The whole universe is structured and governed by a complex set of immutable laws. Plato saw ultimate reality composed of two distinct "worlds" or dimensions of being. The world of physical objects in space and time is known through sense perception and ordinary thought. Apart from this is the metaphysical world of forms known only through philosophic reflection and dialectical interchange--a realm beyond ordinary experience and requiring special capabilities to apprehend.
"A law of physics is a pattern that nature obeys without exception." Cosmologist Sean Carroll
Physicist Eugene Wigner confesses that the mathematical underpinning of nature "is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it." Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."
Life, the sculptor, shapes all living things; an artist, it designs every leaf of every tree, and colors every flower. Life is a musician and has taught each bird to sing its love song, the insects to call one another in the music of their multitudinous sounds. Life is a sublime chemist, giving taste to fruits and spices, and perfume to the rose, changing water and carbonic acid into sugar and wood, and, in so doing, releasing oxygen that animals may have the breath of life.
Former President of the New York Academy of Sciences A. Cressy Morrison
Whenever we find something " out of balance " , with the forces of nature we can rest assured that in time certain forces / catastrophes or events will emerge to re-establish order. Within nature we have forces of momentum and forces of inertia. Because of this fact, all energy - from the electron to light in interstellar space - travels in an ark or curve which sooner or later forms a circle. ( Alpha and Omega.)
Everyone has heard of the Butterfly Effect - mankind cannot lift a finger without setting the forces of nature in motion, every action has a consequence - therefore every thought/action should be aligned with spirit or for those that do not believe in the supernatural your thought/action should be aligned with your conscience.
Please take time to watch the three videos posted below - wise words from Native American Indians - heed the warnings. I foresee the same future for mankind if we are not very very careful.
The archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, a prototype of hierarchical functions that co-exist within our conscious self. I believe it is through this prototype we are governed by a complex set of primordial universal laws which equate to karma - a divine system of justice that is self-governing and infinitely fair. In many respects this would make God impartial to outcomes on a personal level because our actions would fall under the jurisdiction of " The Law of Inevitability." The role of karma, is not some form of heavenly retribution, but the law of cause and effect whose operation eventually leads to oneness with the source of life. Our emotions, thoughts and physical actions - are energy in motion.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you will never fool yourself.
As a man sows - so he shall reap
Cast your bread upon the waters ( energy / thoughts ) and it will return to you
THE UNIVERSAL MATRIX
A matrix is defined as " Something within which something else originates, takes from, or develops " ( in other words a seed ) matrix is also defined as a " mold " or " die " that leaves an imprint on something else. The Australian Aborigines have a name for it - jiva or guruwari, a seed power deposited in the earth. According to Aborigines, every action or event that occurs at a particular place leaves behind a vibrational residue in the earth, plants leave an image of themselves as seeds.
The universal matrix / prototype is imprinted into our DNA defining and laying the foundation of our physical characteristics - our personalities - intellect - our subconscious mind - the collective unconscious and all associated primordial knowledge. According to Native American Indian mythology Spider Grandmother was responsible for all the stars in the sky - she took a giant web she had spun, and laced it with dew. She then threw it into the sky, and the dew became the stars. Some liken her to the Creatix ( Matrix.) Spider Grandmother like the ( Fates ) contains the essence that constitutes the matrix - weaving life into the cosmos creating a rich tapestry like grid that connects and ties all creation together.
So if we are ALL born with pretty much the same hard wiring - at what point do some people partially disconnect ( or become oblivious ) to the subconscious / mystical aspects of the matrix so to speak whilst others are drawn closer ? Because I do believe we all come to a crossroad in life - at which point many of us begin to veer in a different direction. Then I started wondering what that catalyst for change would be ?? What prompted the spiritual / mystical change in me ? Throughout my early childhood I was conscious of my intuitive / empathic abilities but it wasn't until I hit puberty I realised the full scope of my psychic gifts ( events that leaned towards telekinesis - psychokinesis ) - my dreams became more vivid - lucid - symbolic and spiritual in context and it was also during this period that I began experiencing much more frequent bouts of deja vu.
Which led me to wonder if the catalyst for most people is puberty ? A time of intense hormonal upheavals - resulting in massive alchemical processes of change and transformation ? This would coincide with documented cases of poltergeist activity ( which the scientific community deem a form of telekinesis - psychokinesis ) a phenomena that predominantly seems to affect young teenage girls. We could also tie this period of time in with Indigenous groups initiation rites which generally occur when younger members of the tribe reach puberty. While there are many different Native American religious practices, most address the following areas of "supernatural concern": an omnipresent, invisible "universal force," "taboo," pertaining to the "three 'life crises' of birth, puberty, and death," "spirits," " visions," the "shaman," and "communal ceremony." The Aborigines initiation rites centred around the potency of the "Dreaming" , and this Dreaming constituted the sacredness of the earth. Only in extraordinary states of consciousness can one be aware of, or attuned to, the inner dreaming of the Earth - The expression 'Dreamtime' is most often used to refer to the 'time before time', or 'the time of the creation of all things', while 'Dreaming' is often used to refer to an individuals or group's set of beliefs or spirituality.
For anyone that has difficulty digesting information regarding psychic / supernatural phenomena - I would just like to remind you about the forces of nature -all you need is one small catalyst to trigger change on a momentous scale. Just take lightning for example - lightning is produced in thunderstorms when liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide, and build up large electrical fields in the clouds. Once these electric fields become large enough, a giant "spark" occurs between them, like static electricity, reducing the charge separation. The temperature inside a lightning bolt can reach 50,000 degrees F, hotter than the surface of the sun. The Cosmos - life and evolution are all the direct result of chemical reactions - why would the expansion of human consciousness be any different ?
In order to reach our full potential as human beings it is essential we harmonise all aspects of our being - this includes our feminine / masculine polar opposites. I am sorry to say that anyone who is a member of a religious group or secret society that is set up along patriarchal lines is wasting their time !! Because often the core strategy of these institutions is one of domination and exclusion - this kind of mindset will only thwart spiritual growth ? Higher states of consciousness are only possible when the polar opposites unite - Men do not and never will hold dominion over the spiritual realm. Naturally it goes without saying - this applies to exclusive women's groups as well. Respect - balance and harmony is the key !
Although currently expressed in terms of linear and intuitive halves of the brain, the concept of androgyny (the integration of male and female characteristics within each person) is central to ancient myths and religions. Most accounts concern an initial separation of the sexes and subsequent efforts to unite male and female forces. For example, the Chinese polar halves of Yin and Yang were formed from a single fluid, and the Hindus speak of the splitting of the original creative force called the Supreme Self. In Western myths, the creator remains entire and the split transpires within the creature (e.g., Adam and Eve). The Greek version suggests that the gods split people in half to punish them for their conceit. All of these myths express concern for uniting the separation (or dual halves of the psyche) through symbols of androgyny. By combining both linear (male) and intuitive (female) qualities within the individual psyche, one unites the polar forces which represent creation and growth. Thus Eastern icons are often hermaphroditic, as are Christian, Persian, and Hindu-Buddhist angels. Traditional rituals such as marriage and alchemy also portray union of polar opposites.
Special thanks to String for prompting some of my thoughts here :)
According to a study of patients who have received transplanted organs, particularly hearts, it is not uncommon for memories, behaviours, preferences and habits associated with the donor to be transferred to the recipient.
I found this particular case study so profound and beautiful I decided to post it here. A modern Romeo and Juliet of sorts I know skeptics will argue it is all just a coincidence but - (I am a believer - it is not a dream - it is reality )
Eternal love - A powerful force that transcends the wheel of space and time - An invisible thread that connects everything in the universe - A primal energy that flows and fills tirelessly - the heart - the essence - the source of all Universal Truths
Love is Divine - and to find another who can give so completely - filling the very essence of your being with so much love that your sense of self and ego dissolve - to the point there is only pure essence of spirit left - When two loving hearts join - it is like two rivers meeting to become one, winding there way through the valleys of emotion until they reach the ocean of eternal joy.
