A Series of Unfortunate Events

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.

Amor Fati

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 ) ?

So the question is - Do we have freewill ?

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 ;)

Intellect versus Instincts / Creativity

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

A Glimpse of God

To the artist is sometimes granted a sudden, transient insight which serves in this matter for experience. A flash, and where previously the brain held a dead fact, the soul grasps a living truth! At moments we are all artists.
—Arnold Bennett

Oh my God this post has taken forever to complete lol I started it about three weeks ago but got side-tracked and have not looked at it since - I hate leaving things unfinished so I am determined to post this today.

My next few posts are the direct result of some really fascinating discussions taking place on Sara's blog : Schizotypal and Obsessive Compulsive disorders to the evolution of religious practice and String's blog : Alchemy - Super Receivers :)

Over the past decade the battle lines have been sharply drawn as atheists confront believers - evolutionists challenge creationists and our academic institutions continue to place intellect above creativity ( the arts ). As it stands there is 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.

"The cosmic man must be restored, the whole man who is made in the image and likeness of the arch-force, which you may call God. This man thinks with his heart and not with party dogma. As I've explained before, there is an order in the universe – a cosmic order – and humans have the possibility of understanding these laws."

"The truly religious man has no fear of life and no fear of death—and certainly no blind faith: his faith must be in his conscience. Then he will have the intuition to observe and judge what happens around him. Then, he can acknowledge that everything unfolds true to strict natural law, sometimes with tremendous speed."

Einstein

From time to time everyone will use the expression 'it suddenly hit me like a tone of bricks 'or 'it just dawned on me' - we have all brushed up against that sudden flash of insight or innate sense of " Knowing " and " Awareness " which in many respects is Alchemy in it's purest and most potent form.

Archimedes discovered how to test for the purity of a golden crown while he was in his bath. Kekulé discovered the ring structure of benzene through a dream in which he saw an ouroboros, or a snake biting its tail, and Coleridge woke up from a nap with the entire poem of Kubla Khan mapped out before him in his head, in its entirety. When anyone asked the mathematician Ramanujan where he got his near-miraculous mathematical proofs from, he said he was given the answers by the gods.

I didn't have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!
—Henry Miller

All this fires my soul, and provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stand almost complete and finished in my mind, so I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. . . For this reason, the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is, as I said, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination.
—Mozart

There are literally thousands of accounts similar to this - descriptions pertaining to the creative process throughout the course of human history, to the point there has almost been mythology built up around it. Inspiration is often attributed to divine sources in these accounts, for example, some creative processes are even described in ways that make them seem magical. Writers - artists - inventors and scientists have all described their moments of " Insight " as an uplifting or god-like feeling of inspiration. In the wise old words of Carl Jung " I cannot say I believe. I know. I have had the experience of being gripped by something stronger than myself, something people call God. "

Gut feelings don't make obvious sense. Take Barbara McClintock for example, who received a Nobel Prize in genetics. One day in 1930 she stood with a group of scientists in the cornfields around Cornell University, pondering the results of a genetics experiment. The researchers had expected that half of the corn would produce sterile pollen, but less than a third of it actually had. The difference was significant and McClintock was so disturbed that she left the cornfield and climbed the hill to her laboratory, where she could sit down alone and think.

Half an hour later, she jumped up and ran down to the field. At the top of the field (everyone else was down at the bottom ) I shouted " Eureka, I have it, I have the answer! I know what this 30 percent sterility is." Her colleagues naturally said " Prove it " Then she found she had no idea how to explain her insight. Many decades later, McClintock said, " When you suddenly see the problem, something happens and you have the answer - before you are able to put it into words. It is all done subconsciously. This has happened many times to me, and I know when to take it seriously. I'm so absolutely sure, I don't talk about it, I don't have to tell anybody about it, I'm just sure this is it. "

This feeling of knowing without being able to say how one knows is common. The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal is famous for his aphorism.

" The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know."

The great nineteenth-century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss admitted that intuition often led him to ideas he could not immediately prove. " I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."

Claude Bernard, the founder of modern physiology, wrote that everything purposeful in scientific thinking began with feeling. " Feeling alone ," he wrote, " guides the mind."

