Just a quick head’s up but I’ve been featured on Mysterious Radio again, this time around discussing ley lines, earth’s energy points, individualized spiritual travel and basically a discussion and expansion of these these blog posts. You can also listen to their podcasts here.
“In as much as the mind creates the world of appearances, it can create any particular object desired. The process consists of giving palpable being to a visualization, in very much the same manner as an architect gives concrete expression in three dimensions to his abstract concepts after first having given them expression in the two-dimensions of his blue-print. The Tibetans call the One Mind’s concretized visualization the Khorva (Hkhorva), equivalent to the Sanskrit Sangsara; that of an incarnate deity, like the Dalai or Tashi Lama, they call a Tul-ku (Sprul-sku), and that of a magician a Tul-pa (Sprul-pa), meaning a magically produced illusion or creation. A master of yoga can dissolve a Tul-pa as readily as he can create it; and his own illusory human body, or Tul-ku, he can likewise dissolve, and thus outwit Death. Sometimes, by means of this magic, one human form can be amalgamated with another, as in the instance of the wife of Marpa, guru of Milarepa, who ended her life by incorporating herself in the body of Marpa.”
“Visualizing mental formations, either voluntarily or not, is a most mysterious process. What becomes of these creations? May it not be that like children of your flesh, these children of our mind separate their lives from ours, escape our control, and play parts of their own? Must we not also consider that we are not the only ones capable of creating such formation? And if such entities exist in the world, are we not liable to come into touch with them, either by the will of their maker or from some other cause?”
It was Neil’s book which first brought me into contact with the idea of tulpas, spiritual creatures/beings created by pure thought and meditation. It comes from the original Bon pagan religion of ancient Tibet which then became absorbed into Tibetan Buddhism when that religion came into the area. The Tibetan Buddhists have very detailed and meticulous teachings around how to create tulpas but these teachings are very dangerous and they come with many, many warnings. Normally they are reserved only for advanced adepts and monks with sufficient spiritual maturity. As Kushog Wanchen warned ” One must know how to protect oneself against the tigers to which one has given birth, as well as those that have been begotten by others.” Recently, VICE covered a story about a whole online subculture of tulpamancy but somehow a bunch of online gamers and anime freaks creating imaginary friends isn’t something I can take that very seriously.
It’s easy to dismiss these things as stories but when you really sit down and think about it, everything which controls us in our minute-by-minute life is our mind and our mind is a collection and population of our thoughts and ideas. We’re also motivated by feelings, both conscious and unconscious but the origin of feelings is not the mind and brain, but rather the body itself, I believe. It takes an enormous amount of discipline, life experience, insight and training to define them, identify them, separate them, and “see” them and then, work with them.
There’s a world of a difference between thoughts and feelings.
Here’s a trick I learned during my time as a hospital chaplain. The next time you’re talking to a friend and they’re telling you about a personal problem, just ask them how it makes them FEEL. I can almost guarantee they’ll reply with something like “Well I think, this means blah, blah, blah…” Again repeat, how did it make them feel. Don’t stop till they name a real emotion. It takes a few tries before it dawns on them to express what emotion they are experiencing or experienced, before they say something honest like “I feel angry” or “I felt scared”. That’s where the truth finally begins. It just goes to show you how disconnected many people are from their own emotions. (Pro-tip: people who don’t fess up to their own emotions and are obsessed in hiding them under a veneer of friendliness, coyness or control, drop them ASAP. They usually end up as duplicitous types, in my experience.)
I’ve been grappling with the whole you-create-your-own-reality thing for a long time. Most of the time, it comes across as a kind of conceited smugness which annoys the living hell out of me and places the blame-game on people who in some cases, are suffering deeply. When someone reads “The Secret” in a place like Syria and a bomb eviscerates their home, did their “vibration” attract it? Did their thoughts create that reality? Was it their fault? Did their energy attract that bomb?
If it’s so easy why aren’t we all rich?
That’s why writers like Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale or motivational speakers like Anthony Robbins, bother me to no end. I get where they are coming from but I find when an immature civilization (i.e Western and Occidental) tries to express advanced spiritual teachings, they don’t quite verbalize it or express it in an intelligent, wise, mature, logical or compassionate way. The focus always inevitably is about attracting money.
Want to start from a legitimate place? Start with this book.
On the other hand, when you start reading no-bullshit spiritual masters like Deunov or Aivanhoc, it becomes very clear how our thoughts control us and how to put out positive thoughts out there, how to change our perspective in a good way and in doing so, change our outlook and energy completely. Prayer and meditation help but it’s also tapping into expansive feelings and sensations within the body itself. When your energy and emotions change, then magic can happen. I’ve had moments in my life where peak spiritual experiences took place, not full-on samadhi or nirvana, but where there was almost a swirling, light-hearted, floating feeling in my solar plexus, with almost unbelievable happiness, clarity, expansiveness and easy joy. Those were times where it was impossible to feel anything negative. Whatever negative thought came, was easy to dismiss.
I had heard of Abraham Hicks for years but never really paid any attention to the Abraham material because I’m normally leery of channeled stuff. For years Jerry and Esther Hicks had been distributing the Abraham materials via books, cruises, tapes, videos etc. It’s a veritable cottage industry which is usually a red flag for me. Jerry passed on a few years ago but Esther is still putting out Abraham material. According to Esther, Abraham isn’t a single entity but rather a collective of beings in much the same way esoteric musician Tom Kenyon channels a group called the Hathors.
In “Abraham-talk”, your spiritual body, chakras, soul etc. is called simply the Vortex. Because of my own personal experiences, I know at least “that” is real. Like I wrote earlier, there are thousands of Abraham videos. Some of it is very good and some of it is a bit hokey but one thing I will give them credit for is that some of the Abraham material is fantastic in helping someone change their perspective and take control of their thinking in a good way, even by an inch. In these trying times, it certainly can’t hurt.
Check them out and happy thought-form creation. In a good way 😉
(I will be posting a number of blog posts, translated into English, from Olivier de Rouvroy’s original French blog, Ere Nouvelle. The original text is all Olivier’s but the translation is mine, with some help from Google Translate. I’m also inserting other photos and links which are not in Olivier’s post. Given the urgency of the situation in these troubled times, the upcoming American elections with an unsavoury candidate on one hand and an odious one on the other, a possible showdown with Russia, I think there is information in Olivier’s posts, a line here, a line there, which would be of benefit to anyone who wants more clarity to read these days and events around us, with a spiritual focus.)
Through his teaching and through his influence, the great Bulgarian spiritual teacher Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov (1900 – 1986) opened the path of spirituality to countless individuals, bringing to humanity’s attention for the first time, the need to unite, to achieve on Earth, a large planetary society, a global brotherhood and sisterhood, based on a solar religion.
The following is an unpublished excerpt from a lecture given by him more than sixty years ago, I myself had transcribed it from an original document and posted on my old site in January 2008.
Towards the closing of this site, this text was taken and sometimes edited or modified on various blogs (which, by the way, none of the authors saw fit to cite the source…), but as disturbing news continues in the world around us, I decided to republish this today in its unedited, untouched original form.
Everyone is of course free to assess whether or not the power of this wonderful message is important information on the mechanics of duality in our reality and the true structure of the spiritual world. Happy reading – or rereading – for all, Olivier
The angels can only see what is light. They do not see us when we are in an “ordinary” form because they are blind to everything that does not belong to the world of Light, the spiritual world.
However they happen to use the eyes of other creatures, such as animals, to study humans. You could think you are absolutely alone when you were about to make a mistake, commit a crime, or conversely, perform a generous act, but a cat, a dog, a bird was there, and you did not know or notice that a Being, through the animal, was watching you …
In humans, all worlds coexist, but they are subject to the limitations, physics and laws of the physical plane. It is only when the world of feelings and emotions, boils and stirs in us, that the inhabitants of the astral plane begin to see us. And it is only when our mental body comes alive and becomes clear, when we begin to think that the inhabitants of the mental plane can understand us and relate to us.
Our spiritual bodies include the chakras, the solar plexus, the kundalini force
So if our spiritual bodies are not yet awake, beings in spiritual regions do not see us, they do not know us; we are not yet citizens of their world, we do not figure or appear on their records and we can receive neither nourishment nor any gift from them. Those who do not receive spiritual nourishment, joy nor happiness have irrefutable mathematical proof that they are in the dark, ignorant. If they stayed in the lower regions, clinging to money and material pleasures, they are cut off from the light, and as the inhabitants of the higher worlds have not noticed them, they did not help them, and they can’t receive anything sublime, heavenly or divine.
Get registered.
As to be seen, known, registered somewhere in society, one must meet certain conditions. In the same way, to be seen, known and registered in the higher worlds, we must lead a determined life which requires us to be alert to subtleties. One can awaken these states through meditation, poetry, mystical music, thanks to all that is beautiful, bright, divine. Once awakened in us, these centers put us in communication with other worlds where those beings begin to “see” us, to take us into consideration. It takes our information, we have “registered” ourselves among the evolved beings.
The work required in the awakening of these centers is to decide to become living, conscious, it is to accept and bind ourselves with all those benevolent beings who have passed before us and who seek to help us in taking the first step towards eternal life.
The beings that inhabit the upper regions, do not see and do not want to see what happens in the lower regions. There is one exception: if they are charged with a mission of exploration, they go down to inquire, to discuss the situation or to help some people. In any other circumstances, they remain very high above human weaknesses and tribulations.
Do not imagine that the Beings of Light will just stand there watching the sad spectacle of most humans on Earth! No, they are too far, too high, it is of no interest to them. So, in order to get their attention, to be seen by them, to be noticed, one must make signs, signals which must be projected into the space of light.
These “light signals” by humans are like sparks, that sentinels in higher worlds, must be on the look-out for. Once they have been sighted, they rush in to help. Without this projection of Light, they are unable to see and, of course, all your requests will be ignored. Yes, dear brothers and sisters, remember this well: in the higher worlds, there is only one language; it is that of Light.
And now, how do things operate in the world of demons? Demons are bothered by the Light. They flee and go to those dark, dirty places. They enter into them, and they set up their homes. I told you that demons were like the owls; Yes, because they are blind in the light. To enter us, they are forced to wait for an end to this terrible force which for them, is the light to the spirits of darkness, there is only one impregnable fortress: the Light .
I speak constantly of Light, because it represents what is most valuable, the most important thing in Creation. This is the most sublime and rarest quintessence, the absolute protective and defensive weapon. This is “the strong force of all forces” mentioned by Hermes Trismegistus in the Emerald Tablet. Light is able to push out all your enemies and release them.
When you pray or meditate, always seek the Light, the Light, and yet again the Light. You will avoid all the tragedies of life. Try. Never doubt. At night, if you hear a strange noise, what do you do? You hurry to turn on the light. Apart from the light, there is nothing else which you can rely on. To be seen by sublime beings, there is only one way: become bright, shine, like the Light. To escape the demons that harass you, there is only one way: become Light; they will be unable to harm you.
Dark beings are harassed and bothered by the light of radiating souls, and seek to destroy it. They do not see that Light which troubles and disturbs them, they can only feel it. If they sometimes manage to see Light, it is by deceiving and using beings who are their superiors, to look through their eyes. Otherwise, they are unable to distinguish the Light.
The tube-nosed fruit bat.
Besides, I told you that the converse also exists: that beings who inhabit the higher, purer planes of existence sometimes use the eyes of those who live below, animals for example, to observe us. Using this same tactic, inferior beings try to gain ground, to enter the human body and mind by using similar methods, to see, observe and interfere with realities which are above them. There is a great war between the inhabitants of the lower realities and those of the higher realities.
Spy VS Spy
In the physical world, when two countries are at war, each trying to send in camouflaged and well-trained spies. They adopt the language of the country they are sent into, mimic the behavior of its inhabitants, they are provided with papers and references and they know everything there is to know about their enemy. These spies see everything, watch everything and communicate to their superiors what they saw and heard. In addition, they seek to destroy and sabotage. And of course, it is mutual. This procedure is common and well known. But what is not generally known is that things operate exactly in the same way in the spiritual world between the White Lodge and the Black Lodge, at least with regard to the region of this Earth.
No spyware can enter the upper regions where it would be immediately revealed. On Earth, in contrast, everything is mixed. Down here, the pure and the impure gets mixed up, the right and wrong, heaven and hell. There are well-camouflaged Black Lodge spies masquerading as disciples of love. They speak their language, they are dressed like spirits from above. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Case in point, founder and leader of the cult “Children of God, David Berg.
And conversely, in places where the Black Lodge holds meetings to develop its projects, poisoning and and plotting the destruction of humanity, there are camouflaged members of the White Lodge, who pose as Black Lodge members and are equipped to sabotage and destroy their infernal plans. Under the appearance of wolves, they are in fact, gentle sheep.
The Earth is a crossroads where white forces and dark forces intersect. No film, no play has ever presented accurately this terrible struggle. Should writers and directors ever decide to portray the extraordinary diplomacy, the arts and the rivalry of these two forces employ and wield against each other on the physical plane, all the better. It seems that nothing can separate them.
For now, things are at this stage. So you’re probably wondering why doesn’t Cosmic Intelligence separate the dark forces from the forces of light? Why doesn’t it burn it out in a few seconds so that we can flourish in peace? Well, simply because Cosmic Intelligence has sublime patience and has plans to transform even the devils into angels.
Whatever happens and whatever you external circumstances you find yourselves in, stay loyal to the White Lodge: if you find yourself one day grappling with beings who seek to lure you down, do not be afraid, link yourself the Great Universal Brotherhood and Sisterhood. Act as traitors in the eyes of the Black Lodge, but be better! Only in this way you can get out of your tribulations. Otherwise, your difficulties will last forever. All those who cut their link with the White Lodge, cut themselves off from the Source of life itself, eventually commit evil, injustice, crime. Sooner or later, they will find themselves in difficulties and complications.
You probably think I’m talking about things that do not concern you. You say: “What then is this history of engagement with a White Lodge or a Black Lodge?” Yet it happens every day, all the time. Someone, for example, to satisfy a desire or ambition, needs money. Someone eventually shows up and asks them: “Will you write this or do that for me? Will you play such a role? You are a scientist, a physicist, or a chemist, will you work for me to make a profitable discovery?”
Tesla turned his back on the Black Lodge, many, many times.
Before you accept or reject anything, everyone should be aware that all proposals are made to either contribute to projects which either “turn off” the Light, to destroy, to kill, to handle and manipulate according to the wishes of the Black Lodge. This can happen in countless forms and ways. All those who agree to work in this direction, unknowingly have signed a pact with the Black Lodge.
