Into The Maelstrom

“Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.”

– Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Apologies Shifters for not writing very much. It just seems that almost everyday now, another level of outrageousness is being unleashed on all of us that it makes me wonder if I can even keep up and write about it any meaningful way of what’s happening in the world and by correspondence, on the subtler plains.

I’m going to just be honest but it would seem that everything is a mess. I knew things were going to get ugly and degenerate with Agent Orange Baby Fists as president but I wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly and barely 2 weeks into his presidency. It’s almost impossible to focus on anything else, even up here in Canada because of the influence and centrality the US has on the international order.

Agent Orange Baby Fists now has his name on this rink. Central Park, looking south.

I spent a week in New York City by myself and came back a few days ago. Rates are cheap right now given it’s the low season, they were practically giving rooms away at 5 star hotels so I decided to take advantage of it. This wasn’t really a Trump trip or anything of the sort, but like I wrote earlier, there’s no escaping him. New Yorkers and Manhattanites are a very tough breed but practically every soul I encountered there was beyond disgusted at what’s happened and the direction that country is going in.  I mean they know Agent Orange Baby Fists the best, he comes from the same town and they’ve lived with his obnoxiousness for years. I had one conversation with an amazing  Wicca/Pagan witch where she pointed out to me that Agent Orange Baby Fists’ team seem to be all reincarnated Nazis. They couldn’t pull through with their plans the last time and now they’re going to make sure they do everything they can and of course instead of Jews, the Muslims will be the new canary in the coalmine. You have to remember that in Nazi Germany, Hitler didn’t only go after the Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies (the Roma), people of color, intellectuals and professors who disagreed with Nazi ideology. I can totally see that happening with this current crew.

Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda.
Has this dude reincarnated as….

….this dude? Steve Bannon

One night I happened to be in Greenwich Village and the sound of thousands cheering brought me to Washington Square Park with a full pro-immigrant, pro-Muslim, anti-Trump  demonstration in full swing with everyone under the Sun in attendance, black, white, brown, yellow, straight, LGBTQ.

I was literally right up against the right pillar of the arch.

The night after the Executive Order banning Muslims from specific countries was issued,  I happened to go for some curry take-out at a place frequented by Pakistani and Bangladeshi cab drivers, all of whom , who normally are a cheerful bunch, were in a sombre mood and quite worried what the future would hold for them.

Yup, it’s like this all the time now outside of Trump Tower

Another afternoon, I happened to be strolling down 5th Avenue and needed to use the ladies room. Trump Tower was in front of me and from the street I could see a Starbucks inside so I figured there had to be a restroom inside. After walking by SWAT-team members with machine guns and uzis, having to put my purse through a detection machine, I  walked around a bit to take in Trump Tower and it is by far, the ugliest, tackiest, energetically most terrible place in NYC.

When I popped in, it was as dead as it is in this photo.

The over-the-top pink marble everywhere, rose-tinted gold mirrors everywhere, brass finishings. Even the people at the Starbucks  cafe  on the second floor looked depressed. The cafe downstairs was cheap-looking and empty. You had a lot of waiters and hostesses standing around trying to look busy or lure in tourists. I don’t know why but there were quite a number of Chinese and Japanese female tourists with head curlers still in their hair.  I went to powder my nose and left. I have no idea what kind of an insecure loser you’d have to be to want to live in such a garish architectural abortion.

There wasn’t even any escape in Central Park. One rare, sunny and unusually warm afternoon, I was munching on a sandwich while sitting on the warm rocks in Central Park South, and admiring the skyline when I suddenly see an ice rink and a zamboni clearing up the ice both with ‘TRUMP” displayed prominently. It completely ruined the moment.

The rink is behind these rocks.

An then the worst part was coming back home and hearing about the Quebec City mosque shootings. Agent Orange’s presidency might have something to do with it but racism and intolerance have been a long-time feature in Quebec politics and Quebec society. I know because I’ve experienced it firsthand while growing up. There is a certain strain of Quebecois (certainly NOT all) who really, are nothing more than the French-speaking equivalent of Southern redneck Klansmen in the US. Same xenophobia, same level of cultural ignorance, same level of white supremacy and entitlement, same level of fear that the planet will no longer be the Anglo, American, Western European man’s domain but that it’s going to get very, very colorful very soon with Slavs, Asians, Chinese, Indians and women, all of whom are on the ascendancy.

But there were other moments of grace. Mostly spontaneous encounters with people on the street, bus or subway, random deep conversations about what’s happening. To me this is the most beautiful thing of what has happened: People finally GET IT that they have no choice now but to work together and fight together to look out for one another, because if they don’t, they could be next. Jews are lending their synagogues to Muslims to pray in. I saw a huge contingent of the LGBTQ community come out in force about the Muslim ban. People who normally never speak to each other are now coming out of the woodwork to defend each other and are talking to each other. Everyone knows who the common enemy is. And this is just after week 2.

I don’t have the gift of prophecy but if this is what’s happened in just 2-3 weeks and the population’s energy is frothing and churning like a maelstrom like this, there is no way in God’s Good Earth that Agent Orange Baby Fists will complete his term as president. *Something* will go down, either impeachment or an assassination attempt, I think. People generally can’t live under than level of constant stress for very long before someone or something eventually breaks down and there are always weirdos and unstable types around.

The question to be asked at that point is what will replace it? I don’t think we can go back to how things were. The age of neoliberalism and capitalism is drawing to a close and the people who are forcing this change are the young because they’ve been left out in the cold and they’re not drinking the capitalism Kool-Aid anymore.

This is where we’re going to need the dreams and ideas of fools, poets, writers, thinkers, artists, anarchists and the marginalized. If you look at the history of human progression, good ideas almost always start off in the margins, in the fringes of society and once they move to the center and capture the public imagination, they suddenly become policy or reality. For instance, basic guaranteed income started as an idea in anarchist circles because, to paraphrase Professor Chomsky, people should not need to rent themselves out in order to live, and now several countries are seriously thinking of implementing it.

To that I say, dream big, people, dream.

December 2016 Astrology – The Fog Lifts…somewhat

I seriously have not been in the mood to write at all since the election of the orange warthog.

Mostly because of just complete and utter disgust. There’s no point at this stage in pointing fingers only to say that the so-called political left in the US failed completely. First, the DNC by back-stabbing Bernie Sanders, probably the last decent man left in Senate for the sake of getting Hillary in. Second, so-called “progressives” who in an instant left the progressive camp and reverted back to the “liberal” camp when the fear factor set in. Instead of standing for their principles and protesting in the streets when Sanders was jettisoned (which they should have done), they let their worst fears guide them and they manifested it. Let this be a lesson that when collective fear sets it, it can realize its own worst nightmare scenario.

A few observations (not that I expect anyone to care):

Liberalism as we know it is OUT, true progressives and real leftists are IN. The Democratic Party became the party of the champagne socialists and limousine liberals, in short people who are wealthy, well-connected, very much interested in keeping their money growing in place, but interested in liberal causes, things like affirmative action, being pro-choice for women, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, minority rights. All good things to be sure but they lost sight of the true struggle. To use a Marxist-Leninist term which many Americans are very uncomfortable with, they lost sight of the CLASS struggle which this planet is engulfed in right now and which is now in their own backyard.

Marx’s theory on class struggle has suddenly become relevant…

The Democrats allied themselves with the 1% but the part of the 1% which is liberal in orientation. I’m talking about billionaire creeps like Jeffrey Epstein, Ron Burkle, Steve Bing, Silicon Valley princes like Sergei Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, media influencers like Lewis Lapham, that moron Rachel Maddow, and of course titans of Wall Street like folks over at Goldman Sachs and defense contractors like Raytheon. People with money who aren’t suffering at all. In fact, they should be called neo-liberals, not liberals because of the fusion with big money. The DNC became a party of ISSUES (and in the case of the Clintons, corporate opportunism) instead of CLASS. The DNC turned their back on the working poor, the middle class and blue-collar class, the marginalised, people who are really suffering. This is where the votes were. This is where the discontent is. This is where real power lies. Trump played this crowd like a fiddle and got in. He understood that kind of populism, albeit the vulgar variety.

The DNC don’t have fuck-all “soul-searching” to do. They just need to admit that “Clintonism” is OVER. If they want to win elections in the future, they need to turn their back on Big Money and go back to the proletariat. Fuck $10 000 per plate private fund-raisers in Beverly Hills and go back to crowd-funding from regular Joes like the way Bernie Sanders did this past year. I don’t have a lot of hope for the political left in the US. The old-guard pro-corporate Democrats and neo-liberals just don’t get it and don’t want to let go. Unless they’re flushed out, I don’t see change coming in that direction.

I do however see change coming from the masses, and in particular the young. The mass protests, the spontaneous mobilization of people and resources FROM THE GROUND UP is very, very hopeful. Green Party’s Jill Stein was the most unlikely candidate to come forward yet here she is, the so-called underdog, raising $6.5 million in less than a week, again from grass-roots crowd-funding for recounts in states which had razor-thin wins for Trump, states which are also traditionally Democrat yet went Republican, namely Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Stein and the Greens have virtually nothing to gain from a recount, it’s not like they win anything, but Stein is a Harvard-trained medical doctor. And any doctor will tell you when they think something is wrong, diagnostic tests are called for, blood tests, urine tests , ultrasounds and x-rays. Likewise, I see absolutely nothing wrong is running regular diagnostics on any electoral system, make sure everything is working correctly. Of course Trump has gone ape-shit over this, and the Democrats only quietly gave their support AFTER Stein filed the official paperwork in Wisconsin. Further proof of how yellow-bellied the DNC is if you ask me. And no, George Soros isn’t funding Dr. Stein.

Another thing: The mainstream media, newspaper columnists, television political pundits, political scientists failed completely. Not one of them, not a single political scientist or academic correctly predicted Trump, save maybe three. One is Brown University professor, Mark Blyth, who has coined the term “Global Trumpism”.

The other died last year, Professor Sheldon Wolin who coined the term “Inverted Totalitarianism”.

The third is Slovenian rock-star Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Zizek is also correct that this is the best possible time to re-organize, re-strategize and re-think everything.

As far as I’m concerned the mainstream media need to be buried and forgotten about. Alternative media (and I don’t mean fake news sites either), independent researchers, dedicated vloggers and bloggers will be the way of the future.

So, what the hell does any of this have to do with December 2016’s astrology? Both Carl Boudreau and Steve Judd have pointed out there is a very strange and unusual influx of energy in the last week or so of December. Nothing has been set in stone and this is still a fluid situation. To use imagery from the tarot deck, The Fool has shown up. God knows what kind of monkey-wrench he’ll throw into the machinery.
Brace yourselves but do it happily.

 

November 2016 Astrology – And the World Waits with Bated Breath…

You’d have to be living on Pluto to not realize that next week’s general election in the US will have spill-over effects and ramifications for the rest of us on planet Earth, something which I’ve noticed many Americans who don’t own passports, don’t seem to notice.

I’ve stayed quiet deliberately about these elections given that I see rants from all sides of the aisle every time I log on to the ‘puter. People who were wildly pro-Bernie becoming pro-Hilary. People who I thought were more libertarian suddenly becoming Trump fanatics, like Alex Jones. Hillary’s emails. Anthony Weiner. Wikileaks. Russian hackers. Idiocy which comes out of Trump’s mouth or his own history practically every 2 seconds. It’s really not an election anymore. In the word’s of the wise George Carlin, being born on Planet Earth is a ticket to the freak show, while being born in America means a front row seat.

Whoever America elects, it will be the person the country deserves. Having an intensely-guarded political system that they do, which only allows a binary choice, which was only able to cough up two intensely despicable candidates is a sign of political and ideological immaturity. Like a bunch of cheerleaders, everything is “Ra, Ra, Ra”, hunky dory between election cycles and then come election time, it’s a horserace to the finish line.

I hate Trump because of everything. Race baiting. Misogyny. Bigotry. Corruption. His family. His persona. His hair. Support from the KKK. Just everything. I don’t like Hillary Clinton because I’m afraid she’s going to start a war with either Iran or nuclear Russia or both. She’s deep enough in the pockets of the defence industry and defence contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, that if war is in their best interests and they tell her to do it, she will, given how much they give to the Clinton Foundation. (And if she does, to any Hillary voter, don’t say you didn’t know.) If you don’t believe me, go listen to Eisenhower Republican Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff for Colin Powell and now teaches public policy at the College of of William and Mary. He was actually one of the architects of the Iraq war but then realized the whole thing was fraudulent and did a 180 degree turn.

The astrological climate is NOT clear. In fact astrologers are saying that whoever is elected will probably either be a one-term president or will not complete their term and that the election, like in 2000, may be highly contested. Whoever gets in, will surely have one of the most dogged presidencies ever.

Other than that, it would seem things in the cosmos are finally going forward after either stagnating or causing confusion. The bottleneck has finally opened up.

David Icke, Obelisks and New York City

The healing garden of The Cloisters museum

Sorry Shifters, in getting this out to you so late, I got back from New York City a few days ago and needed some time to process the many things I saw and experienced there. Sit back, relax, make yourself a cup of tea because this will be a long one.

First off, like I had indicated in earlier posts, my primary reason for heading down to NYC was to see David Icke in the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn. If you watch the video below, you’ll see me in the audience in the front row in a bright orange hoodie at 1:37 to 2:00

I already knew much of what Icke was saying since I’d watched dozens of his videos on Youtube over the years but what I found particularly interesting was maybe the last 3 hours of his 12 hour show (it started at 10am and he got off the stage at 10:15pm) , where he goes into what the end game of a micro-chipped population really means as well as what the ending of this Kali Yuga means coinciding with the Truth Vibrations as we head off into the next age. Great stuff. I met some lovely people in the audience as well and even got to chat with his son Gareth Icke who was really pleasant (and super-tall as is David’s other son, Jaime). The next day, I met up with a fellow blogger which was wonderful. I’m glad I went.

I’ve been to NYC many times before but they were usually short stays, a few days here or a couple of hours there between flights but this time I took a full week to really take in the city, its various neighbourhoods and investigate the spiritual hot-spots of probably the most concrete city on Earth.

Manhattan island’s various neighbourhoods

Much has already been written about haunted New York, the secret clubs, the creepy organizations based there and even some of the buildings which have sordid and storied pasts like The Dakota or the San Remo. Those are the creepy, bad places and most of them are located in either mid-town Manhattan (which is tourist central and probably the most psychically polluted part of the island) , the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and of course down town where the Financial District and Wall Street is.

The twin-towered San Remo building as seen from Central Park. Tons of celebrities live there. Bono lives in and owns the top three floors of one tower and apparently Demi Moore has tried to sell her part of her tower for a reported $75 million dollars.

Walking around, you can’t help but feel the power, see the wealth and flat out energy of the city. You’ll feel it particularly as you walk along 5th Avenue, across the street from Central Park in what I call billionaire row and what the guidebooks call Museum Mile.

The Fifth Avenue apartments across the street from Central Park East. Everyone from Jackie Kennedy to Aristotle Onassis to the Rothschilds have lived here.

The apartments in that particular area house folks like the Rothschilds, mysterious neo-con billionaire Bruce Kovner and Michael Bloomberg. Walk further south and you hit the Plaza Hotel. I remember the flags out front used to be the American, Canadian, United Kingdom and maybe French flags. Now its China, India and Saudi Arabia which should tell you plenty about who is buying up real estate in NYC and who are the biggest spenders there.

The Plaza Hotel, across the street from Central Park South

Then you hit Rockefeller Centre, the famous statue of Atlas with the world on his back, the British Empire Building (huh? I thought that was long gone)  and then the uber-luxury stores and jewellery stores,  all the playthings of the incredibly rich. The further you get from the park, the denser, the crazier and busier everything gets.

The Titan god, Atlas holding the world up.

