Human Body/Reality Browser

The Human Body as Reality Browser

What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a God. The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust. Man impresses not me."

- taken from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

The paradox of existence; existence IS, while it also DEVELOPS/UNFOLDS. The SPACE/TIME Continuum IS, while within this continuum each STATE is interrupted by an EVENT, which leads to a new STATE. The human species resides within the boundaries of existence, and is therefore subject to these 'laws'. If mankind uses his memories, associations, traditions and stories as a basis of comparison whenever a new EVENT occurs, one should also take a look at WHERE these memories, associations, traditions and stories are stored and where they find their ORIGIN.

A story is, in fact, nothing more than a series of EVENTS and descriptions of STATES. As is language. Both body-language and verbal linguistic communication are based on the constant Q & A of existence, and from this point of view, the human body can be seen as the ultimate reality-browser; a puppet which can be used to traverse the limited dimensions of space/time, and to tell stories... to 'act out' on the stage of the world... As is explained in "Is this a dagger I see before me?", we are that which we think to be we are, and thus it really is the thought that counts (from one to twenty-six, in this case). What happens in 'real' life is just as much a story as are those stories that have already been written down. It's just a matter of perspective.

To Infinity and Beyond

A stroll through failed prophecies-to-be
Page 1 of 2

March 26, 2007 CE - Let's stop off for a little prophetic nosh from that bastion of credibility, The Weekly World News. It seems that on the stroke of the 7th hour of the 7th day of the 7th Hebrew month of 2007, (that would be Nisan, calculating from Tishri, which falls in September of 2006) Jesus will simulcast his big comeback in every capital city in the world. The WWN doesn't bother to say what sort of deal the Boss's kid makes for the smaller markets or anyone who still doesn't get cable.

April 29, 2007 CE - With New World Order nonsense running like a tape loop through his tiny mind, Pat Robertson once again prophesies a “collapse of the Gentile powers” and the rise of a millennial Christ-o-thon for this date. Using the literary works of loony-toon white supremacist writers Nesta Webster and Eustace Mullins as his inspiration, Patsy concocts another paranoid End Time scenario in his tread-worn tome “The New Millennium”. Any bets on what date he'll be pointing to by April 30?

September 12-13, 2007 CE - Marilyn Agee flails about for yet another date and comes up with this one for her End of the Age/New Abridged Trib and Rapture combo. A completist, she also pins down...

April 6-May 31, 2008 CE - ...as the Second Coming/Armageddon due date. No point in feeling bad for her when this date fails just like the rest. Like all others of her ilk, where Doomsdays are concerned, Mar’s got a million of ‘em.

Any ol’ time between 1999 and 2009 CE - When Jerry Falwell isn’t manfully hunting down such threats to American society as homosexual Teletubbies, he can often be found inserting both of his own feet and any available others into his mouth on the subject of the Antichrist. This time, the sheep manure spewing from his lips had to do with his belief that the Antichrist was almost certainly already alive and plotting and, most importantly,...a Jew. When called on this prize stupidity, he did back down and apologize. Though it was clear that the popular pinhead hadn’t the vaguest notion exactly what it was he was apologizing for.

Tranceformers

Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st Century Phenomena Mag

Dr. John Jay Harper: "What I came to learn was the opening of our third eye is the purpose of religious ritual from the rites of baptism by immersion to the chanting of hymns. Only much later did I realize that this apocalypse, or unveiling, of our inner vision was the goal of evolution too."

Fish With Hands & Feet

PARAGUAY: A FISH WITH HANDS AND FEET

Inexplicata
The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
1-30-06

**A group of men went fishing as was their custom every afternoon, but this time they caught a surprise. When they set it on the ground, it began to walk**

A group of Paraguayan fishermen had quite a surprise when they pulled two green fish out of the San Rafael stream in Asuncion's Zevallos Cue district. One of the specimens had hands and feet.

Their surprise was even greater when they noticed that the specimen began walking toward the water after having been set down on the ground, according to Paraguay's El Popular newspaper.

"It's too much. Seeing such things frightens me. We grabbed the net and brought it home, but we don't know what it is," said one of the protagonists of the story to the neighboring country's newspaper.

More . . .