Quote - Singer/songwriter Thom Yorke on where he gets his musical ideas from, on the German TV show VIVA on July 10th, 2003

Yeah, I - you know, I get beamed at. I mean my bits are beamed, to me. They aren’t anything to do with me. I’m, you know - tuned into a certain frequency some days and… and receive the information I need. It’s got nothing to do with me, I tell you

.

Skeptics would probably view the comment above as a somewhat paranoid or delusional interpretation of ones creative process but I too have viewed / sensed various thought processes in a spatial context . For example when I was six I had an epiphany whilst cheering on teammates at a school swimming carnival - " TIME " seemed to slow right down - I was absolutely and unequivocally transfixed in the " NOW "



I sensed myself looking down on the world from some distant vantage point in space - and for the briefest moment in time felt such a deep connection " A Oneness " with all life on the planet - Unus mundus. Unus Mundus or " one world " is a concept in which elements are both separate and at the same time united. In this world there is no disharmony. The inner world of fantasy, imagination and dreams crosses over into outer events. Fragments can be seen as both part of a whole (microcosms) and as the whole itself (macrocosms). I was so overwhelmed by the experience I ended up crying and laughing all at the same time. One of the nuns came over and asked if I was okay but how do you explain something like that ? lol Well you just can't can you ? I have also experienced the sensation of " thought " originating from outside my mind - moving towards me from a distant point in space - this experience did honestly feel like a message from God but it was something I " sensed " rather than " heard " or " saw ". I was travelling on the southbound lane of the Monaro highway and on approaching the crest of a high mountain found my attention stray for a brief moment - as my thoughts wandered - I looked down on the breathtaking views of the valley below - my gaze began to drift a little further afield toward the beautiful Brindabella mountains that were kind of glowing with a blue hue until finally my eyes came to rest on a very remote distant point in the sky. Once again I felt at " One with the World " I found myself in a total state of bliss - way off in the distance I sensed something moving towards me at breakneck speed and I knew without a doubt that my destiny and the destiny of another would soon become entwined and yes this vision " sense " did materialize in the most amazing and profound way.

In the famous words of Oogway in Kung Fu Panda - " There is no such thing as an accident " :)

Why are " Sensing " and " Seeing " thoughts in a spatial context so difficult for people to comprehend ? At no time did I delude myself into believing these experiences were anymore than a " perspective " " sensation " or " thought " ? For many years people who experienced OBE's and had the courage to talk about them were ridiculed by the general populace but recent medical research by Olaf Blanke in Switzerland found that it is possible to reliably elicit experiences somewhat similar to the OBE by stimulating regions of the brain called the right temporal-parietal junction (TPJ; a region where the temporal lobe and parietal lobe of the brain come together). Blanke and his collaborators in Switzerland have explored the neural basis of OBEs by showing that they are reliably associated with lesions in the right TPJ region and that they can be reliably elicited with electrical stimulation of this region in a patient with epilepsy. These elicited experiences may include perceptions of transformations of the patient's arm and legs (complex somatosensory responses) and whole-body displacements (vestibular responses).

Blanke and colleagues thus propose that the right temporal-parietal junction is important for the sense of spatial location of the self, and that when these normal processes go awry, an OBE arises. In August 2007 Blanke's lab published research in Science demonstrating that conflicting visual-somatosensory input in virtual reality could disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body. During multisensory conflict, participants felt as if a virtual body seen in front of them was their own body and mislocalized themselves toward the virtual body, to a position outside their bodily borders. This indicates that spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness can be studied experimentally and is based on multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.

Inspiration is a fragile thing... just a breeze, touching the green foliage of a city park, just a whisper from the soul of a friend. Just a line of verse clipped from some book. Inspiration... who can say where it is born, and why it leaves us? Who can tell the reasons for its being or not being? Only this... I can think. Inspiration comes from the Heart of Heaven to give the lift of wings, and the breath of divine music to those of us who are earthbound.
—Margaret Sangster

Now I want to finish with a message to all those who have inspired me over the years - to those of you who I know deep down will continue to voice your opinions in an attempt to bring some semblance of order to a very fragile and unenlightened world - Thank you for staying true to yourself even in the face of selfishness and in some instances ridicule and criticism - Thank you for allowing your inner voice a platform to be seen and heard - All thoughts - designs and innovations are IMAGINED during their earliest stage of conception - mankind would be nothing without imagination and our gift to each other is to continue to express it ?