Where the dream becomes reality and through deeper understanding the veil that once separated the world of spirit from matter can finally be lifted - where all elements and forces combine to become one - a cosmic dance of divine spiritual love - this is the primal energy source all life seeks - to become fully awake and see all the layers and dimensions of reality - so beautiful and perfect - creation with divinity, flesh with spirit.
Love is the power that moves the universe, the day of life, the night of death, and the new day after death. The radiance of this universe sends us a message of love and says that all creation came from love … Love leads to light. Mascaro
The donor was an 18-year-old boy killed in an automobile accident. The recipient was an 18-year-old girl diagnosed with endocarditis and subsequent heart failure.
The donor's father, a psychiatrist, said:
My son always wrote poetry. We had waited more than a year to clean out his room after he died. We found a book of poems he had never shown us, and we've never told anyone about them. One of them has left us shaken emotionally and spiritually. It spoke of his seeing his own sudden death. He was a musician, too, and we found a song he titled "Danny, My Heart Is Yours"—the words about how my son felt he was destined to die and give his heart to someone. He had decided to donate his organs when he was 12 years old. We thought it was quite strong, but we thought they were talking about it in school. When we met his recipient, we were so…we didn't know, like, what it was. We don't know now. We just don't know.
The recipient reported:
When they showed me pictures of their son, I knew him directly. I would have picked him out anywhere. He's in me. I know he is in me and he is in love with me. He was always my lover, maybe in another time somewhere. How could he know years before he died that he would die and give his heart to me? How would he know my name is Danny? And then, when they played me some of his music, I could finish the phrases of his songs. I could never play before, but after my transplant I began to love music. I felt it in my heart. My heart had to play it. I told my mom I wanted to take guitar lessons—the same instrument Paul [the donor] had played. His song is in me. I feel it a lot at night and it's like Paul is serenading me.
The recipient's father reported:
My daughter, she was what you say….a hell-raiser. Until she got sick—they say from a dentist, they think—she was the wild one. Then she became quite quiet. I think it was her illness, but she said she felt more energy, not less. She said she wanted to play an instrument and she wanted to sing. When she wrote her first song, she sang about her new heart as her lover's heart. She said her lover had come to save her life.
Quite sometime ago I posted this on myspace - but because Jill Bolte Taylor's message was so powerful and beautiful I decided to repost it here. Sorry String lol rehashing old blogs :)
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding --she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
Lately I have found myself wondering what life would be like from an atheists perspective. How would my perception of self and the world change ? Atheists do not believe in God. Do they believe in “A collective unconscious of mankind ?“ Can a person that does not believe in a higher form of intelligence ie a creator ever take that step to the right hemisphere of the brain ? Are all right hemisphere experiences spiritual in concept ? Do atheists have the same experience but just not recognise it as such and if not what would their interpretation of the experience be ? Because it is only through a harmonious blend of right and left aspects of brain function we can ever wish to reach our full potential as human beings . We perceive reality with our senses and our intuition, then we evaluate our perceptions by our feelings and by thinking. Below I have copied a wonderful summary of Jungs " Four functions " from a book I purchased quite some years ago - by Sallie Nichols :
When we develop ego consciousness - we think of ourselves as one. But as we grow in awareness, we gradually come to realise that we are two - conscious and unconscious, ego and shadow. If we are to reconcile these opposing aspects within us, we must discover an inner mediator, a number three which can correlate these two so that they can work harmoniously together . When this happens, then " out of the three " through the activity of the third factor - comes " the one as the fourth, " a growing feeling of wholeness, a unified personality that can function as one, but now at a new level of awareness.
Jung believed every human being was born with four characteristic potentials for apprehending raw experience. He called these four states " the four functions ." The two functions by which we apprehend the world he called sensation and intuition -functions that operate spontaneously and because of that were deemed by Jung as irrational functions. The other two functions, thinking and feeling, he termed rational functions because they describe ways we order and evaluate our experience. Early in life it usually becomes apparent that there is one function for which we show a special aptitude. This is called the superior function. In time we find that we have some degree of competence in two other areas so that we ultimately have in a limited way a second and a third function otherwise known as auxiliary functions because we can call on them to help our superior function. The fourth function always remains relatively unconscious and therefore unused. Jung called this the inferior function because it is not directly accessible to conscious training. Consequently its performance remains unreliable compared to that of the other three functions.
Because we tend to choose tasks that are easy, avoiding difficult chores, most of us automatically develop and improve our more accessible functions, leaving our inferior function unrecognized and undeveloped. Often it is only when this function intrudes itself in unexpected, inappropriate and immature ways that we become aware that it exists at all.
An intuitive is not very observant of the world around him. He lives primarily in a world of future possibilities. He is little concerned with present reality, and hates coping with details. For example after attending a committee meeting an intuitive might be relatively unaware of many details of this conference, but he would probably come away from it inspired with a dozen ideas for projects this group might " someday " accomplish. The practical problems involved in this accomplishment he is apt to leave to others.
A sensation type would be best at observing the practical realities with which the committee would have to cope if the committees ideas are to be carried out. A sensation person is not given to fanciful notions,; his sensory awareness is geared to reality. They will observe in accurate detail the conditions of their outer environment. Like a good news-reporter, they are interested in specifics : who, what, when, where, why and how. Just how can the intuitive dreams for the future be squared with existing conditions ? Is the room large enough to seat the audience ? Can a piano be brought through the door ? Is there money in the budget for this project ? Each of these two types reacts to life spontaneously. The intuitive smells out future possibilities and gets hunches without knowing how they arrive at the information. In a similar way, the sensation person records sensory experience automatically.
Thinking and feeling on the other hand operate more deliberately. The thinking type organises their experience into logical categories and arranges them in a systematic order. Feeling types are more empathic from the Greek word (empatheia), "physical affection, passion, partiality" which comes from (pathos), "feeling". On a committee , for instance, they might make a list of the things to be done before the next meeting, and they might work out an agenda for this meeting. If there is to be a speaker on the program the thinker might express concern that the lecturer be an authority in his field.
The feeling type would react differently. They would not care so much that the speaker be an authority, so long as the speaker can express themselves well and present the material in an interesting way. They would evaluate any program more according to its feeling tone that its content. " Feeling " as Jung uses the term, does not mean unbridled emotion. Quite the contrary Jung characterized feeling as rational function because it can be exactly as precise and discriminating as thinking. It too is a means of evaluating experience On a committee, the feeling person might be good at hospitality chairman or toastmaster. They would help everyone feel at home but , at the same time, they would be quick to discourage behaviour that does not " feel " appropriate to the occasion.
Understanding personality types can help us understand how others function for example a child of the intuitive type does not keep losing things because he is stupid or disobedient; he is simply unconcerned with material objects. In a similar way, realising that our neighbour is a thinking type can help us to understand that he is not being disagreeable on purpose when he disturbs the feeling tone of a party by interfering tactless truths which seem to him apropos.
Sometimes it is difficult to decide which is your first function because your superior and your first auxiliary function are both so well-developed that it is hard to tell which one represents your innate type. In this case it is sometimes easier to locate your inferior function. One way to do this it to observe what sorts of tasks you consistently postpone doing because you have " not time" for them. Often you will find that certain kinds of jobs are ignored day after day, whereas other tasks ( which are actually more time consuming and complicated ) do get done. Once you have located discovered your inferior function, you can easily locate your superior one, because it will invariably be the other function in the same category as the inferior one. For example, if your inferior function is an irrational function ( say intuition ) then your superior function will be the other irrational function sensation and vice versa. If your inferior function is a rational function (say feeling ) then your superior function is bound to be the remaining rational function ( thinking ) or vice versa.
