Flawed Metaphysics

Ken Wilber's Flawed Metaphysics

By Michelle Mairesse

The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion, Random House, New York, 1998 [Hereafter referred to as Sense]

A Brief History of Everything, Shambhala, Boston & London, 1996 [Hereafter referred to as Brief ]

The twentieth century has seen an odd reversal of values in both urban and pre-industrial societies. Even as Fourth World tribes trade their carved idols and medicine bundles for outboard motors and antibiotics, city-dwellers hungry for transcendence sign on with shamans for vision quests, gather around campfires to beat on drums and chant, and travel to the four corners of the earth to participate in archaic ceremonies.

Why is it that in the industrial world, where 18th century Enlightenment goals have been realized, free and equal citizens feel like race-track greyhounds in pursuit of the uncatchable mechanical rabbit of happiness? Is the golden age behind us?

Unlike recent critics who attribute unreal virtues to earlier societies and their members, Wilber reminds us that the Enlightenment revolution was a great leap forward.

"The rise of modernity--and by 'modernity' I mean specifically the rational-industrial worldview, and roughly, the Enlightenment in general--served many useful and extraordinary purposes. We might mention: the rise of democracy; the banishing of slavery; the emergence of liberal feminism; the differentiation of art and science and morality (which I'll explain); the widespread emergence of empirical sciences, including the systems sciences and ecological sciences; an increase in average life span of almost three decades; the introduction of relativity and perspectivism in art and morals and science; the move from ethnocentric to worldcentric morality; and in general the undoing of dominator social hierarchies in numerous significant ways." [Brief, p. 69].

That's the good news. The bad news is the rise of scientism, "the belief that there is no reality save that revealed by science, and no truth save that which science delivers." [Sense, p. 53].

-cont. (hermes-press.com)

Infinite Harmony

Ancient Knowledge of DNA

William Henry interviews Michael Hayes about the relationship between numerical patterns embedded in ancient philosophies, and their startling relationship to the DNA code. Either the ancients knew far more about the secrets of the human body than we have supposed, or some deep and unsuspected instinct caused them to create their works around fundamental principles that are also hidden in our DNA.

Michael Hayes is the author of
The Infinite Harmony: Musical Structures in Science and Theology and The Hermetic Code in DNA: The Sacred Principles in the Ordering of the Universe. He first recognized a common link between all major religions and esoteric doctrines while working in Iran, where he was able to observe the major religions practiced side by side. He believes that the reconance between biology and cosmology shows that life is music, complete with 'overtones,' which are strikingly present in the structure of life itself: DNA.

-listen

www.unknowncountry.com

Extraordinary Times

Extraordinary Times, Intentional Collapse,
and Takedown of the U.S.A.

By Richard C Cook

From: http://www.australia.to/story/0,25197,23040467-060,00,00.html

Much has been written about whether a worldwide plan exists to control events and steer them in the direction profitable to an elite of the rich and powerful. Is this a “conspiracy theory”? While it is difficult to be specific about who exactly may be behind such a conspiracy, if it exists, it is at least clear that the privately-managed system of global financial capitalism gives ample opportunity for the world’s richest people to combine for their mutual benefit. Further, global financial capitalism itself is based on the monopolization of money-creation by a world banking system that is largely privately owned, even while working through the central banks of the largest and most prosperous nations. This article postulates the existence of a coordinated and longstanding matrix set up by the controllers of money to dominate the movements of history. The article focuses particularly on what seems to have been an attack that has been going on for over a century against the independence of the nations of Russia and the U.S. The article also suggests a series of monetary reforms whereby the U.S. , or any other nation, can regain its economic identity and preserve its political freedom. The article was written a short distance from the reconstructed colonial capitol building in Williamsburg , VA. On this site on May 15, 1776, the Fifth Virginia Convention voted unanimously to instruct its delegation at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to enter a motion for independence. It may be time to do that again.

Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947) wrote, “It is a mistake to think the times we are living in are like any other. These are extraordinary times.”