Truthfully, I didn’t pay very much attention to this part of Manhattan. From a spiritual point of view, if you want to experience and feel something pure and real, you have to head up to the northern reaches of Manhattan island, particularly around Morningside Heights and Fort Tyron/Fort George/Inwood.

The last time I was in NY, I had missed out in seeing the stained glass windows from Canterbury Cathedral in the UK at a special exhibition by the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts‘ “other” campus, called The Cloisters. The Cloisers is basically a recreated monastery which John D. Rockefeller had dismantled from other monasteries in France and Spain  and recreated brick by brick in Fort Tyron Park. It houses the Met’s collection of medieval and religious art.

I wanted to see the recreated healing herb gardens with 99 plants which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered planted for their medicinal properties, and look at the Unicorn Tapestries but what I wasn’t ready for was the details in the capitals of the columns. You have to remember all this was done by hand and its all in stone. Complicated scenes of demons and angels, tons of symbolism and vivid imagery.

Dozens of them at the Cloisters and each one is different

The second thing I wasn’t prepared for was Fort Tyron Park itself. Perched high on the northern end of Manhattan island, come at sunset and you’ll have amazing views of the Hudson River and the Palisades.

Yes, this is Manhattan island. And that’s New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River.

I however was on a bit of reconnaissance mission to Fort Tyron Park. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.  (his father Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. designed Central Park and Montreal’s Mont Royal Park)  and Frederick Todd (with whom I have a strange connection to which I will write about in a forth-coming post) , this is by far the “cleanest” place on the island from an energetic point of view. The exposed granite rock and cliffs which have been incorporated into the park itself has a lot to do with it. More on granite later.

The other neighbourhood, Morningside Heights, in the north-west corner of Central Park, houses several places of note.

First you have, St. John the Divine Cathedral, which is supposedly the biggest Gothic cathedral in the world (and is still unfinished). When you walk inside, trust me, you’ll feel its size.

Named after St. John the Divine also known as John the Beloved, who wrote the Book of Revelations in the Bible.

Second, the wonderful W 111th Steet People’s Garden which if you walk around slowly, you’ll see some very interesting spiritual art and statues among its bushes and trees. I spent a delightful afternoon here, eating my lunch on a bench underneath the shadow of a gigantic oak tree with the soaring spires in front of me (if you want dessert and coffee or tea, don’t miss the fantastic Hungarian Pastry Shop across the street).

The show-stopper is no doubt the strange Peace Fountain. First of all it has no water, so it shouldn’t be called a fountain (but what do I know?). It depicts and angel and demon in the grip of a fight while the Sun, Moon and Cosmos looks on. Basically Good vs. Evil.

Very bizarre.

Another place of note in Morningside Heights is the Nicholas Roerich Museum. I’ve highlighted Roerich’s art work several times already,  he was a Russian mystic, based his paintings on the spiritual myths and realities of the lands he travelled which included  India, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Central Asia, Siberia and Russia and was one of the architects for the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments in times of war and conflict. It is one thing to see his paintings in books and online but nothing can prepare you in seeing them up close and personal. They are VERY powerful. Roerich was very clued in.

Order of Rigden Jyepo, Nicholas Roerich 1933. I bought a magnet of this at the museum and its on my fridge now.

Alright. Granite.

The ancient Egyptians essentially built most of their monuments, temples, statues and sarcophagi  in granite. It is a rock which is VERY hard and given the arid climate of Egypt, does not wear down easily over time, even when exposed to the elements. I’ve read in some esoteric literature that granite also holds and amplifies energy.

Colossal granite head of Amenhotep III at the British Museum.

When I read “Swimming with the Whale” a book about the teachings of Cypriot mystic Daskalos, he said that the Egyptians had placed spells into the granite walls of the pyramid chambers themselves and when initiates stayed in these chambers during initiation trails and ceremonies, under the right conditions, certain spirits would come out to test them. They were not necessarily benevolent either. There was even an episode when Napoleon, during his invasion of Egypt, decided to stay in the chamber overnight, but something gave him such a fright that he fled very quickly afterwards and refused to talk about what had happened to him for the rest of his life. Dolores Cannon has said the same thing in some of her talks and readings. The modern Irish mystic and angelologist Lorna Byrne experienced the same thing in NYC City’s Met museum at the re-created Temple of Dendur.

The Temple of Dendur at the Met Museum

Lorna in fact said that the “neter”, the spirit of the Temple of Dendur came forward to her and told her it that it was very sad and wanted to go home. When I visited the Temple and walked through the Egyptian antiquities at the Met museum a few days later, saw all the sarcophagi, the graves of formers kings, queens, and noblemen have been dug up and placed under glass for ugly tourists with fat knees to gawk at, or ignore completely, things which had been buried for the dead for a reason, I just felt overwhelming sadness as well. Death isn’t something we should gawk at. It’s something private. The Museum’s position is that these things are brought out for us to learn from but I didn’t see a lot of learning. I saw lots of people taking silly selfies and not even reading the information placards beside each artefact. On a more conspiratorial note, I’m almost certain some of these artefacts are being used by American secret societies in ceremony and ritual since many members of these groups sits on the board of directors, regents etc. of the Museum.

The Egyptian obelisk and the Met Museum. The traiangular bit is the Robert Lehman Collection.

Walk behind the Met Museum and you see that the Robert Lehman Collection wing from certain angles, looks like a glass pyramid. (Another famous museum, Paris’s Louvre Museum also has a glass pyramid outside.) 100 feet away from this, in the back, you’ll encounter a 3000 year old Egyptian granite obelisk in near perfect condition  right in the middle of Central Park.

The New York obelisk before its recent clean-up.

When I got there, there was a meditation group sitting in a circle beside it and doing meditation and chanting. They left an hour later and I was left alone with it. The matching twin to NY’s obelisk sits in London near the Thames.

The obelisks in New York and London are actually a matching pair from Heliopolis, Egypt.

Another Egyptian obelisk stands in Paris, near the Place de la Concorde. Yet another Egyptian obelisk stands in Istanbul’s Hippodrome in the historical Sultanahmet district. There are 13 Egyptian obelisks in Rome alone. The Washington Monument in DC is also a giant obelisk not an Egyptian one, but a hallowed out structure. Cities which can’t get a real obelisk then try to create fake ones like the McGill Tower Building in Montreal.

And what is this supposed to be?

New York, London, Paris, Rome, Istanbul. Either currently or formerly imperial cities. Centers of power and finance.  All have Egyptian obelisks? I find that mighty strange. Many other folks have made the connection between obelisks and architecture and power already, particularly with respect to Freemasons. I’m not going to go into that. Rather, to go back to Icke’s work for a moment. he talks about this reality hack, this fake matrix by archons. If that is so, I’m almost positive these obelisks are “power pins” holding the thing down kind of like those pegs you use to drive into the ground to keep your tent in place.

Obelisks are the esoteric equivalent of these pegs.

No wonder the spirits of these monuments and temples are sad. They are being used.

Summer Hiatus and July 2016 Astrology

1986 film with John Cusack and Demi Moore (when they were young)

 

I knew this summer was going to be crazy but I had no idea it was going to be like this.

Between Brexit in the UK, Donald Trump’s assured nomination as the Republican candidate for the US elections, a Ramadan season which has killed hundreds including many Muslims, might I add (which only goes to show you how much shit ISIS really is full of). If you’re really some Muslim radical  and pushing for a so-called Caliphate, why would you kill your own then?

It makes me wonder if they are even real Muslims in their ranks or if this is a super-duper stealthy plan by Israeli Mossad to derail the Middle East completely and deflect any attention on the Palestinian issue since that has completely disappeared off the radar screen ever since ISIS appeared, and the BDS movement against Israel has gained major steam in recent years on American college campuses and with high-visibility celebrities like Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters joining the movement.

The man behind Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” Roger Waters.

(I had a conversation with someone recently and they think it is definitely the latter. Bangladesh was hit because it is one of the last countries on Earth if not the last one, which states openly in its passport that it cannot be used to enter Israel, one of the few countries that doesn’t recognize Israel)

Read the bottom line…

I have had the feeling for a long time that the nation-state model will not last. This attempt at creating “super” states and regional trading blocks will also backfire eventually. People really don’t want distant bureaucrats making decisions on their behalf without their permission which will directly affect their lives.

 

Which is why I think the TPP deal will not be ratified widely. I don’t know a single person in Quebec who wants to drink milk from China (if it is even milk in the first place given the Chinese track-record of safe food and pollution and ingenuity in creating fake items…) but that’s exactly the sort of thing which will be allowed if this goes through.

Tourists posing with the Hong Kong skyline.

As for the US elections, it looks like a Clinton vs. Trump election but given how crazy this summer has been already, I have no doubt in my mind that nothing can be written in stone just yet. The DNC still have their convention on July 25 -28. The DNC are desperately trying to court the votes and enthusiastic followers which Bernie Sanders gathered but it’s still not clear what he will do exactly. Bernie may still be the wild card and may throw in a hat trick or two. Many of those millennials despise Hillary and establishment politics in general. You cannot get more establishment than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Many are even going to be casting their vote for the Green Party and Dr. Jill Stein, who comes across as very decent IMHO.

Spiritually, on a superficial level things look calm but, like the Earth itself, a beautiful scene of mountains and lakes doesn’t change the fact that deep, deep inside its core, hundreds of kilometres down, you know there are unbelievably violent and tumultuous changes and forces at work. Sometimes things stay quiet for L-O-N-G periods of time and then one day, without warning, a mountain blows its top and a volcano comes booming out of the Earth’s core. It somehow feels like that right now.

Before and after photo of the Merapi eruption in Indonesia.

 

According to both Carl Boudreau and Steve Judd, there will be a series of eclipses happening in August and September and some people will have diametrically different lives before and after these eclipses. I have always maintained that as long as you are true to yourself and the deepest vision of yourself, not as who you wish to be but who you really ARE, then not very much can hurt you. People generally get into trouble when they start pretending to be someone or something they are not. If you’re a suburban husband and father for 40 odd years yet always dreamt of being a mountaineer or global traveller yet never set foot on a mountain or a country where everyone speaks a completely different language, chances are pretty good that you’re a suburban father for a reason. It’s because that’s what you really want to be even if you won’t admit it out loud. Embrace who you really are and let go of the illusions.

Enjoy your summer and stay safe Shifters!

Twilight of the Old Gods – Part II

Eye-opening read. Serious food for thought.

I also recently finished off reading “The Alphabet versus the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image” by Leonard Shlain. Shlain used to be a surgeon and inventor. He invented some rather very specific forms of laparoscopic surgery but he was also an amateur critical theorist.

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?

Old Wine in New Bottles

 

“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 market forensic 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.

 

Dis-Imagination and De-Schooling Zones

“Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question. ”

– Ivan Illich in “De-schooling Society”

I’ve always been a bit of an eclectic.
I think it might have started in high-school. I was somehow “saved’ by my older cousins who were about 7-8 years older than me and thanks to them, when I was 7, I was listening to David Bowie, T-Rex, Roxy Music, ELO and AC/DC. By the time I was 11, I was listening to U2 (long before the “Joshua Tree” and before Bono became a pompous ass) and by the time I entered my teen years and the hellish suburban kids I had to go to high school with who were busy listening to Madonna and New Kids on the Block, I was already knee-deep into what was then considered, “underground and alternative” musical acts like The Smiths, Bauhaus, New Order and of course Depeche Mode.

1980s Boy Band, New Kids on the Block (please kill me now)

This spilled over into everything else. In my 15-year-old mind, I figured if what was considered “popular” in music was such crap, and alternative music was so much better, then this principle had to hold in other spheres of human creativity and endeavor like film, literature, news outlets, books, writers, politics, fashion, design, art etc. In hindsight, I was right. So whenever I hear someone contemporary cite an intellectual, or a book or an idea which is either forgotten about, retired, out of fashion, out of print, hard-to-find or long-dead, I’m suddenly fascinated and want to know more.

Hermes silk scarves START at $500 each. Each season they make a limited number of each design which are usually pretty cool plus they literally never go out of style. This one commemorating Quebec is now a collector’s item. Good luck ever finding one on the cheap.

Maybe it’s because they aren’t as accessible or as ubiquitous as Kim Kardashian’s ass, but growing up the geek that I was (and am) I always found that thinkers of yore sometimes said the best truths simply and didn’t need every social media site and gizmo under the sun to say it. Quite often they also had great ideas and solutions to problems which no one knew about nor heard about but for whatever reason, everyone these days, particularly young people feel the need to re-invent the wheel when there are hundreds of ideas around which with a little research, reading, understanding, maybe some tweaking and implementation would be just enough to get us to the next stepping stone. (Wouldn’t it be great if someone somewhere created a bank of ideas so that people know where to look for this stuff the world over?).

I also do think there is something sinister at work. When a public intellectual is *too* good, if their ideas are *too* amazing and more importantly may actually work in real life, they are quite often deemed as “dangerous”. I do think The Powers That Be are very good at marginalizing them, demonizing them, silencing them and making their work hard to find and forgotten so that the public remain in ignorance. The thought police didn’t end with George Orwell folks. Look at the treatment of original, intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein and you’ll see what I mean.

The term “inverted totalitarianism”  is used to describe what the government of the US (and its allies I would also add) is on its way to becoming if they haven’t already. The gist of it is this: inverted totalitarianism is described as a system where corporations have corrupted and subverted democracy and where economics trumps politics. In inverted totalitarianism, every natural resource and every living being is commodified and exploited to collapse as the citizenry are lulled and manipulated into surrendering their liberties and their participation in government through excess consumerism and sensationalism.

Chris Hedges recently sat down with retired professor Sheldon Wolin . It’s an 8 part interview and clocks in at 3 hours. Still, it’s probably one of the most illuminating and important discussions of modern Western political history about WHY everything is wrong nowadays I’ve seen in a long, long time. If you want to add some new brain cells, it is well worth a watch.

In the past 2 decades, particularly in North America, more funding has shifted towards faculties of Management, Business, Law, Dentistry and Medicine and why universities left and right are downsizing or outright getting rid of things like Arts (history, anthropology, philosophy, classics), Social Sciences, Liberal Arts and Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, etc. The academy was once a place where you went to get an education and broaden your horizons. Now, it’s a place where you go to get a skill-set. Simplistically, an education meant gaining knowledge (and maybe if you’re lucky, some wisdom) for the sake of gaining knowledge and building up on that so that our knowledge base would expand and grow. A skill-set is something which is usually marketable and used to serve the market economy, like data. It has become corporatized. 

Cultural Studies professor Henry Giroux explains it beautifully above. He finally had enough of it in the States and left Penn State and made the move up to Canada. If you want to learn something new or read groovy books your professor never mentioned, you basically have no choice these days except to go out there and read them on your own. To paraphrase Giroux, schools (and all formal institutions I’d add) have now become “dis-imagination zones”.
Quick example: How many of you ever heard of Ivan Illich or Jacques Ellul? Have you ever read them? Did any of your teachers or profs ever mention them? Do you know anything about them?
Don’t feel bad because I didn’t either.

Jacques Ellul – Technology Critic. Historian. Sociologist
Theologian of Hope. Ethicist. Activist

I recently came across those names thanks to some interviews I watched of film maker and former monk Godfrey Reggio, who did the Qatsi film trilogy (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi ). Upon further investigation and reading, I was gobsmacked. Both Ivan Illich and Jacques Ellul were deeply influenced by Christian theology and spirituality but eventually left them behind to become social thinkers and theorists. Jacques Ellul became a big-time Christian anarchist thinker while Illich became a very influential social thinker in leftist circles, particularly in Latin America.

Ivan Illich

Ivan Illich in particular fascinates me. A full-on polymath and polyglot who lived the life of a wandering ascetic monk, fluent in 10 languages (including Ancient Greek and Latin) and wrote in 4 of them, Illich wrote on topics as varied as education to medicine to law and was described by some as “an archaeologist of ideas”. The central theme in all his writings was basically “How do we make things better and how do we make them work, keeping in mind the human element here?” As a former priest, he never lost sight of the spiritual element to these questions. His obituary in The Guardian sums it up including the fact that, like Noam Chomsky these days, he was a bit of a “problematic” public intellectual in his day to the establishment especially to his higher-ups at the Vatican.