Whatever their reputation in the eyes of the world, whatever image they manage to project of themselves, whether they be writers, artists, actors, patrons, scholars, scientists, workers or heads of state, all who decide to engage indiscriminately in the service of the Black Lodge, will find themselves bound by the Prince of this World. Once seduced, they fall into the trap and become his slaves.
Don’t do it!
Scientific programs, political speeches and economic plans are often disguised as incentives to do evil. That is the only question you need to ask. The facts are all there, usually obvious. As soon as one has agreed to a pact with the Black Lodge, either for money, power, for a woman, for glory, fame or for fun, it is registered in the Black Book. In contrast, an apparently insignificant, selfless act can be enough to get you into the White Lodge, since it is inspired by a noble ideal.
Work for evil and you will pay dearly for it. One day or another, misfortunes and disasters have always mercilessly visited those who have contributed to the increased presence of evil, creating dark projects. This is an absolute truth, whether we recognize it or not.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb. His life was full of triumph and tragedy.
A disciple of the White Lodge is a conscious being who knows how to discern and distinguish the two forces, and learns how to master the dark forces, invert them in order to use them for the service of humanity, for the good. That is a true Magi! In conscious life, everything can be used for good, even the lower forces but do you know how? Light and prayer is the secret that can save you.
When you love a person, look at them from afar with Light, don’t try to own them or control them. They will be happy without knowing why, and they will feel much better things. Disciples of the White Lodge must finally decide to use the Light, work with the Light. Those who refuse are not members of the White Lodge, as they insist on using other methods.
What are we to do for those stubborn ones, those who have a “hard” head? Cosmic Intelligence in its mercy, always gives them time to change, to decide, to make an effort. But once the delay ends, there comes a time when you have to pay. There are Beings on high, who watch over our development, who will not allow any disruption to the advancement of the Great Universal White Brotherhood and Sisterhood, to Unity.
Conversely, these inhabitants of the upper regions are delighted to see on Earth, here and there, homes and places of Light; this is their joy, it is their happiness. Small homes of Light are the link between the New Earth and the Earth as it is.
Without these connections, without these centers, the Earth would be invaded and destroyed by the dark forces. These are the light centers scattered around the world who support the souls of men, give them food, joy, happiness. I will reveal what is actually a full initiatory center of life and light: it is the top of a mountain that links Earth to Heaven.
“Asia Pyramid” – Roger Dean copyright 2016
You, the disciples of Light must succeed in forming together a luminous, gigantic pyramid, like that which rises above Agartha since time immemorial. Yes, because, the pyramids built by the Egyptians were made in the image of the Pyramid of Agartha, in the same way, above all sanctuaries, above all places where meditations, ceremonies and prayers are held, there is a similar pyramid formed by the subtle particles from the auras of the participants in these meetings.
Soon you will understand. And your consciousness will expand and be enlightened. You will train and you will set up a pyramid that will be seen in many parts of the Universe.
Outside of this Pyramid of Light, there is no salvation for humanity.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, hold on to the Light! Become Children of Light! Let Light and Peace be with you! ”
– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov The Pyramid of Light – April 8, 1947
“Have you ever had a love connection with someone so strong, you believed they could be your soul mate or even a twin flame? Did this person who you thought to be “the One”, arrive with a magical sense of reality, powerful psychic connections, super sexual chemistry, déjà vus, omens and even supernatural overtones? Perhaps you feel mystically connected on a deeper soul level, and yet there seems to be dangerousness about it. The passion may be unstoppable if you cross that line…. Longing and passion builds as telltale signs appear that he or she must be “the One”…The meeting could be accidental, in an unusual place or situation for you… There is a sense of familiarity, as if you already know this strange new person, perhaps from another place or time. Yet, you can’t seem to place it…You now feel that the dream was some sort of divine precognitive foreshadowing. Your dream lover has come to life….Did you just meet The One? Your soul mate?…From deep inside, however, you feel a subtle hint of push-pull resistance. Your inner voice tries to check in with you, but you squash it like a bug. Your logical mind may question all this, but the lonely part of you can’t stop wanting excitement, a rescue from that hopeless feeling that you’ll never have true love and will always settle for less. You want to experience passion and love that you’ve never really known before. You fight both sides of yourself as if you’ve been split into two people. Confusion sets in, and you just can’t stop thinking about that person.”
Whenever I look at my stats for this blog on the admin page, I always notice my Twin Souls blog post as well as Twin Souls on Film are usually the most frequented ones. It has been that way for a few years now so there isn’t a doubt in my mind that there are many, many people out there who are hungry for information about this topic and are no doubt still searching, hoping, wishing for their other half.
I wrote those posts a few years ago and while I do think the twin soul phenomena is real, I just don’t think they are as common as many of us would like it to be. Instead of one in a million, I think one in a billion is probably more accurate in terms of probability of it actually happening. There are tonnes of books about the topic now, countless YouTube videos, websites and personal blogs.
What I find funny about some of the personal blogs about the authors writing about meeting their twins is how the first few years everything is love and rainbows, and then the doubt starts to creep in and then somehow or other they break up, and then suddenly the blog is gone. Oh well. It reminds me of that sleazy New Age writer Richard Bach, (he of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame in the 1970s) and those books he wrote about his twin soul relationship with actress Leslie Parrish called “The Bridge Across Forever” and “One”. They have since divorced and he’s married to wifey number 3 now.
After reading Eve Lorgen’s article on the love bite and watched subsequent videos and reflecting on some personal experience of myself and friends, I am of the opinion now that most traumatic, unhealthy, obsessive relationships which may people convince themselves are twin soul relationships, are in fact Dark Cupid Love Bites.
Lorgen goes further and says that these relationships are usually due to a third-party paranormal interference, like alien, ET, reptilian or demonic influence/interference. I wouldn’t go that far. However, the idea of a False Twin who is there to trip you up, lead you down a false path, distract you from your spiritual life and progress, to interfere with your life path especially if there is a chance that you could actually accomplish something very important and needed, that causes you nothing but emotional and spiritual pain, that I can buy.
The more you read about false twin soul/ Dark Cupid love Bite encounters and testimonials, a few major themes pop up.
1) *Something* is preventing “Happily ever after”.
Either one partner is married, or both are to other people and for whatever reason, they just cannot seem to come together. The signs are all there, the strange, otherworldly coincidences, the vivid dreams, the uncanny ability to understand each other on a level no one else can even come close to. In theory, you should be together…but its not happening. And it does nothing but cause untold amounts of grief, sadness and frustration. A word of advice here (especially for women): Love isn’t supposed to hurt. Sacrificing your happiness and psycho-emotional well-being for love is a myth and an unhealthy one at that. (In fact, I’m starting to think the whole myth of romance and fairy tale weddings is a highly sophisticated con being pulled by the government to ensure that citizens keep procreating so that the government has a continued tax base. I think love can be real but I think romance is a construct marketers and film directors made up. Love and romance are NOT the same thing.)
Love is only blind if you allow it to be.
2) Once the binders come off about the false twin, the blinders will come off on everything else.
Once you see the false twin as a false twin, intruder, interrupter, interloper for what they are, all those unanswered questions, nagging doubts you had about the person in the back of your mind will suddenly make sense. You begin to notice that the intensity is really a probable by-product of Narcissistic Personality Disorder or gaslighting or some other form of manipulation or abuse. You’ll also begin to notice who are the other phoneys taking up space in your life and it becomes that much easier to cut the cord. For some strange reason, the false twin seems to be the first domino.
Lorgen lists a whole bunch of other Red Flags, which I think are worth noting:
– Dreams of the partner before meeting them, suggesting something precognitive.
– Physical sensations in the solar plexus, genital, gut or other body areas, such as neck, heart, and between the shoulders.
Love shouldn’t feel like your heart is being ripped out. It should feel whole, like it is getting bigger and stronger.
– Astral sex visitations and/or telesthesia — sensing the energy body in a sexual way and very physically, as if another being were present but invisible.
– Strong psychic connection, even though you may not really love your partner.
– Powerful sexual passion and obsessive need to have sex, even in cases in which you don’t love the partner or they don’t love you and/or are abusive.
– Psychic responses and coincidences from either partner, like receiving a phone call or email from your partner the moment you think about cutting off the connection.
– A sense of emotional or physical draining.
– One partner becoming suddenly switched off emotionally or “psychically unplugged.”
– Feelings of being watched, or being played like puppets in some drama-myth.
– Paranormal activity, third-party “entity” visits or attacks, sudden dreams, visions and thoughts as if implanted.
– Obsessive thoughts that are not usual for either partner
– Synchronicities, omens, and a feeling of being in a magical reality.
If you feel like your “love” is choking you or becoming an obsession, that is NOT HEALTHY. This VOGUE cover with supermodel Stephanie Seymour was pulled when there was an outcry from women’s groups about glorifying “violent love”.
If you didn’t know any better, this list would make you think that these are definitely the signs of a twin but this is where your own sense of discernment and emotional intelligence is going to come into play. Are you crying more than laughing? Are you more often sad and bewildered than happy and content? Do you feel good, empowered and healthy after dealing with this person or do you feel drained, tired and confused? Do you feel like you’re allowed to be who you are or do you feel slight manipulations are at play?
I’ll be the first one to admit that it can take you forever sometimes to figure out what the hell is really going on…but once you do, you see the trap for what it is and you’ll most likely never fall in again.
I’ve only noticed this the past few days on my Facebook feed but the September 30, 2016 new moon represents a notsorare Black Moon, the second new moon within the same month (September 1st and September 30th) . Blue Moons are the second full moon within the same month.
They are not very rare. The last time there was a Black Moon was in March 2014. The September Black Moon only applies to those in the Western hemisphere. Those in the Eastern hemisphere will experience it in October 30th or 31st instead.
Rather, I think Black Moons are energetically in direct alignment with The Goddess/Divine Mother in whatever form you choose to venerate Her. Isis, Hathor, Sekhmet, Durga, Kali, Hecate, Pallas Athena, the Black Madonna, White Calf Buffalo Woman, Mother Mary, etc. The form I feel most close to is Sophia, Divine Wisdom.
In Gnostic lore, Sophia is the Divine Mother, that part of Creation which remains hidden, can’t be seen or heard but only sensed and felt. In Jungian terns, it is the shadow self. This Black Moon is the time to connect to the Divine Feminine. Prayer, meditation, ceremony. It is also about clearing out and cleaning up the shadow self. Those places in you where your bad habits can hang their hat.
Well, it would seem that a certain internet-based New Age guru has been exposed in the past few days. It happened on Philosopher Stone’s blog and it quickly escalated to other sites across the internet, particularly in the alternative research community.
Quick background: Zen Gardner ran his own website , and was quickly gaining recognition in the alt research community, exposing the New World Order, paedophile cults, Satanic cults, secret societies, etc.
Then Steve Seymour dropped a bomb on his Philosopher’s Stone’s blog the other day. It turns out Zen Gardner, aka Don Ferguson was a 27 year member and leader in the Children of God cult from the ages of 22 to 49 and left the cult in 1999.
For those of you who don’t know, the Children of God was and is a notorious California New Age cult which started back in 1968 and quickly spread across the world headed by a known paedophile named David Berg. Berg was a psychotic, insane and perverted man who among other things, advocated incest, sanctified prostitution known as “Flirty Fishing” and rampant pedophilia among its members. The litany of things which the Children of God were involved in is beyond horrific and if you have the stomach to watch the many documentaries on Youtube about the cult including survivors’ testimonies or read the documents, you’ll quickly understand how insane David Berg was and how the cult attracted deeply damaged or equally crazy people to say nothing of the incalculable amounts of damage the cult did to people who were in it.
David Berg and a “Children of God” member.
I’m not going to go into the back and forth between Zen Gardner and Steve. If you want to know the exact details and chronology of this fallout, I suggest reading the following articles and links in this order:
1) Don Ferguson fessed up to his involvement in this sick cult only AFTER being threatened with being exposed. Otherwise, he would never have mentioned it
2) Berg died in 1994. Ferguson left the cult in 1999, a full five years after Berg’s death claiming that he wanted to change the organization ‘from the inside out” 5 years is plenty of time to clean out an organization or disband it completely as a high-ranking member, which he didn’t do.
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On a personal note, it was Zen/Don Ferguson who helped put me on the blogosphere radar screen. Someone had posted one of my first blog posts in the comments section of his website and the next day it was in the headlines section of Icke’s website. I used to read Zen Gardner’s website on and off after that but then about 2 years ago or so, his old, crunchy, granola home-made cobbley website suddenly got a massive upgrade and became super-professional, polished, full of sponsors and rolling ads. Money was definitely coming in from somewhere. The energy had changed completely and not in a good way so I stopped visiting it.
Not only that, but I just didn’t find his writing all that insightful any more. It was the same old, same old “The world is undergoing a shift, so are you, hold on to your hats”, mixed in with New Age pabulum and flowery feel-good lingo. Like an internet personal coach, full of fluff but no practical or sound advice.
Then Zen Gardner was suddenly all over the internet, being interviewed on other people’s shows or podcasts, a flashy new book, he was suddenly some New Age alternative researcher celebrity. Definitely not as big as David Icke or Alex Jones , but on his way. Getting a Youtube channel and even a book called ‘You are the Awakening”. Zen was invited to conferences all over the world as a speaker or panelist and he had his own group of followers on his website. Because Zen was very good at writing and articulating certain ideas, his website was very popular with newbies, people just coming out of their shell and looking around for writers/thinkers who can explain to them what the hell was happening.
The bigger problem here is that there is a genuine spiritual hunger out there. How does a person who honestly doesn’t know any better, discern the real from the fake? People are looking, sometimes genuinely, sometimes with less intensity, but looking for *something* nonetheless because whether you want to admit it or not, spirituality and the search for profound meaning to our lives is as much a part of the human condition as looking for food to eat, a safe, warm place to sleep and a friend to talk to. Unfortunately in a fast-food market-oriented world like ours, it means there are millions of fakes out there willing to sell their fake wares and fake teachings to the person who never developed any sense of discernment.
It’s not real!
Organized religion has failed, globalization means that teachings which were once inaccessible are suddenly at anyone’s fingertips, there’s the problem with cultural appropriation or the misuse of sacred teachings and paraphernalia by people who either don’t know what the hell they are really talking about or deliberately distorting original teachings to suit their own agenda and inflate their pocketbook. Don’t believe me? Its even hit the shamans of Siberia with shyster Russian “spiritual teachers” (from 3:38 – 5:14)
I admit, I have also had my run-ins with fake teachers and guides and the damage they can do to a person can be huge and take years to recover from. Instead of helping to bring you forward a few steps, they can actually push you back a few meters. One unfortunate thing I have noticed is how deep down inside, many people don’t actually want to make decisions of their own but prefer being told what to do, what to think and how to live. It’s easier because someone has done the blueprint for them already. It’s terrifying for some to completely break free and do things on their own and forge their own path. It’s too hard.