AS we first become aware of these four potentials within us, we tend to label ourselves according to our superior function. In other words, our ego becomes identified with our superior function. We may not describe our feelings in the exact terminology used here, but we do tend to think of ourselves as one unit - a person with one special aptitude, excluding other potentials of which we are less aware. We become recognized by ourselves and others as " the one who is clever with our hands " or " the one who is good at mathematics." But later we usually come to recognise and develop our secondary functions - at which point " one become two . " We are " good with our hands " but we also enjoy reading and writing poetry , for example. Later comes a beginning awareness of capacities in a third area, corresponding to our third function. But this function, is so deeply buried in unconsciousness that it is difficult to excavate, so that it is often many years before one begins to have a sense of himself as having three areas.
During this time, the fourth function usually remains hidden. It is so buried in darkness, so unpracticed and therefore so threatening to our ego status, that we cannot approach it directly. But as we continue to develop and use our third function, the fourth function also begins to emerge into consciousness. By employing the third function, it is then, " out of the third, " that we gain access to our fourth. When this happens, there eventuates " the one as the fourth " For now there is potential for unity - a wholeness that includes all four aspects of our psyche and transcends the ego unity with which we began our exploration.
Those of the outer world will be like drowned men as regards my discourse; but men of the inner world will understand its secrets.
Like my predecessors I have revealed the bird of my soul to those who are asleep. Perhaps the sleep which fills your life has deprived you of this discourse; but, having met it, your soul will be awakened by the secret which it reveals.
From Farid 'The Logic of Birds'
LOL Sorry this is so long
The Language of the Birds is also known as the Green Language or the Language of the Gods. It is a mystical, perfect or divine language, or a mythical or magical language used by birds ( spirit ) to communicate with the initiated, is postulated in mythology and medieval literature. It embraces Kabbalah, Astrology, Alchemy and Tarot. Its grammar is symbolism, more to the point, holographic symbolism, when properly understood. Birds further reference ascension of human consciousness in the alchemy of time. Thoth the Scribe is the ancient Egyptian god who scripted the languages of our reality, to be viewed as symbolic messages through the ages, and finally brought to light at the end of the cycles of time. Reality is thought consciousness.
Could we deem this mytsical language : The Noetic Quality ?
“The Noetic Quality, as named by William James, is a feeling of insight or illumination that, on an intuitive, nonrational level and with a tremendous force of certainty, subjectively has the status of Ultimate Reality. This knowledge is not an increase of facts but is a gain in psychological, philosophical, or theological insight. "
I began my education at a Catholic school / Convent run by the Sisters, located at Cape Peron - in Rockingham - Perth. The school sat on the end of a peninsula, with spectacular ocean views to the northeast and the southwest. We had direct access to the beach and spent many an hour exploring rock pools - craggy coastlines and isolated coves ... all part of our nature / science studies - and from a historical perspective were introduced to tales about a magical world of hidden treasure that lay buried in the waters between Cape Peron and Shoalwater Bay in the form of spectacular submerged reefs and shipwrecks.
The islands of Shoalwater Bay abound with seabirds, many of which are rarely seen on the mainland. They are important seabird breeding sites. The reef areas supported a variety of temperate and subtropical invertebrates including sea stars, urchins and mollusc's as well as a number of fish species oh and can't forget to mention the beautiful Bottle-nose dolphins that were spotted occasionally by very excited little children pointing and hooting as they surfed the waves - leaping playfully into the air as they chased one another.
So really my first years of school were a combination of the artistic, practical and theoretical - with a " green " focus that included nature studies and ecology. To be honest I was blissfully happy and thriving :)
Then my family moved to the Eastern Seaboard of Australia. Once again I was enrolled in a Catholic school but the emphasis on teaching strategies differed greatly - the teachers focused more on theory and religion. We began and ended every school day with prayers, and seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time doing bible studies with a very cranky old Irish priest that often gave the impression he really had no time for children AT ALL lol :) God bless him :) So we spent many hours drawing stations of the cross posters - reading and discussing numerous stories from the Bible. I was the kind of child that questioned everything … sometimes to my detriment :) For example on one such occasion I recall the priest proclaiming in a very authoritative voice ;
" God commanded Moses to stretch out his rod and divide the waters, "a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left," so that the Egyptians are destroyed when Israelites cross over and the two walls collapse. "
I thought this was absolutely amazing - I was in total awe lol I was so excited I put my hand up and said " So it was like magic ? "
BIG mistake - he went bright red and whilst hyperventilating told me under no circumstances was I ever to refer to it as " magic " it was called a " miracle ". He then went on to warn all the children in the classroom that the church condemns all forms of divination (attempts to see the future) and sorcery (attempts to tame occult powers) reading omens or signs :
So reading SIGNS was " EVIL " ? But I always observed signs ever since I could remember ?? In fact I thought everyone did ? I had finely tuned psychic feelers everywhere - they were part of my defence mechanism - and to be quite honest regardless of the Catechism and all the fear and guilt it invoked I knew I could never " Tune Out " - because that would of left me feeling vulnerable and disorientated - like a bird without navigation / homing abilities. ( Could that be deemed a form of spiritual blindness ? ) I wonder ?
The attitude of the Bible toward divination is on the whole distinctly hostile and is fairly represented by Deuteronomy 18:10, where the prophet of God is contrasted with diviners of all kinds as the only authorized medium of supernatural revelation. Divination is seen as an abomination but there are some notable exceptions where some forms are apparently sanctioned such as in the New Testament when Matthias is chosen as the replacement for Judas by casting lots. (Acts of the Apostles 1:26 ) LOL How convenient that some forms of divination have been / are SANCTIONED ?
In the Quran, divination is described in Surah V (The Table) as an abomination: "O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination; of Satan's handwork: eschew such (abomination), that ye may prosper)
Sorry that I go on and on about this but it really IRKS me. All I can say in response is " O ye who have little faith ! Intoxicated by the lower echelons of thought , The biggest ABOMINATION throughout the history of mankind was the veiling of TRUE SPIRITUAL AWARENESS - eschew such ( abomination ), that ye may prosper for Jesus said, "In the Garden of Jehovah stands the holy Tree of Life. High in its branches sings a bird. Listen for the voice of the bird, for when you are properly aligned with heaven and earth, she will tell you all things."
God is everywhere - God is in everything and ultimately at the end of the day God will communicate through any means God sees fit. Personally I believe divining through objects is merely useful / effective in the sense they act like a bridge by connecting our conscious mind to that of our subconscious - there is absolutely nothing evil or satanic about it ? How can seeing archetypal imagery and interpreting patterns be satan's handiwork ??? The imagery and patterns all stem from an original template and are inherent in all lifeforms - I think it is pure arrogance on the part of any group that attempts to block the workings of the primordial prototype - the very cornerstone and foundation of all existence.
Soon after I turned 11 my family moved into a new estate - a suburb so new in fact -the Catholic school had not been built yet - as a consequence I ended up attending the local government school. On a spiritual level this move was a huge turning point in my life because I could now experiment more freely with the magical world of psychic phenomena without religious guilt / paranoia - it was during this time frame I also noticed an increase in the lucidity of my dreams. Bored to death one day I told one of my friends I would try and " SEE " into her past. So I closed my eyes and began to focus - I have a habit of losing interest in things quite quickly and got bored after about 5mins lol I became really frustrated and anxious because I wanted to prove to my friend beyond a shadow of a doubt telepathy / Extra Sensory Perception were REAL phenomenas.
Suddenly from deep within my subconscious the first set of images began to emerge - I saw several horses rearing up on their hind legs - it was obvious something had spooked them - I then tried to focus my attention on the cause of their panic - I saw two vehicles and flashes of blinding bright light - the final image was that of a horse surrounded by fire. They say a picture paints a thousand words and if the totally blank and mystified look on my friends face was anything to go by - I could only conclude there was no event in her past that came close to my vision lol so reluctantly I asked if the imagery meant anything to her " Errrrr NO " she replied in the most ridiculous voice she could muster :) We both laughed - I used excuses and put it down to a glitch in my technique. Never one to give up I knew I would try time and time again until I got it right.
