclear alpha male status based on the extension of logarithmic mass squared inversely proportional to energy frequency distance).

1/12/2008 08:05:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

Ghoulie, I tried what you said but I think I used the wrong eye. It really hurt to open and I wound up f***ing myself in the head. However, I really extended my logarithmic mass - came out just according to your recipe, an enviable nuclear missile.

1/12/2008 08:37:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I recommend watching: Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, and Dr. Strangelove, all in one night. That should clear you up -- but just be sure, watch the Shining around 11 pm.

1/12/2008 09:58:00 PM  
Blogger Dr. Bombay said...

"While the world
is burning down,
let's make the best
of whats still around..."

1/13/2008 12:18:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well not to rain on the Kunlun parade but true samadhi means you no longer sense your body because it's so full of electromagnetic energy. So any talk about full-lotus in a physical sense is still just at a "beginners" level. This true samadhi -- nirvakalpi samadhi -- is explained in Christopher Isherwood's book on Pantajali's yoga sutra. Or you can read Master Nan, Huai-chin's books which will explain the difference between true samadhi and the physical sensations in detail. As a Monk Master Nan is not allowed to give details of what he experiences while in true samadhi but both he and qigong Master Chunyi Lin have stated you can see the stars during the day. Whether that means you travel into space or not....

Anyway before true samadhi is achieved most modern people (like myself) FALL BACK INTO WORLDLINESS as Master Nan, Huai-chin details -- because of HEROIC OVER-EXUBERANCE to use Master Nan, Huai-chin's words. Before nirvakalpi samadhi is achieved the strong electromagnetic fields emanating from the pineal gland enable telepathy, telekinesis and precognition. I had these abilities in a strong way after doing an 8 day "bigu" training (just half a glass of water and lots of small universe, tai-chi, and full-lotus).

Before nirvakalpi samadhi is achieved a vortex of spacetime spins around the body, while in full-lotus. This freaked me out a bit. When a student of Sri Chimnoy asked about this Chimnoy responded: "oh that's just the cosmic energy." But then Peter Kingsley's book "In the Dark Places of Wisdom" details how the ancient Greeks even knew about this necessary vortex experience. http://peterkingsley.com.

The best detailed analysis of this training is the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality." Right before true samadhi is achieved "immortal breathing" occurs (chapter 10) -- which is probably the type of breathing referred to in conjunction with the golden Dragon body. I achieved "immortal breathing" for a few days -- during my 8 day bigu training. It's deeper than fetus breathing. Immortal breathing means the main acupressure points of the hands and feet actually transduce oxygen through electromagnetic pulsations while the lungs no longer need to contract.

Sri Yuketswar, the guru of Yogananda's "Autiobiography of a Yogi," calls this true samadhi state:

BREATHLESS ECSTASY.

Have fun grasshoppers.

1/13/2008 08:42:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This Zizek article on Islam as epitomizing the paradox of the female body as oppression itself is another excellent analysis of the difference between left-brain jnana and the projection of repressed emotions as right-hand technology (relying on right-brain geometry).

http://www.lacan.com/zizarchives.htm

Zizek's great error is when he references the East as creating a Mother Goddess as idealized destroyer. In fact, right-brain tantra, using HARMONICS, enabled the East to resolve the above Islam paradox. The natural resonance revolution is traced back through the matrilineal villages of the Bantu as well, and then finally to the Bushmen.

1/13/2008 09:57:00 AM  
Blogger ericswan said...

That electromagnetic energy you feel is coming off your monitor. I actually measure it using my zapchecker. Full frontal exposure and the electricity can easily jump a couple of inches off the end of your fingers.

My point is that the light at the end of the tunnel is a black hole.

1/13/2008 09:59:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

See Zizek thinks the Far East idolizes physical females as the Mother Goddess. This is Zizek's big error. I've corresponded with him and he couldn't deal with my critique of him back in 1996. After I told him to read Master Nan, Huai-chin so that Zizek could better understand Buddhism the Zizek forum completely shut down within a week or so.

Beyond darkness and light is pure consciousness.

http://peterkingsley.com will explain it well -- from the Sufi-Hermetic-Pythagorean perspective.

1/13/2008 10:02:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read RI for the catchphrase at the end of every article.

1/14/2008 04:50:00 AM  
Blogger Fructedor said...

I just came across some very interesting info concerning the many varied permutations of the Christ story - notably Mithras, who was worshipped by the Romans - born on Dec 25th of a virgin, known as the Light of the World, came to save sinners and allow them passage to the Heavenly Kingdom - there are numerous other examples of this, combining the dates (25 Dec), the virgin birth, the 12 disciples, the Last Supper, the crucifixion etc.

New to me. It all ties together with the Northern hemisphere perception of the 'death of the sun' during the winter solstice, when the sun reaches its nadir on the 21st, and then apparently takes three days to begin it's northern journey back towards our summer time. Hope is born in the dead of winter.

This may indicate that the Christ story we all know is based on a reality that resonates very differently from the way we've learned it. Rolling Thunder, the native American who became known in the 70's and 80's, claimed that the rays of the rising sun, captured by a glass of water, constituted a natural medicine, best taken daily.

It's well known that Christian ceremonies like Christmas and Easter were based on the exisiting Druidic ceremonies celebrating the soltices. Incidentally, much of the current Christian rulebook was written at the Council of Nicae. Apparently some important elements of the Christian practise until that time were expunged from the faith, including healing by the laying on of hands.

1/14/2008 07:55:00 AM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

"Rolling Thunder, the native American who became known in the 70's and 80's, claimed that the rays of the rising sun, captured by a glass of water, constituted a natural medicine, best taken daily."

Gee, I wonder if ol' Rolling Thunder noticed that most bodies of water are hit by sunlight on a pretty regular basis?

Or does it have to be in a glass?

It just may be me but this has the unmistakeable stench of complete & utter bullshit hanging around it.

"It's well known that Christian ceremonies like Christmas and Easter were based on the exisiting Druidic ceremonies celebrating the soltices."

Sorry dude, but these festivals were celebrated long before the Druids existed, & in places on the globe that never heard of Druids.

"Incidentally, much of the current Christian rulebook was written at the Council of Nicae. Apparently some important elements of the Christian practise until that time were expunged from the faith, including healing by the laying on of hands."

If I'm not mistaken there were something like 30,000 religious tracts that were edited down to the current Reader's Digest version of "God's word."

You might also toss Zoroaster into the stew that eventually mutated into the Christ myth. Zoroaster taught the worship of 1 God, a final judgement, and other ideas that are now taken to be Holy Writ by Christians too lazy to research their own dipshit belief system. Zoroaster also believed that the Supreme Diety Ahura Mazda created twin spirits, the beneficient Spenta Mainyu and the evil Angra Mainyu. Humans were endowed with free will that they might follow either spirit, but when the souls of the dead attempted to scale the Bridge of Judgement, only the followers of Spenta Mainyu would make it into that exclusive club called Heaven.