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Carl Sagan


You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"

George Bernard Shaw



and from the video - Elizabeth Gilbert

Allah Allah Allah - Ole Ole Ole

Know Thyself - Nothing is outside that is not in you.

"Dreamtime" is the name given by the Australian Aborigines to describe a period that is often referred to as the 'time before time'. I have dreamed about this primeval dimension of existence - a swirling compressed sea of infinite thought forms - that are in no way restricted or measured by the confines of our space-time perceptions of reality.

It is the period of time when thought forms animating energy emerged out of the primeval, prephysical forms that were the patterns for later developments. Because the Aborigines used no writing, their amazingly accurate insights into the operation of nature were transmitted orally through myths. They envisaged creation as an ongoing process not limited to a one-time event that occurred long ago. They had no words for past or future, but thought only of an ever-present now. What we conceive as evolution, they thought of as fresh unfoldments of faculties emerging out of dormancy within all beings. They viewed all the inhabitants of our planet as linked together in the vast chain of entities that comprise the globe.

Excerpt Out of the Dreamtime
By I. M. Oderberg

All humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which are called archetypes. These universal archetypes express themselves in the similarities between the myths of different cultures around the world. I believe it is through these Archetypes God has structured both the cosmos and the human mind - they are the foundation and building blocks of creation and the constituents of human character.

ANANKE (or Anance) was the Protogenos (primeval goddess) of inevitability, compulsion and NECESSITY. She emerged from the primeval ocean ( Dreamtime ) self-formed at the very beginning of time--an incorporeal, serpentine being whose outstretched arms encompassed the breadth of the universe. From the time she first appeared Ananke was entwined in the serpentine coils of her mate, the time-god Khronos. Together they surrounded the primal egg of solid matter in their constricting coils and split it into its constituent parts (earth, heaven and sea) and so brought about the creation of the ordered universe.

Ananke and Khronos remained entwined as the cosmic-circling forces of fate and time--driving the rotation of the heavens and the neverending passage of time. They were far beyond the reach of the younger gods whose fates they were sometimes said to control.

In Athens, Aphrodite or Urania was also known as "the oldest of the Fates." She was the Goddess of DESIRE who rose naked from Chaos and danced on the surface of the sea. ( All things are born or manifest from the SEED OF DESIRE / NECESSITY - which are both precursors to evolution. )

1 . ( Hunger )--------( Necessity / Needs )--- ( Feeling )
2 . ( Food )----------( Desire ) -----------------( Emotion )
3 . ( Plan )---------- ( Thought ) --------------( Intellect )
4 . ( Action )------- ( Action )------------------( Physical )

Everything in life is driven by these four functions. For example during The Silurian period, some plants and animals left the water and colonized the land for the first time - probably the result of competition in the marine ecosystems, escaping predators and the availability of new land-based environments ( NECESSITY ) living on land would of required new strategies for survival, such as obtaining nutrients and water, avoiding desiccation, and reproduction. In 2006, a team of scientists unveiled the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil fish unearthed in the Canadian Arctic , the new fossil boasts leglike fins. The creature is being hailed as a crucial missing link between fish and land animals—including the prehistoric ancestors of humans. Researchers say the fish shows how fins on freshwater species first began transforming into limbs some 380 million years ago - It likely used its fins to prop its body, much like we do when we do a push-up. The change was a huge evolutionary step that opened the way for vertebrates—animals with backbones—to emerge from the water.

Necessity and Desire are the CATALYSTS for change and metamorphisis - the seeds of creation are always self - perpetuating.



It was pointed out to me recently that all living creatures are a slave to neccessity - I found this thought extremely depressing. Ananke is a powerful deity that rules compulsion, restraint, and presides over all forms of slavery and bonds, starting with the basic necessities of life.

In life there is little difference between prisoner and warden, or between slave and master, since Ananke's bond appears to tie them both. This is why Hephaestus, while chaining Prometheus 1, complained before Cratos (Power):

Hephaestus: Oh handicraft that I hate so much!
Cratos: Why hate it? Since in truth your craft is in no way to blame for these present troubles.
Hephaestus: Nevertheless, I wish it had fallen to another's lot!
Cratos: Every job is troublesome except to be the commander of gods; no one is free except Zeus.
Hephaestus: I know it by this task; I cannot deny it. (Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 45ff.).