That following Monday morning - I was making my way to the High School locker room when my friend ran up behind me and asked if I could give her a detailed description of my vision again - for the briefest moment I thought I detected fear / suspicion in her eyes ? I was not sure and because of that repeated the account with a certain amount of trepidation and caution . She then went on to tell me that during the weekend her mother and father had driven out to their property - which was about an hours drive from the city and on entering the farm were absolutely devastated to find her horse lying dead on the ground. Apparently her horse died from injuries sustained from a bullet wound. Her parents noticed a lot of fresh tire tracks running the full length of the property and as a consequence decided to make a few enquiries with some of the local farmers , as to whether or not they had heard or seen anything out of the ordinary during the course of the weekend.
The neighbours told them there were a couple of " Spotlighters " hooning around the night before . I had no idea what a " Spotlighter " was - so I asked her ? She told me spotlighters used off-road vehicles - light four-wheel drives - trucks and utilities to hunt animals ( usually kangaroos.) The shooter and spotter would stand side by side behind the cab, holding onto a bar at the front of the tray or on top of the cab, which would allow them a good 360 degree view. The spotter sweeps the surrounding countryside with a powerful hand-held lamp - they stun the animal by shining the large spotlight into their eyes and then shoot them. I can't remember why but she also mentioned the fact her father ended up burning the horse's carcass.
Most of my female friends were quite open minded about ESP and the supernatural but I often found this was not the case with guys ;) lol in fact most of the guys were extremely skeptical. One day a large group of us were sitting in the classroom waiting for role call when Neil a friend of mine piped up and told me about this new neighbour that had recently moved into the house next door to him. He was smitten lol kept ranting on about her skimpy shorts and long legs lol anyway - he said they had a conversation about astral travel / lucid dreaming etc and asked if I thought it was possible for him to learn how do it. I looked at him with utter contempt ;) (joke) - and told him I had just lost all respect for him ;) that just because a sexy new neighbour 10 years his senior moved into the house next door was absolutely no excuse to suddenly become interested in something he had ridiculed me about for years ;) lol his mates laughed and agreed with me - I did eventually cave in and give him some very basic instructions - we decided the best time to test would be later that night - his target - me.
Later that evening we all attended the school disco and to be honest I had completely forgotten about the experiment. It was around about 11:00 pm when I finally got home - I pottered around - played some music - and eventually headed of to bed sometime after midnight. I was just in the process of falling asleep when I saw a really clear distinct image of Neil flash through my mind - I thought wow that's weird lol then remembered our experiment - I jumped up turned on the light - went out into the dining room - checked the time - then returned to bed - it was 12:20 I wrote it on a piece of paper and did not think about it again for the rest of the weekend. On Monday morning I asked Neil if he did in fact try to astral travel. He told me he did - but stopped after about 15mins because for some strange reason felt spooked. He was staying at a friends house that night - so he called out to Dave and asked him to check the time on the clock radio. To avoid any lying or cheating we decided to write our times down on two separate pieces of paper - and then swap them. Sure enough both pieces of paper had 12:20 on them - everyone was amazed including Neil:)
Now onto a subject that has fascinated me for years - Synesthesia. Is there a connection between this mysterious condition and psychic phenomena? Sharing a root with anesthesia (meaning “no sensation”), synesthesia means “joined sensation” (Greek syn = together + aisthesis = perception), wherein two or more senses are coupled such that a voice, for example, is not only heard, but also felt, seen, or tasted. Could synesthesia explain the phenomena of seeing " Auras " or " Out of body experiences "
As children, synesthetes are very like children with extra sensory perception - they are often quite shocked to discover that others do not share their sensory experiences. Often ridiculed and disbelieved, they learn to keep their atypical perceptions private. Nonetheless, the phenomenon remains involuntary and consistent throughout their lives.
Lexical synesthesia, pertaining to letters and words, is the most common form. Sensing color upon hearing, reading, or thinking of letters and integers accounts for two-thirds of synesthetic instances. Whole words are often sensed as also having depth and movement.
Spatial synesthesia - location and shape are bound to concepts involving serial order. Numbers and words are seen outside the body .
Statistics show some type of synesthetic experience occurs in 1 in 23 individuals.
People with a form of synesthesia in which they see colors when viewing letters and numbers really do see colors, researchers, led by Edward M. Hubbard of the University of California San Diego, have found. What's more, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of their brains reveals that they show activation of color-perception areas.
David Abram, following Merleau-Ponty, finds this synesthetic unity in the very nature of perception itself.
Although contemporary neuroscientists study synaesthesia the overlap and blending of the senses as though it were a rare or pathological experience to which only certain persons are prone (those who report “seeing sounds,” “hearing colors,” and the like), our primordial, preconceptual experience, as Merleau-Ponty makes evident, is inherently synaesthetic. The intertwining of sensory modalities seems unusual to us only to the extent that we have become estranged from our direct experience (and hence from our primordial contact with the entities and elements that surround us.):
…Synaesthetic perception is the rule, and we are unaware of it only because scientific knowledge shifts the center of gravity of experience, so that we have unlearned how to see, hear, and generally speaking, feel, in order to deduce, from our bodily organization and the world as the physicist conceives it, what we are to see, hear, and feel.” (Merleau-Ponty)
“History is the result of an over elaboration and separation of the senses - Blake’s vision of man’s natural condition and the condition man shall return to following the apocalyptic disclosure of the present era—is that of a psycho-sensory unity in which each sense is not a “narrow chink walled off from the other senses but in a state of communication with them.This state of sensory interfusion, often referred to as synesthesia, is presupposed by a consciousness in which body and soul are realized to be one, and in turn presupposes a social order so totally different from the present one that its closest approximation is to be found in the remnant of so-called primitive societies.” (Arguelles)
Jose Arguelles in his analysis of William Blake quotes the famous lines of Blake’s adopted by Huxley to describe the psychedelic visionary state:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.”
“The first thing I saw was the ‘visible language’! … The ‘elves’ appeared. They sang - I saw - read - felt - heard. They are ‘made out’ of the visible language. The message is conveyed by the medium itself in several simultaneous sensory modalities.” (DMT, Vaults of Erowid)
Cytowic estimates the occurrence of the synesthetic experience to be statistically rare, one in 25,000. When psychedelics are the testbed of synesthesias, the occurrence of synesthesias increases dramatically.
Cytowic states that “Questioning its reality [synesthesia] without first having some technological confirmation shows how ready we are to reject any first-hand experience. We are addicted to the external and the rational. Our insistence on a third-person, “objective” understanding of the world has just about swept aside all other forms of knowledge.” At the same time, this very ineffability, is, for Cytowic, a bug not a feature. He sympathizes with Heinrich Kluver, who, in trying to get his subjects to report on their mescaline hallucinations, “was frustrated by the vagueness with which subjects described their experience, their eagerness to yield uncritically to cosmic or religious explanations, to “interpret” or poetically embroider the experience in lieu of straightforward but concrete description, and their tendency to be overwhelmed and AWED by the “indescribableness” of their visions ”
Hallucinogenic discourse, both of scientific and “recreational” nature, faces a similar rhetorical dilemma as the rest of the ecstatic traditions it responds to: It must report on an event which is in principle impossible to communicate. Writers of mystic experience from St Teresa to William James have treated the unrepresentable character of mystic events to be the very hallmark of ecstasies. Hallucinogenic discourse faced a similar struggle in the effort to report on the knowledge beyond what Aldous Huxley (and Jim Morrison…) described as the “doors of perception.” (Doyle)
All language is psychedelic by definition, functioning to make manifest the mind, to bring thoughts, feelings, information, from the interior of one mind and make them available to be interiorized in another. David Porush calls this “Technologically Mediated Telepathy.” And Porush, Abram, and Erik Davis all relate the story of how this psychedelic, originally synesthetic, oral language-making connected us deeply and reciprocally to our natural environment, a mutual be-speaking that was progressively lost when writing, and most particularly alphabetic writing, froze knowledge-making into eternal signs in rows on flat surfaces, signs you could come back to—and they hadn’t changed. These signs deployed progressively deeper disconnections—among the senses, between time and space, between reason and emotion. The alphabet: the cybernetic technology that changed everything. Synesthesia, in this light, comes to stand for the promise of reconnection, of noesis, of recovery of some long lost unity, within ourselves, among ourselves, within the world. McKenna himself comes back to these language experiences time and again in his books and lectures: new forms of language perceived, theories of the evolution of language and consciousness catalyzed by psychedelics are proposed:
The article below explores the relationships among synesthesias, psychedelic experience, and language, highlighting Terence McKenna’s synesthetic language experiences on DMT . The complexities of creating and performing with a system that provides the means to weave together, in multiple mappings, two or more complex visual, aural, and linguistic systems, are briefly described. Altered states of consciousness are portals to multiple worlds. Many of these worlds are populated by sentient entities: gods; demons; plant teachers and animal spirits;
The DMT Experience by Terence Mckenna
What can be said of DMT as an experience and in relation to our own spiritual emptiness? Does it offer us answers? Do the short-acting tryptamines offer an analogy to the ecstasy of the partnership society before Eden became a memory? And if they do, then what can we say about it?