"This may indicate that the Christ story we all know is based on a reality that resonates very differently from the way we've learned it."


Now there's a Godzilla-sized understatement if I've ever read one.

1/14/2008 12:18:00 PM  
Blogger ericswan said...

Richard..You have apparently hit the wall on your knowledge concerning Druids. Tsarion takes the Druidic traditions back to Lemuria. Knight reveals that Troy was actually in Southern England. Languages across the world spectrum track back to the Arish. That includes Egyptian to Peruvian. Google Hesus to find the links to "Jesus"...

1/14/2008 03:37:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

just another dick Christian ceremonies like Christmas and Easter are traditions of men and the same old complaint of the prophets is that these celebrations are vain. Please allow me to quote just a little from KJV Isaiah 1: 13-15 The complaint is the people of God are not passing good judgment, are not relieving the oppressed and have become murderers.

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is grief, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and appointed feasts My soul(Creator God's) hates: they are a trouble unto to me; I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide My eyes from you: yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

It is identical twin with the modern day Christians. What do you think Richard?

1/14/2008 05:28:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

WelI, 3G, I did watch Strangelove a little while ago - haven't seen Clockwork Orange or read it in years, but I do recall finding it quite...inspiring. "Have some wine!" This latest watch of Strangelove I found actually sort of uplifting. "Mein Fuhrer - I can walk! I have a plan!" I once thought that whole movie to be a sort of nihilist message about hopelessness and defiance in the face of flawed reality. Now I find I am excited by the idea that someone might have a plan. Even a truly frightening one. Better than no plan. As for The Shining - well, when we've had a hundred years to get over his sticky Amerrygun idiom and rather unrestrained prose (we are a Puritanical lot in Oceania right now), I think Mr. King will score a few shelf spots at the grandmaster level. When he's good, he's very very good, and when he's bad he is only mediocre. Haven't seen Eyes Wide Shut - is it any good? By the by, I'm guessing from your nick that you're a Heinlein fan. I love some of his books and especially the Family Stone (or whatever their names were) stories that the original Ghoul lurks in - Grandma Hazel, was it? Damn - so long ago now. He is kind of a little fascist sometimes, though. As is Niven, who also rocks my top ten SF list. Have you seen Gilliam's Brazil? You might like it if you liked Clockwork Orange - surreal dark socio-comedy.

1/14/2008 05:37:00 PM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

1/14/2008 11:02:00 PM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

Well ericswan, it wouldn't be the first wall I've run into.

I wasn't specifically thinking about Egypt. Actually I had the 30,000 year old cave etching of The Sorcerer of the Caverne des Trois-Freres in France in mind.
This etching of a priest dressed in animal skins is, by all appearances, the grandpappy of the Wild Man, the human personification of the pagan god Pan who was the center of the festival that eventually mutated into Christmas. Which would, I suppose, make him Santa's great great grandpappy.
I'm fairly sure that this pre-dates Egypt, and, most likely, the Druids.

I'm not familiar with Michael Tsarion, although this bit from Wikipedia,

"More esoteric subjects include a belief that the history of the world has stemmed from alien visitation in pre-diluvian times (before the Great Flood) who were being pursued across the galaxy, took refuge on a mostly water planet between Earth and Mars named Tiamat and used it as a decoy for the pursuers to destroy after the aliens had already made their way to Earth. "

doesn't really make me want to seek him out.

Is his "research" similar to the same type of "alternative" research that traces Freemasonry back to Egypt?
Because, from what I can see, the Masonic connection to Egypt is dubious at best. It's a belief only held by Masons who are looking to historically validate their little club, or anti-Masons who want to show the ancient "evil of Masonry."
While it may all be true, I find both camps to be quite unbelievable. The Masons because they are much too motivated by self-interest & the anti-Masons because they also like to point out that the Masons are Satanic in nature.

These Satanic Masonry tales can be traced back to a man named Gabriel Jogand-Pages, better known by his pen name Leo Taxil. He was an anti- cleric who had edited such journals as The Mudslinger & Down With the Clergy and written such anticlerical pornographic tomes as The Debauches of a Confessor and The Pope's Mistress.

In 1885 he appeared to convert to Catholicism, and then penned, with 2 collaborators, such works as Are There Women In Freemasonry & The Devil In The 19th Century.
In these books he lays out the Satanic roots of Masonry.

The problem with this is that his conversion to Catholicism wasn't sincere and his books were hoaxes designed to make the Catholics look silly. Of course, the Catholics obliged him by swallowing his tall tales hook line & sinker.

One of Taxil's collaborators had this to say about their hoax:

"When the Encyclical Humanum Genus appeared, directed against the Freemasons as allies of the Devil, I thought that here was a way to make money out of the credulity and limitless stupidity of the Catholics...
Sometimes, when the fibs I perpetrated were a little too blatant, for example, the story of the serpent who wrote prophecies with his tail on Diana Vaughn's back, or the story of the Devil transformed into a young girl in order to marry a Freemason, and changing in the evening into a crocodile(shades of David Icke) to play the piano, my collaborators, laughing till they cried, told me: "You must be more careful, my friend, you will spoil everything!"
I replied to them: "Bah! Let it be! It will pass!"
And it passed!"

Now a days, it isn't only the Catholics who betray their gullibility on this subject.



& Belliosto, are you asking me if modern Christians are as hypocritical as those known by Isaiah?

If so, I'm sure it is a problem faced by every generation, no matter what their religious beliefs are. I doubt that hypocrisy is confined to Christianity.

As a matter of fact, it's one of the main reasons I found the demonization of Saddam Hussein so laughable. From what I'd read about Hussein, that he was vain, hedonistic, interested only in his own pleasure while paying endless lip service to a religious creed of love, actually made him sound like he'd make one good American.

As far as the vanity of man goes, personally, I don't think men are any more or less vain than women.
I'd say they're about equal.

1/14/2008 11:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Fall of Satan
The Lord has shown me that Satan was once an honored angel in heaven, next to Jesus Christ. His countenance was mild, expressive of happiness like the other angels. His forehead was high and broad, and showed great intelligence. His form was perfect. He had noble, majestic bearing. And I saw that when God said to his Son, Let us make man in our image, Satan was jealous of Jesus. He wished to he consulted concerning the formation of man. He was filled with envy, jealousy and hatred. He wished to be the highest in heaven, next to God, and receive the highest honors. Until this time all heaven was in order, harmony and perfect subjection to the government of God.