See Also: The Creature of Tagua Tagua Lagoon

via: Frank Warren

***UPDATE***

plus this

Tribunals' holy terror

Catholic church's bloody campaigns of enforced orthodoxy were bad policy but make great TV Four-part series pulls few punches exploring brutal efforts to eradicate heresy, writes Ron Csillag

Jan. 28, 2006. 01:00 AM

The word itself is cringe-inducing: inquisition. Put a historical and religious spin on it, and it yields a reign of terror that lasted for more than 600 years, a campaign by the Roman Catholic Church of enforced orthodoxy that let loose persecution, dread and death on untold thousands accused of heresy. Those lucky enough to have escaped being burned or boiled alive were nonetheless ruined through imprisonment and confiscation of property. Whole populations were driven from their homelands in the name of piety and purity. The Inquisition — not limited to Spain as many might believe — was horrible and cruel and shatteringly un-Christian. It earned the Catholic Church a black eye that is remembered to this day.

"We live in a world where the president of the United States has called for a `crusade' and where Islamic fundamentalists are calling for jihad — holy war. When we think about this terminology and what it represents, relating to the history of the Inquisition as one of the major tools of holy wars and crusades, all of humankind needs to work a little harder."

inquisition

President Jonah

By Gore Vidal, Truthdig. Posted January 28, 2006.

President Jonah
Novelist Gore Vidal argues that America under Bush is evincing characteristics of the post-fall-of-Rome Dark Ages.

Gore Vidal

While contemplating the ill-starred presidency of G.W. Bush, I looked about for some sort of divine analogy. As usual, when in need of enlightenment, I fell upon the Holy Bible, authorized King James version of 1611; turning by chance to the Book of Jonah, I read that Jonah, who, like Bush, chats with God, had suffered a falling out with the Almighty and thus became a jinx dogged by luck so bad that a cruise liner, thanks to his presence aboard, was about to sink in a storm at sea. Once the crew had determined that Jonah, a passenger, was the jinx, they threw him overboard and--Lo!--the storm abated. The three days and nights he subsequently spent in the belly of a nauseous whale must have seemed like a serious jinx to the digestion-challenged whale who extruded him much as the decent opinion of mankind has done to Bush.

Originally, God wanted Jonah to give hell to Nineveh, whose people, God noted disdainfully, "cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand," so like the people of Baghdad who cannot fathom what democracy has to do with their destruction by the Cheney-Bush cabal. But the analogy becomes eerily precise when it comes to the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at a time when a president is not only incompetent but plainly jinxed by whatever faith he cringes before. Witness the ongoing screw-up of prescription drugs.

Who knows what other disasters are in store for us thanks to the curse he is under? As the sailors fed the original Jonah to a whale, thus lifting the storm that was about to drown them, perhaps we the people can persuade President Jonah to retire to his other Eden in Crawford, Texas, taking his jinx with him. We deserve a rest. Plainly, so does he. Look at Nixon's radiant features after his resignation! One can see former President Jonah in his sumptuous library happily catering to faith-based fans with animated scriptures rooted in "The Simpsons."

Not since the glory days of Watergate and Nixon's Luciferian fall has there been so much written about the dogged deceits and creative criminalities of our rulers. We have also come to a point in this dark age where there is not only no hero in view but no alternative road unblocked. We are trapped terribly in a now that few foresaw and even fewer can define despite a swarm of books and pamphlets like the vast cloud of locusts which dined on China in that '30s movie "The Good Earth."

-more-

Perception

"Nothing is as it seems...nor is it otherwise."

-Buddha

The Devil's Doctor

The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

One day in 1527, Paracelsus let it be known that he would reveal the greatest secret of medicine to the inhabitants of Basle. The esteemed doctors and academics of the university, dressed in their rich robes and fur hats, gathered to hear his words of wisdom. Secretly they hoped the roving physician and alchemist would make a fool of himself; already they could feel the warm glow of Schadenfreude. When Paracelsus appeared he was dressed, as usual, not in the costly clothes of a respected academic, but "in the plain smock of an artisan, stained and smeared with the residues of the chemistry laboratory". In his hands he bore the great secret - a dish which he held aloft for all the learned company to see. It contained "steaming human excrement". As the outraged audience hurried away in disgust, Paracelsus's words echoed after them:

"If you will not hear the mysteries of putrefactive fermentation, you are unworthy of the name of physicians!"