What has impressed me repeatedly during my many glimpses into the world of the hallucinogenic indoles, and what seems generally to have escaped comment, is the transformation of narrative and language. The experience that engulfs one’s entire being as one slips beneath the surface of the DMT ecstasy feels like the penetration of a membrane. The mind and the self literally unfold before one’s eyes. There is a sense that one is made new, yet unchanged, as if one were made of gold and had just been recast in the furnace of one’s birth. Breathing is normal, heartbeat steady, the mind clear and observing. But what of the world? What of incoming sensory data?
Under the influence of DMT, the world becomes an Arabian labyrinth, a palace, a more than possible Martian jewel, vast with motifs that flood the gaping mind with complex and wordless awe. Color and the sense of a reality-unlocking secret nearby pervade the experience. There is a sense of other times, and of one’s own infancy, and of wonder, wonder and more wonder. It is an audience with the alien nuncio. In the midst of this experience, apparently at the end of human history, guarding gates that seem surely to open on the howling maelstrom of the unspeakable emptiness between the stars, is the Aeon. The Aeon, as Heraclitus presciently observed, is a child at play with colored balls.
Many diminutive beings are present there–the tykes, the self-transforming machine elves of hyperspace. Are they the children destined to be father to the man? One has the impression of entering into an ecology of souls that lies beyond the portals of what we naively call death. I do not know. Are they the synesthetic embodiment of ourselves as the Other, or of the Other as ourselves? Are they the elves lost to us since the fading of the magic light of childhood? Here is a tremendum barely to be told, an epiphany beyond our wildest dreams. Here is the realm of that which is stranger than we can suppose. here is the mystery, alive, unscathed, still as new for us as when our ancestors lived it fifteen thousand summers ago. The tryptamine entities offer the gift of new language, they sing in pearly voices that rain down as colored petals and flow through the air like hot metal to become toys and such gifts as gods would give their children.
The sense of emotional connection is terrifying and intense. The Mysteries revealed are real and if ever fully told will leave no stone upon another in the small world we have gone so ill in.
This is not the mercurial world of the UFO, to be invoked from lonely hilltops; this is not the siren song of lost Atlantis wailing through the trailer courts of crack-crazed America. DMT is not one of our irrational illusions. What we experience in the presence of DMT is real news. It is a nearby dimension– frightening, transformative, and beyond our powers to imagine, and yet to be explored in the usual way. We must send fearless experts, whatever that may come to mean, to explore and to report on what they find.
String - quite some time ago I promised to write a blog about a series of unfortunate events ( that for me ) felt very like a haunting / curse ( although I am sure there are many that would just deem the experiences a spate of bad luck.) What powerful forces lurk just beneath the surface of our so called rational - reasoning minds ? Being atemporal, archetypes exist outside of time. They are the very foundation and capstone of human experience - and it is through their lessons we learn we cannot live for ourselves alone. In the words of Herman Melville - Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. We come to understand that the archetypes are a connecting link between psyche and earth, a union or bridge between mind and matter.
My family moved into a new house - it was Christmas Eve and my parents decided to combine Christmas celebrations with a house warming party. My mother woke Christmas morning feeling anxious and upset - she dreamt my father - sister and brother all died in a car accident - she also mentioned seeing an aborigine in her dream holding a boomerang and a spear but for the life of her could not relate that particular segment of her dream to any aspect of her waking life - yet exactly one week to the day after having the nightmare - a tragedy did in fact befall our family - striking at the very core of all we held dear.
As extended family gathered to usher in the New Year on the Western seaboard of Australia , my family gathered with friends in the East. Not long after midnight my uncle advised family and friends he would be taking a different route home that night in a bid to avoid the many heavily intoxicated drivers he anticipated would be congregating in the city to celebrate New Years Eve. So instead of taking the main artillery road through town he chose a quiet country route instead - unfortunately for my Auntie and cousins that heavily intoxicated driver my uncle seemed intent on avoiding had the same idea and inevitably they all met their fate regardless. His decision to take that particular road on that particular night still perplexes family to this day.
My Uncle - Auntie and cousin were all killed in that car accident leaving behind two girls - one thirteen - the other ten. My Grandmother and Grandfather decided to move into my Uncles house to look after the girls until more permanent care arrangements could be put in place. My father organised time off work and flew to Perth so he could finalise funeral arrangements but due to work commitments had to return home a short time later. Tragically not long after my father returned home my Grandfather suffered a massive stroke whilst climbing a ladder - fell and subsequently died . In March I contracted a mystery illness that only added to my families anxiety - I was constantly vomiting and lost a huge amount of weight - I was tired - listless - dizzy and often found myself short of breath - weeks later when I was still showing no signs of improvement the doctors at the clinic recommended additional testing - when the test results came back the doctor advised mum my blood count was out but because my symptoms were " non specific " were unable to give her a diagnosis at that time ( mum feared the worst and thought I had leukemia )
Dad organised time off work so our whole family could travel back to Perth together. Just prior to heading off my mother rang my Grandmother in the UK to advise her about Dad's plans and let her know we would more than likely remain in Perth until the court orders pertaining to the custody of my cousins were finalised. My Grandmother had huge forebodings about the trip and tried to talk mum out of going but we went regardless :) We were on the Sturt Highway somewhere between Hay and Mildura when a strong wind picked up - traffic slowed on both sides of the road as huge tumbleweeds driven by the wind were tossed aimlessly in all directions - as the storm intensified so too did the dust - to give you an idea of the size and scale of some of our dust storms I have added this video.
There's alot of shit in that there video lol
Finally we reached the Nullarbor Plain which is an area of flat, almost treeless, semi-arid country immediately north of the Great Australian Bight. The word Nullarbor is derived from the Latin nullus, "no", and arbor, "tree", and is pronounced NUL-ər-bor. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about 200,000 km² (77,200 square miles). At its widest point, it stretches about 1,200 km from east to west between South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA).
Now to put this 3905 km expedition to Perth into perspective my parents still refer to it today as the " Trip through hell and back " very similar to a comment made by one of our famous explorers - Edward John Eyre - who described the Plain as "a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams", he became the first European to successfully make the crossing in 1841. ( But the truth is you can find beauty everywhere - if you just take the time to look :)
At least we found the climate on this trek across the Nullarbor tolerable - on previous occasions the scorching heat was absolutely unbearable. We did not have the luxury of air conditioning so hot wind was our only relief - that's why we always looked totally dishevelled lol whenever we stopped at a service station and got out to stretch our legs ( but then what sane person would attempt to cross the Nullarbor in December lol ). The prevailing climate in this region is typical of a desert, characterised by arid to semi-arid conditions, with maximum daytime temperatures of up to 48.5 °C (119.3 °F). Approximately 200 kms of the Nullarbor road ( The Eyre Highway ) had still not been sealed - which under normal circumstances would of slowed the average person down but not my dad ?? he continued on at the same speed irrespective of the small moon size craters ( potholes ) that lay dangerously in wait for a headstrong reckless driver ??