It was the highest sin to rebel against the order and will of God. All heaven seemed in commotion. The angels were marshaled in companies with a commanding angel at their head. All the angels were astir. Satan was insinuating against the government of God, ambitious to exalt himself, and unwilling to submit to the authority of Jesus. Some of the angels sympathized with Satan in his rebellion, and others strongly contended for the honor and wisdom of God in giving authority to his Son. And there was contention with the angels. Satan and his affected ones, who were striving to reform the government of God, wished to look into his unsearchable wisdom to ascertain his purpose in exalting Jesus, and endowing him with such unlimited power and command. They rebelled against the authority of the Son of God, and all the angels were summoned to appear before the Father, to have their cases decided. And it was decided that Satan should be expelled from heaven, and that the angels, all who joined with Satan in the rebellion, should be turned out with him. Then there was war in heaven. Angels were engaged in the battle; Satan wished to conquer the Son of God, and those who were submissive to his will. But the good and true angels prevailed, and Satan, with his followers, was driven from heaven.

After Satan was shut out of heaven, with those who fell with him, he realized that he had lost all the purity and glory of heaven forever. Then he repented and wished to be reinstated again in heaven. He was willing to take his proper place, or any place that might be assigned him. But no, heaven must not be placed in jeopardy. All heaven might be marred should he be taken back; for sin originated with him, and the seeds of rebellion were within him. Satan had obtained followers, those who sympathized with him in his rebellion. He and his followers repented, wept and implored to be taken back into the favor of God. But no, their sin, their hate, their envy and jealousy, had been so great that God could not blot it out. It must remain to receive its final punishment.

When Satan became fully conscious that there was no possibility of his being brought again into favor with God, then his malice and hatred began to be manifest. He consulted with his angels, and a plan was laid to still work against God's government. When Adam and Eve were placed in the beautiful garden, Satan was laying plans to destroy them. A consultation was held with his evil angels. In no way could this happy couple be deprived of their happiness if they obeyed God. Satan could not exercise his power upon them unless they should first disobey God, and forfeit his favor. They must devise some plan to lead them to disobedience that they might incur God's frown and be brought under the more direct influence of Satan and his angels. It was decided that Satan should assume another form, and manifest an interest for man. He must insinuate against God's truthfulness, create doubt whether God did mean as he said, next, excite their curiosity, and lead them to pry into the unsearchable plans of God, which Satan had been guilty of, and reason as to the cause of his restrictions in regard to the tree of knowledge.

1/14/2008 11:29:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Fall of Man
I saw that the holy angels often visited the garden, and gave instruction to Adam and Eve concerning their employment, and also taught them concerning the rebellion of Satan and his fall. The angels warned them of Satan, and cautioned them not to separate from each other in their employment, for they might be brought in contact with this fallen foe. The angels enjoined upon them to closely follow the directions God had given them, for in perfect obedience only were they safe. And if they were obedient, this fallen foe could have no power over them.
Satan commenced his work with Eve, to cause her to disobey. She first erred in wandering from her husband, next, in lingering around the forbidden tree, and next in listening to the voice of the tempter, and even daring to doubt what God had said-In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. She thought, Perhaps it does not mean just as the Lord said. She ventured to disobey. She put forth her hand, took of the fruit, and ate. It was pleasing to the eye, and pleasant to the taste. She was jealous that God had withheld from them what was really for their good. She offered the fruit to her husband, thereby tempting him. She related to Adam all that the serpent had said, and expressed her astonishment that he had the power of speech.

I saw a sadness came over Adam's countenance. He appeared afraid and astonished. A struggle appeared to be going on in his mind. He felt sure that this was the foe which they had been warned against, and that his wife must die. They must be separated. His love for Eve was strong. And in utter discouragement he resolved to share her fate. He seized the fruit, and quickly ate it. Then Satan exulted. He had rebelled in heaven, and had sympathizers who loved him, and followed him in his rebellion. He fell, and caused others to fall with him. And he had now tempted the woman to distrust God, to inquire into his wisdom, and to seek to penetrate his all-wise plans. Satan knew the woman would not fall alone. Adam, through his love for Eve, disobeyed the command of God and fell with her.

The news of man's fall spread through heaven. Every harp was hushed. The angels cast their crowns from their heads in sorrow. All heaven was in agitation. A counsel was held to decide what must be done with the guilty pair. The angels feared that they would put forth the hand, and eat of the tree of life, and be immortal sinners. But God said that he would drive the transgressors from the garden. Angels were commissioned immediately to guard the way of the tree of life. It had been Satan's studied plan that Adam and Eve should disobey God, receive his frown, and then be led on to partake of the tree of life, that they might live forever in sin and disobedience, and thus sin be immortalized. But holy angels were sent to drive them out of the garden, while another company of angels were commissioned to guard the way to the tree of life. Each of these mighty angels appeared to have something in their right hand, which looked like a glittering sword.

Then Satan triumphed. Others he had made to suffer by his fall. He had been shut out of heaven, they out of Paradise.

1/14/2008 11:36:00 PM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

Satan was not originally a proper name but meant "The Adversary."

The word could also be an ordinary noun, as in the books of Samuel, where David was a satan to the Philistines.

The word could also be a verb: in Numbers 22:22, God sent an angel to "satan"(i.e. oppose God) Balaam.

Many modern writers assert that Satan is derived from Set. The problem with this is that set means "throne" and is equivalent to the Hebrew sheth, which is spelled shin-tau, whereas satan is spelled sin-teth-nun. In effect the two words do not have one vowel or consonant in common.

According to a 20th century rabbinical commentator, Satan is "a celestial Intelligence Officer who must report to God in the Heavenly Council...His part is to oppose men in their pretensions to a right standing with God, and to test their sincerity (Job), to remind God, in no friendly spirit of their sins (Zech.), and to prompt them to do acts which will bring them into disfavor with God."

In the intertestamental period, a completely different theory was developed: that Satan was a leading angel who rebelled against God and was cast out.

Another addition to Hell's hieracrchy came from the book of Isaiah. While prophesying the downfall of the kings of babylon, Isaiah said; "How art thou fallen from Heaven, Hellel son of the Dawn." Hellel means 'shining one.'
The metaphor was obviously familiar to his audience but its meaning is now lost.
However, Jewish commentators never connected this passage to the legend of the fallen angels, the first link being made by Origen in the 2nd century. Origen used phosphoros, the Greek equivalent of hellel.

A problem arose here, because Phosphorous, or Shining One, was the usual name for the morning star, and, in the Book of Revelation, Jesus states "I am the bright and morning star."

It may have been in reference to the latter passage that the fourth century bishop of Cagliari took the Christian name of Lucifer, the Latin equivalent of Phosphoros.