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-cont. @ http://www.gnosticliberationfront.com/extraordinary_times.htm

Gnosis And Animals

Gnosis And Animals
Our Strange Inheritance

Regardless, we can look back along the threads of time and see cells, co-operating to evolve into 'unified communities' within membranes, - in short, animals. Animals with an amazing variety of cognitive and active skills. Animals that probably know themselves, in ways we are not aware of, or cannot yet perceive - or so we are told. In the eyes of the animals is the story of their - and our - history, and our future, as well - for our destinies have always been intimately interlinked.

Our Strange Inheritance

It seems our species has come at to a point where we must deal with something I will call 'Our Strange Inheritance'.

Because humans alone evolved conceptual and physical technologies that have placed us effectively in stewardship of the world of 'larger animals', we find ourselves in a terrible dilemma, one where 'industry' and 'commerce' currently hold the keys to the future of the biosphere, and of many if not all of its 'more complex' inhabitants, including ourselves.

Our species was never 'granted' any 'stewardship' over the other beings here. Unless a cow walks up to you and gives itself to you personally - the idea that the 'Cow People' are 'ours to do with as we please' simply because we function and act in a different cognitive domain than they do is completely absurd. If anything, our ability in cognitive and active domains has granted us, in effect, a stewardship we have failed, nearly utterly, to understand or employ reasonably.

The fact that we operate in unique cognitive domains, does give us power. Power to explore and inter-create, or to ravage.

http://www.gnosticliberationfront.com/gnosis_and_animals.htm

Secrets of Immortality

Secrets of immortality could be tantalisingly close

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor -www.telegraph.co.uk

The most extensive survey of anti ageing research ever conducted has concluded that a longevity pill to "cure" ageing remains a possibility.

Antiageing drug shows promise in first human test New target for longevity pills Scientists find elixir of eternal life - in a worm However, the current state of knowledge is inadequate to be sure.

The inevitability of ageing and death has fascinated humanity for millennia and is at the heart of the most ancient known mythology, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, where a Sumerian king tells of his desire to escape death and his ultimate realisation that only through lasting works of culture can he achieve immortality.

Many scientists work on mechanisms that determine lifespan in "model organisms" such as worms, flies and mice but there have been persistent doubts about whether this work is really relevant to humans and whether we may yet manipulate lifespan with drugs, genetic knowledge or fine-tuning diet.

In a Review "Puzzles, promises and cure for aging" published in the journal Nature, Prof Jan Vijg at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Dr Judith Campisi of the Buck Institute, California for Age Research and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, say that "we cannot know, given the state of our current knowledge, whether an elixir of extremely long life is possible."

They argue that there is no question human lifespan will almost certainly increase modestly over the coming decades and that there is no known scientific reason why aging cannot be prevented, similar to the goal of preventing individual age-related diseases.

-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Coincidences, etc...

911 "Coincidences" or Synchronicities?

by Michael Goodspeed

The term synchronicity defines a series of events that seem to be meaningfully connected. Carl Jung described synchronicity as the "acausal connecting principle" -- i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by traditional laws of cause and effect. Most everyone has witnessed "coincidences" ranging from the mundane to extraordinary, but the question is, are they JUST coincidences, or do they speak for something larger?

http://www.thunderbolts.info/

W

Presidential Hopeful

In Oliver Stone’s sure-to-be-controversial W., Josh Brolin finds both the comedy (pretzel choke!) and pathos in our soon-to-be-history president.

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• By Logan Hill

Given that Oliver Stone was directing the film, were you worried that his George W. Bush could end up being a caricature or a joke?

At first I had the same leftist, cosmetic view that everybody has—that this guy’s an idiot making the wrong decisions, that he’s a puppet. But this is an amazingly compelling story about a guy who was flailing. He was a mouse in a labyrinth, just lost, looking for that cheese and not finding it. And then he became president of the United States.

Q&A-NYMag

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

Click here for a peek into the world of Hot Chicks

World Away

Sonny Landreth - A World Away

Cold Winter Ahead

Brrr! Farmers' Almanac says cold winter ahead

By The Associated Press wire report August 20, 2008 02:26 PM

Households worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmers' Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S.

"Numb's the word," says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80 to 85 percent for its forecasts that are prepared two years in advance.

The almanac's 2009 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder than average temperatures, with only the Far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.