I wish I could offer a few rules and guidelines to help folks discern real teachings and teachers from fake ones, I can’t. I can only offer what I’ve observed so far.
1) Never accept anything and everything at face value. Do your research. Ask pointed, uncomfortable questions
2) You have a brain so use your critical thinking skills. I may follow a few writers or teachers whose writings have inspired me but that doesn’t mean I completely agree with them on absolutely everything they ever wrote.
3) Don’t ever do anything which makes you feel uncomfortable. Listen to your FEELINGS. Just because your 75 year old male guru tells you to get naked with him and slip into the hot tub to receive “secret teachings” or “initiation”, doesn’t mean that you should do it.
4) Don’t mistake genuine ethnic origins with genuine teachers. There are a ton of shady guru-types in India and shamanistic types in South America who prey on white people’s ignorance of their cultures. Just because someone is brown and from India doesn’t automatically make him an authority on ALL Vedic teachings.
5) Keep a track of all inconsistencies in everything which you’ve noticed in what they do and say and question them on it. If someone starts getting hot under their collar and perceives your questioning as being confrontational, that’s a red flag right there.
6) Run for your life when someone asks you to invest a huge amount of cash to join their movement, to give all your stuff away to them, tells you to break off all your friendships and family connections to join their group
7) Keep a close eye on your teacher’s own life, personal habits and lifestyle. I would think twice before taking advice from someone who preaches about the importance of health and hygiene yet smokes like a chimney and lives in a pigsty.
(Please watch this video from 50:00 to 58:00 to see what The Children of God cult does to people)
“Within the natured structure and design of all creations, there can be found the inherent properties that define its purpose…Humanity is no exception!’
PersonPlacePurpose
Authenticity Alignment Actualization
TO BE REAL TO FEEL REAL TO MAKE REAL intention belief creation
body mind soul
physical mental spiritual
molecular magnetic vibrational
consciousness connection conception
illustration immersion illumination
EARTH AIR WATER Elementals Energetics Emanation
bal•ance beau•ty bless•ings
– W.C Lyons 2011
I had mentioned in previous posts that I have a friend who writes spiritual/quantum quatrains. She doesn’t just sit there and make them up. They literally come to her from who-knows-where and her job is to merely record them. Many of them are for specific persons that she knows and how it applies to their own individual circumstances, many of them are readings which are much more universal in scope and can be applicable to anyone. Until now she has not gone public with them but she has given me permission to share The Primer, as written above. That’s all I’m allowed to share for now.
That’s not my friend but you get the idea.
Really, its essentially about working on yourself spiritually from all angles, particularly the quantum field and there is a lot to meditate within this one chart alone. It’s not just something you read and forget about. I’m finding I need to look at it everyday and have copies posted in several places around my apartment.
There are 38 different remedies in the Bach Flower system and dozens of places online where you can do questionnaires to figure out what you need.
Because of this, I’ve decided to give the Bach Flower Remedies a go. With a lot of these things, it comes off as New Age quackery but I need to report honestly that the Bach Flower Remedies are working, a least on me in a very beneficial and positive way.
As long-time readers know, much of my baseline is anger, usually tied in to issues and circumstances of injustice which I see around me. The Bach Flower remedies have greatly tempered that. They don’t work on physical ailments but rather on issues of temperament (i.e depression, loss of hope, excessive anger, jealousy, melancholy, anxiety etc.) I still get pissed off as hell when I see bullshit happening like this terrible Brock Turner case, I’m just not going to go and tear their head off personally (In my book, this kid, his dad and that retarded judge need very swift and VERY HARD horse-kicks in the pants).
This should have been you, Brock.
Montreal is in that period between spring and summer. The spring flowers are out like peonies, lily of the valley, lilacs and are practically finished before the real heat and mugginess of summer sets in. I’m lucky in that I can usually go flower-picking alongside the river in my neighbourhood. The late Linda Goodman used to write in her books that if you needed to change your mood to “Go smell a rose” and its true flowers have a magic and a medicine which is all their own, maybe that might be why The Bach remedies work. I’ll end this with some words of wisdom from Mikhael Aivanhov. Between this and The Primer, there’s a lot for all of you to chew on.
“People love to receive and give flowers; they put them in their homes, plant them in their gardens, go to admire them in parks and in nature and marvel at their shapes, their colours and their perfumes. But they think of them mainly as decorative features that make life more pleasant, so their interest in flowers remains superficial, and they do not gain much benefit from their presence. But what are flowers really? They are living beings with which we can create a relationship. Yes, a flower is not simply a piece of matter with a colour and perfume; it is the home of an entity that has come to speak to us of earth and heaven. And if we know how to look at it, how to relate to it, we connect with the forces of nature, with the entities that work to make the flower such a life-giving, poetic presence.”
He’s been looking now for a long time It seems the more he looks The less he wants to see
He turned to the West for a long time He turned to the East Then he turned to the West again
If there’s a heaven above, in the meantime If there’s a heaven above, let it be near If there’s a heaven above, in the meantime Then let it be near Let it be near to me
We’ve been talking now for a long time It seems the more we speak
The less we seem to say If there’s a hell below In the meantime Then let us shut up Unless we want to pray
He saw everything real too clearly So close that the bones would show And to see everything so clearly Isn’t always the best thing you know
What is truly spiritual, like light, both attracts us and repels us at the same time. – Flannery O’Conner
I used to have a pen-pal friend named Jimmy, from Muskogee, Oklahoma. I think I might have mentioned him in a previous blog post but Jim and I became friends in the early days of the internet. He had some rare bone disease which basically made him a quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair. It was never romantic or anything like that, but we became fast friends because both of us had an interest in mysticism.
Jimmy was easily one of the most insightful persons I knew and very, very quick and perceptive to figure out and gauge people from the inside out. Practically every assessment he ever made, turned out to be true. It was strange because you couldn’t find two more different people, Jim a disabled, white, male Southern Baptist from Oklahoma and a some-time Republican who was anti-abortion and deeply into his Bible and then you had me, a Bengali-Canadian Muslim female with anti-imperialist, anti-sexist anarchist inclinations. Still, despite our huge differences in opinion and background, we understood each other, and both of us saw that the more readily you leave behind labels and dogma and veer closer and closer to the spirit of things, the closer you get to the truth and essence of it, irrespective of what angle you’re coming from.
“The Outsiders” film, based on the book by S.E Hinton. (L-R, a very young Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillion, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise) Jimmy had friends who ran in the same circles as Hinton.
We often would talk about spiritual things, how much we hated the people and phoniness around us . He schooled me on Southern writers like Flannery O’Conner and Reynolds Price and I schooled him on…well, lots of the stuff I write about here actually. While I was living in Turkey, I found out six months after the fact, that he had been hit by a truck in Tulsa while turning a corner in his wheelchair and died instantly. I was saddened but not surprised because he had told me several times over the phone that he had a presentiment, he knew he was going to die soon and it wasn’t the disease that would do it either. He also added that despite that knowledge, it was going to be OK and he was at peace with it. I miss him a lot.
Not Jimmy.
Jim was the one who pointed out that Flannery O’Conner quote to me, that things (and people and relationships) which are truly real and spiritual will attract us, like that cliché, like moths to the light. At the same time, they also repel us because on some level, perhaps an intuitive one, to really embrace the light also means complete and utter annihilation of the old self, old identity, old ideals etc. And it’s that suicidal aspect which terrifies us. Therein lies the paradox, we want to come closer to the light yet we’re also terrified of embracing the light and what it might mean in real terms, how much we have to give up in letting go of the old and killing ourselves and what we might have built up.At the heart of it, it’s the old faith vs fear argument. Do you have faith and let go, not really knowing if the gigantic rewards are there waiting for you or do you hold on because better the devil you know than the one you don’t?
I’m seeing this faith vs. fear idea being played out in the US elections as well. New York State holds its primaries tomorrow and I think it will determine if Senator Bernie Sanders can finally win the Democratic nomination. If he does get the nomination, he’ll basically walk into the White House. If he doesn’t pull off a hat trick tomorrow, that nomination will swim further away from him unless of course California plays the king-maker.
Hillary and her Wall Street pimps
Hillary Clinton might have money, power, connections and a lock on older voters but it doesn’t change the fact that she (and her husband) are pure crass. The Sanders camp is nothing less than pure class. I can’t help but get the feeling that integrity politics has finally come back after a very long hiatus. Big time. The younger voters have a lot to do with it but I think everyone is just fed up of all those old lies and old stories.
I know I have a lot of readers in the NYC and Brooklyn area. Godspeed to every last one of you for tomorrow’s vote. All I’ve got to say is just remember that the fear of the light is actually much worse than the light itself.
If any of you are into lifestyle magazines or watch home decorating channels and videos, chances are pretty good you’ve heard the name of Marie Kondo.
Scarves correctly folded and organized according to the KonMari method.
Kondo is the writer of the runaway bestselling book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing”. She’s been featured in just about every mainstream publication imaginable at this point and people have been raving about her methods and how it has helped them declutter their own lives. The gist of Kondo’s book and work as a space efficiency expert, is this; organize your home, your belongings, keep only things which “spark joy” (i.e gives you a boost or positive energy connected to it) and get rid of everything else which doesn’t and you will be astounded how that will tidy up your own life and psychic space.
Kondo isn’t coming out of nowhere with this. In fact, before she became a celebrity efficiency expert, she was an attendant at a Shinto temple for years and much of what she is saying is actually based on Japanese Shinto belief. Shintoism is an animist religion and it believes in the energy and spirit of things, people and places and many of its teachings are based on far older shamanistic beliefs indigenous to Japan. In some ways, Kondo’s ideas of space management and decluttering and allowing the energy of things which spark joy come forward are not unlike Chinese ideas of Feng Shui. It would explain why the Japanese are easily the best in the world when it comes to designing with space efficiency in mind given that it is a very crowded island nation where space is at a premium.
Tiny loft apartment in NYC.
Her method offers very specific methods in decluttering and getting rid of stuff you no longer need, use or no longer makes you happy. She suggests taking a whole day off and doing an epic house cleanse, starting with clothes, books, miscellaneous belongings, papers and sentimental belongings. There are even methods on how to fold clothes properly and make the most of your space.
There is a method to her madness. By touching and holding every last thing of the thousands of things you own, you’re not only seeing if it sparks joy anymore in you, but you’re also confronting your past, the decisions you made and aspects of yourself you’d rather not deal with. When you decide to get rid of something, before tossing it, you say “Thank you” to that item for its time and service with you. It’s an exercise in generating gratitude. You also learn to develop your abilities in discerning what works for you and what doesn’t anymore. It works on so many levels. By tackling the easy stuff first (i.e clothes and books), by the time you start dealing with personal mementos and things which hold sentimental value or bring back memories, you’ll be able to discern if it sparks joy for you or not and be able to “read” the item past your own emotional fog.
Furthermore, by correctly folding and storing things you aren’t using, you’re allowing them to rest (OK, so that sounds a bit woo-woo) so that when you do use them, they’ll be rested and ready to go. Read: more positive energy.
Organizing your underwear or sock drawer. I have a whole bunch of these which I scored in Chinatown. They help a lot.
I can’t understand hoarders or people who constantly live in a mess, clothes and food everywhere or keep their stuff in garbage bags. When I see those TV shows of hoarders, I actually feel really bad for them because its obvious there’s a sickness there. I can see why keeping things out of duty to a memory, keeping collections of things (in my case books and vinyl records) can sometimes hold you back from moving forward. When you own too much stuff, the stuff starts to own you instead of you owning it.
Surprisingly, you’ll also begin to start saving money. When you go out shopping or happen to walk by shop windows or while browsing through your favorite spots, because you now know what sparks joy for you when you hold something, it becomes that much easier to see what’s worth buying and what isn’t. You’re going to become less susceptible to impulse buying, following trends or keeping up with the Jones.
Maybe not.
There are a fuck-ton of Youtube videos of people using the KonMari method . Mostly before and after vids but I think a lot of them miss the point. Most of these videos just play up on the decluttering and organizing aspect and don’t even deal with the spiritual aspect of the exercise at all. For that, you’ll probably have to do it yourself to experience it. Spiritually, I think you become closer to who you really are. Your clarity of vision starts to come back. You become less attached to the belongings and start to see it is these very things which keep you anchored in the material world. These are the pins holding the matrix up, the one we call “reality”.
One of the things I’ve noticed with the KonMari method is that you also start to develop your spatial intelligence (if you don’t have it already).
One of the reasons why I hate stepping into malls is that I can no longer walk in a straight line anymore without at least stopping 5 or 6 times because some one has cut in front of me. I don’t know if it’s the constant looking down at your cell phone, a protein deficiency to the brain or just plain stupidity, but people do not walk straight anymore or with purpose. They walk in curves and change directions all the time and don’t seem to realize what they are doing or where they are going. Next time you find yourself in a mall, just sit down and watch. You’ll see. It is a lack of spatial intelligence and an animal herd mentality. It’s the same on trains or subway cars. People will automatically pile into the one which is already uncomfortably full to capacity and fail to see, that if they just looked or walked ten steps further, the next car is practically empty and full of seats.
Waiting for the subway in NYC.
Give it a go, folks. The reason why her book is resonating with so many people it that it simply works. You’ve got nothing to lose except maybe cleaning up your living space for the better.
The gist of the book is that when human beings started with alphabetic literacy, learning to read and write, it rewired the brain in a completely different way and brought about negative changes to a pre-literate cultures which were usually holistic and intuitive in outlook, were more right-brain influenced (right brain “rules” the creative faculties as opposed to the analytical left brain faculties), was more focused on images, venerated the Goddess and “feminine” values like cooperation, community, sharing and communalism. With reading and writing, the brain shifted gears suddenly towards the left brain. Suddenly thinking which used to be more creative and intuitive, became linear and analytical and a shift from a Goddess-based culture to a patriarchal one, one we are still living with. Reading this book alone may cause a shift in your ability to interpret the culture around you in a very radical way.
Right brain vs. Left brain
Shlain does this by doing some rather intriguing detective work and examining pre-literate cultures, their myths and stories, specifically the Israelites, Greeks, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Babylonians. I should insert here that Shlain himself was Jewish and he didn’t spare his own tribe at all.