At this time the church was divided between the Arians, who held that Jesus was the first being created by God, and the Athanasians, who held that Jesus was as eternal as God. Eventually the Athanasian viewpoint was made official, and the Arians were forced to recant their belief on pain of death. This was not good enough for Bishop Lucifer who thought they should be put to death even if they did recant. This "extreme" view led to the church labeling Lucifer a heretic.

At this time Saint Jerome, who was famous for his invective against anyone who disagreed with him, was engaged in translating the Bible into Latin. He rendered Hellel/Phosphoros as Lucifer. In a letter to Bishop Damascus he wrote, "Now the Sun of Justice is rising in the West; but in the East that notorious Lucifer, who had fallen, has exalted his throne above the stars."

In the end, the name Lucifer, which nearly became the title of Christ, came down on the side of hell as an alternative name for Satan.

But why quibble about a few demons?

While the Book of Enoch puts the number of fallen angels at a measly 200, the Talmud ups the ante to 180,000.

Both unimaginative pikers when compared to Bible "scholars" of the Middle Ages who calculated the number of fallen angels as being 133,306,668. Others have put the number of fallen angels as high as 2,665,866,746,664.

I suppose that the lesson here is that if you're just going to make shit up the sky really is the limit.

1/15/2008 01:23:00 AM  
Blogger Peter Greene said...

Geez, I hope Jeff posts something new soon. I actually started to read the Good News Cut'n'Post BibleTM for a second there.

1/15/2008 01:55:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

An Eternity With Christ
Here's the story of a battle that never takes place, after a preparation that involves whole nations. The story of Satan's last fight for supremacy--and then a view of the great white Throne and the final judgment.--And the awesomely beautiful heaven that follows for God's people. The story of the end of sin.--and of life in the new earth. A story that helps us want to be there.

All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God's redeemed at that time. Unfettered by mortality, they will wing their tireless flight to worlds afar. With unutterable delight, the children of earth will enter into the joy and wisdom of unfallen beings. Here is the story of life in the New Earth--a story we want a part in.

1/15/2008 02:33:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Great Controversy Ended
At the close of the thousand years, Christ again returns to the earth. He is accompanied by the host of the redeemed and attended by a retinue of angels. As He descends in terrific majesty He bids the wicked dead arise to receive their doom. They come forth, a mighty host, numberless as the sands of the sea. What a contrast to those who were raised at the first resurrection! The righteous were clothed with immortal youth and beauty. The wicked bear the traces of disease and death.

Every eye in that vast multitude is turned to behold the glory of the Son of God. With one voice the wicked hosts exclaim: "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" It is not love to Jesus that inspires this utterance. The force of truth urges the words from unwilling lips. As the wicked went into their graves, so they come forth with the same enmity to Christ and the same spirit of rebellion. They are to have no new probation in which to remedy the defects of their past lives. Nothing would be gained by this. A lifetime of transgression has not softened their hearts. A second probation, were it given them, would be occupied as was the first in evading the requirements of God and exciting rebellion against Him.

Christ descends upon the Mount of Olives, whence, after His resurrection, He ascended, and where angels repeated the promise of His return. Says the prophet: "The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee." "And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof, . . . and there shall be a very great valley." "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one." Zechariah 14:5, 4, 9. As the New Jerusalem, in its dazzling splendor, comes down out of heaven, it rests upon the place purified and made ready to receive it, and Christ, with His people and the angels, enters the Holy City.

Now Satan prepares for a last mighty struggle for the supremacy. While deprived of his power and cut off from his work of deception, the prince of evil was miserable and dejected; but as the wicked dead are raised and he sees the vast multitudes upon his side, his hopes revive, and he determines not to yield the great controversy. He will marshal all the armies of the lost under his banner and through them endeavor to execute his plans. The wicked are Satan's captives. In rejecting Christ they have accepted the rule of the rebel leader. They are ready to receive his suggestions and to do his bidding. Yet, true to his early cunning, he does not acknowledge himself to be Satan. He claims to be the prince who is the rightful owner of the world and whose inheritance has been unlawfully wrested from him. He represents himself to his deluded subjects as a redeemer, assuring them that his power has brought them forth from their graves and that he is about to rescue them from the most cruel tyranny. The presence of Christ having been removed, Satan works wonders to support his claims. He makes the weak strong and inspires all with his own spirit and energy. He proposes to lead them against the camp of the saints and to take possession of the City of God. With fiendish exultation he points to the unnumbered millions who have been raised from the dead and declares that as their leader he is well able to overthrow the city and regain his throne and his kingdom.

In that vast throng are multitudes of the long-lived race that existed before the Flood; men of lofty stature and giant intellect, who, yielding to the control of fallen angels, devoted all their skill and knowledge to the exaltation of themselves; men whose wonderful works of art led the world to idolize their genius, but whose cruelty and evil inventions, defiling the earth and defacing the image of God, caused Him to blot them from the face of His creation. There are kings and generals who conquered nations, valiant men who never lost a battle, proud, ambitious warriors whose approach made kingdoms tremble. In death these experienced no change. As they come up from the grave, they resume the current of their thoughts just where it ceased. They are actuated by the same desire to conquer that ruled them when they fell.

Satan consults with his angels, and then with these kings and conquerors and mighty men. They look upon the strength and numbers on their side, and declare that the army within the city is small in comparison with theirs, and that it can be overcome. They lay their plans to take possession of the riches and glory of the New Jerusalem. All immediately begin to prepare for battle. Skillful artisans construct implements of war. Military leaders, famed for their success, marshal the throngs of warlike men into companies and divisions.

At last the order to advance is given, and the countless host moves on--an army such as was never summoned by earthly conquerors, such as the combined forces of all ages since war began on earth could never equal. Satan, the mightiest of warriors, leads the van, and his angels unite their forces for this final struggle. Kings and warriors are in his train, and the multitudes follow in vast companies, each under its appointed leader. With military precision the serried ranks advance over the earth's broken and uneven surface to the City of God. By command of Jesus, the gates of the New Jerusalem are closed, and the armies of Satan surround the city and make ready for the onset.

Now Christ again appears to the view of His enemies. Far above the city, upon a foundation of burnished gold, is a throne, high and lifted up. Upon this throne sits the Son of God, and around Him are the subjects of His kingdom. The power and majesty of Christ no language can describe, no pen portray. The glory of the Eternal Father is enshrouding His Son. The brightness of His presence fills the City of God, and flows out beyond the gates, flooding the whole earth with its radiance.