He did indeed believe that the essential truth of alchemy was expressed in the axiom "decay is the beginning of all birth". Confronting his enemies with "a bowl of shit" carried a less esoteric but equally eloquent message.

***
Many of the facts of Paracelsus's extraordinary, protean life are hidden in the fog of legend and myth. Ball does an excellent job of filling in the gaps and recreating this strange and wonderful age, with its wandering wizards like Agrippa von Nettesheim ("the archetypal Renaissance magus") and its magical worldview. Today Paracelsianism is "a kaleidoscopic mixture, sometimes beautiful, sometimes grotesque or terrifying or inchoate, always profoundly human". It is a deeply personal, idiosyncratic vision of life and the universe, a vision that only truly made sense to Paracelsus himself. Ball succeeds in convincing us that, despite his arcane ideas, his vision of the "strangeness and the beauty of the magical universe" remains both inspiring and important. As Paracelsus himself wrote, "it is a divine gift to investigate in the light of Nature".

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also see Thumbing his nose at the piss-gazers

Reality Mechanics

Shadow of the Dalai Lama

THE SHADOW OF THE DALAI LAMA

Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism

Translated by Mark Penny

CONTENTS

Critical Links to Buddhism and Lamaism

American Babylon

American Babylon
-Rise and Fall-

Introduction

Part 1: The Economic Challenge

Part 2: America at a Crossroads

Part 3: America's Imperial Achievements

Part 4: A One World Vision, New York City, & the CFR

Part 5: The Triumph of the Merchants

Part 6: Globalization and the American New World Order

Part 7: New York City and the Apocalypse

Part 8 :The Nature of the Beast

This study is a comprehensive historical/political analysis of the United States of America, and of the powers that have controlled her since the early twentieth century. Our nation was born in a struggle against Empire, and we existed for over a century as an example and leader around the world against the oppression that Empire represented. However, a change took place. We were seduced and then intoxicated by the lure of luxury and riches, and we became an agent for Empire, and then an Empire ourselves.

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via: red moon rising

Boobie trap

Baptist Pastor Disapproves of Priest Blessing Waco’s New Hooters. Actually, the whole story is a hoot, um, pun intended. This restaurant opened to LONG lines of evil, boobie-and-chicken-wing-lovin’ heathens, so this pastor gave up his protest.

Earlier this week Hooters opened a restaurant in Waco, home to Baylor University. Greg Brumit, pastor of Kendrick Lane Baptist Church, led a petition drive and a number of protests in an effort to stop the business from locating in his city. Other area pastors and protesters got involved in the campaign to stop the construction on the eatery famous for its female servers’ low-cut tank tops and short-shorts.

Brumit: clearly frightened by the boobies.

Brumit says he was not surprised by a report in Baylor’s newspaper, The Lariat, which quoted a manager as saying that several of the university’s students work at Hooters. “Each individual student’s different there at Baylor. They’re not all Christians,” he notes. “Those students can choose to work where they want.” The pastor adds a note of suspicion. “I’m sure that Hooters was hoping for some Baylor girls to work there,” he says.

What did come as a surprise to Brumit, however, is the move on the part of a Catholic priest to bless the restaurant’s grand opening. The evening before the new Hooters opened, Monsignor Isidore Rozycki, head Catholic priest for the Greater Waco area, offered a special prayer of blessing for the restaurant at a VIP reception at the restaurant.

via: pandagon

Bad Cookie

[click on the cookie to receive a fortune]

ACLU Releases Govt Photos

Jon Shirek Reports

The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions.

Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said. (Related: ACLU Complaint -- PDF file)

For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.

An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car.

"They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail, and the piece of paper was taken away from me at the jail and the officer who transferred me said that was why I was arrested," Childs said on Wednesday.

aclu

Say no more...

Beast from the East

Next Big Thing

Nikolay Valuev, boxing's tallest and heaviest champion ever, is a hero in Russia, controversy or no controversy.

By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer

MOSCOW — In any boxing club, sweat is part of the ambience, but in Russia, the sweat factor usually scores a one-two punch to the nose right from the doorway, reminding all who enter of what it smells like to be a nastoyashi muzhik, a real Russian man.