So now I find myself pondering life ? Is this what all my dreams and hopes are reduced too ? Is this why some regard the body as 'the prison of the soul', because it is bound to its own functions and needs, which inevitably lead to want and later death ? At this point I feel my soul descending into a great abyss of despair - a world dark and devoid of all hope but not for long :) Thank God for my eternally optimistic spirit and an imagination that allows me to soar high above the lower echelons of thought and negativity :) in the realisation that if we are aligned with spirit we are working towards one common goal - instead of trying to swim against the current we are actually swimming with it - this is our Soul intended purpose - our destiny.

"If a man endeavours to ... persuade himself to accept of his own accord what needs must befall him, he will have a very reasonable and harmonious life." (Arrian's discourses of Epictetus, Fragment 8).

A similar thought occurred to rebellious Prometheus 1 when he was chained in Caucasus:

"I must bear my allotted doom as lightly as I can, knowing that the might of Necessity permits no resistance." (Prometheus 1. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 104).

Real freedom can only be conquered within:

"For what purpose, then, did I receive these gifts?"
"To use them."
"How long?"
"For as long as He who lent them to you wills."
"But what if they are necessary to me?"
"Do not set your heart upon them, and they will not be necessary to you. Do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and they will not be." (Epictetus 4.1.110).

Victor Frankl, in speaking of his experiences in the concentration camps, even said that he learned the great lesson that while the Nazis could control his body they had no control over his mind, and as such his fate, in an important sense, remained within his own hands.(48) The wisdom of Chochmah is not, of course, to be complacent in the face of evil, but rather to recognize how much control our own psyche affords us in relation to the major and minor calamities that befall us, and to exercise control over the interpretations we place upon the events in our lives.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND ALL THAT YOU ARE.
KNOW THAT THERE IS SOMETHING INSIDE YOU
THAT IS FAR GREATER THAN ANY OBSTACLE.

Synchronicity

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.”
Dalai Lama quotes

I was introduced to fractal geometry and the Mandelbrot set recently. Mandelbrot discovered that geometric shapes look the same when you break them down into smaller components. For example take the cauliflower, whose smaller and smaller buds mirror the whole bunch. As these components are magnified and enhanced you begin to notice new smaller branches on the tree .

Fractal geometry and the Mandelbrot set are patterns that can be magnified forever and have infinite precision. Some have even gone as far as to coin the Mandelbrot set the thumbprint of God.





I have only posted two videos here but do yourself a favour and watch the whole set .

The brain likes all kinds of patterns ; audio - visual - syntactic - logical formulas. The human body on the other hand is made up of its own metabolic patterns (respiration, hormonal pulses etc). Humans are created out of ordered patterns of (DNA), which arose out of the perfect conditions within ordered patterns of water and minerals settling on the surface of the earth, moving in ordered revolutions around the sun, spinning in the ordered web of the greater cosmos.

For me the Mandelbrot set was a good visual and scientific explanation as to how/why synchronicity - deja vu - and all other psychic related phenomena can influence and effect our reality.

Quite a beautiful concept when we view the universe more like an amazing and intricate tapestry - everything bound and united within the confines of each others threads - all singular components that make up the whole.


Perhaps we should look at the whole of creation more like a duplicate of the original formulae ( pattern ) - even allowing for the smallest deviations in evolution the formulae remains constant. Perhaps this is exactly how intuition - and prophetic dreams work - through the subconscious or collective unconscious ? by tapping into the historical / archival database and then applying the pattern ( formulae ) we have the ability to predict future outcomes. The Mandelbrot set continues on into infinity - one could compare this ideology to multi-universes - the microcosms and macros - I believe synchronicity is a connection between two polar states - in my case synchronicity always feels like a door opening - a bridge that connects one dimension / realm with another.

According to Jung synchronous events reveal an underlying pattern, a conceptual framework which encompasses, but is larger than, any of the systems which display the synchronicity. Sometimes synchronicity occurs through symbol or word associations but sometimes the experience will actually manifest as an actual phenomena or event in our timeframe / dimension and it is in these moments that I believe the most profound / spiritual and in some cases magical experiences occur.