Relief of Babylonian gods.
He examined the origins of the Egyptians and the Hyksos, When he tried figuring out the origins of the Jewish peoples, what he surmised was that, in his opinion, the Jews were originally a sub-sect of Babylonian society. Specifically Babylonians who were scribes, who for whatever reason, were either kicked out or left Babylonian society and then became “The Jews”.
Ancient Egyptian scribes
Shlain then makes some very important and startling points. First of all you have to remember, until not so long ago, not everyone could read or write. Mass literacy is a relatively recent historical development. For most of history , the majority of people could neither read, write nor do simple math. People who could, usually had very high social positions in feudalistic and prehistorical societies. Scribes in particular had a very special place in the courts of kings and rulers.
Fragment of Babylonian script. Can you read this?
Among most historians, it is acknowledged that the area in the Fertile Crescent is ground zero in the development of written and recorded language. This is where you really need to pay attention: Shlain points out if you’re the only one in your group who can read or write and no one else can understand what you are writing down, then you’re pretty much free to write down whatever you want, make up whatever story you want, and there is absolutely no one there to contest it or refute it. No one can read or understand what you just wrote down. In other words, it is literally a “carte blanche” to write-up any myth you want about your self or your history and there can’t be any fact-checking or discussion.
Shlain thinks this is where these Babylonian scribes who left, who self-identified and became the Jews and were thus able to forge a story about themselves as “chosen”, stories about Adam and Eve, stories about a jealous God and pretty much everything else in the earliest chapters of the Hebrew Bible. In other words, you really shouldn’t believe everything you read no matter how old or it is.
I’ll be very honest and upfront about this – It is NOT about the Jews.
What I take an exception to, is any kind of idea or mindset of any group which thinks of itself, as “special”, “destined” or chosen” and then use that mindset to justify anything they want to do, like what ultra right-wing Israelis do to Palestinians, for instance or what white North American settlers did to Native Americans and First Nations Peoples under the guise of Manifest Destiny or what Brits did in the name of Empire. More recent political pundits and policy makers may call it the Monroe Doctrine or call it “American exceptionalism” and quite often invoke this as a reason to start of regime change in places like Chile in 1973, Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011 and now Syria. Anytime, you have one group of people saying that their shit smells better than anyone else’s, that’s the exact moment you antennae and Spidey senses should be tingling.
What this small example shows, is that if this is the possible origin story of ONE of the millions of stories around us, specific narratives we have based our world on, can you imagine what else is completely wrong?
“The world system we inhabit came about due to a mistake.”
– The Gospel of Phillip, Nag Hammadi Scrolls, Codex II, 3:75.5
“Mother Earth was blasted by a searing dry wind. To human eyes it would have looked as if the mist was being churned up by a typhoon, but mystic vision detects something like a human form hidden in the storm – a long-boned giant, hooded, with scaly white skin and red eyes. The darkness was the spirit of Saturn. He was armed with a scythe and he swooped down, pressing himself on top of Mother Earth with black delight. “Don’t be afraid. Let me just…lie on you.” Did he want to make love to her? Or was his only desire to squeeze the life out of her? There was an ambiguity to his deeds that would leave a scar, a chasm in the deep structure of the cosmos….To Saturn it seemed as if her reserves were limitless, as if she were absorbing all his strength, draining him. But the irony was that for her part she began to fear she couldn’t hang on much longer either. It felt to her as if she had nothing left, that he was the stronger. he was succeeding in suffocating all the life out of her, and if he did, she knew the consequences: there would never be life anywhere in the universe. It would forever be a place of the shifting dead matter…”
– “The Sacred History”, Mark Booth
For those of you who follow certain strains of Gnosticism, some of David Icke’s work or just have an interest in secret/forbidden teachings or understanding the origins of belief among Abrahamic traditions… Folks, this is the mystical jack-pot you’ve been waiting for (my apologies to readers, who like political, current events types of posts, it’s totally cool if you sit this one out because this is going to get VERY esoteric).
I’ll first outline what Lamb Lash writes in the lost Gnostic myths on our origins, most of it based on the Nag Hammadi library, then I’ll point out where it differs in discourse and some of the deeper implications of it along with parallel teachings in other traditions. The implications are immense and probably worth at least another five books, but I’ll only hit what came to me very quickly.
Quick back step – After the Councils of Carthage and Rome, the Christian Bible (and by extension, church dogma) is officially “closed”, meaning you cannot add to the Bible canon anymore even if versions of some of those old Bible stories are suddenly found, with better clarity, better explanation and in some cases even render some of those old interpretations as just plain wrong. So when you have epic archaeological finds like the Nag Hammadi Library or the Dead Sea Scrolls, often containing alternate versions of events and lessons in the “official” Bible or Torah and written at the same time as the events of those two books, even if what they say is legit, it’s not considered canon and cannot be considered part of “official” Christianity or Judaism. The implications also spill over into Islam since Islam echos the same stories very often. More importantly, the implications spill over into everything around us in the world today.
The Nag Hammadi library was found not far from this area, which isn’t far from the Saint Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai Desert, Egypt.
OK, here’s the Gnostic origin myth in mystical terms, as found in The Nag Hammadi scrolls (which BTW also includes intriguing stuff like the Gospel of Phillip, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and a chapter called “On the Origin of the World”). I’m simplifying it here immensely.
1) A singularity arises out of Cosmic Intelligence, the Pleroma
2) From the Pleroma, 2 figureheads emerge, Thelete (Divine Intention) and Sophia (Divine Wisdom)
3) A cosmic “She” decides to come into Being from the dream world (or the world of forms as Plato would say – Lamb Lash’s book refers to her as Gaia Sophia).
4) Fascinated and completely absorbed in the passionate process of her own becoming and dreaming, Sophia unilaterally, without a counterpart, watches her own creation and without realizing it, has broken one Cosmic law, that creation needs to happen in twos, not ones.
5) While Gaia Sophia “forms” herself in the material 3-D dimension as planet Earth, she inadvertently causes a ripple effect between the dimensions over which she has no control and did not anticipate in happening
6) In this disturbance, parasitic beings, called Archons (or demons, bad spirits, ghouls if you prefer) are created and they gather around a false god called the Demiurge, who falsely believes he’s the creator of all. This demented god then proceeds to create atomic matter from mist and empty spaces.
Image from Crystallinks.com
7) Sophia undergoes her process of materialization as planet Earth. Sophia is the prime mover, the Primal Creatress, boundless creativity, originality, fecundity, fertility. The planet Earth is inadvertently caught within the false, inorganic, synthetic system or matrix of the Demiurge, NOT the Pleroma, the real origin. Sophia calls out the Demiurge as the fake that he is and that Beings who come from the Pleroma (which includes human souls) are more intelligent than the Archons.
Detail of Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. His version of God. “A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies.” (Bible, Nahum 1:2) —> This doesn’t sound like a really nice entity, does it?
8) The Demiurge and the Archons are copycats, pale imitators, leeches…However, they are very good at stealing and copying from others or causing such disruption/distraction, that no good creative work gets done. They are a jealous, covetous, cunning and constantly hungry lot. They always want more, it’s never enough.
9) Just as the Archons then start to feed off of Sophia, from the moment of her completion, deep in the Pleroma another Being, the Aeon Christos, hears her cry for help and at the very last second, before Sophia is overtaken completely, Aeon Christos, the Sun itself, shows up, with his healing and life-giving warmth.
10) Sophia is saved but stranded and isolated from the Pleroma. Unfortunately, the Archons and Demiurge matrix are still here as well and have tricked everyone into lies and falsehood and stories from the word “Go”.
11) Humanity’s awakening is thus intimately tied with Sophia’s fate. Humanity’s triple challenge is finding their evolutionary niche, staying clear of Archons and their interference and defining its role in Sophia’s ongoing evolution.
Lash Lamb’s book goes into substantial detail about what I just wrote but he also points out how many of the origin stories in places like the Bible and Koran also retold this story using certain elements and changing others (i.e Garden of Eden—> Sophia, Serpent—>Archons, A jealous “God”–> Demiurge, etc.). What I find VERY interesting is that if you begin to look at this on a symbolic level, a lot of myths from other religions start to add up.
It’s a shame that more people don’t know about these alternate visions and that so much of Gnostic lore has either been eradicated over time through political and religious forces or forgotten about completely had it not been for once-in-a-lifetime discoveries like the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea Scrolls. It would force a re-telling and change the narrative in so many other areas of human life as well.
Divine Masculine AND Divine Feminine. There’s just no other way, folks.
For one, it would acknowledge the primacy of the female force in creation. Much of the misogyny and patriarchy that we live with around us in today’s world, whether it’s the higher pay men receive, the right-wing politicians telling women what they can and can’t do with their own bodies, men-only clergy or honour killings in places like Pakistan is a direct result of the undermining of the importance of the female. If that had been there from Day 1, I think the world would look very different from what it is today.
Secondly, I think it would fine-tune people’s judgement-making abilities because they would be able to “see” things very clearly without any, if I may say, Archon-like influence. Like I had written earlier, Archons are parasites, copy-cats and insatiable in their hunger. If you look at some versions of capitalism, it’s ALL about clawing your way to the top, rugged individualism, making as much money as possible and even when you have $10 million, you then want $20 million. You have a great spouse and kids yet you also go looking around for an affair.
How much more do you need?
Instead of being grateful for today and what you have right now and realizing that tomorrow isn’t a promise, you worry and then worry some more about planning your life down to the upteenth detail for your life 30 years from now. Instead of valuing friendships and relationships, we place value on stuff. We bulldoze virgin forests and trees, put up ugly condo developments in place and then insert fake plastic plants and trees around them to make them livable and less-sterile. We feed our stomachs and other appetites and completely overlook feeding our souls, our true selves.
Fake topiaries and bushes. I’m seeing more and more of these outside apartment buildings and downtown outdoor restaurants all the time these days.
Who the fuck is telling us that all this phoniness is real “life”?
The old stories have to go, people need to wake up from the collective haze they live under, mostly induced by false myths, false ideals and false ideologies.
If any of you are familiar with Greek mythology, Cronus (who became Saturn in Roman mythology) was the leader of the Titans, descendants of Uranus the sky god, and Gaia the Earth. Prophecy had told him, one of his sons would overthrow him, like Cronus himself had once done to his own father. To prevent this, Cronus ate his children but then Zeus was born and quickly switched at birth and he ended up overthrowing Cronus and the other Titans and establishing the reign of the Olympians. Like Zeus, I think we’re going to be asked to overthrow our version of “Cronus”, myths we have lived with for far too long because the real truth was deliberately kept from us and in doing so, also keeps us powerless.
“Around the 21st of December, the winter solstice occurs. This event is placed under the influence of Gabriel, the archangel of Yesod, the sephirah of the Moon. Gabriel means ‘God is my strength.’ A few days later, on 25 December, we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ. The archangel Gabriel commands the forces whose role is to condense matter, which is why symbolically he presides over childbirth. For what is a birth? It is the passage from the invisible to the visible, from the ethereal to the physical. And the Moon, the feminine principle par excellence, has an essential role to play in all forms of incarnation, on the physical plane as well as on the spiritual plane. During winter, when the nights are longest and the life of nature slows down, conditions are less favorable for outward manifestation and more favorable for turning inward. People are naturally drawn then to go within, to prepare for the birth of the child of light, who in certain traditions is symbolized by a pearl. Pearls come from the sea and, like the sea, are connected to the moon.”
Winter full moon. Always remember its good luck to first see the full moon through the branches of trees and bad luck to see it first through a window.
This year’s Christmas also coincides with a very powerful full moon. The last time there was a full moon on Christmas was back in 1977 and the next one isn’t until 2034. In other words, they don’t happen often. So for those of you who prefer a more meditative and serene Christmas instead of one involving messy wrapping paper, loud kids, crappy gifts and obnoxious relatives, it’s the perfect time to do some serious, interior spiritual work.
No. Just NO.
Personally, I love Henry Rollins’ idea of Christmas, of cursing the Darkness. (And yeah, he DOES sound flippin’ Biblical…I’d curse the Darkness by his side any day…)
As I’ve written in previous blog posts, I’m not crazy about the holidays, particularly the crass, commercial side of it. I enjoy the time off to read books,
“The Sacred History” by Mark Booth. Booth is also very close friends with noted angelologist and modern-day mystic Lorna Byrne. I’m reading this for the holidays.
Catch up on movies,
Invite friends over for dinner,
Fondue party!
And maybe take a small day trip or two, out of town, to spas or tiny villages with cool mystical names. It’s hard to catch the mystical flavor of the season when its nothing but “Jingle Bells”, garish tinsel decorations everywhere and red, green, reindeer, Santa Clauses, and snowmen on every TV commercial, flyer in your mailbox or webpage you visit urging you to buy stuff you don’t really need. I don’t understand how people can go into debt because of Christmas. That totally defeats the purpose of Christmas IMHO. I’d rather invite a buddy or two over, make a few epic batches of chocolate chip cookies while drinking eggnog and listening to Def Leppard, AC/DC or Van Halen, package them into several ribboned Mason jars and then gift them to my neighbors and then use whatever leftover eggnog there is to make Eggnog French toast the next day.
I’ll take this any day over a gift card to a store I never go to.
Like most metropolitan cities in the world these days, Montreal really is bereft of mystical, spiritual hot spots which can help you “get into the zone”, the spiritual zone. Most of those kinds of pure places are out in the wild now. The few spots there are, are increasingly being outfitted with Coke machines and gift shops but one place I will try to head out to is St. Joseph’s Oratory, the resting place of St. Brother Andre.
Underneath the dome of St. Joseph’s
I had a chat once with a German ex-patriot, a follower of Rudolph Steiner’s. He told me there was an energy vortex underneath the dome which he had experienced altered states under. Ed and Lorraine Warren, two world famous exorcists and demonologists and who were featured in the Hollywood film “The Conjuring”, had also made pilgrimages to the Oratory in the past. Ed Warren actually experienced a healing there, for his mother. Twice in the past, I’ve experienced very powerful but benevolent Presences beside me. It never hurts to try again.
Happy Holidays Everyone, in whatever form, shape or way you decide to celebrate it.