In fact I am sure this is exactly what a side-view snapshot of our car would of looked like at various times during our nerve-racking attempt to cross that unfinished segment of road ;) We had some bumpy landings ;) which brings to mind The Royal Flying Doctor Service which on occassion uses the highway to make a landing - there are relevant signs and markings on the bitumen along the 'runways'. Landings are always heralded by personnel located on the road itself - police, roadhouse staff or others seconded for the purpose.
At one point on the journey between 50 - 100 aborigines were standing in small groups along the roadside - as our vehicle approached some of the groups formed a semicircle that spanned the width of the road dad really had no choice but to stop ;) As various groups of adults and children approached the vehicle I noticed some of the men carrying spears and boomerangs - it was business as usual for these desert dwellers as they asked dad in a warm - friendly manner if he was interested in buying some of their merchandise - it took us all by surprise when dad pulled out a wad of cash and bought a couple of boomerangs and other assorted artifacts - but I think he really appreciated the amount of time they spent explaining what the various symbols on the artifacts represented .
I just want to point out the connection here with the aborigines and my mothers dream.
I later found out the Indigenous group that we met up with were more than likely the Anangu people of the Western desert group (Pitjantjatjara / Yankunytjatjara) who were the traditional owners of the coastal lands and desert regions surrounding the Nullarbor. Wirangu occupied the land east of the Head of Bight and the Mirning clans occupied the coast west to Eucla. Kokata, Antakarinja and Ngalea occupied lands to the north and north-east. Today, Anangu are widely dispersed and many live in local population centres. Traditional groups were persuasively removed from their lands and settled on missions after the Government gained control of the lands and pastoralists took up leases from the late 1800’s. Further dislocation occurred during the 1950’s when groups occupying the Maralinga Tjarutja lands were evicted as authorities acquired the land for conducting the now infamous Maralinga atomic bomb tests but many were never even notified about the testing - officials at the time maintained it was too difficult to locate all of them because they were semi nomadic.
Most of the inhabited areas of the Nullarbor Plain can be found in a series of small settlements located along the Eyre Highway that provide services to travellers, mostly spaced between one and two hundred kilometres apart. Dad refused to pay the exorbitant prices the motel owners were asking for a room - so he would pull over on the side of the road for a few hours - get some shuteye and then head off again. The drive from Ceduna to Perth was pretty unadventurous - the only real concern on that road was the wildlife which could on occasion be particularly troublesome at night.
There are a number of large areas of Australia that have been given back to the Aboriginal people – mostly unproductive desert areas - a token effort on the part of the Australian government. A number of important sites, like Uluru and Kakadu, are now Aboriginal lands, but are leased back to the government for use as National Parks; however, most areas aren't leased, and you can't go into them without a permit. One such place, Yalata, is crossed by the Eyre Highway (the road across the Nullarbor) and as long as you stick to the highway, you don't need a permit. The communities on reclaimed Aboriginal land, like Yalata, ban alcohol from the area, as the whole point of the community is to live as they used to, in harmony with the land.
As soon as we arrived in Perth dad booked the car in for a service and some repair work - the car had quite a major oil leak. Mum made an appointment for me with my grandmothers doctor - who not only did a blood test but also insisted on taking a urine sample - when the test came back - it clearly showed I was suffering from viral Nephritis ( we finally had a diagnosis ) . We only stayed in Perth for a month - my father had a huge argument with my grandmother and we left the next day. The mechanics assured dad the oil leak had been rectified ?? We had a relatively uneventful trip till we passed Kalgoorlie then the oil trouble started again ( in earnest ) - The only settlements between Norseman and Ceduna, some 1200km to the east, are roadhouses and Aboriginal settlements, dad was fixated on making it to Ceduna - totally preoccupied with his own troubles he drove straight passed a red car which had its bonnet up - a sure sign the driver was having trouble with his vehicle and because the Nullarbor is SO ISOLATED there are rules UNWRITTEN LAWS :- 0 and as fate would have it we did find out later the driver of that vehicle cursed dad for not stopping - called him " A bloody bastard " ! lol
Rule NO 1 : ALWAYS stop if a fellow traveller looks like they are having car trouble.
Rule NO 2 : The Waving Rule, the idea being , because the desert is so empty, you wave at oncoming traffic in a show of solidarity and unity.
Rule NO 3 : If your car breaks down you stack rocks to create a rock mound - this lets other travellers know how long you were waiting before help arrived ;)
Stone mounds were dotted right along the Eyre Highway some so big they gave the impression people waited days before they were finally rescued ? Another common sight that would constantly crop up on the side of the highway were odd pieces of furniture and abandoned vehicles. Lasting eyesores in the non corroding air.
We only travelled for another hour - then the engine seized up - so that was that - I remember feeling really scared - stuck in the middle of no-where - not a car or truck in sight. In an effort to distract me and my sister - dad suggested we start building our own mound. The rocks were not exactly plentiful lol so I was quite relieved two hours later when a truck appeared on the horizon and as fate would have it carrying the red car on top of his load . The trucker was laughing when he pulled over to the side of the road - sitting next to him was the driver of the red car - who jokingly gave dad a piece of his mind as they both got down from the truck - but on hearing dad's tales of woe ended up feeling quite sorry for him - the trucker kindly offered him a tow all the way to Ceduna. This was a truly amazing gesture :)
Dad received bad news when we arrived in Ceduna - it was going to take up to 6 weeks to have a new engine delivered from Perth. The owner of the service station said - one of his mechanics - a Kiwi ( New Zealander for those not in the know ) was in Australia on a surfing holiday ? Surfing in Ceduna dad queried whilst looking at the flat lifeless expanse around him lol but apparently there are places between Ceduna and Fowlers bay that are legend amongst board riders. Cactus Beach, a rough twenty kilometres south of Penong, is probably the best known of all of them and apparently it is quite common to see the sun-bleached wave hermits camped amongst the dunes behind the breakers. Anyway apparently this Kiwi otherwise known as Bjorn was planning a trip back to the Eastern Seaboard of Australia and said dad was more than welcome to travel with him. I could not believe it when I saw this guy he truly was a Beach God lol blonde hair - toned and tanned - add to that a kind - easy going personality ;) even though I was young and not in the slightest bit interested in guys - I found myself totally mesmermised by his qualities ;)
Apparently he had purchased an old run down car from another victim on the Eyre Highway - car woes were obviously a common story in the outback and being a mechanic had it purring like a kitten in no time ;) Dad ended up selling his beautiful European car ( his pride and joy ) to the owner of the service station for a pittance. Bjorn secured his surfboard to the roof of the car with a rope - I can't remember why but for some reason that prevented us from using the back doors - so the only way to exit was by climbing over the front seat lol We were travelling on that dreaded unsealed section of the Eyre Highway when we hit a large pothole - which ripped some of the exhaust off - the noise was deafening and as a result started drawing alot of unwanted attention :) It was late in the evening when police pulled us over in Port Augusta - they asked alot of questions about " THE CAR " and told dad they did not want him driving again until the exhaust was fixed. Dad purchased a map from a service station on the outskirts of the city and ended up taking a back road through wooded hill country in order that he could exit the town without drawing too much attention to himself. Some states have fruit and vegetable quarantine checks as you cross interstate borders - to make sure people are not carrying any fresh fruit, vegetables or wool - it was at one of these quarantine stations that dad and Bjorn were questioned about " THE CAR " yet again. " When and where did Bjorn purchase the car ?" - " What was the name of the previous owner of the car ?" - " How did we come to be travelling with Bjorn ?" " Where were we all headed ?" Now I know what you are thinking - because we were thinking the same thing - this car seemed to be taking on a life of it's own. lol
The exhaust fumes were making us all very sick - particularly me - by the time we reached the outskirts of my home town I had to ask dad to stop several times. We were only 20 minutes away from our house when a blue light flashed and a siren sounded - as a police car pulled in behind us. Once again the focus of questioning seemed to be on " The Car " although they did not detain us for long - because me and my sister jumped the front seat and were out on the grassed area within minutes dry retching - the police officers turned to dad and told him " Look don't worry just get those kids home ". Bjorn stayed with us for a few weeks then headed up to Sydney to catch a flight to New Zealand. Whilst dad was cleaning the car with the sole purpose of selling it he found two bullets and a bullet hole in the vehicle ? We never did find out if/what mystery lay behind this discovery - if any at all - was this discovery the reason we were constantly being harrassed by police or was it just the fact we looked like a group of hoons in a beat up old car lol ?