Nearest the throne are those who were once zealous in the cause of Satan, but who, plucked as brands from the burning, have followed their Saviour with deep, intense devotion. Next are those who perfected Christian characters in the midst of falsehood and infidelity, those who honored the law of God when the Christian world declared it void, and the millions, of all ages, who were martyred for their faith. And beyond is the "great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, . . . before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands." Revelation 7:9. Their warfare is ended, their victory won. They have run the race and reached the prize. The palm branch in their hands is a symbol of their triumph, the white robe an emblem of the spotless righteousness of Christ which now is theirs.

The redeemed raise a song of praise that echoes and re-echoes through the vaults of heaven: "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." Verse 10. And angel and seraph unite their voices in adoration. As the redeemed have beheld the power and malignity of Satan, they have seen, as never before, that no power but that of Christ could have made them conquerors. In all that shining throng there are none to ascribe salvation to themselves, as if they had prevailed by their own power and goodness. Nothing is said of what they have done or suffered; but the burden of every song, the keynote of every anthem, is: Salvation to our God and unto the Lamb.

In the presence of the assembled inhabitants of earth and heaven the final coronation of the Son of God takes place. And now, invested with supreme majesty and power, the King of kings pronounces sentence upon the rebels against His government and executes justice upon those who have transgressed His law and oppressed His people. Says the prophet of God: "I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." Revelation 20:11, 12.

As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have ever committed. They see just where their feet diverged from the path of purity and holiness, just how far pride and rebellion have carried them in the violation of the law of God. The seductive temptations which they encouraged by indulgence in sin, the blessings perverted, the messengers of God despised, the warnings rejected, the waves of mercy beaten back by the stubborn, unrepentant heart--all appear as if written in letters of fire.

Above the throne is revealed the cross; and like a panoramic view appear the scenes of Adam's temptation and fall, and the successive steps in the great plan of redemption. The Saviour's lowly birth; His early life of simplicity and obedience; His baptism in Jordan; the fast and temptation in the wilderness; His public ministry, unfolding to men heaven's most precious blessings; the days crowded with deeds of love and mercy, the nights of prayer and watching in the solitude of the mountains; the plottings of envy, hate, and malice which repaid His benefits; the awful, mysterious agony in Gethsemane beneath the crushing weight of the sins of the whole world; His betrayal into the hands of the murderous mob; the fearful events of that night of horror--the unresisting prisoner, forsaken by His best-loved disciples, rudely hurried through the streets of Jerusalem; the Son of God exultingly displayed before Annas, arraigned in the high priest's palace, in the judgment hall of Pilate, before the cowardly and cruel Herod, mocked, insulted, tortured, and condemned to die--all are vividly portrayed.

And now before the swaying multitude are revealed the final scenes--the patient Sufferer treading the path to Calvary; the Prince of heaven hanging upon the cross; the haughty priests and the jeering rabble deriding His expiring agony; the supernatural darkness; the heaving earth, the rent rocks, the open graves, marking the moment when the world's Redeemer yielded up His life.

The awful spectacle appears just as it was. Satan, his angels, and his subjects have no power to turn from the picture of their own work. Each actor recalls the part which he performed. Herod, who slew the innocent children of Bethlehem that he might destroy the King of Israel; the base Herodias, upon whose guilty soul rests the blood of John the Baptist; the weak, timeserving Pilate; the mocking soldiers; the priests and rulers and the maddened throng who cried, "His blood be on us, and on our children!"--all behold the enormity of their guilt. They vainly seek to hide from the divine majesty of His countenance, outshining the glory of the sun, while the redeemed cast their crowns at the Saviour's feet, exclaiming: "He died for me!"

Amid the ransomed throng are the apostles of Christ, the heroic Paul, the ardent Peter, the loved and loving John, and their truehearted brethren, and with them the vast host of martyrs; while outside the walls, with every vile and abominable thing, are those by whom they were persecuted, imprisoned, and slain. There is Nero, that monster of cruelty and vice, beholding the joy and exaltation of those whom he once tortured, and in whose extremest anguish he found satanic delight. His mother is there to witness the result of her own work; to see how the evil stamp of character transmitted to her son, the passions encouraged and developed by her influence and example, have borne fruit in crimes that caused the world to shudder.

There are papist priests and prelates, who claimed to be Christ's ambassadors, yet employed the rack, the dungeon, and the stake to control the consciences of His people. There are the proud pontiffs who exalted themselves above God and presumed to change the law of the Most High. Those pretended fathers of the church have an account to render to God from which they would fain be excused. Too late they are made to see that the Omniscient One is jealous of His law and that He will in no wise clear the guilty. They learn now that Christ identifies His interest with that of His suffering people; and they feel the force of His own words: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Matthew 25:40.

The whole wicked world stand arraigned at the bar of God on the charge of high treason against the government of heaven. They have none to plead their cause; they are without excuse; and the sentence of eternal death is pronounced against them.

It is now evident to all that the wages of sin is not noble independence and eternal life, but slavery, ruin, and death. The wicked see what they have forfeited by their life of rebellion. The far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory was despised when offered them; but how desirable it now appears. "All this," cries the lost soul, "I might have had; but I chose to put these things far from me. Oh, strange infatuation! I have exchanged peace, happiness, and honor for wretchedness, infamy, and despair." All see that their exclusion from heaven is just. By their lives they have declared: "We will not have this Man [Jesus] to reign over us."

As if entranced, the wicked have looked upon the coronation of the Son of God. They see in His hands the tables of the divine law, the statutes which they have despised and transgressed. They witness the outburst of wonder, rapture, and adoration from the saved; and as the wave of melody sweeps over the multitudes without the city, all with one voice exclaim, "Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints" (Revelation 15:3); and, falling prostrate, they worship the Prince of life.

Satan seems paralyzed as he beholds the glory and majesty of Christ. He who was once a covering cherub remembers whence he has fallen. A shining seraph, "son of the morning;" how changed, how degraded! From the council where once he was honored, he is forever excluded. He sees another now standing near to the Father, veiling His glory. He has seen the crown placed upon the head of Christ by an angel of lofty stature and majestic presence, and he knows that the exalted position of this angel might have been his.

Memory recalls the home of his innocence and purity, the peace and content that were his until he indulged in murmuring against God, and envy of Christ. His accusations, his rebellion, his deceptions to gain the sympathy and support of the angels, his stubborn persistence in making no effort for self-recovery when God would have granted him forgiveness --all come vividly before him. He reviews his work among men and its results--the enmity of man toward his fellow man, the terrible destruction of life, the rise and fall of kingdoms, the overturning of thrones, the long succession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions. He recalls his constant efforts to oppose the work of Christ and to sink man lower and lower. He sees that his hellish plots have been powerless to destroy those who have put their trust in Jesus. As Satan looks upon his kingdom, the fruit of his toil, he sees only failure and ruin. He has led the multitudes to believe that the City of God would be an easy prey; but he knows that this is false. Again and again, in the progress of the great controversy, he has been defeated and compelled to yield. He knows too well the power and majesty of the Eternal.