I also wanted to mention how I found many of the theories pertaining to synchronicity and lets say the Mandelbrot set tie in with some Indigenous groups mythological accounts of the creation story. According to Native American Indian mythology Spider Grandmother was responsible for all the stars in the sky. According to myth 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 Woman served as a messenger for the Creator and was an intercessory between deity and the people. Perhaps we could also group this myth in with that of the Moirae AKA The Fates, in Greek mythology.

The Greek word Moirae literally means "Parts." "Shares" and by extension one's allotted portions in life or destiny. They were known as the weavers and controlled the metaphorical thread of life - At the birth of each man / woman they appear spinning, measuring, and in our final hours cutting the thread of life.





The ancient Greeks believed in Fate. They said there were three sisters of fate, the Moirae, triple Moon-goddesses robed in white, whom Erebus begat on Night. They were not the children of Zeus, but parthenogenous daughters of the Great Goddess of Necessity, against whom not even the gods contend.



In Athens, Aphrodite or Urania was also known as "the oldest of the Fates." She was the Goddess of DESIRE who rose naked from Chaos and danced on the surface of the sea. ( All things are born or manifest from the SEED OF DESIRE - DESIRE is a precursor to evolution )

Jung coined the word Synchronicity to describe what he called "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung variously described synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle", "meaningful coincidence" and "acausal parallelism".

He believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to chance in terms of causality suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.

One of Jung's favourite quotes on synchronicity was from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, in which the White Queen says to Alice: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards"

He wrote, after describing some examples, "When coincidences pile up in this way, one cannot help being impressed by them -- for the greater the number of terms in such a series, or the more unusual its character, the more improbable it becomes.

I just wanted to share one of my own personal synchronistic experiences with you which occurred in 2003 I arranged to meet my family at their house - at which point we all planned to follow each other to the coast. The city I live in is some 300 km's away from the beach but we decided to make our first stop my fathers property which is situated about 15 mins inland. When I arrived at my families house I found to my dismay that they had already gone. Furious I decided to make my way to the beach regardless. I was so determined ( will ) to meet up with them and give them a piece of my mind - my whole focus for three hours was on making that deadline but I also knew that if I did not catch them at the property my chances of finding them would be slim. So the trip took three hours - my family decided to take the scenic route but ended up getting lost - as I neared the property I slowed to allow a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction to pass - as it got closer it too began to slow - In disbelief I found myself staring into the very shocked faces of my family - when we drove into the property my father was not there - so had I not met them at that exact location at that exact point in time I would of missed them entirely. Mathematically the odds of us meeting up at all - were - in our minds -a million to one.

The French writer Émile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that in 1805, he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fortgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him that the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fortgibu. Many years later, in 1832, Émile Deschamps was at a diner and was once again offered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fortgibu was missing to make the setting complete—and in the same instant, the now senile de Fortgibu entered the room.[10]

In his book Synchronicity (1952), Jung tells the following story as an example of a synchronistic event: "A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeud beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since." [11]

A good friend of mine - someone I feel has been a huge guiding light in my life - especially over last few months ( String ) recently suggested I catalogue all my synchronicities and dreams - so I could get a clearer picture of all the events that have transpired in my life - which in turn has prompted memories , that at the time I deemed insignificant but now in retrospect believe were extremely important.

So I started by writing about the first synchronicity that I ever became CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF ( in the essence of impact and effect ) - this event occurred a few years ago ( toward the end of 2005 ) an event that shook the foundations of my life to its very core and it all began with a dream about a Wind God. In the dream a huge storm rolled in and the front door of the house was blown open - an Asian / Oriental woman was frantically screaming at me that a Wind God had just entered the house and that it was important I find and open a door on the exact opposite end of the house in order that the wind God could exit -she said if I did not do this the God would wreak havoc on my life.