Valuev himself strode into the gym recently during his triumphant return to Russia after the title bout, in which he defeated American John Ruiz on a controversial decision in Berlin to become the tallest (7 feet) and heaviest (323 pounds) world champion in history. He's so big he usually steps into the ring over the top rope … so big that the adolescent pugilists at the Stepashkin Club would have barely been able to land a hook as high as his belly, if they had the nerve to try.
...
In the rest of the world, Valuev, 32, is known as the "Beast from the East" (promoter Don King wants to call him "King Kong" when he defends his title in the U.S.), but in his homeland, he is more often known as the "Russian Giant."

His brain is played up here as much as his brawn — a boxer who reads Tolstoy and writes poetry to his wife? — along with his diffident, quiet demeanor.

Nouvelle Vague

"It's French, bitch." -Stephen Colbert

The Guns of Brixton -mp3 (Seductive rendition of a Clash classic.)
In a Manner of Speaking -mp3

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Beguiling. -Ib

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via: Salon ...the best track on the record, a slow bossa nova take on Tuxedomoon's "In a Manner of Speaking." It's the singing, by Parisian artist Camille (a little more information about her here), that makes this track so exceptional, a slyly, meltingly phrased performance that is the vocal equivalent of a private striptease.

"The Guns of Brixton"

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting on death row

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton

The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell

You see, he feels like Ivan
Born under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin'
At the end of the harder they come

You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
Yes, even shoot us
But oh-the guns of Brixton

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
Yes, even shoot us
But oh-the guns of Brixton

Shot down on the pavement
Waiting in death row
His game is called survivin'
As in heaven as in hell

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton

Americas Third World War

Americas Third World War

How 6 million People Were killed in CIA secret wars against third world countries

John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. He spent 13 years in the agency. He gives a short history of CIA covert operations. He is a very compelling speaker and the highest level CIA officer to testify to the Congress about his actions. He estimates that over 6 million people have died in CIA covert actions, and this was in the late 1980's.

THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA:

by John Stockwell

"It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms."

-John Stockwell

John Stockwell is a 13-year veteran of the CIA and a former U.S. Marine Corps major. He was hired by the CIA in 1964, spent six years working for the CIA in Africa, and was later transferred to Vietnam. In 1973 he received the CIA's Medal of Merit, the Agency's second-highest award. In 1975, Stockwell was promoted to the CIA's Chief of Station and National Security Council coordinator, managing covert activities during the first years of Angola's bloody civil war. After two years he resigned, determined to reveal the truth about the agency's role in the Third World. Since that time, he has worked tirelessly to expose the criminal activities of the CIA. He is the author of In Search of Enemies, an exposé of the CIA's covert action in Angola.

Stockwell is a founding member of Peaceways and ARDIS (the Association for Responsible Dissent), an organization of former CIA and Government officials who are openly critical of the CIA's activities. His latest book is entitled The Praetorian Guard: The U.S. Role in the New World Order.

No Exit

via: The map is not the territory

Maslow's Dichotomy

Angels and Devils in Blake's Marriage

Maslow's Dichotomy

Maslow makes a distinction between “peakers,” or people who have emotional and personal experiences of transcendence, and “non-peakers,” who either ignore or repress their transcendent experiences because they reject them as irrational. He points out that both peakers and non-peakers may have affinities toward either religion or science, and that peak experiences often enter into the horizons of both. He also points out that the distaste for personal experience is a negative factor evident in both science and religion. Pure positivists, people who rely solely on confirmable (or seemingly confirmable: in the case of religious positivists, this refers to philosophical and theological theory) information to construct their worldview, tend to reject peak experience regardless of their religious or scientific mindset. Freud considered the spiritual life to be “defenses against the instincts.” Says Maslow: “The pure positivist rejects any inner experiences of any kind as being ‘un-scientific,’ as not in the realm of human knowledge.” Maslow accuses both institutionalized religion and science of perpetrating this flawed conception, and understanding Maslow's distinction between peakers and non-peakers might help clear up Blake's intention in Marriage.