Illich at CIDOC

He’s mostly remembered for his books, ” Deschooling Society“, “Tools for Conviviality“, “Medical Nemesis“, “The Right to Useful Unemployment and its Professional Enemies“, “Celebration of Awareness” as well as establishing the Centro Intercultural de Documentación (CIDOC) in Mexico. From 1961 – 1976, CIDOC attracted quite a number of intellectuals from all over the world particularly those who were leftist or anarchist in leaning a sort of anti-university. It became a good place to exchange ideas. Too good in fact. With CIA input and the Vatican, it was eventually shut down (of course). The gist of all of Illich’s work was that by dissecting institutions and analyzing how they have been corrupted, we can come to understand why institutions like medicine and education have a tendency to operate and work in ways which are opposite to their original purpose and therefore become counter-productive. Once you understand why something doesn’t work, you then know what NOT TO DO.

For those of you who like to read, are in activist circles or just simply like to think about how to build a better mouse-trap, the likes of Illich, Ellul, Giroux and Wolin are a godsend.
In some ways I’m glad I DIDN’T read them in school. To have done so probably would have defeated the purpose of their writings anyway.

The Boiling Frogs Syndrome

“The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually.”

–Wikipedia

Last night I went to see uber-journalist Glenn Greenwald at McGill University. Greenwald, for those of you who may not know, is the journalist and activist, along with Laura Poitras who blew open the Edward Snowden story and showed that most Western governments and alphabet agencies are spying on their own citizens and sharing information with each other particularly the “Five Eyes” nations, the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (funny, they’re all Anglo-Saxon – why is that?)

From montrealgazette.com

Greenwald’s talk was quite timely particularly in light of the events which took place this past week in Canada. Canada has now experienced its first “terrorist” attack involving “radicalized Muslims“. Many discussion forums have been in overdrive and the consensus among some that it is a false-flag attack. Too many loose ends, too many inconsistencies.

In other words, the timing of it has raised suspicions given that Stephen Harper is now committing troops to Iraq to fight ISIS for the first time ever, and that it is a deeply unpopular motion among many Canadians. However, if you have a few events like this past week, you ferment fear and war-mongering and suddenly an idea which seemed like a bad one just last week to many Canadians suddenly becomes a palatable one. Also if you have an election looming next year. it always helps to buffer up your profile among voters, no doubt.

I make no secret of the fact that I do not like conservatives and I dislike Stephen Harper as a person and as a leader. He’s not a leader, he’s a technocrat and a Machiavellian one at that (and he’s about as charismatic as a soulless robot that eats far too many jelly donuts for his own good).

Stephen Harper at far left. Dude, you seriously need to do something about that spare tire. Did you know that belly fat increases your chances of Type II Diabetes and heart disease?

Glenn brought up the boiling frogs scenario last night because I think it is an apt description of what many, many people are now experiencing whether it’s Canada (and stupid talk about bringing back the War Measures Act —> no fucking way) or the US (and the Patriot Act which Americans have been under all these years).

People give up their privacy in the name of security and little by little, without even noticing they one day wake up and realize it’s all gone and then cry wolf, but by then, it’s too late. Their sense of security was an illusion and the people who promised it, at the end of the day, really never cared about you. Glenn also pointed out that laws are useless now. Governments don’t have to answer to any law anymore since “The Law” as we know it can change at the drop of the hat and it’s designed to protect the interests of the powerful and further disenfranchise the powerless.

I’d like to think that people are smarter than that. That if they had all the correct facts in front of them, free of propaganda, secrets and biases, they would make the right decision but somehow, fear always seems to trump reason. It’s instinct over the mind. People would rather like to stick to their comforting old illusions rather than deal with uncomfortable new truths. Perhaps cognitive dissonance has something to do with it but I think, it also boils down to self-preservation. On a spiritual level, I find that sad, because it shows we still haven’t learned how to grow out of ourselves yet.

George Orwell’s ghost must be shaking his head in disgust somewhere.

The Mess of Identity

 

In the last few weeks, I have been beginning to see some extremely encouraging signs of change, even incremental, small ones, in the way public discourse and conversations are taking place.

First of all I am extremely pleased that American comedian Bill Maher has finally been exposed as the Islamophobe that he is and that it took not only a well-respected academic like Professor Reza Aslan to do it….

but a Hollywood actor like Ben Affleck as well…

Yup.

I admit, I used to like Maher, particularly the way he lampooned the ultra right-wing nut jobs in the US but his racism and all-too-obvious dislike of all Muslims became very clear over time. (I remember watching an episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” when Nobel Peace Prize winner and the father of microcredit, Dr. Muhammad Yunus was on the show. Maher was condescending, rude and made snide remarks which Yunus did not catch, but the rest of the panel did. It was painful to watch)

Aslan and Affleck were trying to point out that “Islam” is not some homogenous, monolithic entity which is bloodthirsty all the way through and that a few bad apples is not representative of the whole barrel.  Maher (and that annoying pseudo-intellectual poser Sam Harris) don’t seem to understand how culture differentiates Islam from region to region.

This Turkish woman is Muslim but that doesn’t mean that she dresses or acts or lives like Muslim women in Saudi Arabia….

…like these women.

A Muslim in Bangladesh will be very different from a Muslim in Turkey, Pakistan or a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. It’s like comparing hard-core Opus Dei Catholics in Spain to say Catholics in Ireland, Mexico, Poland or Catholics in rural Quebec. Their expressions of faith will be very different from place to place, in large part due to culture. Maher does have a few Muslim friends, namely Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, two Muslim “spokespersons” who experienced the worst aspects of Islam themselves (via the fatwa in Rushdie’s case and female genital mutilation in Hirsi Ali’s case) but they only reinforce his opinion of what a bunch of savages most Muslims are deep down inside. The backlash against Maher and his ilk, mostly from non-Muslims has been surprising and encouraging. I didn’t expect that.

The problem isn’t just Maher and Harris. Those two are examples of the “acceptable” forms of racism rampant among Western liberals and progressives and right now, Islamophobia is quite acceptable. It’s the poster-child of “good” racism.

A few weeks ago Henrik Palmgren of Sweden’s Red Ice Radio, a show I normally listen to from time to time because of the interesting guests Henrik is usually able to score, had an interview with David Icke and it was really disappointing to say the least. Palmgren was baiting Icke over issues of race, immigration, multiculturalism, the legacy of colonialism and cultural purity. It’s painfully obvious to anyone who wants to hear it. Icke, to his credit, walked right over that pool of quick-sand and I have a strong feeling he knew what was going on and saw right through it. (Thumbs up, David!).

We just had Canadian Thanksgiving this past weekend while Americans had Columbus Day, or as many American cities and states are increasingly adopting in place, Indigenous People’s Day . That would have been unthinkable even ten years ago. When I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s, it was still (good) cowboys and (bad) Indians, like in John Wayne movies. Now it’s in people’s faces right on mainstream network TV. John Oliver and RT especially killed it.

This is the kind of image of “Cowboys and Indians” I was exposed to while growing up…

Identity politics can get super messy, super quickly. I understand how people can get passionate or have very strong feelings about these issues. I mean I don’t consider myself a practicing “good” Muslim Indian Bengali-Canadian by any stretch of the imagination (if that were the case I would have never discovered the joys of sipping iced-cold vodka martinis), but I can’t help but feel angry or step up and say something when I see the carnage in Gaza and the media blaming it on “Muslim extremists” or have my blood boil over when I see how Muslim men abuse vulnerable girls in England or keep dozen of wives as prisoner sex-slaves in Saudi Arabia. I also get angry when I observe the media coverage over a spoiled, white American college girl who ends up doing something stupid while on holiday versus the long-standing incarceration of an innocent, eloquent black dissident and writer like Mumia Abu Jamal.

Mr. Badassery himself, Mumia Abu Jamal

I don’t think it’s so much about identifying yourself as “this” or “that”. Yes, our differences are worth celebrating and understanding, it’s what makes us all different and unique and interesting to each other. It gives life spice and flavor. Sometimes it goes wrong and you get cultural appropriation. Sometimes it goes right and you get a wonderful new mix of ideas and culture creating something completely original and beautiful. From a spiritual point of view, it might mean I’m Bengali Canadian in the here and now. I might end up Swedish and male in the next round or maybe I was an Austrian Jew in the last round. Who knows? Who cares? That’s not the issue. It’s really about making the conscious decision to walk in someone else’s shoes for even a minute and base our actions on that.

I’m going to close off with something Mumia Abu Jamal wrote and which Professor Noam Chomsky recently read out loud for a documentary about Mumia (from 14:50 in the video below) . I think it perfectly sums up our commonalities over our differences.

“In truth, none of us are whole, as in “finished”, for we are all beings who are still in the process of “Becoming”. We are trying to live in the midst of struggle against forces that try, daily, to confine, constrain and restrict our being. In a sense, these forces are as powerful, relentless and invisible as gravity. There but not “there”. Dig me? So we seek to heal in a place that is profoundly unhealthy; consumerism, patriarchy, white-supremacy and inquisitiveness are things that grip us all. We are all fish, swimming in that proverbial dead sea of materialism, seeking fresh water where we can wash our gills. Our challenge, it seems to me, is to be, or become, sensitive, feeling and loving beings, who seek to better the environment into which we were born. Speaking of liberal clichés, we must “Make it Better”, and it is that very doing, that becomes a part of our being, for we join in our hearts, minds and mouths and our bodies, in the struggles of those unfree amongst us. In a real sense, we become them. I think that was the life message of folks like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and why we remember and revere them. We felt them. And Martin gave up the ghost for garbage men in Memphis. Malcolm reached out to brothers in the Arab and African worlds and became a part of them. In many ways, they redefined who *we* were and became a part of us, through their impact on our lives and our consciousness.”

When Life is Up For Sale

ATTENTION: NSFW and some disturbing content below and links. For mature readers only.

As I wrote earlier, I’ve been on a film kick lately. I’m usually attracted to stuff which explores metaphysical themes anyway so I struggled with writing this blog post and whether to publish it or not. I then decided, that as disturbing, ugly and painful as some aspects may be, in the end, the message is too important to pass up.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini was a bit of a genius polymath. A writer, journalist, art critic, poet, painter, actor, novelist, philosopher, intellectual, political commentator, and finally, film maker and director, there was not much on the creative side of culture he did not study or work in. More than a little ahead of his time, Pasolini often stumped or enraged the critics of his day and nearly 40 years after his death, people are just starting to understand him and his work with a deeper appreciation, mostly because for his uncanny foresight and prescience of the world to come.

Film poster of “The Canterbury Tales”

 

Pasolini had made a trio of films called the Trilogy of Life, which included “Decameron”(1971), “The Canterbury Tales”(1972) and “The Flower of the 1001 Nights”(1974) which in themselves were bawdy, lusty but joyful depictions of human sexuality. There is a joy and playfulness in the Trilogy which is pretty obvious to anyone who takes the time to watch them. Pasolini was no prude. He was openly gay in a time and culture when that was socially unacceptable and no doubt that bled into his work.

Criterion Collections DVD jacket cover for “Salo”

His next and final film was the mother lode.
In 1975, Pasolini did Salò, (or The 120 Days of Sodom), based of course, on the notorious book by the Marquis de Sade. Only Pasolini changed the setting completely and placed it in the final days of Fascist Italy in the 1940s. (Before I go any further, I should warn anyone who wants to watch this film or take it lightly that this is a VERY disturbing film, and not in a slasher-horror film kind of way. Even if  nothing is real in the film and props and fakes were used, the content is very troubling. You have to be very, very , very strong to watch it and should weaker, more delicate souls watch this, it will affect you on a subconscious level so you’ve been warned and need to take personal responsibility if you decide to watch it.)

The 4 aristocrats, representing Royalty, Clergy, Law, and Political Leadership

The film instantly was banned in practically every country in the world because of its graphic depictions of sexual mutilation, sadism, mental and physical torture and coprophagia. It remains banned in Malaysia and Singapore even now. There’s not much to the plot, only in Republic of Salò, the Fascist-occupied part of Italy, in 1944, four wealthy men of power, the Duke (Royalty), the Bishop (Religion/Clergy), the Magistrate (the Law), and the President (the Leader/Executive), agree to marry each other’s daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. They recruit four teenage boys to act as guards and four young soldiers (called “studs), who are chosen because of their large physical genital endowments. They then kidnap nine young men and nine young women and take them to a palace near Salò. Accompanying them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, who recount arousing stories for the men of power, who, in turn, sadistically exploit their victims.

The four older prostitutes.

The story depicts some of the 120 days at the palace, during which the four men come up with even more abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. The film follows four different segments inspired by Dante’s Inferno, the Anti-Inferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit and the Circle of Blood. I am not going to recount what happens in the film, you can read that elsewhere, but rather focus on what the film and it’s aftermath really shows up.

The kidnapped, at right.

Reader, this film will break your heart and your shake your will to live.
I had to force myself to watch it through and had a good cry afterwards but as horrific as the scenes and actions are, there is a method to the madness here and I understand what Pasolini was trying to warn us of. Pasolini understood what market forces ultimately do to human beings, human souls and human bodies. When life becomes commoditized to market forces, that’s when the real torture begins. When you lose respect for life and look at it as a commodity, you lose your ability to feel any empathy and start treating others as objects to your own whims and inclinations – and the results often do end up becoming horrific.

Various contestants from the reality TV show, “The Swan” where candidates showed up for extreme plastic surgery and surgical makeovers.

Pasolini saw the writing on the wall back in 1975, before globalization really took hold of the world, before drug cartels controlled economies and before Banksters, Royalty, Religion, Law and Political Leaders hoodwinked the public to pay for their gross ineptitude and greedy appetites. He understood and saw all too clearly what the final outcome was going to be and started to ring the warning bell in the most brutal, urgent way possible. Unfortunately, he paid the price for it with his life. Shortly after production wrapped, Pasolini was brutally murdered in what many suspect was a Mafia hit. He was run over by a car, several times in a row, and pictures of his mangled, crushed body were published in the newspapers, shocking the Italian public even more. Somehow man and myth became one.

Matching gold toilet and bidet, from the Dubai Boat Show. Does anyone really need this?

 

The antithesis of “Salo”, a film which argues very well against this materialism, I think is “A Canterbury Tale” (1944) by the dynamic duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Set in wartime England, and like Geoffrey Chaucer’s original story of a group of eccentric pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral, it follows three young people: British Army Sergeant Peter Gibbs, US Army Sergeant Bob Johnson (played by real-life Sergeant John Sweet), and a land girl, Miss Alison Smith.

(L toR) Sergeant Bob Johnson, Alison Smith and Sargent Peter Gibbs

The group arrive at the railway station in a small Kent town of Chillingbourne, near Canterbury, late on night. Peter has been stationed at a nearby Army camp, Alison is due to start working on a farm in the area, and Bob left the train by mistake, hearing the announcement “next stop Canterbury” and thinking he was in Canterbury. As they leave the station together, Alison is attacked by a mysterious assailant in uniform who pours glue on her hair, before escaping. The remainder of the film is about the three of them sleuthing to find out who is”The Glue Man”.

That’s just the plot. It’s also a meditation on why nature has to be protected at all costs, the true cost of war and technology in human terms, the joy of childhood innocence and that miracles do happen. Chaucer’s pilgrims travelled to Canterbury to “receive a blessing, or to do penance”.  It’s really at the end which brings the film to a glorious, spiritual conclusion where each of them receives a blessing. (If you’re feeling lost or adrift, watch “A Canterbury Tale”.  It will help you find your bearings. )

The film also highlights The Pilgrims Way, an often-forgotten walking pilgrimage route which still runs through the English countryside ending at Canterbury Cathedral, and not unlike Santiago de Compostela in Northern Spain. The route is actually far older than the medieval pilgrimage route we know it as today and dates back to the Iron Age. (Quite often people doing the Pilgrim’s Way looking for blessings, end up doing penance and those looking to do penance end up with blessings. In other words, the route is some sort of karmic balancer and that is why I strongly suspect there’s a very powerful and still-pure ley line along that route.)