A few days later my sister came over and found an old terracotta plaque ( of a Wind God ) she had gifted me a few Christmas's prior and wanted to know why I never bothered hanging it up ? I told her that I had completely forgotten about it but the truth is I always felt the face looked a little menacing and after alot of very careful thought and consideration decided to leave it in the box. Much to my dismay she went outside and hung it on the wall right beside my front door - during the early stages of this synchronicity - I did not make any connections between this event and my dream - that realisation came later in the afternoon when a fierce wind whipped up and blew my front door open -that is when I finally drew the parallels between the dream and the event - I am superstitious by nature lol and ran to the back door and opened it but the back door was to the side of the house - technically I did not have a back door as such, so all my efforts were in vain and a few weeks later my whole life did quite literally turn upside down ( the events that unfolded truly were life altering and I believe a continuing stream of strange synchronicities were definitely the catalyst that prompted my own personal AWAKENING the realisation that there is far more to each and every one of our lives than meets the eye - unseen forces that for the most part the vast majority of us are totally oblivious too ) I would even go as far as to say that for the spiritually minded synchronicites could be viewed as messages that originate from a Divine source via a vast network ( web ) which would correlate with the creation story of Spider Woman who served as a messenger for the Creator and was an intercessory between deity and the people.

It was the Oriental / Asian factor that I carelessly dismissed in the first instance - not only the Asian womans appearance but it also dawned on me that there was a real emphasis in the dream on the front door having a proportionate relationship with the back door ( which made me think of Feng Shui ). Feng Shui takes doors very seriously in many different areas as in the Black Sect Tradition, they are considered “voices.” Feng shui is a discrete Chinese belief system involving a mix of geographical, religious, philosophical, mathematical, aesthetic, and astrological ideas. It literally means "wind (feng) and water (shui)". The source of the term is purported to come from the Burial Book written by Guo Pu in the Jin Dynasty. Qi rides the wind and stops when it meets the boundary of water. The ancients manipulate Qi so that it did not dissipate, and directed it so that it was retained. In feng shui, the main door is the most important aspect because it allows the energy, or "chi", to enter the home. It is the "mouth" of the house, taking in positivity and nourishment. It is unlucky if you can see the BACK DOOR from the entryway of the front door. Chi flows like water, so all positive energy would flow right out the back the moment it flows in the front - but remember this only applies to ( positive ) Chi energy . Roads to and from ancient Chinese towns were often curved and windy, an attempt to disorient and keep away evil spirits, who were believed to travel in STRAIGHT LINES.

About the Wind God in the dream - Fūjin is the Japanese god of wind and one of the oldest Shinto gods. He was present at the creation of the world and when he first let the winds out of his bag, they cleared the morning mists and filled the Gate between heaven and earth so the sun shone. ( Did the mists represent being ASLEEP and the wind clearing the mists represent an AWAKENING ) ? He is portrayed as a terrifying dark demon, resembling a red headed black humanoid wearing a leopard skin, carrying a large bag of winds on his shoulders.

Some myths identified the wind god as a kind of monster or dragon named Fei Lein, and it was this dragon, they said, who walked so swiftly. In these stories, the wind dragon worked as a wicked minister in the tyrannical Chou dynasty. In the guise of this dragon, Feng Po had the body of a stag , the head of a bird, and the tail of a serpent.

The oriental aspect of this God seemed relevant so I was pondering more exploration into Japanese / Chinese mythology when ironically the very next day whilst doing some research on synchronicity I stumbled across an article by Radmila Moacanin which I now feel is the key to the next stages of my own personal journey - growth and discovery. In the article Radmila states that all of Jung's discoveries were accompanied by dreams of synchronistic events that either pointed the way or gave him confirmation that he was proceeding in the right direction. At the time whilst he was drawing mandalas, he created a painting of a golden castle. What caught Jung's attention was the Chinese quality evident in the painting, and apparently he was puzzled by it. Shortly afterward he received from the sinologist Richard Wilhelm a copy of an old Chinese alchemical text, which marked the beginning of his fascination with alchemy. This striking coincidence, incorporated both the mandala symbolism and the principle of synchronicity, namely, the double expression of unus mundus - psychological and parapsychological.