Peakers and Non-Peakers in William Blake

The famous work of late 18th Century poet and religious visionary William Blake, entitled The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, has always been of great personal interest to me despite much confusion concerning its rather elliptical and cryptic message. In it, Blake explains his discomfort with the contemporary religion of his time as being overly rationalized, which he denounces as a cult of reason. Blake considers desire, the impulse of energy and emotion, to be wrongly characterized as evil by the institutionalized religion of his time, which he viewed as overly oppressive of personal spiritual experience. This is a passage from Maslow regarding the materialistic or overly scientific viewpoint in religion with which he has a problem: “…such a view of life tends to make the person regard his peak- and transcendent experiences as a kind of insanity, a complete loss of control, a sense of being overwhelmed by irrational emotions, etc.” Immediately it reminded me of this passage from “Marriage”: “As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity, I collected some of their Proverbs.” Blake also displays distrust in pure reason in the same way that the positivists show distrust in pure experience. He calls the peakers Devils (seemingly to voice his opposition to organized religion) and the non-peakers Angels. His descriptions of Angels seem to match Maslow’s description of the positivist: “I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.”

Blake contends that all religions originally sprung from the Poetic Genius, which is his term for the Holy Spirit, and to Blake, an entity of energy and delight. In diluting religion to a merely one-sided and rationalistic endeavor, Angels have alienated Devils and thus caused a rift in religion. In Blake's use in Marriage, Devils do not represent evil, but the repressed energetic side of the human experience that the instutions mislabel as evil.

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via: homoplasmate

Next Level vs. Singularity

The Next Level vs. The Singularity

When referring to the progress of humans, I typically refer to the impending higher stage of mental and physical development of humans as "the next level." The term, "the singularity," is reserved for a technological evolution of increasing machine sophistication (including nanotech) and increasing sophistication of information technologies. The singularity can occur without significant change in human nature, simply because science and technology development does not require very many people, in relative numbers. The people involved in advancing science and technology are special individuals, in terms of mental capacity, but they are a tiny minority of all persons. The singularity is a technological and scientific event.


The next level is a human event, the transformation of humans. At the present time, what I call "between-levels humans" are simply too short-lived and too stupid to take care of this part of the universe. Look at the pollution, the religious wars, the third world deforestation, the primitive and wasteful energy technologies. Look at the insane politics, the oppression, the dictators starving their people. Look at the drug abuse, the general escapism, the strong drive to retire without ever achieving anything.

Technological and scientific advances can occur at a dazzling rate, and not change basic humanity. There will be more sophisticated means of escape, virtual reality being one such grail to be sought. Machine intelligence is looked on by many as either a benign form of slavery, or as an act of creating another intelligent species with which to commune. The more likely result of machine intelligence is a dizzying escalation of non-human intelligence, engineered by non-humans, for the benefit of non-humans.

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via: al fin

Subtle Body

Beyond the consciousness of the gross physical body itself is the emotional, mental and spiritual consciousness of what could collectively be termed the psyche. The Psyche is not a single entity in the way that the Physical Body is, but rather the sum of a number of distinct "subtle bodies" note or vehicles of consciousness that exist as frequency levels on the Etheric Plane. The word "subtle" is used to distinguish these bodies from the gross physical body.

Here is a tentative and speculative interpretation of the suble bodies. Four "vertical" worlds - the physical, etheric, astral/psychic, and mental/ideational - are suggested. Corresponding to these are three grades of increasing subtleness - the gross (representing physical consciousness), the subtle, representing psychic/interpersonal, and the very subtle or causal, corresponding to the transpersonal, the Theosophical Devachen and Steiner's "Spirit" realm. A fourth grade, the transcendent, could be added, but this is generally beyond mundane consciousness. So there is a dual parameter framework, not unlike the Neoplatonist Proclus' scheme of hypostases.

Thus according to this hypothesis there would be three distinct "vertical" grades of subtle body, with the physical as a fourth. lowest level. Of course, not everyone has the same level of development. Very few have a well developed ideational body, which is why so many people have to rely on dogmatism, literalism, fundamentalism, guru-ism, and other forms of stupidity. They are unable to mentally perceive things on their own, hence they have to rely on the thoughts and mentality of others, which they adhere to rigidly.