Map of The Pilgrim’s Way.

Powell and Pressburger may have made the film in 1944, far earlier than Pasolini’s film, but I’ll leave you with the words of Sergeant John Sweet who played Sergeant Bob Johnson in the film. Sweet died in 2011 but he gave an interview in 2001 which is on the Criterion DVD of the film, when he returned to Canterbury for the first time after 57 odd years.

“When I say heads raised in the film, I do mean the spiritual, I mean that very much. This is about the human spirit. Indeed. I realized it yesterday. I saw it …clearly on the film, but I’m a little older and I know a little more than I did when I was 27… And today we’re hungry for this, without knowing how to move on it. …We’re hungry for something… For meaning. We’re talking about meaning… And we’re all short of it. We’re all trying to get it from science or from technology or…or mobile phones. And that’s… that’s silliness. There’s no spirituality in it or in the internet or facts or mobile phones…. It’s a poor, poor substitute for the spirit.”

Towards an Integrity-Based Civilization

Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger

John Pilger belongs to a rare breed of journalists and documentary filmmakers who, whenever they do something new, it’s worth giving up a couple of hours of your time to just drop everything and go read or watch their latest offering because you’ll learn much more in those hours than you ever will watching the news or reading the newspaper. Pilger is one, the BBC’s Adam Curtis (i.e The Power of Nightmares, The Century of Self)  is another as is the CBC’s McKenna brothers, Terence and Brian (i.e The Valour and the Horror, Big Sugar,  The Secret History of 9/11).

CBC’s Brian McKenna

Pilger’s latest article in the Guardian is about on how increasingly, Australian Aboriginal children continue to be forcefully taken away from their mothers. We’d like to think that Native and First Nations/Aboriginal people’s horrible history of assimilation, genocide, targeted killing, sexual and physical abuse in residential schools is exactly that, history,  but it would seem, it is still going on albeit, under a different name of social engineering and “social work”.

It coincides with another, similar story which is ongoing here in Canada as well. That eight hundred (800) First Nation’s women have gone missing . There has hardly been any press coverage about this story, most media outlets won’t talk about but would rather talk ad nauseum about interest rates.

Our idiot Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done exactly jack-all about it even though there have been repeated calls for a serious inquiry into this. The RCMP keep talking about inquiries and ongoing investigations but I don’t think anything will come of it. I can’t help but shake the feeling that these are targeted killings and targeted abductions. It is a mindset which follows, “Wipe out the women and they can’t breed anymore”. If there aren’t anymore Native or Aboriginal people to deal with then the land claims and the claims to the resources on those lands will forever be secure and no one will ever put up a fight.

Native groups have been protesting the development of the Alberta oil sands and tar sands, something which Canada can profit from in the billions…

I am not a member of any of the First Nation’s tribes but I spent several years doing sweat lodges with Mohawk Elders, and spent time with Hopi Elders Grandfather Martin Gashweseoma and Grandfather Neil as well as attending Grandfather William Commanda‘s annual summer gathering up at the Kitigan Zibi reservation. One of my lodge brothers is a former Sun Dancer who now conducts men’s healing circles in the UK. He was gifted with the lodge teachings from Grandfather Frank Settee. Another Elder gifted me with an Eagle Feather which I work with and guard closely.

In short, I learnt a lot. I learned about animal medicines, the teachings of the Medicine Wheel, how Mother Earth teaches us. I learned a helluva lot more with my time with these Elders and their teachings and doing the serious spiritual work that I needed to do in those sweats than I ever would reading all the books by Eckhart Tolle or any of the Oprah Winfrey set. None of that would have been possible if those communities completely ceased to exist. One thing they always told me, was that the teachings must continue. Always.

People go on about “spiritual writers” and retreats and seminars and what not. I honestly think 99.99% are full of shit. They’re too busy building up their brand-name and making money to give two cents to your spiritual evolution and well-being. And so I say to those of you who are serious about this, just drop the gang of them. They don’t care about you. They only want your attention so long as they can make money off of you.  It’s not just the Oprah set, or the immature teachers you see in newspapers, but it’s also the bullshit Godmen and Godwomen of India and increasingly, the plastic credit-card shamans of South America.

Gabrielle Bernstein (and Oprah) another New Age shyster

The one thing that really comes across about real Elders and wisdom keepers is that they are like rocks. They sit still, they say nothing but see all and understand all. They belong to that school of thought where you can see and hear a lot more the longer you keep your mouth shut.

Spend enough time with them and their sense of integrity eventually rubs off on you and you begin to see the world like they do. Some people might say that we accord too much importance to Native and Aboriginal people, but I think their teachings are now more important than ever.

This isn’t meant to be a racial diatribe but rather a quick exposition of some teachings. If you examine the Medicine Wheel, you’ll see that the 4 cardinal directions have 4 colors, 4 races, 4 elements associated with them. The White Race is associated with Fire. They are keepers of Fire and are responsible for the Fire teachings. That also explains why everything they create has fire in it (i.e electricity, nuclear, thermal, hydroelectric power) and why they are so good with invention and technology.

The Red Race is associated with Earth. They are responsible for the Earth teachings, about working with the Earth (i.e farming) and how to read the Earth.  (Yellow Race is associated with Air, Black Race with Water).

The Fire teachings have outrun all the other teachings. Get too much fire and it scorches everything in its path. The thing is, the other three elements don’t stay quiet for very long because everything in Nature always tries to go back to balance. Its balance, not ours.

That landslide which happened in Washington State is Mother Earth trying to say something. How many people will listen? The same can be said for earthquakes and volcanoes. Storms, tornadoes and twisters fall under Air Teachings. Floods, typhoons and hurricanes fall under Water Teachings.

Aerial shot of the Washington mudslide

Part of Western civilization’s push in scientific endeavors and development is following something called evidence-based inquiry and research.  I think the time for that is drawing to a close. Now we need to push towards an integrity-based civilization.

I’ll leave you with the words and teaching of the late Sioux Elder, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman. If you can, watch the whole series.

The Burden of Unlimited Wants and Needs

I remember back in college and the university, sitting in my first microeconomic and macroeconomic classes, learning how price and quantity affected Supply and Demand and vice versa. I also remember clearly the professor saying how humans had unlimited wants and needs. It struck me, even back then, that that wasn’t a given, but a bold assumption, and that it was something we were conditioned into, not something based on truth. The professor only said that one sentence and moved on quickly, while in my opinion, a statement like that merits further discussion and examination before moving on because I think it is a dangerous assumption to base any sort of narrative on.

 

Later, when I had to take mandatory courses in marketing, it reinforced my initial suspicion:

That “wants” are created:

(i.e a new $15 000 Hermes Birkin Purse, the new lululemon line of clothing)

and “needs” can be fixed (i.e food, shelter, clothing, warmth)

I don’t think they’re asking for very much, do you?

and that the business industrial complex are the real culprits for creating artificial wants and needs and brainwashing us with them through the media.

 

Folks, Bill Hicks was right…

 

A new study sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has found that “global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.” 

Normally, NASA studies hardly ever make headlines but it was picked up by The Guardian’s chief environmental journalist Nafeez Ahmed and the article quickly went viral and was picked up by other news agencies. What I particularly found very interesting is that the study (not the journalist, nor the newspaper) points the finger of blame directly at the Elites. 

 

“These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]….appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society…Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that “with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites…In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most “detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners”, allowing them to “continue ‘business as usual’ despite the impending catastrophe.” The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how “historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases).”

“The Fall of Rome” by Thomas Cole

Does anyone here see the problem? 

Who are most of the decision-makers? The Elites.

Who allows this business-as-usual outlook, even if they know they are next on the chopping block? 

The Elites.

What’s the only difference between Elites and Commoners, given they both eventually share the same fate?

Time (by way of money). One gets hit earlier than the other but they both end up in shit creek.

 

It’s nothing new and the conspiracy research community has been talking about global Elites for years now. Yet when they do it, they are considered a joke yet when NASA says it, it’s suddenly legitimate. 

Double-standard aside, the biggest culprit in all of this is energy and resource usage. Some might say overpopulation but I disagree. The poor may take up more space physically but they use and consume less stuff. Their energy footprint is far less than the billionaire who uses his Gulfstream jet on a regular basis and his tiger-wife’s addiction to expensive handbags made out of exotic animal skins who insists on flying into Paris for lunch at Chez L’Ami Louis. Problem is, thanks to marketers and their ilk, the poor, the lower middle class, the middle class and the upper middle class all eventually want to do the same thing as well now. That’s where the problem lies.

Marketers would like all of you to think that you too can live this life.

 

I think upbringing and the ability to think fiercely on your own terms has a lot to do with not falling into the trap. Here is where I think parents these days fall by the wayside. I’m not a parent, and until I cross that bridge, I won’t understand the pressures they are under but I really, truly feel sorry for children these days.

I can barely make the kid out from all the toys!

Like I wrote before, kids aren’t allowed to be kids anymore. They are being robbed of their childhood. They’re now conditioned to become consumers and prepare to join the market economy from a terrifyingly younger and younger age now thanks to creepy clowns peddling hamburgers and stick-thin soulless blonde dolls trumpeting the Malibu lifestyle. It becomes a life-long habit from that point on. 

Poor kid!

 

It’s not just buying stuff. It’s trying stuff out as well since experiences are now marketed as consumer-based and for sale. I see kids coming in at the hospital becoming sexually active at younger and younger ages when they don’t have the emotional and spiritual maturity to handle sex yet (but hey, sex sells, so what’s the problem, right?). By the time they’re about to graduate secondary school, I don’t see that spark in their eye anymore. It’s like the light went out somewhere…. That listless energy they give off reminds of that Beatles-esque song by 1980’s alternative goth gods Love and Rockets, “All in my Mind”

Walk around so cold so cold and lonely
Or lay in bed wondering what to do with time
You’ve got no sense of fun until you know you’ve won again
And yet you feel so much you feel so much inside.

You want to rip off the jewels off all the idiots backs so badly.
You scream give me what I’ve always missed, give me a good time.
But if you look into your mirror you’ll see that nobody
Has ever ripped you off  it’s all in your mind  

Her beauty can only ever be skin deep
But if I’m honest that’s all I ever really need

So throw us some flowers and we’ll give you some songs and sunshine
And if you give me an hour I’ll show you how you feel.

———————————————————————————

“During their early years, children are in touch with invisible beings; they smile at these beings and have conversations with them, listening to them and replying. But when they speak about it to grown-ups, especially their parents, they are ignored or asked to be quiet and stop making things up. And yet, if they were willing to listen to the children’s tales and if they questioned them, amazing things would be revealed to them. They are depriving themselves of something very precious. It may not be true in every case, but some children bring with them memories of distant times when people thought of nature as a living organism with which they were in constant communication. This memory generally survives until the age of seven; then it fades as they grow older, but also because of their education and the language and attitude of grown-ups. Later on they even laugh when they think back on their childishness, believing it was only the product of their imagination; yet it was actually the vestiges of a past time imprinted on their soul, and it is a pity they allow it to fade. Instead, are there many adults who are truly concerned about helping young people become clear-sighted, balanced and strong? No, a great many of them are on the lookout for that which can seduce children and adolescents whose instincts and desires are awakening, and they hasten to satisfy their every whim! It begins with toys and then continues with all sorts of objects or activities which are completely useless or even harmful. Young people would themselves have no idea of such things unless they saw them displayed everywhere in shop windows and promoted by advertising. These people are guilty of leading young people into error. First of all, they elicit material needs in the young which they cannot satisfy, which not only leads to frustration, but to the desire to obtain dishonestly what they cannot obtain honestly. Then, by trying to convince them that they absolutely need these objects and activities in order to feel well and happy, they turn them away from the true search for happiness and the meaning of life. These people should not be surprised if one day they have to suffer from the criminal behaviour which they have helped to create and nurture in others.”

 – Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

In Praise of Common Decency

“Ashram” by Russian artist and mystic Nicholas Roerich

“It is natural to appreciate men and women for the gifts they possess. Whether they are writers, artists, scientists or even athletes, one cannot but marvel at their talents and sometimes even their genius. But is this any reason to neglect their moral qualities? Are they good, fair, honest, and generous? Often this consideration is secondary, and it is only talent that people notice. It is talent that everyone tries to cultivate, since; it is for this that people are so highly esteemed. This is why the earth is now populated with capable, talented people. It is incredible, there are swarms of them, but why are all these abilities, all these talents, all these geniuses unable to save the world? On the contrary, it could even be said that they are contributing to its destruction! We often hear people say: ‘Ah! He is so gifted; he has so many abilities that he can be forgiven everything!’ Well, this is very bad reasoning. Someone who is particularly favoured by nature must, on the contrary, make great efforts to uphold, to crown his gifts and talents with moral qualities. Otherwise, instead of becoming what he should be, a benefactor of humanity, he behaves like a thief! Many people tend to believe that the fame and fortune they have achieved are a justification for their way of doing things. Since up until now they have been successful, it must mean that they were in the right, and they can continue to impose their own views and their own decisions on everyone else. What an illusion! Material success is no proof of their good judgement. On the contrary, wisdom should make them more prudent – and also those who admire them, those who stand by and exclaim: ‘It is extraordinary! What activity; what energy!’ They say that such people are afraid of nothing. But to be afraid of nothing does not demonstrate the virtue we call faith, but rather that which we know as presumption. And not only do the presumptuous eventually take a fall, but – as history has shown us time and again – they drag others down with them!”

 

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

 

Eleven prominent bankers have committed suicide in the last 3 months.

Under normal circumstances, you could easily dismiss it as either a spate of bad luck or unfortunate coincidence but since I have a naturally suspicious outlook on things, I think the timing is extremely eerie. Not unlike the number of bankers who killed themselves in the immediate aftermath of the start of the Great Depression of 1929, things literally did not start to look up economically until after World War II in 1945.

War, unfortunately has always been the economic engine which keeps things humming along. I have a feeling those bankers saw the writing on the wall and decided to do themselves in and I DON’T find it coincidental in the least that suddenly the war drums are drumming vis-a-vis Russia over the whole issue of Ukraine and the Crimea. 

In short, they are using war to save the economy. Again.

If Crimea goes the way the US wants it, Venezuela will be next on the hit-list and after that…well… the list is pretty obvious by now, no?

I like this Aivanhov quote because it shows up the real stupidity behind politicians, industrialists, businessmen, bureaucrats, technocrats, professors as well as many mainstream artists and performers. In short, just about every acting party who is part of this reality hack. True, they may very well be the smartest minds in the room, and usually coupled with charisma, talent and good looks, that makes for a potent and heady mix, but not a single one of them, for all their knowledge and talent ever demonstrates any selfless kindness, wisdom and above all, humility which is the level where the real problem-solving will happen.

Public “intellectual” and political commentator Niall Ferguson is a right-wing, imperialist apologist. Watch him closely.

When someone does, you never hear about it, mostly because I think we live in a world where those aforementioned qualities are not celebrated and therefore doesn’t sell print or generate hits and internet revenue. There’s no place for wisdom and humility when you’re on a world stage which is all about ego, vanity and control.

Some of you may laugh at me or dismiss me as a flake for following the lives of old Hollywood actors and rock musicians like I do, but I have found that there are many lessons in examining some of those lives.

You know. There is something to be said for aging gracefully…

It’s no secret to my regular readers that I intensely dislike Madonna. True, she is an extremely shrewd business-woman and she has achieved more than any of us ever will in our lives with respect to the music she has made, the revenue she has generated, the number of albums she has sold and how she was one of the first artists to publicly embrace the LGBT community.  However, I find her to be an ugly human being. It’s her character. Her calculating nature, arrogance, attention-whoring and unending vanity which does it in for me.