Now I want to finish with a weird synchronicity that occurred many years later that tied in with this event. Some of my work colleagues were talking about a group psychic party they had organised with a very well respected local psychic / medium. They were all amazed at her insight and accuracy - it sounded so exciting I decided to organise a party myself - so I invited my mother and some close personal friends over. Whilst doing mums reading the psychic went into quite a deep trance - she told mum she sensed the presence of a man who was desperately trying to convey a message to her - she then started sniffing and said she could smell chlorine / steam associated with this person but mum just could not connect the dots - in an attempt to help mum try and make a better connection with this deceased person - she said he was showing her a picture of an older woman that had a history of ongoing eye problems and a small black and white dog . Still nothing.
The next day mum was in the process of moving a bookcase when a book fell to the floor - as she bent down to pick it up an old black and white photo fell out. She was quite astounded because she had never seen this picture before it was obviously one of dads - It was a photo of my Grandfather standing in front of a great big industrial sized boiler ( steam / chlorine )and that's when the penny dropped - all of a sudden the psychic's impressions finally made sense. The woman that had problems with her vision was my grandmother - she suffered terribly with cataracts and had ironically been in hospital having one removed just prior to my Uncle's car accident. Soon after my grandfather died my cousins dog died as well - all these events happened within a few short months of each other. Unfortunately because my mother kept telling the psychic she could not visualise who this deceased person was the psychic dismissed those impressions and started picking up on what I later perceived were probably less important ones.
The impetus from minus to plus never ends. The urge from below to above never ceases: whatever premises all our philosophers and psychologists dream of--self-preservation, pleasure principle, equalization--all these are but vague representations, attempts to express the great upward drive.
Göethe, letter to Lavater
What drives us ? What motivates us as individuals to take certain life paths ?
Abraham Henschel wrote that it is " as if a divine cunning operated using our instincts as pretexts toward universally valid goals to harness man's lower forces in the service of higher ends " ??
Destiny refers to a predetermined course of events based on a belief that there is a fixed natural order to the cosmos and sometimes we do see actual evidence of this in the form of prophetic dreams or divination. There is no doubt certain life paths / choices repel or attract us - in some cases to the point of obsession - " Do our thoughts contain magnetic properties ? " More importantly what / who directs the undercurrents that most of mankind seem oblivious too ? Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints or a recipe, or a code, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. Research over the past few decades has forced most psychologists and scientists to acknowledge what many have long denied. Genes influence not just physical characteristics but our personalities, temperaments and behaviour patterns. But our minds rebel at the news that genes affect our thoughts to such a level they influence what we name our pets - what brand of cigarettes and beer we will prefer - what occupations we will choose.
Findings about the gene-behaviour dynamic, on the other hand, are overturning existing truths and demolishing assumptions upon which 100 years of psychological theory has been based. Totally different answers are emerging to questions many experts were confident had long been answered. It is this apostate cast to the behavioral findings that has caused turmoil in the academic community and provoked angry debate. The largest body of hard data to establish the genetic roots of behaviour has come from comparisons of fraternal with identical twins and comparison of adopted with biological siblings. For thirty years these investigations have been progressing quietly in scores of kinship studies in the United States and abroad and building a mountain of evidence of the gene-behaviour relationship.
THEY were the ultimate guinea pigs -- Twins - Triplets cruelly separated and secretly studied as part of a research project into whether human behaviour is the result of nature or nurture and part of a different study The Jim Twins.
Death speaks: There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, “Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” I said, “it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
W. Somerset Maugham from an Arab tale
I included the above extract because it parallels a tragic event that occurred during my childhood - an event that had a devastating impact on my family not only emotionally but financially as well. As extended family gathered to usher in the New Year on the Western seaboard of Australia , my family gathered with friends in the East. Not long after midnight my uncle advised family and friends he would be taking a different route home that night in a bid to avoid the many heavily intoxicated drivers he anticipated would be congregating in the city to celebrate New Years Eve. So instead of taking the main artillery road through town he chose a quiet country route instead - unfortunately for my Auntie and cousins that heavily intoxicated driver my uncle seemed intent on avoiding had the same idea and inevitably they all met their fate regardless. His decision to take that particular road on that particular night still perplexes family to this day.
For Nietzsche destiny keeps the form of Amor fati (Love of Fate) through the important element of Nietzsche's philosophy named "will to power" (der Wille zur Macht), basis of human behavior, influenced by the Will to Live of Schopenhauer .
Amor fati is a Latin phrase that loosely translates to "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good. That is, one feels that everything that happens is destiny's way of reaching its ultimate purpose, and so should be considered good. Moreover, it is characterized by an acceptance of the events that occur in one's life. It is almost identical to the Jewish concept of Gam Zu Letovah (this too is for the best).
The phrase is used repeatedly in Nietzsche's writings and is representative of the general outlook on life he articulates in section 276 of The Gay Science, which reads,
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
Quote from "Why I Am So Clever" in Ecce Homo, section 10[1]:
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.
A few weeks ago whilst visiting my sister I caught the tail end of a documentary on 9/11 - I got quite emotional as I listened to some of the inspirational stories of heroism, survival and the indomitable spirit of some very rare and beautiful human beings that survived the attack and felt some of the stories were very good examples of the ideas I am trying to convey in this blog .
On the 81st floor of Building 2 of the South Tower Brian Clarke attempts to lead his work colleagues out of harms way but is temporarily distracted when he hears someone calling for help. He locates the direction the voice is coming from and attempts to help the person trapped behind a huge wall of debris. It is at this point some of his work colleagues begin to argue amongst themselves - some believed it would make more sense to head back up the stairs towards the roof - when he does finally turn around again they are all gone. Brian succeeds in rescuing the other South Tower worker and both make it out before the towers collapse - but not one of Brian's co-workers made it out alive.
On September 11, 2001, Jay Jonas was the Captain of Ladder Co. 6 and was one of the first responding units to the World Trade Center. Jonas and his unit were in the process of evacuating the North Tower when they ran into a woman called Josephine Harris. They found her standing in a doorway crying because she was finding it difficult to walk and even though they knew the risks associated with helping her - they did so regardless. Jay said after the event alot of people asked why he stopped to help the woman - pointing out he could of just kept going - that no one would of been any the wiser - his reply was - " But I would of known ".
The following is an extract from his own account of the event :
I’m seeing and hearing other acts of courage and heroism on the way down. I’m hearing Captain Paddy Brown from Ladder 3 saying that he has a lot of burned people on the 40th floor and he doesn’t want to leave them. I run into members of Ladder Company 5 from Greenwich Village. There’s a Lieutenant Mike Warchola, who I used to carpool with when I was a young fireman. He and his company are working on a man on one of the stairway landings who’s having chest pains, a civilian.
I said, “Mike, c’mon, let’s go. It’s time to go.”
And he sees we have this woman that we’re bringing down.
He says, “I know, Jay. It’s time to go. We’re working on this guy. You have your civilian, I have mine. We’ll be right behind you.”
I said, “All right. Don’t wait too long.”
We get to the fourth floor and Josephine Harris’ legs give way. She can’t stand anymore. Now I’m starting to get nervous again. We’ve got to move a lot faster. The spooky music in this whole scenario is that the clock is ticking. I can almost hear the clock ticking in the back of my head that we gotta get out of here. This is bad. This is really bad.
I break into the fourth floor to look for a sturdy chair that we can throw her on and we could pick her up and run with her. That would be the fastest, to negotiate the stairway and make our move that way. So I break into the fourth floor. It’s not an office floor. It’s a mechanical equipment room floor. It’s where they have the airhandling equipment for that zone.