Similarily, only a few individuals have a developed transpersonal consciousness (equivalent to the "Very Subtle"/"Causal" column of the above table). Although such faculties exist in potential or germinal form in everyone (and in all sentient beings), it is only in some that they are brought out.

Kabbalah says that only the lowest grade of soul (nefesh) is inately(sic) developed, all the others have to be attained through spiritual discipline. One finds Gurdjieff, the Taoists, and others saying the same thing.

subtle body

Void Meditation

The waves of ether, molecules, light, patterns, now sometimes flow, sometimes not. Soft energy like a cool breeze and then clearness, movement then stillness, form and mind. Then deeper, and into the part where words go from inadequate to hardly enough to give a good enough description.

The gross and the subtle are one, each level of consciousness one, inner and outer one. Boundaries between the self and the outer world dissipate and are perceived for the illusions that they are as the mind randomly picks out the activity of the void with a heightened awareness. I'm not just my body anymore because at this point my body is nothing seperate from the surrounding area. Dimensions fuse and I begin to float in the void. Unity is attained, the sense of 'I' fades and ego is transcended. Reality is non-dual.

Here, the Huang Po doctrine of Universal Mind makes perfect sense :

"Men are afraid to forget their own minds, fearing to fall through the void with nothing on to which they can cling. They do not know that the void is not really the void but the realm of the Dharma".(1)


(1) Quote from The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts

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via: zonerunner

A Perfect Circle

Tao Teh King

THE TAO TEH KING
(LIBER CLVII)

A New Translation By
KO YUEN
(ALEISTER CROWLEY)

THE EQUINOX (Volume III, No. VIII.)
INTRODUCTION

During my solitary wanderings among the mountainous wastes of Yun Nan, the spiritual atmosphere of China penetrated my consciousness, thanks to the absence of any intellectual impertinences from the organ of knowledge. The TAO TEH KING revealed its simplicity and sublimity to my soul, little by little, as the conditions of my physical life, no less than of my spiritual, penetrated the {3} sanctuaries of my spirit. The philosophy of Lao Tze communicated itself to me, in despite of the persistent efforts of my mind to compel it to conform with my preconceived notions of what the text must mean. This process, having thus taken root in my innermost intuition during those tremendous months of wandering across Yun Nan, grew continually throughout succeeding years. Whenever I found myself able once more to withdraw myself from the dissipations and distractions which contact with civilisation forces upon one, no matter how vigorously he may struggle against their insolence, to the sacred solitude of the desert, whether among the sierras of Spain, or the sands of the Sahara, I found that the philosophy of Lao Tze resumed its sway upon my soul, subtler and stronger on each successive occasion. But neither Europe nor Africa can show such desolation as America. The proudest, stubbornest, bitterest peasant of deserted Spain; the most primitive and superstitious Arab of the remotest oases, these are a little more than kin and never less than kind at their worst; whereas in the United States one is almost always conscious of an instinctive lack of sympathy and understanding with even the {4} most charming and cultured people. It was therefore during my exile in America that the doctrines of Lao Tze developed most rapidly in my soul, even forcing their way outwards until I felt it imperious, nay inevitable, to express them in terms of conscious thought.

No sooner had this resolve taken possession of me than I realized that the task approximated to impossibility. His very simplest ideas, the primitive elements of his thought, had no true correspondences in any European terminology. The very first word 'Tao' presented a completely insoluble problem. It had been translated 'Reason,' the 'Way,' 'TO ON.' None of these convey the faintest conception of the Tao.

The Tao is 'Reason' in this sense, that the substance of things may be in part apprehended as being that necessary relation between the elements of thought which determines the laws of reason. In other words, the only reality is that which compels us to connect the various forms of illusion as we do. It is thus evidently unknowable, and expressible neither by speech nor by silence. All that we can know about it is that there is inherent in it a {5} power (which, however, is not itself) by virtue whereof all beings appear in forms congruous with the nature of necessity.