The aim of the great rebel has ever been to justify himself and to prove the divine government responsible for the rebellion. To this end he has bent all the power of his giant intellect. He has worked deliberately and systematically, and with marvelous success, leading vast multitudes to accept his version of the great controversy which has been so long in progress. For thousands of years this chief of conspiracy has palmed off falsehood for truth. But the time has now come when the rebellion is to be finally defeated and the history and character of Satan disclosed. In his last great effort to dethrone Christ, destroy His people, and take possession of the City of God, the archdeceiver has been fully unmasked. Those who have united with him see the total failure of his cause. Christ's followers and the loyal angels behold the full extent of his machinations against the government of God. He is the object of universal abhorrence.

Satan sees that his voluntary rebellion has unfitted him for heaven. He has trained his powers to war against God; the purity, peace, and harmony of heaven would be to him supreme torture. His accusations against the mercy and justice of God are now silenced. The reproach which he has endeavored to cast upon Jehovah rests wholly upon himself. And now Satan bows down and confesses the justice of his sentence.

"Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest." Verse 4. Every question of truth and error in the long-standing controversy has now been made plain. The results of rebellion, the fruits of setting aside the divine statutes, have been laid open to the view of all created intelligences. The working out of Satan's rule in contrast with the government of God has been presented to the whole universe. Satan's own works have condemned him. God's wisdom, His justice, and His goodness stand fully vindicated. It is seen that all His dealings in the great controversy have been conducted with respect to the eternal good of His people and the good of all the worlds that He has created. "All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord; and Thy saints shall bless Thee." Psalm 145:10. The history of sin will stand to all eternity as a witness that with the existence of God's law is bound up the happiness of all the beings He has created. With all the facts of the great controversy in view, the whole universe, both loyal and rebellious, with one accord declare: "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints."

Before the universe has been clearly presented the great sacrifice made by the Father and the Son in man's behalf. The hour has come when Christ occupies His rightful position and is glorified above principalities and powers and every name that is named. It was for the joy that was set before Him--that He might bring many sons unto glory--that He endured the cross and despised the shame. And inconceivably great as was the sorrow and the shame, yet greater is the joy and the glory. He looks upon the redeemed, renewed in His own image, every heart bearing the perfect impress of the divine, every face reflecting the likeness of their King. He beholds in them the result of the travail of His soul, and He is satisfied. Then, in a voice that reaches the assembled multitudes of the righteous and the wicked, He declares: "Behold the purchase of My blood! For these I suffered, for these I died, that they might dwell in My presence throughout eternal ages." And the song of praise ascends from the white-robed ones about the throne: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." Revelation 5:12.

Notwithstanding that Satan has been constrained to acknowledge God's justice and to bow to the supremacy of Christ, his character remains unchanged. The spirit of rebellion, like a mighty torrent, again bursts forth. Filled with frenzy, he determines not to yield the great controversy. The time has come for a last desperate struggle against the King of heaven. He rushes into the midst of his subjects and endeavors to inspire them with his own fury and arouse them to instant battle. But of all the countless millions whom he has allured into rebellion, there are none now to acknowledge his supremacy. His power is at an end. The wicked are filled with the same hatred of God that inspires Satan; but they see that their case is hopeless, that they cannot prevail against Jehovah. Their rage is kindled against Satan and those who have been his agents in deception, and with the fury of demons they turn upon them.

Saith the Lord: "Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit." "I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. . . . I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. . . . I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. . . . Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." Ezekiel 28:6-8, 16-19.

"Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." "The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies: He hath utterly destroyed them, He hath delivered them to the slaughter." "Upon the wicked He shall rain quick burning coals, fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." Isaiah 9:5; 34:2; Psalm 11:6, margin. Fire comes down from God out of heaven. The earth is broken up. The weapons concealed in its depths are drawn forth. Devouring flames burst from every yawning chasm. The very rocks are on fire. The day has come that shall burn as an oven. The elements melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein are burned up. Malachi 4:1; 2 Peter 3:10. The earth's surface seems one molten mass--a vast, seething lake of fire. It is the time of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men--"the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion." Isaiah 34:8.

The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. Proverbs 11:31. They "shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts." Malachi 4:1. Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished "according to their deeds." The sins of the righteous having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit. His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch--Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of the law has been visited; the demands of justice have been met; and heaven and earth, beholding, declare the righteousness of Jehovah.

Satan's work of ruin is forever ended. For six thousand years he has wrought his will, filling the earth with woe and causing grief throughout the universe. The whole creation has groaned and travailed together in pain. Now God's creatures are forever delivered from his presence and temptations. "The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they [the righteous] break forth into singing." Isaiah 14:7. And a shout of praise and triumph ascends from the whole loyal universe. "The voice of a great multitude," "as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings," is heard, saying: "Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Revelation 19:6.

While the earth was wrapped in the fire of destruction, the righteous abode safely in the Holy City. Upon those that had part in the first resurrection, the second death has no power. While God is to the wicked a consuming fire, He is to His people both a sun and a shield. Revelation 20:6; Psalm 84:11.

"I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." Revelation 21:1. The fire that consumes the wicked purifies the earth. Every trace of the curse is swept away. No eternally burning hell will keep before the ransomed the fearful consequences of sin.

One reminder alone remains: Our Redeemer will ever bear the marks of His crucifixion. Upon His wounded head, upon His side, His hands and feet, are the only traces of the cruel work that sin has wrought. Says the prophet, beholding Christ in His glory: "He had bright beams coming out of His side: and there was the hiding of His power." Habakkuk 3:4, margin. That pierced side whence flowed the crimson stream that reconciled man to God--there is the Saviour's glory, there "the hiding of His power." "Mighty to save," through the sacrifice of redemption, He was therefore strong to execute justice upon them that despised God's mercy. And the tokens of His humiliation are His highest honor; through the eternal ages the wounds of Calvary will show forth His praise and declare His power.

"O Tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto Thee shall it come, even the first dominion." Micah 4:8. The time has come to which holy men have looked with longing since the flaming sword barred the first pair from Eden, the time for "the redemption of the purchased possession." Ephesians 1:14. The earth originally given to man as his kingdom, betrayed by him into the hands of Satan, and so long held by the mighty foe, has been brought back by the great plan of redemption. All that was lost by sin has been restored. "Thus saith the Lord . . . that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited." Isaiah 45:18. God's original purpose in the creation of the earth is fulfilled as it is made the eternal abode of the redeemed. "The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever." Psalm 37:29.