Whenever I look at her, all I can ever think about is Oscar Wilde’s book, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” where Dorian makes a deal with the devil and stays eternally beautiful and youthful on the outside, all the while committing heinous acts. Meanwhile a true image of him hidden away, shows up his real reflection and visage, aging and becoming the beast-like character that he really is. It’s not *just* Madonna, practically everyone in the public eye is like that, particularly in professions like politics, sports and entertainment.

On the other hand,  there are a handful of artists who I’ve noticed seem to become better and better at their craft as they age, and in some cases, even become more beautiful and graceful (minus plastic surgery) and about whom I’ve never heard bad stories or gossip.

They may not have been the smartest, most talented or even the most good-looking persons but they often demonstrated kindness, humor, wisdom and generosity. They usually led low-key lives, didn’t seek the limelight too much, and seemed to be very happy in their personal lives.

I think of Audrey Hepburn,

Audrey Hepburn in Ethiopia for UNICEF. She helped out UNICEF because during WWII, as a child, she and her family went hungry in Holland during the Nazi occupation and she never forgot the hunger children feel.

James Stewart…

It wasn’t until he was way past his prime, could James Stewart play psychologically complex characters and pull them off fantastically, like Scottie Ferguson in “Vertigo”, recently voted the best film of all time.

Sir Alec Guinness…

Yup. That’s Obi Wan Kenobi from “Star Wars” playing a Hindu Brahmin priest in “A Passage to India” and nailing it.

and Paul Newman….

Paul Newman used to joke that his salad dressings and popcorn made more money than his films, which funded his camps for disadvantaged children.

and more recently Bryan Adams, Isabella Rossellini, Jeff Bridges and Pierce Brosnan.

Former model, now actress and producer, Isabella Rossellini is looking more and more like her mother, Ingrid Bergman, with each passing year.

I don’t understand why people don’t talk about and celebrate common sense and common decency more often. I think if the general culture was infused with more of those qualities and made THAT the new normal, we’d have less to worry about in places like the Crimea and Venezuela and it would expose these narcissistic power hungry freaks in Washington DC, Brussels and London for who they are to everyone.

Things are Heating up ….Again

Like I posted earlier, I had a feeling something was about to go down soon. Initially I thought it would involve the Olympics, but it turns out the event may have been wrong but the neighborhood is correct.

It’s the gas pipeline, Stupid

Unless you’ve been living under a rock it’s hard not to notice what is happening in the Ukraine these days. America and Russia’s Cold War antics have been resurrected…again. There are tons of websites, blogs and news outlets which are providing very insightful commentary on the situation but it should be obvious that the United States is trying to begin regime change…again. Putting in a bully leader of their choice in a different country…again. It certainly doesn’t help matters when the  US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, was caught saying on a recorded phone conversation “Fuck the EU” which Russian authorities promptly released to the world. It doesn’t help matters when it’s also come out that the US has invested over $5 billion dollars to start regime change in the Ukraine. (Look who is sponsoring the video event below as evidenced by the logo on the screen)

It should also come as no surprise, that drunkard, trigger-happy Senator John (Wayne) McCain has been pushing this “war” and is getting back at Vladimir Putin, most likely for not participating in the war against Syria and vetoing the motion at the United Nation Security Council and for providing amnesty to Edward Snowden. My personal opinion is that I think big-time NWO insiders,  Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Soros are behind it all. Brzezinski was President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor. He’s also ethnically Polish and for many historical reasons, Poles have despised the Russians. Brzezinski’s family was also Polish nobility who lost everything when the Soviets took over Poland and made it communist and I think that would explain Brzezinski’s openly fanatical hatred of Russia going back decades now. 

Zbigniew Brzezinski

George Soros

 

Billionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros, of course is the financier of his Open Society Foundations, which have been behind nearly every “revolution” in most Eastern European countries. He plays the same playbook over and over again, namely creating NGOs, funding them, usually for marginalized groups,  whose causes are then “used” to challenge leadership of those countries where he would like to see regime change and funding these “Color Revolutions”

 

It was blatantly obvious in the lead-up to the Sochi Olympics when suddenly LGBT NGOs were crying foul about Russian discrimination against them. (To be perfectly clear, I have absolutely no issue with the LGBT cause, I have many friends who are gay, lesbian and bisexual whom I love dearly.) But if discrimination against the LGBT in Russia is so heinous, how come I never heard about it earlier before the Olympics? If it is as bad as the media have been depicting it, surly we would have heard about it years ago via Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch? Why didn’t I hear about it years ago? Why did the issue suddenly come to the forefront right before the Olympics?

Like I’ve written earlier, I don’t think Putin is an angel BUT he’s completely correct in classifying NGOs as “Foreign Agents”. (NGOs acting as intelligence-gathering apparatuses under the guise of international development  and international aid is nothing new. It’s not a coincidence that Sargent Shriver, President John F. Kennedy’s brother-in-law, founded the Peace Corps at the height of the Cold War to operate in countries which were part of the Non-Aligned Movement. That’s not to say they don’t do good work in impoverished areas and that’s not to say that all persons in international development are automatically agents or spies, but doing good humanitarian work is not their only raison d’etre…)

Burma recently kicked out aid workers from “Doctors Without Borders”

Ukraine is a big country. There are huge differences in the ethnic make-up and culture from East to West and North to South. The eastern and southern parts are more Russian in character while the northern and western feel more affinity towards Europe. The people there should decide who they want to align with. I don’t think the US or the EU should be telling other countries who to vote in and especially not those persons who they can pay off and install so they have access to key natural gas pipelines.

If you really want to have fun, watch CNN for 20 minutes on the Ukraine issue then switch over to RT and watch their coverage of the Ukraine issue for 20 minutes. Both sides have blatantly obvious biases. The truth is buried somewhere in between, I think.

Also, like I posted earlier, Britain has been hit with epic flooding in recent weeks and months. It would seem the flooding of Somerset County, where Glastonbury Tor is located, has been deliberate. The Tor is very literally the spiritual heart of Britain, and intimately tied in to the legends of the Druids, King Arthur, Merlin (who was a Druid), Avalon and even further back, to Atlantis. It would seem that if the Tor’s clean energy and its holy wells and springs are polluted, then Britain would follow.

I don’t think all hope is lost. I think the old Druids were smarter than that. They wouldn’t have placed all their eggs in one basket. I think there are places in the British Isles which are just as powerful energetically as the Tor only they are dormant…for now. Places where the energy needs to be re-activated by those people who are wise enough and sensitive enough to do it. Offhand, I couldn’t tell you all the places unless I walked all over the place there and did some serious investigation and research, but I can say, without doubt, that Alderley Edge is a potent spot where the energy can go either way, which ley line readers and dowsers would be smart to investigate.

The view of the village of Alderley from Castle Rock.

These days, millionaire footballers and their vulgar wives make their homes there but in earlier times, legends of the Edge abounded.  English novelist Alan Garner immortalised the Edge in his fantasy books, particularly “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen”  but he based the stories largely on local myths and legends.  However, I’ve always believed some of these old myths and stories have a kernel of truth in them somewhere.  God knows, if I were in the UK right now, that’s where I’d make a beeline towards to do some work.

Go with The Flow

“Surely, We have sent revelation to thee, as We sent revelation to Noah and the Prophets after him; and We sent revelation to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and his children and to Jesus and Job and Jonah and Aaron and Solomon, and We gave David a Book. We sent some Messengers whom We have already mentioned to thee and some Messengers whom We have not mentioned to thee …” (Koran, Ch.4 v.164, 165)

“Verily, We have sent thee with the truth, as a bearer of glad tidings and as a Warner; and there is no people to whom a Warner has not been sent.” (Koran, Ch.35 v.25″)

 

I have to admit that I actually don’t have a lot of other Bengali/Indian/Pakistani  Muslim friends. 

While I did grow up in a largely non-orthodox Muslim household, being Bengali meant that many of my parents’ close friends were and are Hindu, and it meant absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for us to go over to their homes for various Puja celebrations or having them come over to our place for Ramadan. 

Breaking the Ramadan fast

 

That’s not always the norm in many Bengali Muslim homes. In fact, there was anti-Hindu bigotry right in my own family. Several of my more “hard-core Muslim” uncles would forbid their kids (i.e my cousins) to play with us because they feared our family would have a “bad influence on them”.  

Just because a girl wears shorts, does that make them a “bad influence”?

 

The sources of that bigotry are many and it easy to see why so many hard feelings developed over the course of time. The British effectively ruled India by pitting Muslims and Hindus against each from Day 1. Divide and rule was official policy. While the British were there, preferential treatment was given to Muslims because it was an Abrahamic religion they could relate to, hence why Muslims got the choicest jobs and opportunities. When the British left, the tables were completely turned around, communal fighting broke out all over India, Muslims were discriminated against and Hindus went to the top of the power structure. 

 

This is an excellent video about Partition, about how India and Pakistan were formed after British rule. While the video talks about what was happening on the Western front, please bear in mind the atrocities were also happening on the eastern front, namely West Bengal and East Bengal (—> which became East Pakistan and then finally, Bangladesh). 

 

I bring up the quotes from the Koran because, really what those quotes are saying is that named and unnamed prophets, teachers, seers, sages, wise and holy men and women have been sent to all people of this world, every creed, every color, of all lands, at all times and that Muslims are to revere and respect them all, no exceptions. This includes First Nations Elders, Australian Aboriginal Elders, Mongolian shamans,  Buddhist bodhisattvas, Gnostic Christian spiritual masters and anyone else who has genuine spiritual insight and can teach us all to become better human beings with wisdom and grace. 

 

This sense of inclusiveness and plurality is unfortunately missing with many of the Muslims I grew up with and knew (which would probably explain why I don’t get along with many of them).  Rather, a certain rigidity in outlook, a sanctimoniousness and belief has set in and with the money from Saudi being poured into the rest of the Muslim world.  It has unfortunately meant that Wahhabi Islam, an extremely puritanical, minor, rigid and monolithic form of Islam native to Saudi Arabia is also spreading. It’s a “Live by the Sword – Die by the Sword” form of Islam which in my opinion,  is completely against life and sucks royally and anyone with even half a functioning brain would be wise to run away from. 

These guys and their ideology DO NOT represent all Muslims

 

What’s also happening is that very poor, migrant workers from countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan are going to the United Arab Emirates to work as cheap laborers for construction companies.

Many of them are illiterate, not educated and completely ignorant about the history of their own countries, cultures and religions. Many of them don’t realize that there was a history in those areas long before the introduction of Islam. They see the vulgar wealth in the UAE and it’s then very easy to develop an inferiority complex in the face of that wealth and power especially in contrast to what they saw and lived through back home. What then happens is that they start using Islam and faux-piety as a form of showing up who is “more Muslim” and then that Wahhabi Islam then becomes something worth emulating, copying and spreading.

 

If you went to Bangladesh in the 1970s and 1980s, you would never see a burqa or hijab on the streets. Women were always in saris and salwar kameez and were considered decently dressed according to Islamic norms.

You go to Bangladesh now, and hijabs and burqas are everywhere. When I talk to my Turkish friends, they say the same thing is also happening in Turkey. 

This is NOT the way it used to be.

 

It’s not just dress that’s being affected. 

Take for instance female genital mutilation which is NOT an Islamic practice, but one rather which is from  sub-Saharan Africa and became incorporated into those cultures, primarily Somali and Eritrean. When Islam was introduced to those areas, cultural and religious practices became fused and suddenly it was an “Islamic” practice. Now the practice is being exported to other countries like Malaysia under the guise of “Islam” when it has exactly zero to do with Islam.

This is my biggest axe to grind with many in the South East Asian Muslim community. Nobody flippin’ questions or investigates anything. They just internalize whatever their parents and grandparents told them and that’s it. I remember once having a conversation with one of my cousins’ husband. Dude has a PhD in Biochemistry so he’s not exactly dumb. However, he is from the village in Bangladesh, was extremely bright, did well in school, got full scholarship and landed in the USA and completed graduate work there. We were discussing the very Koranic verses I cited above and hence why I read so much about other traditions. His response is that was “you don’t need to understand Buddhism. You don’t need it. Who cares?”

It was a repudiation of Buddhism. It was a mechanical, pragmatic way of looking at the world and a deliberate method to staying ignorant and comfortable in a narrow worldview represented by his upbringing and socialization. It was also a slap in the face to my world view which is expansive and inclusive. (I should add, I can’t stand the guy and neither does most of my family.)

It’s not just Muslims who are like this. I mean we can point the finger at the Christian Right in the United States or Hindu radicals in India. That rigidity is everywhere. My only wish is that people everywhere become more fluid and accepting, like a stream or a river.

Afterall, isn’t it the Chinese who believe that water is the strongest element, capable of changing the earth itself?

White Magick play

Great book and fun read!

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of my blog, that I was a pretty geeky kid and one who normally had my nose buried deep within a book most of the time. I was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood which has a municipal library which has the highest per capita use in all of Canada outside of a university, which meant their collection was excellent and I had access to some pretty nifty books from the get-go.

Stewart Hall Library and Cultural Center    Someone donated this mansion to the city and it has been a public library for over 50 years now. Amazing reading rooms.

One book I remember vividly reading and enjoying  was “The Active Enzyme Lemon Freshened Junior High School Witch”. This was the early 1980s when I was in elementary school and many young people’s books from the 1970s were still on the shelves and one of the biggest trends during the 1970s was the introduction of some occult and supernatural ideas into children’s movies (i.e Freaky Friday) and children’s literature.

John William Waterhouse’s painting “The Crystal Ball”

I think it was after reading the aforementioned book which kicked off my interest in spell-casting and ritual. If you really sit down and think about it, practically anything and everything can be deemed as spell-casting and ritual whether it’s the Catholic Solemn Mass or watching a goat having its throat slit during Kurbani on a cold Quebec farm (which I had to watch my uncle do several times as a kid), for the Islamic festival of Sacrifice. Formal religion sanctions some rituals and then deems others as abhorrent because it doesn’t jive with its own theology. Kurbani might freak out some Hindus but then the idea of ingesting someone’s blood and flesh, even in symbolic form, during the High Mass may freak out some Muslims. It’s all relative and highly, highly subjective to cultural and religious norms.

You do realize, that this is a form of spell-casting as well, right?

To me, all types of rituals are nothing more than a different form of prayer and/or meditation. Some people can sit still for hours and meditate on emptiness or on a statue of a fat Buddha or hold a yoga pose for hours.

Other people are twitchier than that and need the use of props and ritual to ground themselves and find it easier that way to find that quiet place in themselves.

It all really boils down to intention.

What are you really doing this for?

Is it for yourself, so that you can become richer, better-looking and happier or is it for others?

I bring up the topic of rituals and spell-casting because of some strange events of late. The Satanic New Year is coming up on February 1 and apparently a vial of Pope John Paul II’s blood has been stolen. It is suspected that Satanists are involved according to Italian authorities.

A vial of his blood has been stolen. Strange timing.

Also last week’s Grammy performance by Katy Perry did not help matters. The conspiracy research websites and boards are going crazy over what Katy Perry and Beyoncé were up to. Katy Perry in essence recreated a Black Witch’s Sabbath which led to Christian singer and nominee Natalie Grant walking out of the show. Many parents got hot and bothered by Beyoncé’s performance. (IMHO, her performance was all about selling crack, nothing more.)

Beyonce at the Grammys

I don’t have a doubt that there are evil things walking this earth. I watched this documentary yesterday from Vice TV on the “World Most Dangerous Drug”,   scopolamine,   which also has the ominous name of “Devil’s Breath” from Columbia. It has the ability to render people to lose all memory, while remaining conscious and becoming docile and submissive. In other words you start taking orders from others and don’t look drunk or passed out so no one suspects anything. Already horror stories of people getting drugged at clubs and waking up the next morning and missing an organ or finding themselves brutally raped and their homes cleaned out by thieves or having their bank accounts and credit card limits cleared out abound.