The Tao is also the Way -- in the following sense. Nothing exists except as a relation with other similarly postulated ideas. Nothing can be known in itself, but only as one of the participants in a series of events. Reality is therefore in the motion, not in the things moved. We cannot apprehend anything except as one postulated element of an observed impression of change. We may express this in other terms as follows. Our knowledge of anything is in reality the sum of our observations of its successive movements, that is to say, of its path from event to event. In this sense the Tao may be translated as the Way. It is not a thing in itself in the sense of being an object susceptible of apprehension by sense or mind. It is not the cause of any thing, but the category underlying all existence or event, and therefore true and real as they are illusory, being merely landmarks invented for convenience in describing our experiences. The Tao possesses no power to cause anything to exist or to take place. Yet our experience when analyzed tells {6} us that the only reality of which we may be sure is this path or Way which resumes the whole of our knowledge.

HURRICANE KATRINA: THE STORM AND THE METAPHOR

Shelter anyone?

We're not prepared for an economic hurricane either

By Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation and the author of "The Race to the Bottom"
Published January 22, 2006

AS ITS BROKEN LEVEES AND drowned pumping systems made so painfully clear, if the Big One was widely predicted in New Orleans, it was never genuinely feared. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, disaster preparedness and prevention are no longer completely academic subjects.

If only such realism could be injected into U.S. policymaking before a widely predicted economic disaster finally strikes.

Hurricane-force winds of overspending are building storm surges of debt that tower over the levees and pumps available to American leaders. These mounting imbalances could wash over the economy and leave America and the world submerged in a deep, long-term downturn.

This building economic storm has generated at most pro forma acknowledgments. Even worse, discussing crucial international dimensions of the looming emergency is usually considered taboo, even though numerous, ongoing policy mistakes on this front have heightened America's and the world's vulnerability.

Signs

Signs of Global Warming in Pacific?

Monday, August 01, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO — Marine biologists are seeing mysterious and disturbing things along the Pacific Coast this year: higher water temperatures, plummeting catches of fish, lots of dead birds on the beaches, and perhaps most worrisome, very little plankton (search) — the tiny organisms that are a vital link in the ocean food chain.

Is this just one freak year? Or is this global warming?

Few scientists are willing to blame global warming (search), the theory that carbon dioxide and other manmade emissions are trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere and causing a worldwide rise in temperatures. Yet few are willing to rule it out.

"There are strange things happening, but we don't really understand how all the pieces fit together," said Jane Lubchenco, a zoologist and climate change expert at Oregon State University. "It's hard to say whether any single event is just an anomaly or a real indication of something serious happening."

Physics of the Soul

At last, science and the soul shake hands. Writing in a style that is both lucid and charming, mischievous and profound, Dr. Amit Goswami uses the language and concepts of quantum physics to explore and scientifically prove metaphysical theories of reincarnation and immortality.


In Physics of the Soul, Dr. Goswami helps you understand the perplexities of the quantum physics model of reality and the perennial beliefs of spiritual and religious traditions. He shows how they are not only compatible but also provide essential support for each other. The result is a deeply broadened, exciting, and enriched worldview that integrates mind and spirit into science.

One of today's pioneering thinkers in science and spirituality, Dr. Goswami taught physics for 32 years, was a professor of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon, and is currently senior resident researcher at the world-renowned Institute of Noetic Sciences. He is an advocate of "monistic idealism," the philosophy that defines consciousness, not materiality, as the primary reality.

". . . Nietzsche with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we live, we’re gonna live over and over again the exact same way as eternity. Great. This means I’ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It’s not worth it."
(Quoted in Fischer 1993)

When we feel this way, then we can turn to the idea of ¬liberation.

Chapter One

The Canopus Revelation

The identification of the constellation Orion with the Egyptian god Osiris has become engrained in human consciousness, yet it is one of the biggest misunderstandings dominating the understanding of Egyptian mythology. Rather than the constellation Orion, it is the star Canopus that is linked with Osiris, as identified by ancient writers as well as early 20th century scholars, whose evidence has since been bullied into silence, if not oblivion.

Canopus, for Egypt the South polar star, is the second brightest star in the sky and interplays with Sirius in such a way that ancient accounts say they control time and evolution. Furthermore, Canopus was the star of the navigators, both ancient and modern, and was believed to allow access to the Afterlife - the domain of Osiris. Canopus was specifically identified with his Chest, his Ark, in which he was transformed from mere mortal to resurrected supergod; an image that has inspired Mankind ever since. The story has been at the origin of the Grail legend and alchemy, both of which have a specific link to Canopus - revealed here for the first time.