A small part of the Grand Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Utah These figures are actually over 9 feet tall and come from 10 000 BC. The Hopi, Ute and Zuni tribes all claim its theirs but no one really knows. One of the earliest depictions of a spiritual being in the world. To get here, you have to turn off the main road and drive along for 48 km along a dusty, unpaved road, which in case it is waterlogged, you will not get through unless you have a 4×4 truck. When you get to the trailhead at the top of the canyon, its a 750 foot descent to the bottom of the canyon and from there you have to hike for 3 miles before you get to the Grand Gallery. Also because its super dry and hot, you need to be carrying at least 5 litres of water in your backpack or else you risk dehydration. Give yourself at least 7 hours in total to do this. When I came, 2 park rangers were there cleaning up after a flash flood. They let me go right up to it and offer tobacco.
For some reason Utah and Arizona have been calling me lately and I’ll most likely go this summer. It won’t be my first time. Back in 2008, I spent 2 weeks by myself driving along old historic Route 66, exploring 4 Corners, namely Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona:
Went horse-back riding through Monument Valley with a Navajo guide,
I did that!
Pitched my tent in the Grand Canyon, offered tobacco and was immediately greeted by two condors sweeping in over me,
A condor, one of the largest birds in the world, flying over the Grand Canyon
Had an encounter with a ghost in my hotel room in Jerome at the Mile High Inn , an old mining town which is considered one of the most haunted towns in America,
Jerome, is nothing more than a few streets but sits one mile high up a mountain near an old mine.
Fell in love with Taos, New Mexico,
Taos has desert and deep river gorges on one side, and towering mountains of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range on the other side.
Spent several of my mornings watching the sun come up over the cliffs while soaking in the hot springs next to the Rio Grande River in Taos,
Natural hot springs pools beside the Rio Grande river. When it’s super early and deserted you can do the water circuit. Sit in the hot springs for as long as you can take it, then dive into the cold river and then chill in the lukewarm water pool. Repeat three times, ideally in the nude if you’re absolutely certain no one is around.
Missed running into Paul McCartney by 10 minutes at a diner Elvis Presley used to go to in Williams, Arizona (he and his then-girlfriend-now-wife were exploring Route 66 the same time as I was. In fact, I got the same booth they sat at and the seat was still warm),
The entire area is just steeped in positive woo-woo magic and I was very, very lucky to have caught some of it. Maybe because I was in vacation mode, but I just fell in love with the landscape and area almost immediately. It felt like home, I probably had a past-life there (I find it a little more than coincidental that I felt right at home in Anasazi territory, a tribe known as the “Ancient Ones”, which is long-gone now, but many suspect were responsible for building the pueblos at places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon and my family name is very close to sounding like Anasazi).
Mesa Verde, Colorado
I don’t think I could ever really live there since it is Republican-dominated (and boy, do they ever love their gun racks and pick-up trucks down there). God only knows what might happen these days if people know I’m Muslim. I think I got a free pass because I constantly got mistaken as Latina or Native American, depending on where I was.
I then did a quickie trip in 2011 but this time around, it is Southern Utah in particular which is calling. I think it was while I was driving along the unforgettable Route 89 and UT-12 during sunset, between Utah and Arizona, just over from the Grand Canyon and the Vermilion Cliffs, taking in the grandeur of the place, the valleys, canyons, rock formations, that it unmistakably reminded me of Cappadocia back in Turkey and the myriads of valleys, caves and secrets which no do doubt still remain undisturbed, even now. There’s a part of me which wants to explore every last square foot of these places. Quite frankly, sometimes places are far more interesting than most people.
Grand Arches National Park, Utah
People have asked me in private messages how do you decide if a place is good for you or not. I don’t know much about astro-cartography (but Steve Judd certainly does) but in my experience it is sort of like how you determine a friend or a good person you want in your life… it’s the way they make you feel. Likewise with places.
Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Some places (or people) resonate so well with you that they leave you buzzing with energy and the impression and memory can stay with you for the rest of your life. Other times, a place (or person) feels so downright sinister or gross and disgusting, that you immediately want to flee, which is pretty much how I felt the whole time I was in Washington DC.
I also find that places which resonate with you, for some reason are easier to “read”. Because the energy of the place jives with you to begin with, it becomes that much easier for you to figure the place out.
I have a psychic friend down in Massachusetts, who does automatic writing and produces prophetic quatrains, not unlike Nostradamus. Until she goes public, I won’t mention her name but she once produced a reading where it said a person’s way forward comes about when (and I paraphrase) person, place and purpose all seem to come together effortlessly and I agree completely.
So for those of you craving adventure and trying to plot your way forward, I’d only say this, get out there, start exploring. You just never know, in finding your magical sweet spot, you may end up finding your purpose as well.
Watch this video, pay particular attention to the QUALITY of the souls here, not the dogma and theology involved:
Honestly, people like the anchorites described here freak me out (in a good way). India has a long, long tradition of wandering fakirs, hermits and sadhus which I’m sure many of you have heard of or seen if you’ve ever visited India.
Sadhus in Nepal
Likewise Tibet also has a long tradition of yogis, monks or nuns going into seclusion for long-term meditation. Fewer and fewer of them exist with each passing year and the sad part is as they go, so do the teachings as well, since much of their insight is not based on dogma and jargon but rather direct experience.
However, I had no idea that anchorite monks and nuns still existed in the Orthodox world. Whenever I hear about such pure souls like these, it makes me wonder how they can still exist in this age of globalization, instant gratification, nuclear bombs and digital communication. How they can literally devote their entire life to contemplate and attempt to understand the Infinite in solitude and in remoteness.
It got me wondering about the nature of genuine spiritual seeking and I’m pretty sure there are different levels of it. In my opinion, the demarcation line is, without question, the market economy. I know I’ve gotten flack for this in past blog posts but you simply cannot mix spirit with money. I firmly believe that. It was what was taught to me by my first teacher back in Cappadocia as well as the Native Elders I spent time with in Canada and the US. If you do, it won’t last for very long and there’s always inevitably some blow-back. But the very fact that it doesn’t last long should also signal right away the level of authenticity and genuineness involved. It’s like fast-food for the soul. It satiates the hunger for like a minute but the hunger comes back even stronger than ever after a while.
Sure, you can sell your abilities, do tarot readings, astrology readings, psychic channelings, yoga classes which emphasize stretching instead of hard-core Vedanta, books based on your insights if you’ve got an aptitude and talent for it or suggest donations for services rendered, but I don’t think you can sell genuine and authentic teachings which usually come from very deep, painful and hard-won experiences and you certainly can’t sell such intensely personal experiences. They either happen to you or they don’t. You either get it or you don’t. When I watch the people who yell the loudest, “Why not?”, I can almost guarantee you’re probably dealing with someone who can’t even imagine a life which exists outside of the capitalist market economy. Yes, I get it, we have to eat, but we’re not just animals trying to eke out a life. I think we’re more than that.
Anarchist thinker and writer Jacques Ellul, elucidated perfectly in his many books why anarchism is the only political and economic model which allows man to become truly human. If you don’t have time to read his books, there’s a lot of videos worth checking out on Youtube.
This isn’t going to be an anti-capitalist rant. My own anarchist inclinations and sympathies are pretty evident to those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now. Maybe I’ll write in another blog post why I’m an anarchist, but I really do think anarchy is the only system we’ve got which acknowledges human beings as creatures with spiritual and social potentials to be fulfilled, not just economic ones. Minds far greater than mine have already written about how radical a philosophy capitalism is and how in its extreme forms eats up everything in sight, all resources, water, land, air, human beings, bodies, life, love, sex, food, shelter, everything and the obsession of infinite growth, infinite productivity and infinite profits eventually starts cannibalizing on itself. We’re already seeing it happen. When a society enters that stage, life and society becomes unbelievably coarse and human life isn’t worth a hill of beans.
The thing with authentic spirituality is that it leads you away from this world, from an existence which is based on a material, mathematically deterministic Cartesian model towards something which very often cannot be quantified and pinned down. Capitalism is its purest form, engulfs you even deeper into the material and physical. There’s literally no room for the soul there. Therein lies the conflict.
Sure, there are many things which money can’t buy, but have you ever noticed they’re usually the first qualities to be missing in a person who is so utterly engulfed in the material, they don’t even “see” what they’re lacking? The lack of manners, character, decency, class, integrity and moral fortitude? Unfortunately, these types are everywhere.
Ultimately, it is about what is negotiable and what is non-negotiable in your own life and your own spiritual journey. The only thing I can add is that when it comes to matters of the spirit, there are some things which are non-negotiable, no matter how you cut it.
December 2015 is shaping up to look like a time of pivotal and profound decision-making. Both Carl Boudreau and Steve Judd are on the same page on this one.
Carl writes: “I have discussed the world’s gradual emergence from a social, political and economic imbalance that massively favored the 1%. This imbalance was caused by a planetary arrangement that first went into effect in the early 1980s. Roughly 30 years of this imbalance left the world’s social, economic and political systems in very serious need of reform….Progressive victories are no longer sporadic (i.e the rise of Bernie Sanders, the election of Jeremy Corbyn and Justin Trudeau). They no longer seem like flukes. Hope and the determination to bring change are quietly suffusing global collective consciousness. ..The astrological tables have turned. The economic and political tables appear to be turning also. Many of us want to hear that trickles of reform will soon combine into surging, torrents of reform. But the planets are telling us something different. They seem, rather, to be talking about long, slow, carefully thought out changes. I know that many want to see a global surge – a rapid and sustained acceleration – of progressive reform. We want to see the collective consciousness lit brightly from within with a burning enthusiasm for sensible, realistic, practical, lasting, but above all, quick reform….The charts, then, are talking more about processthan they are about substance, or content. The planets are saying that rather than a shared passion for reform, the people of the world will develop a shared passion for careful reasoning, guided by a will to heal, uplift and preserve, colored by a will to fairness and compassion. That is not the same thing as a unified global reform movement.”
The thing with changing directions towards something better is that there is an awful lot of hard work involved. The easiest thing on Earth is to stay where you are and keep doing what you’ve always done and NOT change your routine or habits. Personally, I think that’s the reason so many people are miserable, they simply don’t want to change their routine.
We all want to see things turn out for the best, we all want happiness, respect and love for ourselves and others, we all want to live on a planet which provides us with clean air to breath, clean water to drink, healthy food to nourish us, a roof over our heads to keep us safe and warm, we all want to find meaning in our lives and experiences. However despite what New Age potboiler, well-intentioned but misguided marketing non-profit campaigns and a market economy that wants to keep you in place as a mindless consumer and a powerless vessel for corporate and political entities, change only happens when every last one of us puts our shoulder to the wheel. You have to work your ass off if you want real change and not just hope that somebody else or some external factor will do it for you. It takes some gumption and guts. To paraphrase Sarah Harrison of Wikileaks, courage is contagious.
Legendary French film director Louis Malle did an epic 7-part documentary series on India called “Phantom India” back in 1968/9 which was aired on French TV and then eventually the BBC. In a lifetime of work which included the beloved “My Dinner with Andre” and “Atlantic City”, Malle considered “Phantom India” the pinnacle of his work. (All 7 parts are up on Youtube, just be sure to hit the CC button on the bottom of each video to get English subtitles since it is all in French.)
He ended the series in part 7 with the following words and a dramatic visual scene of men literally pushing a cartload of salt along railway tracks with the brute force of their own bodies. (from 49:09 in the video below.)
“In India we discovered with wonder, another way of being, another way of living and seeing the world that made us all feel nostalgic, like a secret forever lost. But we felt all along it was a world living on borrowed time. Here, where the population is greater than Africa and South America combined, modern life increasingly takes the form of man exploiting his fellow man.”
We still have some time to change Malle’s last words in the film. We still have some time to rediscover that lost secret. But not by much.
“Magic is the science and practice of influence. If objects or beings have a positive influence on the world around them, we call this white magic, and if they disrupt, disturb or destroy, we call this black magic. In that sense we can consider everything as magic: gestures, words, looks, sounds, colors, geometrical shapes, and so on. And the same goes for animals, plants and minerals: inasmuch as they have an effect on beings, attracting or repelling them, healing them or making them ill, they have magical power. When we look at the sun, the stars, mountains or lakes, we can feel the effect and the influence they have on us. And to a certain extent, we influence them as well. And because everything in the universe influences everything else, magic is everywhere. When you understand this and endeavor to think, feel and act positively, you will become a white mage.”
– Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
As per Aivanhov’s quote above, some serious black magic went down in Paris. I’m not going to dwell on what happened too much; already websites, conspiracy researchers, political pundits the world over are in overdrive right now, analyzing what happened, by whom and why. I’ll leave it to them to pick up the breadcrumb trail.
I will only say this; usually if you follow the money trail and ask those kinds of questions like “Who paid for those guns?” “Who is funding ISIS?”, “Where is the cash really coming from to pay for their training and hardware?”, “Who is paying ISIS fighters?”, it’ll probably get you further along in solving these mysteries. but it would seem black marketforensic accounting and finance are not nearly sexy enough to pursue (or perhaps too blatantly exposing?) than pointing fingers and fueling xenophobia and stressing out an already stressed-out situation in order to gain some political capital. I just don’t think those questions are being followed up on aggressively enough.
I know Vladimir Putin is currently being demonized in the West and like all politicians of course, he has his own agenda, but I think both he and the amazing Australian independent journalist, John Pilger, pretty much nailed it, in the video below and in this article, respectively.
Do a little math, pay attention to history and it’s not hard to figure out that the American invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and eventually of Syria (if they get what they want) is what opened this Pandora’s Box of craziness. I don’t blame Bush Jr. I know he was am almost positive he was comatose most of the time he was in office anyway and was played as a puppet.
(L to R) Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney
The real thugs were Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, both of whom are obsessed with American Grand Strategy and Imperialism, and both of whom seem to be missing in action now. (Rumsfeld I understand is now buying up all the real estate he can in super-New Agey and super-liberal, Taos, New Mexico. When I was there, a buddy of mine told me Rumsfeld is positively despised in the community and he has to wear a mask when he goes skiing in the mountains there so no one can recognize him since everybody gives him stinky eye all the time. And Cheney…I don’t think he’s human. I think he’s like the robot in the “Terminator” films, he has iced-cold liquid mercury running in his veins which keeps him alive.)
And here’s Dick!
There’s a serious story here somewhere, probably a hot-mess soup involving weapons manufacturers, arms dealers, the military industrial complex, the heroin and opium trade in central Afghanistan, off-shore accounts, international banking cartels, American Grand Strategy, intelligence agencies like the CIA, MI6 and Mossad, oil money, lecherous Saudis and paid Western politicians. Like penicillin bacterium growing on my window sill, I don’t know the dirty details, the various relationships and I certainly can’t see it but I’m sure it’s there. Germs are all alike – you can’t see them but you’ll eventually see the symptoms of the disease they all trigger. You just gotta know what you’re seeing isn’t a cause by itself by a symptom of something far deeper.