A fear of making the future inheritance seem too material has led many to spiritualize away the very truths which lead us to look upon it as our home. Christ assured His disciples that He went to prepare mansions for them in the Father's house. Those who accept the teachings of God's word will not be wholly ignorant concerning the heavenly abode. And yet, "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." 1 Corinthians 2:9. Human language is inadequate to describe the reward of the righteous. It will be known only to those who behold it. No finite mind can comprehend the glory of the Paradise of God.

In the Bible the inheritance of the saved is called "a country." Hebrews 11:14-16. There the heavenly Shepherd leads His flock to fountains of living waters. The tree of life yields its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the service of the nations. There are ever-flowing streams, clear as crystal, and beside them waving trees cast their shadows upon the paths prepared for the ransomed of the Lord. There the wide-spreading plains swell into hills of beauty, and the mountains of God rear their lofty summits. On those peaceful plains, beside those living streams, God's people, so long pilgrims and wanderers, shall find a home.

"My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." "Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise." "They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: . . . Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." Isaiah 32:18; 60:18; 65:21, 22.

There, "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; . . . and a little child shall lead them." "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain," saith the Lord. Isaiah 35:1; 55:13; 11:6, 9.

Pain cannot exist in the atmosphere of heaven. There will be no more tears, no funeral trains, no badges of mourning. "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying: . . . for the former things are passed away." "The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 33:24.

There is the New Jerusalem, the metropolis of the glorified new earth, "a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." "Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." "The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it." Saith the Lord: "I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people." "The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." Isaiah 62:3; Revelation 21:11, 24; Isaiah 65:19; Revelation 21:3.

In the City of God "there shall be no night." None will need or desire repose. There will be no weariness in doing the will of God and offering praise to His name. We shall ever feel the freshness of the morning and shall ever be far from its close. "And they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light." Revelation 22:5. The light of the sun will be superseded by a radiance which is not painfully dazzling, yet which immeasurably surpasses the brightness of our noontide. The glory of God and the Lamb floods the Holy City with unfading light. The redeemed walk in the sunless glory of perpetual day.

"I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Revelation 21:22. The people of God are privileged to hold open communion with the Father and the Son. "Now we see through a glass, darkly." .PG 677 677

1 Corinthians 13:12. We behold the image of God reflected, as in a mirror, in the works of nature and in His dealings with men; but then we shall see Him face to face, without a dimming veil between. We shall stand in His presence and behold the glory of His countenance.

There the redeemed shall know, even as also they are known. The loves and sympathies which God Himself has planted in the soul shall there find truest and sweetest exercise. The pure communion with holy beings, the harmonious social life with the blessed angels and with the faithful ones of all ages who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, the sacred ties that bind together "the whole family in heaven and earth" (Ephesians 3:15)--these help to constitute the happiness of the redeemed.

There, immortal minds will contemplate with never-failing delight the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of redeeming love. There will be no cruel, deceiving foe to tempt to forgetfulness of God. Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and body.

All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God's redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar--worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of human woe and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul. With unutterable delight the children of earth enter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings. They share the treasures of knowledge and understanding gained through ages upon ages in contemplation of God's handiwork. With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation--suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. Upon all things, from the least to the greatest, the Creator's name is written, and in all are the riches of His power displayed.

And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character. As Jesus opens before them the riches of redemption and the amazing achievements in the great controversy with Satan, the hearts of the ransomed thrill with more fervent devotion, and with more rapturous joy they sweep the harps of gold; and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices unite to swell the mighty chorus of praise.

"And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." Revelation 5:13.

The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.

1/15/2008 02:48:00 AM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

Here's some past RI, Reptor:

"Respected researcher Jacques Vallee says, "I will be disappointed if UFOs turn out to be nothing more than spaceships." Me, I think I would be relieved.

Why? Here's a for instance.

In 1918 in New York City, occultist and British spy Aleister Crowley conducted a ritual he called the "Amalantrah Working" intended to create a "magick portal" - a dimensional rift - through which certain intelligences would be invited to cross and manifest themselves in the world. Crowley claimed that one being he called "Lam" did cross, and he drew a portrait. The image bears striking resemblance to the "Greys" of later UFO mythology."

"
Stewart quotes Kenneth Grant, current head of the OTO, as saying “Lam is a Great Old One whose archetype is recognizable in accounts of UFO occupants.” Grant has organized an OTO "Cult of Lam," and a number of members claim remarkable success in their invocation of the "trans-mundane" being, or perhaps type of being. One contactee, Michael Bertiaux, regards Lam as the “subterranean burgeoning of Lucifer-Gnosis,” which represents the "appropriate path of human spiritual growth at this time."



None of this is particularly new in internet land. Giving Crowley credit for ufos seems to be fairly common amongst the occultic alien hunters.

Sounds nice an spooky, doesn't it?

Gives one the goosey pimples, eh?

Hell, when I first read this, I bought it hook line and sinker too.

Then I read this:

"The "Lam" drawing was originally shown at Crowley's Dead Souls exhibition of 1919. It was then included as the frontispiece for Crowley's commentary on Mmme Blavatsky's The Voice of Silence.
the picture is entitled 'The Way,' and it comes complete with the following inscription:

"LAM is the Tibetan word for Way or Path, and LAMA is He who Goeth, the specific title of the Gods of Egypt, the Treader of the Path, in Buddhist phraseology. Its numerical value is 71, the number of this book."

"Crowley left no record of the origin of the portrait, nor does he mention it in any of his writings, including his Confessions. It wasn't until May of 1945 that the picture resurfaced when Kenneth Grant was leafing through an old portfolio of Crowley's. According to Grant, Crowley agreed to let him keep the picture if he could correctly guess the subject.
Grant's answer: a Trans-Plutonian extraterrestrial!

"Despite the fact that Grant had failed to solve the puzzle, Crowley later handed over the portrait anyway, after Grant kindly popped out to fetch Crowley some heroin to relieve a particularly nasty asthma attack.

"Almost three decades passed before Grant published the picture in The Magical Revival as indeed-despite what Crowley might have said- a Trans-Plutonian extraterrestrial entity named LAM!

"It is the shape of the subject's head that reminds us most of the Greys. But couldn't the same be said for Crowley's idealized "self-portrait" that serves as the frontispiece to his Confessions?
And if we bear in mind that Crowley's genius didn't extend to his drawing skills(and by that I mean he couldn't draw for toffee), then on what basis can we say this is an accurate drawing of an extraterrestrial?

"Grant obviously took the name from the inscription in Crowley's commentary on The Voice of Silence, despite the fact LAM is defined as 'the Tibetan word for Way or Path.' (If anything, shouldn't his name be LAMA, considering that LAMA is He who Goeth"?)