The moment we lose our free will is the moment we will lose our humanity. If this drug is a harbinger of things to come and Heaven forbid, leaves Columbia and spreads to major metropolitan areas around the world and governments start using it, you know we will be up the creek without a paddle in sight.

It’s not all bad even if we live in a world which is increasingly focused on the self and nothing else and forget that there are people who are far more selfless than we can imagine. Take for instance aging old Catholic nuns, fewer and fewer each year, who do nothing but pray for the salvation of the world in lonely, isolated convents the world over. That counts for something in my book.

Lately, I’ve been reading up on the works of Judika Illes and have been working with some of the spells, particularly with a plant called the Rose of Jericho aka the Resurrection Plant. The plant is originally from the Mexican desert and has that name because of its ability to wither down and then when submerged under water, to become green again. Rose of Jericho water is also considered a powerful talisman and the plant medicine is used to help bring luck, grace and to help revive things back to life. It is a POSITIVE medicine and it cannot be used for anything bad. If you try, it won’t work. Simple as that.

If a plant could sing, I’m sure the Rose of Jericho’s anthem would be from my favorite 1970s band, Electric Light Orchestra’s “Shine a Little Love”

“You Shine a little love on my life

You Shine a little love on my life

You Shine a little love on my life and let me see”

Something’s Afoot….

The past few days, I have not been able to shake off the feeling that *something* is about to blow.  Don’t ask me what, why or how, I just do and if Carl Boudreau’s February astrological forecast is correct, something is about to be outed. I hope I’m wrong.

 

Maybe it’s the impending Sochi Olympics, the fact that there have been terrorist bombings in Russia leading up to the games and this has heightened security concerns for Olympics in the region as well as the rest of Russia. Truth be told, I will not be surprised in the least is something does end up happening during the Games, despite air-tight Russian security. In fact, I do think if anything does happen, it’s going to be a false-flag inside-job orchestrated by Western-Saudi interests in order to punish Russia and Putin for their noncompliance on invading Syria. I just wouldn’t put it past them to do something of that sort.

These guys don’t dig each other. I wonder why…

The People’s Voice, the internet channel run by David Icke and his crew, has been suffering some setbacks in recent weeks. First there was the debacle with Sonia Poulton, the host of their flagship show leaving. Then TPV and their YouTube channel got hacked and all content was deleted. In fact TPV has been under constant attack from Day 1 practically and one can’t help but feel someone (or some group) is definitely feeling threatened these days or else why bothering putting in so much effort to attack?  To their credit, despite the small scale of the operation, being run by mostly volunteers and being entirely funded by crowd-sourcing and they have already had some amazing interviews. From what I understand, TPV is against the ropes financially and are calling for more donations. It would be a real shame if it doesn’t work out. I just don’t understand why some of these big-name celebrities (including most Hollywood writers) who follow Icke’s work aren’t stepping up to the plate at all.

Today I also found out noted Astro-Theologist Santos Bonacci was arrested and is in custody in Melbourne. Bonacci is quite a gifted lecturer and is a specialist on Syncretism. His talks are very insightful and even if lengthy, there’s good stuff in there if you’re patient. I know he’s consistently spoken disparagingly of the global banking cartel, the Vatican and just about any group that looks to enslaving other people. He’s also been involved in the Freeman and freedom movements for quite a while now so I find it strange that he’s suddenly been picked up by the cops. This is still a developing story.

Santos Bonacci

I also found out, one of my favorite blogs will be shutting down next week.

The Babarazzi were all about taking the piss out of the commercial yoga “scene”.  Aghori Babarazzi and his motley crew of anarchist writers did the much-needed task of deconstructing and deflating egos of yoga celebutards, all with satire, snark, fun and loads of sassiness. The blogosphere just won’t be the same without them. (Aghori, should you ever decide to trade in your anonymity for friendship, you’re always welcome at my place for tea, sympathy and maybe a swim in the river.)

Catch up on your reading folks, because after next week, it’s gone.

Last week, the statue of Christ the Redeemer, which looks out over Rio de Janeiro was struck by lightning. It hit the hand and there has been damage to the statue. Repairs have started.

While I’m normally not superstitious (or religious or Christian for that matter), there’s a creepy-vibe about the whole thing.

Soren Dreier wrote a great article over the holidays saying that he feels 2014-2017 is going to be a period when things are going to get very dark and 2017-2021 is when he sees real light showing up and I have to agree. Things usually have a tendency to get a lot worse first before they get a lot better.

The darkness before dawn

Most of it falls on us, of course,  and the choices we individually make, to either stay in our little shells or decide to get out of ourselves regularly. It’s the old fear vs. love argument.

To that I’ll only say one thing;  love is a natural, effortless state of being,  fear is an unnatural,  induced one.

Racism and the Occult

I don’t know if any of you have read this recent article from Salon.com about how some occult teachings influenced  neo-conservative saint, the former American President Ronald Reagan.

For the record, I couldn’t stand the guy. I thought there was something smarmy about him, to say nothing of the way he bloodily interfered with Central America, Libya, Grenada and Panama. Conservatives these days deify him for “ending the Cold War” when  Mikhail Gorbachev  had a lot to do with it as well.

Reagan was also quite a fascist. When students sat in The People’s Park in Berkeley, California during the 1969 student demonstrations, Reagan (who was then state governor) had state troopers sent in to make sure they got the message to leave. He cut funding to all mental health institutions and hospitals and kicked out all the patients, which increased homeless numbers dramatically in cities like Washington D.C.  The list of things he did which hurt people as opposed to helping them goes on and on.

You can thank ole Ronnie for this….

Anyway, it turns out Reagan’s “sunny optimism” of America, as the Land of Destiny with some mysterious mission for humanity has its origins in the writings of noted occultist Manly Palmer Hall.

Hall, wrote his magnum opus “The Secret Teachings of all Ages”  at the age of 27 and went on to found the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, a hot-bed and library for New Age thinkers and influenced practically every single flaky Californian New Age/New Thought writer from North America for decades afterwards including Linda Goodman and more recently, Kathleen McGowan-Coppens.

Manly Palmer Hall. Does this look like a happy, wise man to you? (Is dude wearing eyeliner?)

The gist of Hall’s “vision” of America is this: America is the New Atlantis, the souls who are born or find themselves immigrating to North America are reincarnated Atlanteans and that Americans in particular have a sacred duty to realize that “anything is possible” (even while being female and living on minimum wage I guess) and that their own potentiality is only limited by their drive ( so in other words lack of “drive”, makes you a failure as a human being). That America is destined to live out the fate of Atlantis as it should have been, not as it was. This is what Freemasons, Rosicrucians have also been saying for ages as well. It’s nothing new. It also falls in line with the American idea of “Manifest Destiny”, an expansionist policy which they used to justify the Mexican War and expand westwards and slaughtered tribe after tribe of Native Americans to do it. (I always wondered what the Native Americans have to say or think about this bullshit since all this happened at their expense….)

“Go West young man!”

Hall isn’t the only unconscious-bigot in spiritual literature.

Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society also wrote about “root races” and how the white race were of the “fifth root race” and that the black, red, yellow and brown peoples were of inferior races.

Helena Blavatsky

Rudolf Steiner, who was a Theosophist and then founded the Anthroposophical movement, unfortunately picked up these teachings and Waldorf schools in recent years have had to make a concerted effort to rid these teachings from their curriculum and language.

Rudolf Steiner

Dion Fortune, even as gifted a writer and occultist as she was, also had the tinge of bigotry in some of her writings which even contemporary occultists like Judika Iles have noted. Fortune was convinced the Western Esoteric tradition was far superior to the “mysticism of Asia”, never mind the fact that ancient Greece and Egypt (the origins of “Western” mysticism ) were actually mingling with Indians, Middle Easterns, Africans and Chinese much more than historians would like you to think).

Dion Fortune

Even Linda Goodman, when she came up with Lexigrams was convinced that the supremacy of the English language was protected by language elves and Lexigrams could only be done with English names, when she literally never traveled outside the English-speaking world in her life and was completely unilingual and had no knowledge of other languages and therefore never even tried Lexigrams with other languages. Goodman even went so far as to say that the “Higher Selves” of the Native Americans agreed to die and give up the land because their Higher Selves understood the special destiny of America in her book “Star Signs”! I wonder, did the Tibetans do the same thing when the Chinese showed up?

Linda Goodman

Does anyone see a pattern here? 

Hall was Canadian by birth and became American by choice, Blavatsky was Russian, Steiner was German, Fortune was British and they all were writing during the tail-end of the colonial and imperial age of Europe, namely the late 19th to mid 20th century when racist and condescending attitudes towards “conquered colonies and peoples” were prevalent and socially acceptable.

Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in “Howard’s End” based on E. M Forster’s book about Edwardians at the height of British imperial power.

Because Europe and North America was awash in wealth from the colonies, this exaggerated their sense of entitlement and sense of identity, that Fate had something special which was destined for them and them alone, (how else could they be so affluent if it weren’t for Fate giving it to them?) was everywhere and it petered down even into spiritual writings. From there it starts to influence the Ronald Reagans of this world and becomes a “spiritual” excuse for Anglo-American European supremacy. 

Scene from “A Passage to India” another E.M Forster book-turned-film which showed the other side of British rule and what happens to Indians who get stuck on the wrong side.

So when you get a Ronald Reagan-type  showing up and spouting this gibberish about America’s date with destiny (or any other American president talking about “American exceptionalism”) or some groups talking about being “The Chosen People”, automatically your antennas should be going up.

Why is this sort of exclusionary language and groupthink dangerous?

Because when people think they’re special or better than others, they unfortunately have a nasty habit of beginning to feel entitled to anything and everything they want at any and all expense, it means that everyone else who ISN’T in that group is therefore expendable, disposable, negligible and less-worthy than…and therefore you’re allowed to treat them in ways you don’t want to be treated yourself.

And in my book that breaks the first rule of any true civilisation.

Egregores and Psychic Warfare

The past few weeks I’ve been knee-deep in studying the history of occultism in the 20th century and it’s been quite an interesting and eye-opening read.

Much of what we know and see today as either the New Age scene and the conspiracy theory scene actually have their roots in the various occult movements which were sweeping across Europe during the 1910s, 20s and 30s.

Aleister Crowley is probably the best-known example of one of these occultists from this period but I don’t want to focus on him too much since he belonged to a Black Lodge and that’s not something I dig.

 

Rather I want to focus on the White Lodges. 

My own theory is that after the horrors of WWI, interest in occultism literally exploded all over Europe because people couldn’t make sense of the violence they had witnessed or experienced and needed something which could help them come to terms with it. Europe was at the height of its culture, how could something so barbaric take place?

Fallen German soldier during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, World War I

This was a time when people did not understand mental illness as we do today, did not understand things like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and simply dismissed people as “mad” or shell-shocked. Groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Rosicrucians, the Theosophical Society, the Anthroposophical Society, the Thule Society, the Vril Society sprung up and blossomed all over the continent and by extension, in their colonies as well.  Not that it helped very much because barely 30 years later,  WWII broke out with even more horrific consequences but it definitely laid the theoretical groundwork for New Agers, hippies, occultists (both black and white) later on.

The hippy and psychedelic movements did not come out of nowhere in the late 1960s.

 One occultist and psychic who interests me immensely is Dion Fortune. 

Not a lot of photographs of Dion Fortune exist.

Born Violet Mary Firth, Fortune was a pre-eminent occultist, writer, psychologist, teacher and mystic who established the Society for Inner Light. She was also quite a pioneer in trans-personal psychology and was one of the first persons to introduce psycho-therapy and the teachings of Carl Jung and of the collective unconscious to Britain. She also incorporated these teachings with occultism, how certain personality types were susceptible to certain forms of hypnotism or psychic influence, something which was unheard of before. 

Fortune’s old house is the one on the middle with the giant fir tree behind it.

Fortune had quite a storied life but one of the things which intrigues me most about her is how she  lived at the bottom of Glastonbury Tor for many years. Her old house is now a magical bed and breakfast. Fortune was quite a prolific writer and for many years her  books were out of print particularly her classic “Psychic Self-Defense” (a must-read in my humble opinion for anyone who is interested in the unseen world).Thankfully, her books are now being republished and there has been a resurgence of interest in her work, mostly because, I think, the stuff she wrote about are now being experienced by more and more people.

A very, very interesting read.

 

Because she lived at the base of the Tor for many years, the influence of that magical area no doubt exerted an influence on her. Fortune was convinced that the Tor and the Glastonbury area and countryside were intimately linked to the Arthurian legends, Merlin, the Holy Grail, the vale of Avalon, and that the Tor was the real, true heart of Britain and NOT the City of London, as the British Royal Family and British Establishment would like you to believe. Fortune also led an extraordinary early effort in mass psychic defense against psychic warfare.

The seven ridges of the Tor are considered a mystery but to anyone with even a tiny amount of spiritual knowledge can instantly see that the Tor is like a giant stupa. The seven ridges representing the seven chakras and seven levels of consciousness and the top representing the kundalini being released to through the crown chakra. Full credit to the ancient inhabitants of Britain for representing such a spiritual concept into the land itself which not even the the introduction of Christianity could eradicate.

 

The idea of the Egregore in occult literature is one which seems to have fallen out of fashion in the English-speaking world, but when I plow through some of the French occult writers like René Guénon or the Marquis Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre and even in Aivanhov, it’s still something quite current in their esoteric literature. The Egregore, put simply is a thought-form, 

” It is a symbolic, collective entity formed in the Invisible World by the collective thoughts and feelings of a country, religion or group representing the sum total of the will of the community. It is an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a legal entity) and the meme.(Wikipedia).

 

Cartoon from the English satirical magazine Punch, or The London Charivari showing up Egregores effectively. With the Russian Bear sitting on the tail of the Persian cat while the British Lion looks on, it represents a phase of The Great Game. The caption reads: “AS BETWEEN FRIENDS. British Lion (to Russian Bear). ‘IF WE HADN’T SUCH A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING I MIGHT ALMOST BE TEMPTED TO ASK WHAT YOU’RE DOING THERE WITH OUR LITTLE PLAYFELLOW.'”

Nations and culture have specific Egregores (don’t ask me how they come up with it and who is on the selection committee because I don’t know) though I imagine they are not all that different from totem animals which Native tribes use to identify their various sub-tribes and clans.  Russia’s Egregore is identified as a great Bear, India with the Bengal tiger, Japan with the Dragon, the US and Germany with the Eagle, Canada with the Beaver, France with the Rooster, Spain with the Bull, Turkey with the Wolf and Britain with the Lion. Each Egregore protects and helps the aggregate it belongs to and may even fight other Egregores. Aivanhov has written that the Egregore of the coming age will be one of peace, the Dove. 

I bring up the topic of Egregores because they played quite a key role in the Magical Battle of Britain and in no small part due to Dion Fortune. It’s a fascinating chapter in occult history and documented quite well in her book, “The Magical Battle for Britain”. Fortune knew on a psychic level that the Nazis were using black magick. The Rhineland was (and still is) full of occult groups and the stuff you saw in the early Indiana Jones films was not complete fiction and not entirely baseless. It would explain their meteoric rise and militaristic success in a mere 30 years from hyper-inflation, financial ruin and national shame right after defeat in WWI to suddenly becoming one of the most formidable armies in the world at the time. 

 

A typical German volkisch poster, complete with Christian and pagan symbolism.