"This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people," said almanac editor Peter Geiger, noting that the frigid forecast combined with high prices for heating fuel is sure to compound problems households will face in keeping warm.

continued @ mainetoday.com

I Met the Walrus

In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan heard that John Lennon had been sighted at the Toronto airport. So, he grabbed his reel-to-reel recorder, tracked the Beatle to the King Edward Hotel, wheedled his way into Lennon’s room and conducted an interview…

Visit the film’s website: www.imetthewalrus.com

---

via: hard-boiled dreams of the world

RWO

The Real World Order

By George Friedman

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn’t be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end.

Those with the dream are always disappointed. The victorious coalition breaks apart. The defeated refuse to play the role assigned to them. New powers emerge that were not part of the coalition. Anyone may have ideals and visions. The reality of the world order is that there are profound divergences of interest in a world where distrust is a natural and reasonable response to reality. In the end, ideals and visions vanish in a new round of geopolitical conflict.

-cont. @ stratfor.com

Psychedelics Could Heal

Psychedelic drugs could heal thousands

New research into the benefits of hallucinogens alongside psychotherapy is welcome: in my experience they change lives

All comments ()

Andrew Feldmár -guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 19 2008

There is a horrible sense of meaninglessness and chaos that comes from the extreme loneliness of being cut off. Trauma, whether sustained in the family, or in the military during combat, renders millions feeling unsafe, insecure, mistrustful, and in the end isolated, lonely and desperate. Judith Lewis Herman, who wrote the definitive book on trauma and recovery, stated that all so-called mental illness and suffering could be seen as a person's misguided attempt to survive trauma. Fear separates, love unites. We all wish to grow to freedom, to belong, to participate. Hatred is like gangrene, shame is deadly. Forgiveness is but a faint hope.

Sandoz began to market LSD in 1947 as a psychiatric panacea, the cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behaviour, sexual perversions, alcoholism, and other addictions. During a 15-year period beginning in 1950, research on LSD and other hallucinogens generated over 1,000 scientific papers, several dozen books and six international conferences, and LSD was prescribed as an adjunct of psychotherapy to over 40,000 patients. The current research using psychedelics heralds a reawakening to the magnificent healing possibilities of these now prohibited substances. After over 40 years of repression or oppression, Rick Doblin of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Maps), and others are spearheading a more enlightened, less hysterical and terrified approach to the use of these substances. I am participating in what hopefully will be Canada's first government approved clinical trials in 40 years, sponsored and organised by Maps, evaluating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for subjects with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder.

There are many other applications of psychedelic psychotherapy, such as ibogaine, or ayahuasca for the treatment of substance abuse. Large numbers of people could benefit from the use of psychedelics as entheogens, introducing people to spiritual experiences, reducing pain and suffering due to isolation, by the irresistible realisation that each of us is a small part of something much greater than any of us, that separateness is an illusion, there is nothing to fear, and love is accessible, shame can be left permanently behind. Rites of passage, responsibly organised, could benefit everyone.

-cont.

Rick Steves Seattle HEMPFEST

Art and Sex and Mental Illness

Mental illness link to art and sex

• Ian Sample, science correspondent -The Guardian

To create or to procreate ... Pablo Picasso studies the figure of a woman assembled on the floor of his Vallauris studio in 1953.

Photograph: AP

From Lord Byron to Dylan Thomas and beyond, the famous philanderers of the art world may have had a touch of mental illness to thank for their behaviour, psychologists report today.

A survey comparing mental health and the number of sexual partners among the general population, artists and schizophrenics found that artists are more likely to share key behavioural traits with schizophrenics, and that they have on average twice as many sexual partners as the rest of the population.

Hallucinogenic Fish

via practical fishkeeping

Sarpa salpa: Picture kindly supplied by David Koutsogiannopoulos

Men hallucinate after eating fish

Two men got more than they bargained for when they dined on a popular local seafish in Mediterranean restaurants in 2006. The men suffered from "terrifying" visual and auditory hallucinations - seeing and hearing things that weren't really there - after eating the Salema porgy, Sarpa salpa.

The fish had been eating algae containing an indole toxin with similar effects to the recreational drugs LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and DMT (dimethyltryptamine) which left the men suffering from a rare case of Hallucinogenic Fish Poisoning or ichthyallyeinotoxism.