"Often websites or books promoting the LAM hypothesis only include a cropped image of the portrait, showing the head. (ala Mr. Wells here:
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/01/occult-history-of-national-security.html)
If we look at the original as it appears in The Voice of Silence, we see in the bottom left-hand corner the number 49 written in psuedo-oriental script.

'Each sentence in Blavatsky's book is numbered. This is sentence 49:

"49. Thou canst not travel on the Path before thou hast become that Path itself.
'Compare the scene in Parsifal, where the scenery comes to the knight instead of the knight going towards the scenery. But there is also implied the doctrine of the Tao, and only one who is an accomplished Taoist can hope to understand this verse.(See "The Hermit of Esopus Island," part of the Magical Record of the Beast 666, to be published in The Equinox, vol.III.)"

"Not only is this sentence explicitly concerned with the concept of 'the Path,' or what is called LAM in Tibetan, but also Crowley relates the Path(LAM) with the doctrine of the Tao. But why the reference to "The Hermit of Esopus Island"?

"In his Confessions we learn that it was during a magical retirement on Esopus Island, New York State, that Crowley made a new translation of Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching, and recovered the memories of his past lives. The retirement culminated in an experience so profound that Crowley was moved to claim: "In a single instant I had the Key to the whole of the Chinese wisdom."

Interestingly, Crowley performed this retirement immediately after the Amalantrah Working, but immediately before he wrote his commentary to The Voice of Silence. In other words, Crowley's commentary, and the portrait for the frontispiece, came immediately after the events on Esopus Island.

"Crowley originally described the subject of the portrait as "his guru" and "drawn from life"; the portrait was drawn just after Crowley remembers being a disciple of Lao Tzu; the drawing includes what appears to be the number of a passage in The Voice of Silence annotated by Crowley to refer explicitly to the magical retirement where he remembered past lives; the inscription given in The Voice of Silence discusses what Crowley considered to be the Tibetan equivalent of the Tao; and the portrait originally appeared in an exhibition called Dead Souls.

"Doesn't it seem more reasonable to assume we're looking at a portrait drawn by a Naive artist of the Taoist master Lao Tzu, rather than a Trans-Plutonian extraterrestrial that forced its way into our dimension?"




Now after reading that, I realized that LAM was just more poorly researched internet bullshit about Crowley.

I also realized that the author's question at the end was as naive as Crowley's art, because I know that, all crackerjack research and reasonableness aside, it will deter the LAM as Crowley's alien contact crowd not one fucking itty bitty iota.

I've discovered that the absolute last thing that 21st century "truth seekers" actually want is to find the truth.

1/15/2008 03:42:00 AM  
Blogger Fructedor said...

As I remember, Rolling Thunder made his claim concerning the first rays of the rising sun. I can't tell you why. The point that struck me was that all these myths, including the Christ story, have their roots in sun worship, as celebrated the world over for millenia by all sorts of civilisations. Mithras was one of many mythical figures that shared recognisable identity with Jesus.

That established religions constitute a complicated and corrupt world view used mainly to exercise psychological pressure on the masses is not in doubt. My point is that this does not necessarily invalidate the human experience which lies at the root of such world views. It's a question of verifying the truth of these transcendental experiences for oneself - which I suppose means that you have to have some sort of experience like it to begin with. And then be careful with your interpretation.

In my experience, any explanations of such phenomena which stay too closely linked to the story as accepted, and use established language - Christian or otherwise - are not going to help, since they're generally just trying to shovel experience into the illusory comfort of conformity.

I don't think concluding that everything's bullshit is conducive to a fruitful life. But then who ever said that life had to be fruitful? Perhaps it's rewarding enough to just wallow in it - personally I find that boring.

1/15/2008 04:10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maudlin meanderings down the mohole of misananthropy.

1/15/2008 05:08:00 AM  
Blogger just_another_dick said...

"The point that struck me was that all these myths, including the Christ story, have their roots in sun worship, as celebrated the world over for millenia by all sorts of civilisations."

Worshipping the sun is fairly easy to understand considering all of these "religions" sprung up during a time when humanity was one bad harvest away from starvation.

Having the sun return after the dark days of winter was essential for these folk.

A fact that I think is easily forgotten in today's world where one can pop down to the grocery store and buy all manner of fruits & veggies no matter what the season.

Its also easy to see why Christianity had such a hard inroad into pagan cultures who practiced their fertility rites to reawaken the sun. The upstart Christ was untested when compared to fucking in the fields to please Pan. A practice that evidently worked or, at least, appeared to work, season after season.

And, since Christ was eventually just grafted onto these pagan feast days, I think it's pretty obvious who really won the God wars.
Folk may pay lip service to Jesus at Xmas, but at the core of it all, I'm sure Pan is tittering gleefully.


"Mithras was one of many mythical figures that shared recognisable identity with Jesus."

Or, as some scholars say, the Persian Mithra God myth was just one of many Middle Eastern God myths that were stirred together and used to create the Christ myth.


"I don't think concluding that everything's bullshit is conducive to a fruitful life."

You're so right. All evidence for mundane solutions should be ignored in favor of
solutions that make us feel all goose-pimply and....ummmm...."spiritual."


"personally I find that boring."


Y'know what I find boring?

Poorly researched twaddle that passes itself off as "spirituality" and "truth."

Where internet "researchers" who demonstrate again and again that they couldn't find their ass with both hands & a flashlight, yet still have no problems rambling on with the same old gossipy stories that only, in the end, totally muddy the waters. Until eventually "truth" is little more than a rotting piece of driftwood sitting alone, obscured, and undiscovered on the bottom of a vast sea of bullshit.

Personally, I think folk really prefer the taste of bullshit.
Why else would the world be so fucking inundated with it?

1/15/2008 11:14:00 AM  
Blogger Fructedor said...

Richard

I don't think that concluding all is bullshit qualifies as a mundane solution, personally. Perhaps that's not actually what you've done, but it certainly sounds like it.

You'll find no claims in my bit to research, and none to "spirituality" or "truth". Human beings have dimensions which can not be quantified, but can be experimented. The translation of these experiences have been twisted into another power tool. The only way of knowing anything is to experience it and draw your own conclusions. The stories of others can be a help in this endeavour, but essentially, something about us that is not the mind is what reveals falsehood. One reason I like Rumi's poem that Jeff posts.

We all choose our own life, and assign our priorities as we wish. People are easily wound up with smoke stories, by politics, media, religion and education, and there's so much of it about because there's a price tag on all of it, and everybody's in. But there are other ways to live a life.

1/15/2008 12:32:00 PM  
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