A back covered in chicken pox. Caused by the initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV)
Spiritual teachings the world over stress the unity of everything, how everything is interconnected in the web of life. I have no doubt the same rule applies on the darker side of existence as well.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave…
I’m going to end this with a bit of a white magick trick. I was discussing this a few nights ago with a friend that there are times, I’m sure we have all felt, when we prayed, meditated and pleaded with the Un-i-verse to please give us a sign, any sign, that something or someone has heard us and instead, there’s absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Dead silence. We wait and wait and nothing shows up or happens.
However, the second you make a move in the right direction, you make a difficult but right decision, you say something right and true even if you are scared everyone will hate you for it, you move towards the truth even if all the chips are down and you’re terrified, the strangest thing is going to happen to you. Out of nowhere, you’re going to feel strength returning, you’re going to feel something “warm” for lack of a better word, you’re gong to feel a lightness in your limbs which wasn’t there before, which will keep propelling you forward. That’s your sign. It begins with that feeling but if you keep going along that path, you’re going to start to feel Presences around you, the good kind, you’re going to lose the fear, you’re going to start living second by second. And that’s real Magic. Use it well.
I was at an after-work event last night, specifically at an oyster bar, the kind of super-hip Old Montreal joint full of beautiful people who never seem to work but have lots of money, which operates as a supper club, serves expensive dinners until 11 pm and then all the tables are cleared and it becomes a super-exclusive hard-to-get-into-club. I don’t normally hang out at these kinds of establishments anymore, unlike in my late teens and early 20s when I was clubbing and hanging out at all-night raves or going to gay bars to listen to alternative and industrial EBM music like Nitzer Ebb, 808 State and Meat Beat Manifesto and dance the night away with friends. I was only there because I’m actually an Elite reviewer on Yelp! and it was an event I was invited to join. And I love slurping on fresh, briny oysters.
When I eyed the crowd who were populating this place, it was largely middle-aged graying men, executives who work in the local gaming and tech industry and women in their early 20s in super-tight clothing and immobile, plastic cleavages, on a Wednesday night, no less. Pretty obvious what’s happening here. I don’t judge, I just sit back, relax and watch the comedy of manners which is about to take place. I look at it as a transactional, sexual marketplace. People put their goods out in display and other people place their bids, all with the aid of libations and snacks, agreements are reached and off they go. Some bids are too low, some goods are not up to par, it’s basically the same story with different actors. I doubt there’s any love here. I doubt that’s what they even want. There’s no feeling here, it’s just mechanical sex. Maybe one of these girls will end up with a sugar-daddy or one of these men will end up with a young trophy wife. Good for them if that’s what they want and get.
Work your wallet old boy! Work your ass off lady!
I’ve had this discussion now with several male friends who are in their late 30s and 40s, how their sexual partners these days, usually women in their 20s, how the sex basically feels “plastic” or “fake”. How hardcore porn, and given how ubiquitous it is, has basically made girls feel they have to perform like the girls in porn these days. Everything from anal bleaching, to Brazilian waxes, to clitoral enlargement or reduction, to plastic surgery on their inner labias (and apparently one of *THE* most painful plastic surgeries out there) and breasts just to get the “right look” to begin with. One of these friends told me that sex now feels like a show and that he feels like he’s not with a real person but a “plastic sex doll who knows how to moan properly, acts like there’s an invisible camera in the room which she is performing for and isn’t really paying any attention to me and there’s no real satisfaction in it. All you want to do is get her to leave as quickly as possible once it’s over” (<—- real quote).
How’s it going Lady? A fake life-sized Chinese sex doll.
Personally, I just have to shrug my shoulders. Like I wrote earlier, I think the whole thing is a giant comedy. I think people forget a real connection to another human being oftentimes takes a real investment of time and emotion, if you’re not willing to put it in, don’t expect to get much out of it.
It’s just falling into line within a larger pattern in the world where everything is being reduced into a culture of shortcuts. People want satisfying sex on a physical, emotional and physiological level, yet don’t want a relationship or even a friendship for that matter. They want a gourmet meal without the hours of preparation and knowing proper cooking techniques but they just want to pull it out of a microwave or buy it ready-made or have a catering company do their dinner party (as a foodie and someone who loves to cook, where’s the fun in that?).
Make THIS Beef Mac’n Cheese. I’ve actually received random marriage proposals at potluck dinner parties when I’ve made this in the past.
I see this in the workplace too. Kids graduate from university, have zero experience, zero professional acumen, zero life experience or street smarts yet expect to start off at $60 000/year just because that is what they feel they are worth. Unfortunately, it’s exactly these talkers who get into companies who schmooze the HR department and never do a shred of real work and ruin departments with their incompetence while they leap-frog to other opportunities.
Same thing in spirituality. We all know about the Sunday Christian or the Ramadan Muslim, people who act like jerks and idiots during the rest of the week or year, yet when Sunday or Ramadan comes around, suddenly because they showed up in church or they fasted, it’s absolved them of all their previous dumbfuckery. People read a New Age best-seller or two, decide to take up yoga or tarot cards and are now suddenly “spiritual” while they cheat on their spouses or lie to their friends.
They want instant wisdom and insight without ever having to go through those (usually painful) life experiences which could have afforded them that wisdom and insight. In short, people want the rewards without having to actually work for it.
Shortcuts and life-hacks are great when you’re trying to figure out a travel itinerary or how to organize your linen closet. I highly doubt that the same principles will hold when it comes to your emotional and spiritual (and sexual) reality.
Do your “job”, put the hours in and you’ll eventually get there. I’m not saying that miracles don’t happen like winning the lottery or meeting someone and knowing within 10 minutes that they will play an important part of your life, but generally slow and steady (and genuine, I’d add) always wins the race.
“But the Fringe Dweller I speak of are those whose spirit – the very core of their being – is leaving or has left the system. They have detached and projected themselves out of the destiny and evolution of the common man, and the tribal and national folk wave. These spiritual Fringe Dwellers usually have an alignment to the Universal God, which comes from their own sense of Spirit that is now individualizing away from the tribal wave… Are the Fringe Dwellers just a few mystics, ascetics, or hippy wackos? No way. Millions of people all over the globe have now taken the step. Many are very normal and socially well-adjusted…It’s just that they have detached from the emotional alignment of common concerns and interests…They have no ax to grind or cause to expound. They honestly believe that they are in their last human experience…In questioning them, they all say they don’t want to come back. They know they have finished…Seeing life as energy and looking at themselves they begin to embrace the truth. they move from ego to Spirit. It hurts at first, and there is much to process and to go beyond…If you are a spiritual Fringe Dweller – or if you are becoming one – the first point of reconciliation is to admit it. You have to understand that you have projected yourself out of this world, so you may never really fit in anywhere. People will mostly reject your ideas. You may never gain the recognition or acceptance to which your talents may suggest you’re entitled to…Trying to fit in is silly…it burns energy. Wake up to the weirdo within you and don’t apologize for it. Just be it. Love it. Nurture it. Look within it…
I have never wanted children.
I just never related to it and never once had a hormonal impulse towards having them or felt the need. Even as a kid, I hated playing with dolls and baby prams and preferred being out on my bike, climbing trees and making forts or tree-houses. Exploring the world seemed far more fascinating than pretending to change a dirty diaper.
Yup.
When you tell people, that as a woman, you don’t want kids most people either think you’re a freak, abnormal child-hater or some selfish monster. No matter how much you try explaining to them that you just don’t *feel* it and that deep down inside, you already know you’re only going to end up resenting those souls, even on a subconscious level, for taking up a large part of your freedom and space for 20 odd years, hinder your mobility and hinder any deeper spiritual work you may be attempting and that it will be a terrible, terrible mistake and deeply unfair to those souls, they always come up with some cockamamie response like “Oh, you’ll change your mind”, “It will be different when its your own” or “Just wait till you meet the right guy.” Or you get condescending faux-sympathy like in this article. What I also find even more insulting is that these commentators seem to think they have a right to express an opinion about what you should be doing with your body and time, like they have a right to it. Yeah, right.
A few blog posts ago I briefly discussed Lexigrams. The word THEATRE also has the words EARTH, THREAT, HEART, ETHER and I believe it was the English bard William Shakespeare who once wrote:
It’s about being brutally honest with yourself and knowing which path you need to take, a materialistic one or a spiritual one. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. They both have their pluses and minuses. It’s about figuring out the right one for you. How much are the things you “want” really wants (or needs) which come from a deep, organic, personal place within you or is it a synthetic “want” which was created outside of you (marketing, propaganda, economic, religious, social and cultural indoctrination etc.) and somewhere along the line, you internalized that “want”, but really, it is not yours, it is an implant? It’s just a thought.
We’re all only playing bit parts in a Grand Play. Everyone is putting on an act to some degree. At work. On social media. In their relationships. It’s up to you to wake up to the deeper reality and know when its time to take the mask off. Most people never will and you know exactly who they are. They find solace in clinging to their illusions and comforts and sticking to the script and that’s just their journey. There’s nothing wrong with that. Stuie Wilde would have called these folks, people who follow “tick-tock“.
In Hindu Vedanta literature or in Jainism, they call it the 4 Ages of Man, the 4 Ashramas. It’s about following the path of the householder before coming to a certain age and renouncing the world, being in this world but not of it. Even in India now, you’ll see some Jains, at the age of 75, after making their millions, with MBAs and PhDs from Harvard, shave off all their hair, renounce all their worldly goods, put on a simple white shroud, leave their families forever and wander India as mendicants, living off of alms while they seek Enlightenment.
Jain mendicant nuns wandering India
Some people get excited by astrology, shamanism, UFOs, studying crystals, yoga , Wicca, Bach flowers remedies, whatever, while living in “tick-tock” in trying to be a Fringe Dweller. I don’t see anything wrong with that either as long as its genuine. It’s just an expression of their soul which is looking for something upward and outward to transcend towards. They just don’t know “what” exactly.
Fringe Dwellers are a slightly different bunch. I think most of them were born, knowing that following “The Formula” is not and never will be for them, meaning Go to School + Get a degree+ Make Money+ Get Married+ Buy a car + Buy a House+ Have Kids+ Save for Retirement+ Buy Insurance+ Go on Two Week Vacations to Disney= Happiness. So they look for their happiness and contentment beyond the illusion.
I’ll only add this; fringes or margins are very interesting places. It is only at the margins can you see the big picture with an unobstructed view. It is precisely when you see the entire view, you may not necessarily see your soul, but you may just see what your bit part is. And like the song below hints at, you may just see that your bit part is huge as well.
———————————– This is an announcement For the transcendental run The train now standing Leaves for higher planes Due to a derailment There will be no other train So why not hop on this one? Hear the porter’s glad refrain…
The song is in your heart
Your heart is in the song
The song is of the earth
The song is of the sky
You are disintegrating Into everything around Reintegrating The worm we dug from higher ground You have let go of ego Ego is no longer you Closer to Nirvana Since the porter’s whistle blew
I have a good friend, who for the purposes of this blog post I will name Michael. Mike is a worldwide internet security expert, his specialty is spam and online fraud like those annoying Nigerian banking scams, but he works closely with law enforcement and a whole bunch of alphabet agencies around the world and their experts. Many of his friends in that sector also work with very dark matters as investigating online pedophile rings and human trafficking.
The Lobster Spaghetti at Joe Beef. You have to eat this once in your life to believe how good it is.
I see him maybe once every 6 months since typical two work weeks for him may involve a stop in Singapore then off to Paris for a meeting and then maybe Washington DC before coming home to Montreal. We became great buddies since we both love the same kind of music (he offered to fly me out to Edinburgh a few years ago just to attend a Roxy Music reunion concert), both of us own and love pugs and both of us enjoy hitting Montreal’s better dining spots (Global bad-assed foodie Anthony Bourdain has already visited most of them on his various shows, but if you’re wanting really good eats in Montreal, you can’t beat Joe Beef, Liverpool House, Nora Gray, Tuck Shop, and Kazu). Plus he’s a fantastic dinner companion and an amazing story-teller with lots of very insightful and very funny opinions. So when he calls last-minute, like he usually does, I make time and go.
Anna Chapman, was a notorious Russian spy and honey-trap who operated among the New York City jet set, posing as a real estate broker.
One thing Mike mentioned which struck me as very interesting was the concept of the honey-trap. If any of you have read John le Carré spy novels, you might be familiar with it. It’s basically a sting operation, which has been set-up to lure in a suspect for the purposes of getting information out of them or catching them in the very act. It is something law enforcement use quite often especially with online pedophile predators but the funny thing about the honey-trap is that it also acts as a mental litmus test to see if even a suspected person even has the POTENTIAL to become a danger. Long story short, if they bite, they may bite more. If they don’t, probably not.
Afterwards, I thought about the idea of the honey-trap and the mental and personality litmus test a bit more an I think there are spiritual implications as well.
Man cannot live on bread alone… ( or all-you-can-eat buffets either for that matter)
Quite often we think of food as something we eat, something which nourishes us physically and sustains us and gives us life, a form of fuel. People quite often forget that there are other types of fuel as well, other types of “junk food” or poisoned food.
If this is the kind of junk you fill your mind up with, don’t expect to win a prize anytime soon…
It can be the books or publications you read (thought-provoking literature which expands your soul like the books of Victor Hugo and Gabriel Garcia Marquez or…. disposable monthly fashion magazines), the TV shows or films you watch (Andrei Tarkovsky films or…. Entertainment Tonight), the journalists you follow (John Pilger, Bill Moyers or… Geraldo Rivera), the websites you visit or the thinkers you respect (Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges or…Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins).
Do you honest-to-God think bringing your kids to Disney World and seeing these plastic freaks will help ignite their imagination for the rest of their lives? It does nothing except make them lifelong consumers.
It’s also not what you digest intellectually which in turn sustains you intellectually, but it’s the company you keep, the people you hang out with, the places you visit, the things you decide to look at, the emotional and spiritual impressions you receive. They just don’t teach you this kind of stuff in school and unfortunately neither do parents, since most of them are also usually operating on an outdated operating system themselves. So what’s a person to do?
“Stay tuned to truth. Listen within and trust your body,” they said. “Your body knows a lie when it hears one. You will feel warm and open whenever you are in the presence of truth. And in the presence of untruth you will find yourself hardening and contracting. Many times in the past we have encouraged you to trust your body, and we remind you now of how important that is.”