German secret societies were able to utilize German folk culture and mythology and have it as something the general German population could strongly identify with and rally around. This energized the German population immensely on many different levels, especially on the psychic one. Many upper level Nazi SS officers were deeply involved in these groups, particularly Heinrich Himmler and Hitler was not dismissive of them in the least. Fortune was convinced after watching newsreels of the Nuremberg rallies and his various speeches that Hitler had some mediumship capacity, that he wasn’t completely clueless on these matters. Fortune also understood that Britain and in particular, the Glastonbury area had to be protected at all costs psychically during the air bombings since it was (and still is) considered by many following the Western esoteric tradition to be an area representing the heart chakra of this Earth. 

 

Map of Earth chakras. This is just one of many, many versions out there.

To do so, she sent out weekly newsletters detailing a mass meditation of the week, with particular visualizations, particular prayers which were do take place at a particular time and apparently hundreds if not thousands of people volunteered to be a part of it. She led a cadre of meditators at the Society for Inner Light’s headquarters. The visualizations became more complicated over time but one of them was where she asked people to envisage giant, red-robed benevolent entities/beings along the coast of Britain, traversing across the land, giant Egregores of protection. Another visualization involved King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor. The German Luftwaffe never conquered Britain.

A depiction of one of the visualizations.

 

People might say that repeated experiments in mass meditation are flukes at best and delusions at worst but I would respectfully disagree. Fortune’s campaign was highly organized, focused, efficiently executed and methodically thought through. Most mass meditations I’ve seen or read about are nowhere nearly as organized, it’s usually willy-nilly all over the place, not disciplined in the least and quite disjointed and that’s why I think many of them don’t work. Targeted and aggressive marketing campaigns, cultural memes, clichés are all forms of repeating a certain idea over and over again until they become internalized. True, they exist in 3D reality, you can see it, touch it, point at it, but once it’s in your head, it’s in your head. So why can’t we create targeted aggressive marketing campaigns of our own with visuals and meanings and symbols of our own choosing towards positive and collective ends of our choice?

 

A World of Conscience

When I landed in the republic of conscience
it was so noiseless when the engines stopped
I could hear a curlew high above the runway.
At immigration, the clerk was an old man
who produced a wallet from his homespun coat
and showed me a photograph of my grandfather.
The woman in customs asked me to declare
the words of our traditional cures and charms
to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye.
No porters. No interpreter. No taxi.
You carried your own burden and very soon
your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared.
Fog is a dreaded omen there but lightning
spells universal good and parents hang
swaddled infants in trees during thunderstorms.
Salt is their precious mineral. And seashells
are held to the ear during births and funerals.
The base of all inks and pigments is seawater.
Their sacred symbol is a stylized boat.
The sail is an ear, the mast a sloping pen,
the hull a mouth-shape, the keel an open eye.
At their inauguration, public leaders
must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep
to atone for their presumption to hold office –
and to affirm their faith that all life sprang
from salt in tears which the sky-god wept
after he dreamt his solitude was endless.
I came back from that frugal republic
with my two arms the one length, the customs 
woman having insisted my allowance was myself.
The old man rose and gazed into my face
and said that was official recognition
that I was now a dual citizen.
He therefore desired me when I got home
to consider myself a representative
and to speak on their behalf in my own tongue.
Their embassies, he said, were everywhere
but operated independently
and no ambassador would ever be relieved.

 – from “The Republic of Conscience” by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney died today. I put up this poem to not only honor him but to honor the sentiments behind this poem. Heaney wrote this poem because, at the heart of it, it is about how a truly concerned citizenry really has no borders.

Britain and Canada are NOT going to Syria and I think that is wonderful news. David Cameron suffered a stunning defeat in Parliament when it went to vote as to whether or not the UK would bomb Syria along with the United States and it may very well look like Cameron’s prime ministership is now in jeopardy. The British public have spoken. Harper was quick to also jump on the let’s-not-bomb-Syria bandwagon literally hours later. It looks like the US are gonna have to go it alone. Maybe with Israel and Turkey. I can’t believe how transparent and shallow these so-called “world leaders” are. It’s obvious that had Cameron won the vote, Canada and Australia would have also signed up for more Middle Eastern adventurism. Cameron was the canary in the coal mine.

The Police sang it well.

I also can’t believe that stupid, idiot mainstream journalists were so eager to fall for the same ploy the State Department and the White House used 10 years ago. Remember Saddam Hussein and his “weapons of mass destruction”? How it turned out that there weren’t any WMDs and it was a fabricated story used as an excuse to invade Iraq? Where are we now on Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya?

Donald Rumsfeld = Jerk
How the hell do people like this sleep at night?

 

Now stories of Bashar Al Assad using chemical weapons on his own people when in fact everybody knows at this point that the “Syrian Rebels” (most of them are not even Syrian but like in the case of Libya, are foreign, paid mercenaries which have been sent into the country to destabilize it) are being funded by certain western governments who gave them the chemical weapons and used them on civilians.

 

So why go through all the trouble? General Wesley Clark said it shortly after 9-11. Watch the video, but in short, the CIA, Pentagon have a long-range plans to destabilise the entire Middle East and re-draw the maps, territories and borders. 

Again.

 

This is not something new. 

Remember Lawrence of Arabia? Not the romantic, wind-swept David Lean film with Peter O’Toole, but the real T.E Lawrence?

The real Lawrence of Arabia.

He was a British stooge used to redraw the maps of the Middle East after WWI to convince various Arab tribes to come together and rally around the British against the Ottomans.

Really different from today’s map of the Middle East, eh?

Only now everyone wants to control oil and oil pipelines. Some theories suggest the main reason to redraw the maps is primarily because large chunks of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and even northern Saudi Arabia would be “redrawn” and guarantee the West unfettered access to resources in the region.

One possible new map for the Middle East. From globalresearch.ca

Others speculate that after Syria, it will be Iran, then Pakistan (who have been allies with China forever). This might then drag China and Russia into a war in Central Asia (the next energy jackpot, incidentally) which would precipitate, I think, a WWIII. I’ll tell you upfront who the real Axis of Evil here is. It’s the governments of  the US-Israel-the House of Saud-the Emirs of the UAE. They are the real culprits behind every major conflict in the region.

Most Muslims can’t stand the Saudi royal family and their various brown-nosers. They are NOT representative of your typical Muslim dude on the street. Their reputation as jet-setters, womanizers, and vulgar nouveau-riche along with their arrogant attitudes towards non-Saudi Muslims pisses everyone off within the Muslim community.

 

The whole thing is beyond crazy at this point. It shows that politicians and people in those political and economic classes (the judges, lawyers, military top brass, professors, the intelligentsia, the business and professional class) who stand to gain from keeping things as they are (i.e keep stealing stuff from other people and keep acting like a bunch of barbarians), are actually in fact, limited.

Limited intellectually because for all their smarts, all their degrees and credentials, they STILL have not come up with a  better way of doing things and continue to live according to the code of Genghis Khan.

Limited emotionally because there is zero empathy for the suffering they inflict on others just so they can load up on a cheap tank of gas to drive their spoiled brats to Chuck-E-Cheese or to soccer lessons.

You know what I would do to take care of this situation? Ship them off to Bangladesh for the summer and see a) what real food is like and b) see what the real world is like

And most importantly, stunted spiritually, because they have no vision or understanding of how they will have to pay the piper later on for this compliance to a horrific racially biased, entitled, class-divisive system which will hurt them later on as well.

The Pied Piper of Hamlin.

 

I started this post by saying that Britain and Canada not going into Syria is wonderful news. It’s great news because it showed that the public outcry and public understanding of these so-called “complicated issues” stopped the politicians on the spot.

They now realize we’re not as dumb as they think we are.

We know the Emperor is butt-naked.

People are on top of things now.

Everyone is questioning everything.

Imperialism is out of fashion.

Protesters against a possible war with Syria, outside of the British Parliament.

Those old sheltered dinosaurs  in parliament, congress, senate, in their mansions, private clubs, Wall Street offices, ivory towers, and gated communities still don’t see that the dynamics have now changed completely. The best stuff doesn’t come from them anymore and then peters down to the rest of us.

Rather, the best stuff is happening on the streets. The best music, literature, fashion, food, ideas and most importantly, news and information. Just remember this: even rivers change their courses given enough time. Steer your boats accordingly.

Why I Am No Longer a Light Worker

This is a must-read article from Cameron Day over at www.ascensionhelp.com and perfectly encapsulates why the New Age/'Lightworkers"/Channeled Ascended masters crew are all full of malarky and is actually another facet of this reality hack. It also points out that many of the Abrahamic, partriarchial religions who have set up the world in binary form (good vs. evil, black vs. white, us vs. them) are also playing into the reality hack.I don't agree with every last thing Cameron wrote here but the most important point here is that the secret is to TRANSCEND both sides and see things clearly for what they are. Cameron already bolded his emphasis, I'll place mine (in red italicized brackets) ==================================================================

By Cameron Day, on August 23rd, 2013

No, I haven’t turned to the dark-side, but rather I am transcending sides.  This article is probably the most important piece I have written to date, and in order to convey the full message, a bit of back-story is necessary. Hang in there with me, and by the end you will understand why I will never call myself a “lightworker” again.

Planet Earth and much of our corner of the universe has been under a spell for a very long time, a spell which casts doubt within our minds about whether or not we are connected with the Infinite Source of all creation.The spell causes us to feel alone, vulnerable and isolated – cast out from the Heavenly Realms into a cruel, dog-eat-dog world.  This spell is pure fiction, a deception of the highest order, but it has taken hold deeply on this and other worlds.

Intrinsic within this holographic spell is the notion that duality and polarity are natural aspects of life, and that we must serve one side of duality or the other. This elegantly simple binary imprint has become so prominent that we have lost sight of the larger holographic spell that spawned it.  Indeed, we have lost sight of the hologram all together, and come to believe that it is the sum total of reality.

Humans have been conditioned to worship the holographic deception and the agents that perpetuate it.  This hologram has been called Maya by the Hindus, and the Gnostics referred to it as the Corrupt Demiurge. I find this term a highly accurate description, and from the point forward I will refer to it as the corrupt demiurge.

Dark vs (False) Light – Duality of the Demiurge

In order to capture and control the widest possible spectrum of souls, the corrupt demiurge split its agents into two seemingly opposing teams:  Dark vs (false) Light.

Not everyone can be a saint, so there must be room for sinners within the demiurge, as long as everyone involved is under its spell.  What matters most to the demiurge is that we worship it or one of its agents, regardless if they are on the light team or the dark team.

There are many names of the players within this cosmic, multi-dimensional drama that you will have no doubt heard of such as:  Lucifer, Jehova, Beelzebub, Arch Angel Michael, Satan (different dude than Lucifer), Ashtar, dozens of Arch(on) angels, supposedly ascended “masters” and various other channeled entities.

While some of these beings play for team dark, and some play for team (false) light, they are ALL ultimately playing for the corrupt demiurge that controls them.This, in essence, is the big secret of the archons:  They are not just the “evil, demonic beings” but also those who pretend to be angels and ascended masters..

What is the Point of All This Control?

The corrupt demiurge is an entropic system of artificially-induced separation consciousness that is slowly dying, and it depends on harvesting the energy from the souls incarnated within its system in order to preserve its existence. In order to harvest the largest amount of soul energy possible, it created the dark-light duality paradigm to ensure that every being incarnated on a world that is under its spell would serve as a “soul battery” to help keep the demiurge energized.  The “good” souls would seek out the (false) light team, and the “bad” souls would seek out the dark team, but unknown to most of those souls, they are all serving the same system.

In order to keep the duality game interesting for its participants, the demiurge set up densities of existence that “initiates” on the dark and light paths could ascend through.  This gives the beings moving through these densities a feeling of accomplishment, when in fact they are navigating through a labyrinth of demiurgic illusion. The players at the higher levels of the hierarchies know that they are in a self-serving system, but they are fine with the deal, because they get to wield power and receive the energy of worship from beings further down the ladder.

What About the “Spiritual Hierarchy?”

Most channeled beings will claim to be affiliated with the (false) light-based “Spiritual Hierarchy” which includes “arch angels,” “ascended masters” and “positive ETs.”  These channeled messages are a dime-a-thousand, and more keep pouring out every day.  The dirty little secret is that these beings are beholden to the corrupt demiurge, and are waging a psychological battle on people that don’t want to be associated with any formal religious structure.

In other words, the “new age” is a multidmeinsional psychological operation designed to channel the soul energy of the “believers” of these teachings up to the “ascended” teachers.

Another one of their secrets is that most of the so-called “ascended masters” in their “hierarchy” never had a human incarnation.  These are incredibly deceptive beings that are playing a game in order to garner the energy of worship. In the real universe of non-deception, nobody would worship them, but in the illusory “sub-universe” of the corrupt demiurge, they are able to trick good-hearted people into pouring energies of love, devotion and praise into them.

As for the “arch(on) angels” they are in more or less the same category.  They are not aligned with the Infinite Source of all creation, but rather they serve a lesser being posing as the creator: the corrupt demiurge. Therefore they are not what I would call angels at all.

In honor of the truly deceptive nature of these beings, I have given them a new, more accurate title:  The Spiritual Liar-archy.  

The Dark Side Makes the False Light Look Good

The two teams have to play their parts convincingly, and the dark team has really embraced their role as villainous scum ready to kill, rape, torture and do any sort of depraved thing that they can get away with.

The dark side is designed to be incredibly repugnant so that the majority of “good souls” will run to the other end of polarity, right into the “loving” embrace of one of the false light’s patriarchal religions, or to their new age religion with its legion of channels and “masters.”

Earth has been a difficult planet for the corrupt demiurge to fully control.  Human beings were once very aware of their connection to Infinite Source and all of life, and that awareness has been maintained by spiritual individuals throughout the entire reign of darkness on this planet. Because this awareness could not be “beaten out of us” by the dark forces, a plan was formed to co-opt the spiritual nature of human beings.

First, patriarchal religions were formed and imposed on as many people of the world as possible.  Anyone who didn’t adhere to one of the major religions was an outcast for much of history, until the last century when the “Theosophist movement” was born, which set the foundation for the “new age movement” to emerge in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The new age movement has continued to gain momentum as it has attracted many of the people who turned away from the hypocrisy of patriarchal religion.

The corrupt demiurge seems to have an “easy answer” for any of the inner turmoil that humans experience.  If religion doesn’t serve to appease an individual, then the new age will do just fine.  It’s all the same to the demiurge, as long as we “pick a side” that it controls.  This is why we need to transcend sides all together.

Channelers Are Being Deceived

I wrote an article back in 2011 about some of the problems with channeled messages,which you can find here for more background information.  If religion can be said to be “the opiate of the masses” then channeled messages would be the “HOPIUM of the disgruntled minority.” Every channeled message that comes from the spiritual liar-archy is essentially the same when you strip away the fluffy talk and story-line that is being used to couch the message.

Here is every channeled message ever done, condensed into a few lines:

“Dear ones, you are greatly beloved by all of us in the spiritual (liar)archy. We long to reunite with you, for we are your long-lost family.  Stay strong and hold onto your light, because we will make our presence known to you soon. Keep waiting (and suffering) and hoping for us to come and rescue you from your situation.  When we arrive, we will build a golden (c)age for you on earth.”

I used to think that this nauseating disinformation coming from “Archon Angel Michael,” “Saint Germain” etc was the result of dark-side interference taking over the channels without their awareness. What I didn’t understand back when I wrote “Who’s Really on This Channel” is that transmissions from “truly positive beings” weren’t being intercepted and corrupted by the dark side, but rather the messages were coming from “false light” beings of the spiritual liar-archy.

“Light Workers” Are Being Thoroughly Used

Back in 1998 when I first got into the energy clearing genre, the term “lightworker” didn’t exist.  It appeared some time in the early 2000s, and it sounded weird to me the first time I heard it.  Now I understand why:  because the “light” that the spiritual liar-archy is trying to get us to work for is the FALSE light of demiurgic duality!

You see, there is a massive effort underway by beings that I now call “Divine Agents” to completely obliterate the corrupt demiurge. When that happens, all of the beings who have gained power through the demiurge will lose that stolen power and will have to face up to the deceptions that they have been propagating.  None of them want that to happen, so in their cleverness they devised a brilliant plan to undermine the entire effort.