I’m looking and I’m not finding anything. I find one metal desk with a stenographer’s chair, a swivel chair, and that wouldn’t do. I find one overstuffed couch. Naturally, that wouldn’t do. It’s a little scary to think about it now, but I was way on the other side of the building, just seconds before this building collapsed. And I don’t know what told me to do it but I’m thinking, this isn’t working out. I’ve gotta get back to the stairway and we’re just going to have to drag her.
I start running back to the stairway and I’m about four feet away, four or five feet away from the stairway door and that’s when the collapse starts. I feel almost like a compression effect with the wind. I try to open the door to the stairway and I couldn’t open it. A second pull opened the door. I don’t know whether it was assisted by the compression effect of the building coming down with the wind or with my first try, maybe the building was warping and twisting, and I couldn’t open it for that reason. But the second pull I was able to open the door and I dove for the stairway landing on the fourth floor.
Now, people have tried to get me to describe what it was like while the collapse was happening. It was a montage of different sounds and experiences. The sounds were a combination of sounds. This building collapsed in what’s called a pancake fashion. In other words, one floor would hit another floor and would collapse that floor and then collapse the next floor. And every time a floor would hit another floor, it created a loud boom and tremendous vibration.
The entire collapse of this 110-story building took 13 seconds. So it sounded like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, like that. And every time that happened, it shook the entire building. It shook the whole floor. So every time a floor would hit another floor, we’d be literally bouncing off the floor. We were being thrown around the stairway.
Jay utilized all his instincts and ironically admitted the only reason his unit survived was because they did in fact stop to help Josephine.
In 2001 television producer Dennis Wooldridge was writing a novel about a massive terrorist attack on the United States. To research it he travelled to New York and checked into a hotel it was the 22 story luxury Marriott at the foot of the Twin Towers. He stated some of the stories that came out of the Marriott were some of the most intriguing of the entire event. There was one irony after another - one odd coincidence if you believe in coincidence after another - people whose lives were linked in very strange ways by this event. All their lives would change forever and all because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time but the story that stood out most for me was that of Irish born architect Ron Clifford.
Ron had emigrated to the States with his family in the eighties. He had a major interview at the Marriott Hotel. Early in the morning - on 9/11 - he spoke to his sister Ruth who gave him advice on what to wear for the interview. The conversation with Ruth was the last he would ever have with his sister because in a bizarre twist of fate she was also caught up in the events of 9/11. His sister and her daughter were in the second plane that hit the South Tower - they were on their way to Disneyland for a holiday. He risked his life to save burns victim Jenny Anne and although he admits there were moments he wanted to flee the scene he was determined he would not leave until he got Jenny Anne to safety - when he finally realised no help was coming he covered her with a tablecloth and together they ran from the heart wrenching scene of devastation until they reached emergency services - he then waited with her until an ambulance arrived - at peace in his own mind Ron then made his way home - it was his daughters birthday ( she was born 9/11/90 and had just turned 11 ) ?
I believe the answer is YES - because regardless of the fated threads ( lots ) cast on us by the Moirae - the collective archetypes are also incorporated within the yarn and mankind has become aware of these absolute truths in every culture throughout history in symbols depicted in myths - drawings - sculpture - music - theatre or dance. They are part of man’s consciousness and their truths surface despite of us, as they are an intrinsic part of our nature. For the most part mankind are sleepwalkers - totally oblivious to the inner workings of their lower / higher self. It is only by becoming " AWARE " of those deeper undercurrents we can ever hope to safely and confidently navigate the cyclic ebb and flow of life. God help me then ;)
Some say the history of pathological skepticism towards magical thinking began with the "Age of Enlightenment" an academic and scientific back lash against religious power but I believe the true conflict began with the onset of Christianity and their relentless war against Pagan and Indigenous people and their religious beliefs - The Catechism of the Catholic Church states,
"All forms of divination are to be rejected: practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone" (CCC 2116).
In effect the Catechism is saying we must SUPPRESS OUR NATURAL GOD GIVEN INSTINCTS ? Like that makes alot of sense ? Human beings have five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. These five senses combined will react to certain stimuli which in turn will trigger a response ( Instinct) . What are instincts ? Instincts are unlearned, inherited fixed action patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. Gut instincts = intuition and survival which are all terms indicating our human ability to perceive information and energy beyond three dimensions. This is an elaborate, sensitive and intricate system.
Our instincts / intuition are RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS but then so too is philosophy and religion ? So for me the directive within the ( Catechism ) just does not add up because INTUITION / INSTINCTS are the very essence and foundation of religious / spiritual thought ? As I said in my previous post mankind has created a huge precipice that divides one dimension of thought from another - subconscious versus conscious mind - right brain versus left and the only way to bridge that divide is through the elimination of ignorant biased and outdated belief systems that exist within the substructure of our academic and spiritual institutions. Why does mankind fear and detest his own NATURE so much ? Is this not reflected by our TOTAL disregard for the ENVIRONMENT ?
Whilst discussing Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert - Laurens van der Post said
" This sense of being known has completely abandoned us in the modern world, because we have destroyed the " wilderness person " in ourselves and banished the wilderness that sustained them from our lives."
Less and less [ does contemporary man] experience the process within. Less and less is he capable of committing himself body and soul to the creative experiment that is continually seeking to fire him and charge his little life with great objective meaning. Cut off by accumulated knowledge from the heart of his own living experience, he moves among a comfortable rubble of material possessions, alone and unbelonging, sick, poor, starved of meaning.
OTHER CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE CATECHISM
There is another real contradiction I can see in the Catechism - according to biblical text - in Exodus - only magic could overcome magic ? The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "When Pharaoh says to you, 'Perform a miracle,' then , 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,' and it will become a snake."
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
So those who control the rod control the power ? Hmmm
Then we had the industrial revolution, and suddenly the new materialism had political consequences.
According to the new view, the biggest enemy of science was organized religion, so it became necessary to discredit religious superstition at every given opportunity - all in the name of truth, progress, and freedom. As John Donne said in a famous poem, all "coherence" was gone with the rise of the new cosmology. A new coherence was rising, and it meant getting rid of the mysterious, the mystical, the supernatural; the specter that haunted Epicurus from classical times still had to be exorcised. Above all, miracles were not "coherent" with materialism. A new form of intolerance sprouted a new set of inquisitorial tentacles: "spiritual thinking" became a code word for anathema, and were pegged as the enemies of scientific and political progress. No doubt there are some factual reasons lurking behind this resistance, but there is a difference between rational caution and hysterical rejection. Occultists, spiritualists, psychical researchers are traditionally attacked, ostracized, and sometimes demonized by the scientific elite and by organized religion.
Michael Grosso
Less and less is he capable of committing himself body and soul to the creative experiment that is continually seeking to fire him and charge his little life with great objective meaning.
In this video Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types.
In his talk he stated "Al gore spoke the other night about ecology, and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth; for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children."
INTELLIGENCE IS MULTI-FACETED and it is only through integration of the whole mankind can ever hope to reach his full potential.
Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is based on studies not only on normal children and adults but also by studies of gifted individuals (including so-called "savants"), of persons who have suffered brain damage, of experts and virtuosos, and of individuals from diverse cultures. This led Gardner to break intelligence down into at least eight different components: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, naturalist, intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences. He argues that psychometric tests address only linguistic and logical plus some aspects of spatial intelligence; other forms have been entirely ignored. Moreover, the paper-and-pencil format of most tests rules out many kinds of intelligent performance that matter in everyday life, such as social intelligence
I care deeply about the environment and have grave concerns about the current trajectory mankind is on. I detest consumerism and the theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial - because all it will ever do is lead to excessive waste ( can we afford that ?? on a planet with such limited resources.) I am against all forms of human exploitation / victimisation and believe it is only by understanding human nature we can ever hope to heal ourselves ( humanity ) or this beautiful planet ( we call home ).