There’s some wisdom there. Good things, good people, good situations will make you feel positive, strong and empowered with a quiet certainty. Negative situations and people will make you feel afraid, disenfranchised and confused (and I’m including fear porn here as well). Watch what people DO and not what they SAY. Talk is way too cheap these days. See what happens when you offer friendship to someone who has acted cool towards you. Do they bite back, continue to stay cool or do they reciprocate? Do you feel lighthearted and inspired or down and depressed after talking to someone or watching a particular film? Has a certain interaction or incident left you feeling warm and open or rattled and nauseous? There’s a million and one examples I’m sure any of you could come up with.
Litmus tests are not just about picking up clues like in the photo below, but following up on them with real action.
MINIMAL, minimal sage dating advice from film-maker John Waters. (I would also add, don’t do the deed unless you’ve seen their song list or their music collection as well as their book collection FIRST)
Things have undergone a seismic shift of sorts here in Canada. Sith Lord, Stephen Harper is gone and the very photogenic Justin Trudeau is now our new Prime Minister. Seriously, even on a psychic level, it feels like a black cloud hovering over Canada has finally moved on. It has been very amusing to watch the press and media around the world react to the younger Trudeau. Admittedly the reaction has been superficial, concentrating on his good looks as well as his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau or his Punjabi bhangra-dancing skills.
We’ll see is he makes good on his election promises as activists have set up the Trudeaumetre to see how many of his election promises come through. For the moment, Canada is in full honeymoon mode with British and American progressives (and women) shooting us envious looks.
Canadians are a finicky bunch. We’ll usually stay quiet for long periods of time but annoy us for too long and we’ll find a way to boot you out, and not with a small tap on the wrist but a full-on push out the door. Trudeau has four years to prove himself. If he does, he’ll probably stay on but if he doesn’t, it gives the political progressive left to re-organize and re-strategize as well as unfortunately, the political right. People forget that staying engaged with your country and community isn’t just a matter of voting and checking off a ballot every few years. It’s a process which also means staying informed on policy issues and finding ways to make elected officials more accountable or exposing them if need be. With Wikileaks releasing the personal emails of CIA director John Brennan this past week, exposure is not all that difficult anymore.
Phoenix is Risen’s blog posted this great video about Higher Consciousness today. Pay close attention from 1:36 to 3:41
I don’t know if any of you have experienced states of higher consciousness. I’m guessing many of you have or else you wouldn’t be reading or following this blog. I have several times, particularly at high-frequency spots in Turkey, Greece, Arizona, the Oregon wilderness and Pacific coast and that one time I had a near-death experience.
Lately it’s been hitting me even harder, particularly in the early hours of the morning, right after I wake up. It’s hard to explain to persons who have never experienced it, it’s only something which can be experienced but I’ll try. It’s like a knot in your stomach has suddenly unraveled, like a flower slowly opening up and blooming in your solar plexus area. It’s not nausea, it’s a very subtle feeling of warmth which then starts to spread all over your body and you suddenly find that while you may not be happy, instead what you’re feeling is a quiet joyousness. It’s almost impossible to be angry about anything, you start “seeing” things about certain situations you didn’t before.
You start seeing the perceived failings of others as actions taken out of their own lack of self-awareness or ignorance and not as something personal against you. You begin to see where your own stumbling blocks are and just let them go. Nothing feels difficult, everything seems effortless and easy. I’m asleep in seconds and I wake up completely refreshed due to a deep sleep and very vivid dreams. You don’t take things personally and you suddenly don’t feel particularly possessive of anything or anyone and take a more “Que Sera, Sera” attitude about things. It’s like you’ve suddenly walked into bliss.
When you’re in that state of mind for extended periods of time, you begin to see how many untruths we sometimes surround ourselves with. Untruths which have either been placed around us or ones we may have even created ourselves. Rather than get angry, you suddenly feel compassion. Rather than kick the lies to the curb, you just silently kiss them goodbye.
Tommie Smith (Gold), Peter Norman (Silver) , John Carlos (Bronze)
“While events are happening, we cannot know whether, in time, they will turn out to be fortunate or unfortunate for us. So many situations that people had thought fortunate have, in the end, been the cause of their undoing, while trials have proved, in the long-term, to be very beneficial! So we cannot judge happiness or misfortune at the time; we have to wait before we can decide. So, when you are faced with a situation, pleasant or painful, make a habit of telling yourself that happiness could be waiting at the end of the road. Don’t waste your time complaining or rebelling; thank heaven instead. In saying ‘thank you’, you free energies within you that will help you to face things. Yes, that is the power of saying ‘Thank you’: it tackles the obstacle as it arises, and when sadness, anger and discouragement are beginning to distill their poisons in you, it neutralizes them. What humans need most is to love and be loved, to give love and receive love. And the truth is that they have a greater need to love than to be loved. Yes, to love, because it is their love that makes them alive and inspires them to go forward. To love is the greatest source of blessings. This is why you must never prevent your heart from loving: love all of creation, all creatures, always seeking how best to express your love.”
– Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
The picture above is probably one of the most iconic photos of the 20th century, let alone in sports or within the Olympic movement. For those of you who do not know the back story, it is a photo of two African-American 200 meter sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos and Australian sprinter Peter Norman during their awards ceremony at the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics doing the Black Power salute. Smith and Carlos were active members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), an organization started by Berkeley sociology professor, Harry Edwards.
Professor Harry Edwards, badass.
The OPHR wanted to bring attention to the fact that quite often, the racism of American society spilled over into sports and the Olympic movement itself. When accepting their medals, both Smith and Carlos went shoe-less to bring attention to the plight and poverty of most African-Americans. All three athletes donned the badge of the OPHR but what happened next seared itself into to collective memory of the world. Smith and Carlos then did the Black Power salute, black-gloved fists raised, heads down while the American anthem played. What started off in a stadium full of cheers and jubilation suddenly went deathly quiet. Nothing like this had ever happened in Olympic history, using the medals podium as a political platform. In a year that had seen the assassination of pivotal figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and violent student protests the world over, the political fallout was immediate.
Smith and Carlos were kicked out of Mexico City but came home to a hero’s welcome among the African-American community in the US. Both received death threats for years afterwards, were professionally blacklisted, suffered terribly, Carlos’ wife committed suicide. Neither could hold down steady jobs and suffered economically and mentally for years. In time, their images became rehabilitated and both became vocal civil rights activists and remain so today.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos accept the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage
The story of Peter Norman is less-known but no less dramatic. This past week, a post by blogger Riccardo Gazzaniga entitled, “The White Man in that Photo “ went viral and I’d urge anyone who is interested in issues related to anti-oppression, anti-racism and being an anti-oppression ally to read it. (There’s also a 2008 documentary about Peter Norman produced by his nephew, Matt Norman called “Salute” which I’m trying to track down a copy to watch, but no such luck yet.)
From the blog post:
Norman was a white man from Australia, a country that had strict apartheid laws, almost as strict as South Africa. There was tension and protests in the streets of Australia following heavy restrictions on non-white immigration and discriminatory laws against aboriginal people, some of which consisted of forced adoptions of native children to white families. The two Americans had asked Norman if he believed in human rights. Norman said he did. They asked him if he believed in God, and he, who had been in the Salvation Army, said he believed strongly in God. “We knew that what we were going to do was far greater than any athletic feat, and he said “I’ll stand with you” – remembers John Carlos – “I expected to see fear in Norman’s eyes, but instead we saw love.”...But then Norman did something else. “I believe in what you believe. Do you have another one of those for me ?” he asked pointing to the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the others’ chests. “That way I can show my support in your cause.” Smith admitted to being astonished, ruminating: “Who is this white Australian guy? He won his silver medal, can’t he just take it and that be enough!”… Four years later at the 1972 Summer Olympics that took place in Munich, Germany, Norman wasn’t part of the Australian sprinters team, despite having run qualifying times for the 200 meters thirteen times and the 100 meters five times. Norman left competitive athletics behind after this disappointment, continuing to run at the amateur level.
Peter Norman later in life, with his 1968 Silver medal.
Back in the change-resisting, whitewashed Australia he was treated like an outsider, his family outcasted, and work impossible to find. For a time he worked as a gym teacher, continuing to struggle against inequalities as a trade unionist and occasionally working in a butcher shop. An injury caused Norman to contract gangrene which led to issues with depression and alcoholism.
As John Carlos said, “If we were getting beat up, Peter was facing an entire country and suffering alone.” For years Norman had only one chance to save himself: he was invited to condemn his co-athletes, John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s gesturein exchange for a pardon from the system that ostracized him.
A pardon that would have allowed him to find a stable job through the Australian Olympic Committee and be part of the organization of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Norman never gave in and never condemned the choice of the two Americans.
Smith, Norman and Carlos remained friends for the rest of their lives.
He was the greatest Australian sprinter in history and the holder of the 200 meter record, yet he wasn’t even invited to the Olympics in Sydney. …Norman died suddenly from a heart attack in 2006, without his country ever having apologized for their treatment of him….“Peter was a lone soldier. He consciously chose to be a sacrificial lamb in the name of human rights. There’s no one more than him that Australia should honor, recognize and appreciate” John Carlos said.
“He paid the price with his choice,” explained Tommie Smith, “It wasn’t just a simple gesture to help us, it was HIS fight. He was a white man, a white Australian man among two men of color, standing up in the moment of victory, all in the name of the same thing”.
There are many elements about this story which I find very compelling from a spiritual point of view. Like Aivanhov’s quote above, Smith, Carlos and Norman’s story really shows how you never really, truly know how things are going to turn out and really how if love is the motivation behind our actions, it can ultimately transform anything. That the rocks these three athletes shot into the pond that day, had ripple effects which we are still experiencing now. While all three endured suffering, economic hardship and mental anguish for decades, they refused to back down from their principles because it was the right thing to do. You just don’t see that granite-like integrity which Smith, Norman and Carlos displayed and lived through very often but more importantly, it is that very same integrity which continues to inspire us 47 years later, to keep pushing, to keep fighting for what is right because the struggle continues. The rage against the machine has not abated one bit, whether it is against race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious bigotry, poverty alleviation, environmental degradation, political occupation, or economic justice.
There’s a quote David Icke uses quite often in some of his presentations, by German Protestant pastor, Martin Niemoller:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
We’re all in it together, folks. Admittedly, there are not many examples people have these days for taking that kind of a principled stand. Everyone is so damn afraid of speaking up and putting their neck out on the line since everyone is obsessed with their own self-interest and selfish comfort so nothing gets done. Even harder now, I think with market forces, globalization and crazy politicians putting the squeeze on all of us, but I’d like to think that because souls like Smith, Carlos and Norman existed, there’s nothing to say souls like that have disappeared from this Earth.
San Jose State University has a statue honoring Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Peter Norman’s second place spot remains empty. It turns out that Norman did not want his likeness included in the statue because he said he wants visitors who visit that statue to stand in his place and feel what he felt that night.
That kids, is an example of someone who only wants to share his love.
As some of you know, I’m quite a film buff and especially enjoy watching old movies or indie movies from the festival circuit. It’s quite easy here in Montreal especially to catch up on films, given the kind of publicly funded resources we have.
Recently, I have been reading up on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) because of some counseling work I’m helping out with. I was actually quite floored by several books and websites which categorically stated that many malignant narcissists and people with NPD often employ a tactic called “gaslighting”.
Charles Boyer (Gregory) and Ingrid Bergman (Paula)
The term was coined after the well-known 1944 classic film “Gaslight” with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. In the film Bergman, plays Paula, a former opera singer who saw the death of her opera-singing aunt by an unidentified jewel thief who had strangled her and then fled the scene. Traumatized by the event in London, Paula relocates to Italy as a teenager and undergoes opera training there to only fall in love and fall under the spell of her older Hungarian piano teacher, Gregory Anton, who it turns out, is none other that the murderous jewel thief himself. Assuming a new name, he gets into Paula’s good books, marries her and convinces her to move back into the old London house. His aim is of course to find the aunt’s priceless jewels which are hidden somewhere in the attic. Little by little, he starts to make Paula go crazy. Placing things in her purse when she’s not looking, removing paintings off the wall and then making her believe that she did it (when she did not), putting words in her mouth and generally isolating the woman socially from anyone and everyone else so he can carry his plans out uninterrupted and unsuspected.
The ultimate aim of gaslighting is of course make the intended person start to question their own sanity and sense of reality and it is a technique which not only narcissists, but people who emotionally or psychologically abuse others use regularly from their bag of tricks. The person becomes super vulnerable and then is open to suggestion for all sorts of things which they normally would never fall for.
Folks, I think to a certain degree, we’ve all been gaslighted.
I mean, to a certain degree we’ve all fallen for certain myths or stories, which served to undermine us as individuals and empowers who ever made up the story or the myth because it serves their purpose. Politicians, economists, business marketers are all to blame. Do you really need Coca Cola to live? No, you need water.
Cassel Pink Diamond ring, .79 carats, you can have this for a mere $1.3 million dollars at M.S Rau Antiques in Louisiana
A small example would be the myth of the value of diamonds and the extravagant costs of engagement rings nowadays and what they symbolize. I always thought they were bit of a joke. I wasn’t wrong. The whole damn thing is a marketing myth perpetuated by the DeBeers Corporation. When celebrity magazines write stories about Jennifer Aniston’s ring and people being dumb enough to actually fall for it or care or reality TV bridezillas only talk about the ring for 20 minutes…well, all I see at that point is someone so caught up in an illusion that you probably can’t even have a decent, meaningful conversation about anything with them
I don’t think you should be going there, dude.
Another area I’m seeing gaslighting is the idea of the “happy long term marriage”, particularly those perpetuated by dishonest spouses. I’m watching this Ashley Madison leak scandal literally with a wry smile on my face. While I feel bad for those persons whose names and emails were used in creating bogus profiles, I don’t have very much sympathy for those very real cheating husbands (95% of the users of Ashley Madison are male) who signed up for the service and now have proven paid accounts with their credit cards with Ashley Madison.
What the hackers who stole the Ashley Madison data had to say.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the 4chan/b/ board since the hackers there have been working with the leaked data and just waiting for the big, well-known names to start spilling out along with the non-famous ones like some neighbor on my street or former high school teacher.
Goddess Shakthi. In Hindu lore, she is the cause. She is also known as Maya, the supreme illusion. The world is itself an illusion. Nothing is forever. The only reality is the presence of Cosmic Intelligence within all beings, small, medium or large.
To that I say, good. It’s about time.