The plan was simple:  Approach all incarnated Divine Agents, usually in a dream state but sometimes during an “ET abduction” scenario, and tell them that in order to fulfill their mission, they need to “work for the (false) light” and take orders from the spiritual liar-archy.

This plan worked AMAZINGLY well, largely because Divine Agents have had a hard time living on Earth.  Societies here are badly warped, spirituality is twisted and abused, the vibrational density is heavy, our memories are mostly wiped, and we generally would rather NOT be here.  So any being that emanated light (even false light) and love could make a Divine Agent feel like they were making valid contact with truly divine beings.

I still remember my own recruitment by the false light that occurred when I was 6 years old in an extremely vivid dream-time experience.  They had me convinced that I was fulfilling my mission as a Divine Agent by working for them.  I think they always knew I would figure them out, although it took a very, very long time.

Ever Wake Up More Tired Than When You Went To Sleep? 

(I thought I was the only one feeling this?)

Many Divine Agents who were recruited as light-workers report that they wake up more tired than when they went to bed, and their “dreams” were full of battles.  During these “dream missions” the spiritual liar-archy squeezes those they control of as much energy as they can. You may wake up with memories of having gone on missions to battle the dark, but the end result is that your body, mind and soul are depleted of energy which was harvested by the (false) light beings.

A few months ago I revoked ALL agreements made with any and all beings that did not have my best interests in mind, no matter WHO the beings were or claimed to be. It sounds like such a simple thing, but somehow I had overlooked it.  During the process, I felt resistance from beings who were claiming to be positive, but I stood strong and told them that I refuse to be manipulated into giving energy to the demiurge.

This has given me the distinct privilege of being targeted by both the dark team (ankle biters) and the (false) light team (spiritual liar-archy).  The (false) light team does indeed engage in psychic warfare, just in different, more subtle ways than their “dark” brethren. Deflecting these attacks has been worth it because I know that I am more aligned with my true mission to put an end to the demiurge without being side-tracked into duality battles.

It is also very nice knowing I am going to get a good night’s sleep when I go to bed because I am not going to be pulled into any ridiculous “missions to battle the dark” that the (false) light beings are so fond of setting up for their “light workers.”  (That phrase actually creeps me out now that I know its true origins…)

What Was That About a Golden (C)age?

The false light beings working for the corrupt demiurge want to maintain their control over the human race.  Our soul energy and agreements to live in our current cage empowers the demiurge and the beings that serve it, and they are not going to give that energy up easily.

We are, at this very moment, in a struggle for our freedom.  The spiritual liar-archy wants to move us from our current, extremely uncomfortable cage into a slightly more expansive state of existence, but one that they are firmly in control of.

One metaphor to describe our current situation is that we are like a flock of chickens pent up inside a tiny, dark, smelly chicken coop.  Those that have been farming us are preparing to let us out of the coop, and into a larger fenced-in area where we will be able to feel a little more free, but still within their control. This is the “farmer’s” way of ensuring that they can continue to feed off of our energies, while making us feel that we are free, thanks to the kindness of our captors.

The “spiritual” liar-archy does not want us to grow on our own to a place of self-empowerment that will allow us to simply walk away from their entire control system. This is why the channeled messages subtly disempowers people, while pretending to actually offer them an empowering solution.  As long as we are sitting and waiting for “the good guys” to come and save us, we will not be able to discern who truly has our best interests at heart, nor will we be able to actually fix our own problems for ourselves.

Solutions for the Duality Afflicted

So how does a person get out of this duality paradigm?  The first step is to engage the Self-Clearing System protocols and revoke all agreements that you have made with any beings that don’t have your best interests in mind. Next, revoke all agreements to see reality in polarized terms. Every time you revoke agreements, be sure to reclaim your energy that had gone into them. Then affirm your commitment to transcend the control paradigms of the corrupt demiurge without being side-tracked by pointless polarity battles. (most important bit)

I also recommend a brief daily practice of revoking all agreements to experience hardship, limitation, bad relationships, health problems, financial problems, family dysfunctions, and anything else in your life that is energy-draining. The number and quantity of agreements that we have unconsciously taken on within this false reality matrix are truly astounding.  When you pay attention to the subtle and blatant agreements that point to the invisible bars of your prison, you will indeed find that there is no shortage of agreements to be revoked.

After you have engaged this process, you may notice less “contact” from the false light beings, and you might feel a little lonely until you get used to the changes.  This is a very good time to strengthen your connection to your own Higher Self, the core of Earth and the Galactic core. As you adjust, you may notice better sleep and a sense that you can see through deceptions disguised with positivity more easily.

If you do get contact from a being, you can tell it that you are only willing to communicate with beings who have transcended duality and are outside of the corrupt demiurge.  Put any being trying to contact you to the test.  Question them point-blank:  “Are you part of the demiurge?” The beings of True Divine Light who exist outside of the demiurge, in the Real Universe will happily answer your questions.  Just be aware that they don’t speak in language the same way that we do, as they communicate with what I call “soul telepathy.”

Type of Communication Is a Major Indicator

The Forces of True Divine Light that exist outside of the corrupt demiurge are not bound by the left-brain right-brain dynamics and dark-light polarities that define the demiurgic sub-universe.  This means that they do NOT sound like a voice in your head! Instead, they use “soul telepathy” to emanate feelings, archetypal expressions, and an extremely pure quality of light that speaks directly to your soul. (ditto)

The difference between a being of True Divine Light and one of the false light spiritual liar-archy beings is that the former’s light is warm, enveloping, pure and unconditionally loving, whereas the latter’s light is cool, piercing in an uncomfortable way, dominant and often overly-masculine. (please re-read that sentence) The spiritual liar-archy is a male-dominated group, and even the females within their power structure have a very masculine energy.  This male-domination is, of course, why the religious structures the liar-archy enabled all have a domineering male god, and no mention of an all-encompassing, feminine creator.

Another major difference between false light beings within the demiurge and beings of True Divine Light who are aligned with Infinite Source is that the Divine Light is not controlling, manipulative, bossy or judgmental in any way. Infinite Source will NOT impose an agenda upon you, although it will support you in your chosen mission to help dismantle the corrupt demiurge.  You won’t be given “marching orders” by Infinite Source or beings of True Divine Light who operate outside of the demiurge.  They won’t send you on endless, energy-draining missions in your dream-time, and they won’t ask you to do something that will result in loss of your soul energy, unlike the imposters in the false-light spiritual liar-archy.

The beings of True Divine Light are supportive, loving, nurturing, and they care about you as an individual.  You are not just a cog in a machine to them, for they understand that you are a vitally important aspect of an intricately interconnected creation. They have the utmost respect for those of us who volunteered to incarnate into the “beast system” of the corrupt demiurge in order to help dismantle it from the inside.  Indeed, there must be Divine Agents working both from within and outside of the corrupt demiurge in order to dismantle it.

Discernment is Vital

I will be writing more on this topic and its many implications.  In the mean time, I urge you to drastically increase skepticism and fine-tune your discernment.  Apply your intuition and logic to information that you receive, and ask yourself “what is the agenda here?” There is indeed a very large, multi-dimensional “conspiracy” at work on this planet, and it draws power from us by pushing us into one spectrum of polarity or another.  Anyone urging you to “choose a side” simply hasn’t woken up to the fact that both sides are two halves of the same coin that is controlled by the corrupt demiurge.

I urge you to discuss these ideas with those close to you and look for ways that you may have been manipulated by the false light in the past.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of – the false light beings are amazingly skilled liars and manipulators.

Most of you reading this have already chosen to be a Divine Agent and incarnate for the purpose of dismantling the demiurgic control system.  You have already made your choice, and now you need to carry out your individual mission.  In order to do that, it is vitally important to sever all ties with the false-light “spiritual” liar-archy, take some time to regain energy and strength if necessary, and ask your Divine Inner Self to reveal to you what it is that you specifically need to do.

Stand strong in the true light of your Divine Inner Self and Infinite Source.

Much Love,
Cameron Day
www.AscensionHelp.com
www.GeniusBrainPower.com

Lady Justice has become crippled

“Human justice judges only actions, but divine justice also judges thoughts, feelings and intentions. If you have consciously given someone bad advice, if you have encouraged them to rebel or driven them to despair, what court on earth will condemn such behaviour? None, for materially, objectively, there is nothing to reproach you for. If your victim goes before the judge and says, ‘See what despair this person caused me’, the judge will reply that provision is not made in law for such a case and that nothing can be done for them. Knowing there is no court to punish wicked thoughts, feelings or intentions or deceitful words, many people are clever enough to be impeccable in their actions and not get caught! There are thousands of ways of doing harm without offending in the eyes of human justice. But no one escapes divine justice.”

-Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Justice was not served yesterday when Private Chelsea/Bradley Manning got sentenced to 35 years of imprisonment. Like the rest of the world, I have to shake my head in disgust at what’s happened. A conscientious objector releases the truth of the American occupation in Iraq and will lose the best years of her life in some prison cell while war criminals and the masterminds behind a war which has in effect destroyed an entire country and killed millions for absolutely no reason walk off scott-free, living their days on their ranch, painting deviant art of themselves in the washroom and hiding in the wilds of Wyoming or Idaho.

From what I understand, Manning’s case will now go to the court of appeals and there may be a chance of a reduction in the length of his sentence. Manning may even get parole after 7 years. Even then, even 1 more day in prison is 1 day too much. In a more just world and in an uncorrupted judicial system, the roles should be reversed. Mark my words, Manning is a martyr and will become a symbol of justice gone wrong, like another long-time innocent prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal.

Solidarity statement with Chelsea/Bradley Manning from Mumia Abu Jamal.

 

The upside is that Manning’s case, like Edward Snowden, has now brought unprecedented attention to the inner workings of government and how truly violent and diabolical the state-system really is. People really see what’s happening now. Not just a handful of marginal concerned and committed activists but everyone. She’s not my cup of tea, but yesterday Lady Gaga tweeted her support for Manning and it made headlines over on the dumbing-down entertainment channel E! Online. Out of curiosity, I had a look at the running comments there and it was sufficient proof that the people who don’t want to see, won’t. People who are dumb enough to make channels like E! Online the centerpiece of their existence  are also dumb and blind to the truth of their surroundings.  

 

It reminded me of one of the last chapters in C.S Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, in “The Last Battle” when the dwarfs after realizing that the fake Aslan was an imposter and instead of joining the fight against the Calormenes  with good King Tirian, continued acting strangely, sitting in a tight circle, not looking around or noticing anyone around them. As it turns out, they believe they are in a dark stable and act accordingly. After many attempts to show the dwarfs that they were, in fact, in the great outdoors with flowers and grass and birds had failed. Without warning, the real Aslan suddenly appears before them. Lucy begs Aslan to do something about the dwarfs, but even Aslan is unable to bring their vision to them. He says that their prison is in their own minds and that their fear of being “taken in” keeps them from being taken out.

Some of Pauline Baynes’ illustrations for C.S Lewis’ “The Last Battle”.

As for divine justice, or karma, I have to believe there has to be some, somewhere out there. Hindus and pagan/Wicca types believe in The Rule of Three, that any action we take, any intention we set  and put out there into the Universe comes back to us threefold (which is why revenge spells are a really bad idea to begin with, the best you can do is ask for divine justice or karma and then let it be). If that’s the case, I do not envy those souls behind this fabricated “War on Terror”.

They’re gonna get it.

In time.

Our Busy Galaxy

Fred , Barney and the Great Gazoo

I’ve been hesitant about writing up a post on UFOs for a while now. (If this isn’t your thing, you don’t have to read the rest of this, it’s totally cool). Hesitant because this seems to be one topic with the most disinformation, false leads and invested interest by far. More so than say Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster or the Bermuda Triangle.

Yeti?

I’ll be upfront and say right out that I think other intelligent life-forms exist in this vicinity of the Milky Way. With astronomers finding more and more galaxies with each passing year with “Earth-like” planets and given the magnitude of space, I’m sorry to say to naysayers, but I’m with Carl Sagan on this one, the mathematical and statistical odds of us being completely alone in all of creation are stacked heavily against us.

I don’t really follow Ufology and Ufologists too much, it’s not really my thing but if I come across a compelling piece of evidence or strange video footage, I’ll give it my attention for a little while.

I have friends who work in the airline industry and they have told me that when you get talking to the pilots, they see lots of strange, inexplicable things up there in the sky while most of us are busy eating plane food or bugging the stewardesses for more water. I have also seen strange things up there. Once on  a flight back from Peru, I saw a bright light in the distance, outside my window, which could have easily been a jet or another plane flying alongside the carrier I was on. It looked like it was a fixed point, only remember I’m on a plane flying at a very high speed so if it was a fixed point, it would have disappeared from my view within seconds. Instead it was going along for a good hour and then suddenly, like a strange hovercraft, it shot up, along the “Y” axis,  straight into the wild blue yonder, in a straight perpendicular line to the flight path, like this:

Now, I’m not an aviation or military buff but I know enough there is nothing on earth, no aircraft that we have that can make a maneuver like that and certainly not at that altitude. I just assumed it was a UFO and just mentally said (because I figure if they are an advanced race, they probably communicate telepathically anyway) “Hello. Welcome. Hope you guys eventually say hello back to us. Take care.”

Hey Marvin, how’s it going?

If there are aliens, I don’t think it’s just one race of them. I think there are probably  a couple of species of them. From what I can surmise from UFO literature and reports, there seem to be baddies and goodies. Some even go so far as to say that there is even an Inner Earth as opposed to an Outer Space and that may craft have been sighted coming out of the ocean or remote lakes in places like Markawasi, Peru. Esoteric literature is rife with things like the Hollow Earth Theory and a visit to Mount Shasta, California will land you in the middle of Telos country, the alleged underground city of ancient Lemurians, underneath Mount Shasta, who communicate telepathically with some of the mediums living in the area. Fun, huh?

Strange clouds regularly appear over Mount Shasta, California, making the place a magnet for Hollow Earth Theorists and UFO enthusiasts

A few years ago, Paul Hellyer, who used to be Minister of National  Defense for Canada, under Lester B. Pearson’s cabinet, came out publicly and said that the existence of UFOs is common knowledge among the military and upper-level politicians around the world. It was a bit of an earthquake when Hellyer came out because this was the first time a high-level senior politician from one of the G-8 nations  publicly spoke of such issues.

The Right Honorable Paul Hellyer

Since then, Mexico and France have opened up websites so that the public can access their database of reports of UFOs. Hellyer spoke at a symposium on Exopolitics at the University of Toronto and 3 of my friends (2 with PhD’s) and I trekked over to Toronto for the event. Hellyer was and continues to be a compelling speaker but the rest of the Exopolitics symposium was a sleeping bore. Hellyer recently spoke in Washington DC giving testimony to congressional hearings on UFOs..

Professor Don Donderi (now retired from the Department of Psychology) also led a series of talks on UFOs and Disclosure at McGill University a couple of years ago. Professor Donderi’s talks were excellent and he was recently on Coast to Coast with George Noory (which I can tell you for a professor from such a stodgy, straight-laced Victorian university like McGill is really saying something…). Even bad-boy Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange has said that there are references and content related to UFO’s in some of the documents which Wikileaks have received.

Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project showed up in Montreal some years ago. A friend who is really into UFO’s took me along and I got to chat with him afterwards.

Nice guy.

Greer is a trained medical physician and while I don’t agree with everything he says, when I did talk to him, he was really nice, friendly, grounded, very talkative and not condescending in any way (which I unfortunately find many alternative researchers to be). He said something interesting to me which has sort of stuck, “The next time you’re in the countryside, with the pure night sky, where you can see the millions of stars out there, each one sending us light from millions and billions of years ago, ask yourself if you truly feel alone looking up there. That’s your answer.”