Canopus was therefore literally a "stargate", where man could communicate with and aspire to become gods - and enter into other dimensions. This book will reveal what the Egyptians actually believed as to what happened to the soul after death, when it entered into the Duat (or Nibiru), the crossing between life and the Afterlife, and the paths it the soul could chose. It will show how they coded this knowledge into their mythology and how ancient accounts and modern physics use the same symbolism… to describe the structure of the universe, the playground of the Egyptian gods and the souls of the deceased.

This book radically reinterprets the myth of Osiris in its proper context… what the ancient Egyptians believed would happen to the soul. Mankind is again on the brink of discovering this knowledge through modern science…

Paradise Lost

P A R A D I S E
L O S T

B O O K I
_____________________________

F Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos. Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

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Why is it, whenever I park myself in paradise, there always comes a creeping hellishness? -Ib

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Paradise Lost Milton

General Unrest

Genius

Geniuses are Just Like Us

By Robin Lloyd
Special to LiveScience
posted: 11 January 2006
07:49 am ET

Everyone has heard of the mad scientist or the absent-minded professor. But a look at some of the ordinary and extraordinary imperfections of a few great minds reveals that geniuses are just like us.

In other words, the talents that geniuses are born with, such as math, cognitive and creative skills, must be nurtured socially and economically in childhood or they die on the vine, with rare exceptions, John Simmons, author of “The Scientific 100” (Citadel Press, 2000) told LiveScience.

Same goes for “the rest of us” and our slightly less spectacular talents.

“The scientific genius who grew up in grinding poverty is an exceedingly rare bird,” he said. “If it seems there was a great flowering of scientific genius out of Eastern Europe beginning in the late nineteenth century, it was due in large part to a developing middle class, a stable family life, and secular opportunities for both men and women."

genius

Future PCs

This pen sort of instrument produces both the monitor as well as the keyboard on flat surfaces from where you can just carry out the normal operations you do on your desktop.

Prison Without Bars

Control Grid: The Prison Without Bars

1984 was a picnic compared to modern day leviathan surveillance cage

Paul Joseph Watson | January 18 2006

Recent revelations of the NSA spying on American citizens re-awakened debates about big brother and when state surveillance of its citizens goes too far.

All over the United States, Canada and Britain, surveillance camera systems are being installed on street corners, in public bathrooms, in residential neighborhoods, and even in parks and forests. We are asked to trust the government underlings who control them that they are working for our best interests as said underlings are caught using the cameras to spy on naked women in their homes.

In the UK, government programs encourage citizens to spy on their neighbors and report suspicious activity as part of a CCTV channel subscriber package.

Homeland Security funding is being utilized to fund this mass expansion of the surveillance state in the US as city and state officials clamor at the teat of Big Brother to milk the cash cow of the police state and win the contracts for installing more and more sophisticated spy cameras.

The government demands to know everything about our private lives and catalogue, file and index every aspect of our existence, yet government itself becomes more and more secret with each passing day as it engages in escalating criminal activities.

The warning of Rousseau, that "man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains" has come to pass. A majority of Westerners define freedom as the freedom to have a television and shop at Wal Mart. True freedoms, innate freedoms are no longer understood or practiced by a majority.

Backmasking Satan

Backmasking: Satan, Marijuana and Cheez Whiz

By: Melanie Glover

In place of Led Zeppelin's alleged satanic lyrics and Pink Floyd's soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz, this generation has found its own fascination with supposed hidden messages in more recent music. Now we have Britney Spears telling us, backwards, in "�..Baby One More Time": "Sleep with me; I'm not too young."

While the validity of these hidden messages varies, old and new, have no logical evidence in most cases, thousands of websites and media publications contain suggestions of subliminal messages in songs and films.

Backmasking - playing songs backward to find new "secret" lyrics - became popular in the 1970s when DJ Russell Gibb started the rumor that Paul McCartney had died after claiming that Beatles song "I'm So Tired" off The White Album played backward contained the hidden message "Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him."

Decades later, backmasking is still a topic popular on the Web and among music fans.

"It's music meets conspiracy theory," said Jeff Milner (of jeffmilner.com).

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Jeff Milner's backmasking page

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