Apparently, Sarpa salpa is known to be affected by this algae and was once known as the Dream fish and was even used as a recreational drug in Roman times. The men "tripped" for 36 hours after eating the fish, suffering from various hallucinations and nightmares in the days that followed...

More: Men hallucinate after eating fish

Peace One Day

PEACE DAY 21 SEPTEMBER

- What will you do to make peace?

In 1999 filmmaker Jeremy Gilley launched Peace One Day to document his efforts to establish an annual Peace Day.

In 2001, UN member states unanimously adopted the first ever annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence on the UN International Day of Peace, fixed as 21 September – Peace Day.

The Peace Day resolution (UN GA 55/282) calls on governments, the UN system, NGOs and most importantly individuals – you – to commemorate 21 September.

On 21 September 2006 there were activities in 200 countries, directly involving 27.6 million people. There were life-saving activities by humanitarian organisations such as aid drops and immunisation programmes. In the UK, 2.2 million young people sang ‘No Wars Will Stop Us Singing.’ People marched, partied, danced and debated. Or they simply said sorry.

If we are to move from a culture of war to a culture of peace then we will have to unite around the most fundamental issue that humanity faces – the protection of each other and our environment. 21 September is the starting point. Individuals can make a difference. By working together there will be Peace One Day.

» Peace Day videos

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The message is that individuals can do a great deal to contribute to positive and compassionate change, both at a personal and collective level. We need to start to value humane and alternative means of conflict resolution. Warfare should be avoided at all costs. The ancient machismo culture of bloodshed and killing should be regarded as the barbarity it is, and prevented wherever possible. "Peace" needs to be valued and respected above anything else.

-Annie Lennox

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Slow Motion Lightning

[Today's Big Thing]

Mind-Control Headset

Emotiv's New Mind-Control Headset for PCs

Its wireless sensors help users run some programs with their thoughts

by Cliff Edwards -businessweek.com

More and more these days, we rely on computers for play as well as work. Once in a great while, there's a new interface that changes how we interact with these machines—the touch screen on Apple's (AAPL) iPhone or the motion-sensing controller on the Nintendo Wii. But for the most part, we still rely on keyboards, mice, and joysticks.

What if you could simply think about an action, and the computer would respond? I recently sat down with executives at a San Francisco startup called Emotiv Systems, which has spent the last half-decade researching so-called brain-computer interfaces. Emotiv is currently fine-tuning a mind-reading headset called the Epoc, which should ship late this year. The $299 device purports to eavesdrop on your thoughts and translate them into computer instructions, so you can play a game or arrange photos without using your hands or speaking words.

-cont.

-http://emotiv.com/

Permanent Ruin

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."

-- Ernest Hemingway

Instant Ice Age

Last Ice Age happened in less than year say scientists

By angus howarth -news.scotsman.com

THE last ice age 13,000 years ago took hold in just one year, more than ten times quicker than previously believed, scientists have warned.

Rather than a gradual cooling over a decade, the ice age plunged Europe into the deep freeze, German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam said.

Cold, stormy conditions caused by an abrupt shift in atmospheric circulation froze the continent almost instantly during the Younger Dryas less than 13,000 years ago – a very recent period on a geological scale.

The new findings will add to fears of a serious risk of this happening again in the UK and western Europe – and soon.

Free Tibet

China conducting 'cultural genocide'
Dalai Lama laments loss of Tibetan culture via China's so-called autonomy rule.

http://www.freetibet.net/

http://www.freetibet.org/

Adam's Curse

-W.B. Yeats

We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'

. . . . . . . . . And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, 'To be born woman is to know-
Although they do not talk of it at school-
That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

-interpretation

From Crisis to Sustainability

The Bridge at the Edge of the World

Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
– James Gustave Speth

"My point of departure in this book is the momentous environmental challenge we face. But today’s environmental reality is linked powerfully with other realities, including growing social inequality and neglect and the erosion of democratic governance and popular control… As citizens we must now mobilize our spiritual and political resources for transformative change on all three fronts.” —Gus Speth

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically, and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification. In this book Gus Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline. Something is badly wrong, and a deeper critique is needed.

Speth contends that this critique leads to a severe indictment of today’s economic and political system — capitalism as it now actually operates. Our vital task is to change the operating instructions for the modern economy before it is too late.

www.thebridgeattheedgeoftheworld.com