Prophecy, New Age writers and even some religious texts say that the veil of deception and ignorance is thinning and will one day disappear completely. That there will come a day, where a person will not even be able to lie because that’s how clearly we’ll be able to see through each other. Some New Agers go so far as to say we will become crystalline beings but I don’t take that literally. It’s a symbolic interpretation of what’s to come. Hindus and Buddhists call this veil Maya, Theosophists call it the unveiling of Isis (the goddess, not the terrorist group, though that would be good too). I say the gaslighting has to stop. The myths have to stop. The stories have to stop. The lies have to stop.
Because to be perfectly frank with you, the ones who want to continue with the lies, I think, like the Ashley Madison story shows, are going to be exposed, one way or another. What’s great about not lying is that you never have to remember anything, You may not get ahead in business or in politics, but your mind and your heart stays clear and to me, that’s more than enough.
“When you go into the mountains, all you see are the forests, springs, lakes and peaks. But in the mountains there are also caves, underground rivers and deep caverns. Think of these sometimes, as well as of the beings that live in them, so that you can be their friend. Mountains are not simply masses of earth and rocks; they are containers for enormous treasures: crystals, stones and precious metals, which powerful entities watch over and work with. I am not saying this in order for you to go venturing into caves, armed with picks and pickaxes, to dig tunnels in the hope of finding seams of gold and silver. No. Pay attention to the symbolic, living aspect of mountains, whether you climb them or else dig deep in yourself to find spiritual treasure. “
– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov
Humbug Mountain
Looking at Humbug Mountain from its South side.
Humbug Mountain sits just south of a tiny town on the Oregon coast called Port Orford. At 1756 feet it is the highest point on the Oregon Coast and a mountain which was once used as a site for vision quests by local Native American tribes, a fact which would have been lost in the annals of time had it not been for an out-of-print guidebook I found about the Oregon Coast written by local insiders I found in a second-hand book shop in Montreal. When I tried researching further if this was true, there were zero sources online, but given the fact that this is the highest mountain right on the ocean, it would make sense why this particular mountain has some special significance.
Humbug Mountain sits within the confines of the Eden-like Humbug Mountain State Park, a place which strongly reminded me of another magical place and one of my favorite places on Earth, Olympos, Turkey. Both are located in a tiny valley, mountains on all sides, with a river/brook cutting through the valley which then leads out to a magnificent beach. Olympos, an ancient pirate hide-out, is strewn with ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins in the midst of orange, lemon and pomegranate orchards and people stay in tree houses and the protected pebble beach is a breeding site for the endangered loggerhead turtle.
The beach at Olympos, Turkey
Humbug Mountain may not have ancient ruins but instead is draped with a lush, prehistoric temperate forest, giant ferns, giant Pacific pine trees, moss and clover and the beach, while sandy, small and private, has numerous seals and whales visiting within sight of the shore, and people stay in tents or RVs.
Trail from campground, goes under a bridge and leads you to the beach….
…And here’s the beach. Humbug Mountain State Park Beach, with Bush Creek emptying itself into the ocean.
Trail up the mountain.
Paralleled but different. The hike up to the top is about 5km long and while it is longer , it’s also far easier and more gentle than Neahkahnie Mountain. You have plenty of time to meditate and think things over while you walk up through one of the most beautiful forests I’ve seen in my life. It’s a funny mountain; one side is completely forested and wild, and the other side is just hard rock and literally drops into the ocean. The top unfortunately has a blocked view now. The trees have grown so there’s not much of a view, but there is a tiny meadow, and should any of you ever find yourself there, and it is a day not crowded by other hikers, you have plenty of space to meditate, pray or do ceremony of your choice. The vibe here is very, very peaceful. I hung out for a good hour and offered tobacco and made my way down.
Top of Humbug Mountain meadow.
Mount Shasta
What can I say about this place that hasn’t already been said or written already? The modern-day superstar of the New Age movement, Shasta is so many things to so many people. To the culty I AM movement, it is their world headquarters (their compound is near the base actually) and apparently sightings of St. Germain or Melchizedek or UFOs are common, depending on who you talk to. To channelers, the underground city of Telos, populated by ancient Lemurians sits underneath the mountain, to the Klamath Indians, the local Native tribe, it is the resting place of the spirit chief Skell after he fought Llao, creating Crater Lake. You can spend a lifetime reading about the various myths of this mountain if you really wanted to.
What happened to me was quite different. I got to Shasta by driving south, from Oregon, along Interstate 5. Shasta at 14 000 feet is a giant of a mountain and can be seen from hundreds of miles away. Once I passed Ashland and saw my first sight of Shasta, I don’t know why but I just started crying. The mountain had called and I came.
The main corner of Mount Shasta town
I’m not going to talk too much about Mount Shasta town or Mount Shasta Boulevard which has at least 8 crystal shops in the space of 2 blocks. Or how most of the books at the main New Age shop, “Soul Connections” had titles, 95% of which were channeled material from God-knows-what “spirit” or entity of uncertain origin. Or how the main crystal shop is selling crystal bowls, giant geos and original visionary artwork and paintings in the tens of thousands of dollars range.
They had to build up a wall and cordon off the source of the springs due to overuse and degradation of the land.
Or the fact that Panther Meadow Springs is now cordoned off to help the delicate plants there come back to life (some of them take hundreds of years to do so) since that meadow has been overused and trampled through by entitled, sanctimonious New Agers, neo-pagan hippies and idiot, hipster campers with zero respect, over the years. So much so, that the spring ran dry for the first time in its recorded history last year.
Bulletin board poster of Panther Meadow over the years and restoration effort.
Or the New Age tourists I had to yell at who ignored the designated trail completely and decided that getting to the spring was their main focus and didn’t give a shit that they were trampling through a delicate alpine ecosystem which is trying to recover. That kind of stupidity and disrespect is happening all the time on the mountain.
Stick to the trail, don’t walk on the grass or meadow.
However, the mountain is big enough and powerful enough to swallow up these tiny botherations. The road up to the final overview lookout at 7000 feet above sea level, is 20 km long (about 14 miles) and it winds its way to the middle of the mountain. Along the way, you’ll first see medium sized redwoods, which then give way to pine trees, which then give way to dwarf pines, which them give way to lichen and moss and then finally bare rock and snow, due to altitudinal zonation..
A diagram which briefly explains altitudinal zones of vegetation.
Funny enough, the soil and rock of the mountain looks almost pink or lavender in certain spots. You will see the change in vegetation the further up you go along the mountain, things get smaller and smaller the higher up you go. It also gets quieter and quieter and the sunlight gets brighter and brighter. People say mountains are holy places and that it is easier to have spiritual insights there, but I’m not sure if altitude sickness has something to do with it also. The symbolism is also obvious; the higher up into the mountains you go, the further you get away from this world and its sophomoric occupations.
The treeline stops very quickly from Bunny Flat.
I lucked out and got a spot to camp at the Panther Meadows Campground, the only designated spot to camp on the mountain and no where near the springs. There are 12 spots and it is usually first come, first served and I managed to get one of the last available slots. If you have never camped at 7000 feet in your life, it is an experience I would recommended to anyone. At night, it gets super cold, the wind starts blowing off the peaks of Shasta. It got so windy, it started rocking my tent and woke me up around midnight or so. When I looked out, I was rewarded with probably one of the most unforgettable scenes in my life. The entire mountain and forest were flooded in silver moonlight, so bright that you wouldn’t need a flashlight at all. The millions of stars could clearly been seen in the clear night sky and the outlined shadows of the alpine trees, super tall, straight and narrow, made me realize these were not normal trees. They looked like sentinels guarding the mountain. You could practically feel them watching you.
Panther Meadows is split in two, Lower Panther Meadow and Upper Panther Meadow, where the source spring is. Upper Panther Meadow is up for registration on the National Register of Historical Places in the US, given it has been considered a holy site long before the Europeans ever arrived and still in continuous use. People think that by coming here, taking a fuck-ton of pictures to show up to their friends back home that somehow, they’ll have a “spiritual experience” here but I don’t think that’s how this place works at all.
The source of Panther Meadows Springs, can you see the two circles where the water gurgles out of the ground?
This is a place where you offer prayers, you give it to the waters and let the waters carry them away from you, that’s it, no more. But with New Agers leaving behind “offerings” of plastic angels, Lemurian rock crystals and what not, disrespectful hikers walking wherever , the vibe has changed. It has become a tourist spot and now the only time you can ever really be here all alone is either in the middle of the night or right around dawn. It’s full of people all day long now.
The end of the Shasta road, where the treeline vanishes completely. The hike begins here.
The real place for leaving behind offerings is literally , at the end of the Shasta road, at the Old Ski Bowl. The treeline abruptly ends and from there you can try hiking the remainder of the 7000 feet to the summit, if you have the right mountain climbing gear.
It is even more insanely quiet and brighter here than at Panther Meadow. The overlook is strewn with rocks, boulders and rubble from the mountain itself and past pilgrims have started doing devotional rock formations here like;
rock mandalas…
Rock mandala.
and spirals,
Rock spiral at Mount Shasta.
This was the end of the road for me too. I burnt the sigils here and left the final bit of tobacco and mixed it into the soil of the mountain itself. Someone had started a giant rock spiral so I collected a few more rocks and added to it as well. I hope it keeps growing.
I now understand why pilgrims carry so much emotional resonance with them when they do pilgrimages. It is the doing of an act of faith and there’s no guarantee you’ll get to do it or finish it. The late meta-physical teacher Stuart Wilde offered a wonderfully simple prayer. It went “Please God, don’t let me go until I can fix this” and I think I understand the essence of that. It is really not about what you can receive, but rather what you can give and it is in the act of giving, with no expectation, no reward, nothing transactional nor conditional “If you give me this then I’ll do that”, that you end up receiving, a point which unfortunately is completely lost on New Age fetishists, religious fundamentalists , faux-yoga celebrity bunnies and the like. I think it is time we all changed that, don’t you?
As I write this, a few noteworthy developments are taking place. Astrologer Steve Judd was the first one to call it out in June. He basically said that the recent Saturn retrograde back into Scorpio from Sagittarius was a signal that some more unsavory truths about the private lives of prominent people was going to come out. And his prediction was correct.
David Icke has been saying from at least 1998 that former late, British Prime Minister, Edward Heath was a murderous pedophile, and now it looks like a victim has finally come forward with evidence and there is going to be an official investigation against Heath among other very prominent British politicians. This isn’t conspiracy theory territory anymore, this is in the mainstream media. Whether you want to admit it or not, London is still the intellectual, financial and political capital of this Earth. Places like Washington DC, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome etc. are all just satellite centers. If London, the City of London, Westminster and the British establishment collapse, there will be a domino effect around the world. Count on it.
The truth, like a panther, seems to be stalking, closer and closer to its prey. Not quite yet going for the jugular, but inching ever so closely to its target with each passing minute. Even more uncomfortable truths are going to come out and it leads me to believe that the age of subversion, greed and self-interest is coming to an end. The climate for it is vanishing. Evolve and adapt and try to start to get real or stay phony and go the way of the Dodo Bird. It’s your choice.
You’re kidding me, right? You’re going to tell me lots of women out there want to be a part of this??? Who wants to clean up all these diapers?
There seems to be a very interesting form of energy afoot now. I’m seeing it mostly in the States, but it is spilling over in other places as well.
First of all, I find it very amusing that the bigots are showing themselves up in the most spectacular way possible. King of the Douchebags, gazillionaire Donald Trump decided to throw his hat in for the 2016 Republican nomination for President. He then went on to insult the entire population of Mexico by calling Mexicans rapists and drug pushers and how he’s going to close the border and come down hard on illegal immigrants. The problem is that Hispanics and Latinos make up a huge part of the voting base in the US and are the largest minority group by far. But that’s OK. Mexico is solving the problem by making Donald Trump-inspired pinatas. Much more fun and effective than voodoo dolls if you ask me.
If he gets in, it will be a miracle. But if he doesn’t get the Democratic nomination, I just hope he doesn’t just tell his voters to vote for Hillary because she’s just more of the same-old, same-old and by that I mean another mouthpiece for the interests of Wall Street. She’s already said she’s going to bomb Iran if she gets in. I mean really? Who wants George W. Bush Part II ?
What Sander’s campaign is showing up is that many, many people seem to have woken up from the myth of the American Dream, saw the nightmare it became with shrinking pay checks, fewer jobs, a widening gap of income inequality and want to take their country back from the billionaires, industrialists and hedge-fund managers. And I say all the power to them if they can pull it off effectively and do what they say they will do.
A common scene on the streets of Montreal every July 1st.
Not that it is any better in the United States.
Read the Declaration of Independence carefully and you’ll see what a bigoted document it really is, how Eurocentric the wording is and how they call First Nation’s people as outright “savages”. Sorry, but that’s not kosher in my book. On a spiritual level, when you have that kind of wording in such a primary document in the setting up of your nation or state or company or whatever, whether it is the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence or whatever, you’re basically weaving that energy of racism and bigotry into the consciousness of this new entity from the get-go…and all these centuries later it is still there. But people are slowly but surely questioning things. That’s at least hopeful.
Good for you Greece – I’m going to enjoy watching the domino effect out of this.
According to them, Jesus basically wants you to live in a McMansion in Texas, have five SUVs in your driveway, buy $15 000 purses for your wife and feed your kids as much Taco Bell as possible. The Pope has called for another interpretation, where Man is a custodian and guardian of Creation and by failing to protect Creation, we fail ourselves. In many ways, what he and the Catholic Church are FINALLY saying is in line with what Aboriginal and Native teachings have said all along: We are a part of that Web of Life, destroy or hurt one part of that web, and it will eventually hurt us too.
And you’re going to tell me that humankind and their activities ISN’T having an adverse effect on life on this the planet. Go to hell.
The one theme I see emerging from all these examples is that there IS a change of consciousness happening. It’s right there under your noses in the mainstream, if you want to see it. It’s not some little story you can pick up from obscure conspiracy theory websites. The interesting thing is that once the genii is out of the bottle, it ain’t going back in. Like after seeing a picture, you can’t “unsee” it anymore. When masses and masses of people start talking and thinking about certain ideas or make a move towards a common ideal at the same time, like Muslims raising money to help rebuild the burned down African-American churches in the South for Ramadan or that fellow in Great Britain who decided to start an Indigogo crowdfunding campaign to help out Greece. People reaching out to others, past bureaucracies, past technocrats, past banksters, politicians and CEOs and for no other reason than to help others who might be in a bind and because it adds to the common good … well, it reminds me of that quote by French novelist Victor Hugo, “Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” Things are far from perfect but I think, we may finally be on our way towards a slightly more empathetic civilization and one based on the ideas of global citizenship, not a local or national one. It’s about time, if you ask me.
The Shift Has Hit The Fan 
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