Unus Mundus is when the individual psyche touches eternity, the identity of the personal with the trans-personal. In his dreams as well as those of his patients, he could at times discern a portrayal of the mandalas. symbolizing the multiplicity of the phenomenal world within and underlying unity. The mandala symbolism represents the psychological equivalent of unus mundus, while its parapsychological equivalent fits Jung's concept of synchronicity. And indeed Jung felt the powerful effect one experiences in moments of encounter with the unus mundus. The critical factor is the meaning, the subjective experience that comes to the person; events are connected in a meaningful way, that is events of the inner world and outer world, the invisible and the tangible, the mind and the physical universe. The coming together at the right moment can happen only without the conscious intervention of the ego. Instead it is prepared in the unconsciousness of the psyche, and it is as though the psyche had its own secret design, irrespective of ego's conscious wishes. Such synchronistic events, of smaller or larger proportions, occur to most people in daily life, but as with dreams, if we do not recognize them and pay attention to them, they remain insignificant.

I want to finish with some favorite quotes of mine from Joseph Campbell


We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.





Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.



And this above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,

-- William Shakespeare

The Real Da Vinci code - Knights Templars - UFO's - Secret societies - Part 7

This is an excerpt from weird science
by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - January 28, 2001

Black holes, Alcubierre warp drives, traversable worm holes, and the quest for the Holy Grail of dark matter are outpacing the wildest SF fantasies in the public's imagination. In the science fraternity, this 'quantum weirdness' is creating new paradigms with which to view reality. The most controversial physicist in this field is Dr Jack Sarfatti, whose investigation of such phenomena as superluminal (faster than light) information and anomalous experiences challenges the very underpinnings of modern quantum physics.

Sarfatti's exotic theories are rarely discussed within the mainstream physics community. Like Harvard Medical School department of psychiatry's John Mack, who controversially researched UFO abductions, Timothy Leary's early 1960s metaprogramming experiments, or Lyall Watson's unorthodox explorations of Supernature (New York: Anchor Press, 1973), Sarfatti's exploration of the questions polite academics avoid has tainted his reputation. A typical off-hand response came from N. David Mermin of the Cornell physics department who studied Sarfatti's papers and corresponded with him during the 1980s: "Jack Sarfatti? What a weird, strange subject to be writing about!"

Master of the Vortex

Yet Sarfatti's theories of future causality - the future impacting on the present - are influencing the contemporary cultural meme pool. From Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) to Twelve Monkeys (1995), Sarfatti's ideas have been the subject of major sci-fi scenarios. Sarfatti himself was parodied as the memorable time-travelling Dr Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy.

According to Creon Levit of the NASA Ames Research Center, who studied and worked with Sarfatti, "Jack is a maverick, because he is examining what is perhaps the most cherished asumption of modern science - that all causes must precede their effects. People, including scientists, do not, unless they are very brave, like to question their cherished assumptions. This is unfortunate, because in quantum theory the mainstream theorists have gone so far as to give up objectivity - both in their physics, and I am afraid, in their approach to physics - in order to save causality."

"Physics is the Conceptual Art of the late 20th Century," Sarfatti claims. "But as a science it will lead to new practical super-technology." Recognising the role of theoretical physics as a cultural 'early warning system,' Sarfatti like his predecessors Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, has investigated its archetypal foundations. Consequently he has evolved into a true 'Trickster' figure in the Gurdjieff/Leary mould, reconciling the roles of conceptual artist, physicist, poet and Magus.

"After Timothy Leary, I'm the only Magus left!" Sarfatti jokes. His synthesis attempts to capture the subjective reality of unconscious archetypes 'revealed' by quantum physics, a reality that, he says, can only be accessed by metaphor, evocation, poetry, and music.

Sarfatti's 'court' is the chic Caffe Trieste (dubbed 'Sarfatti's Cave' in deference to Plato). Situated in the bohemian suburb of North Beach, San Francisco, an area Sarfatti equates with the Left Bank of Paris: "very chic and the place to be seen; it's my neighbourhood for over 20 years."

Francis Ford Coppola (founder of the American Zoetrope motion picture production company); Lawrence Ferhlingetti; Guerilla Marketing expert Jay Conrad Levinson; and Jefferson Airplane's visionary musician Paul Kantner ("who visits the Caffe Trieste almost daily") are amongst the local community, supplanted in recent years by the Silicon Valley Nouvelle Riche and Hollywood creative artists who reside in or near North Beach. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich can be frequently found in local restaurants like Rose Pistolas or Toscas, capturing the Italian old charm that embodied the San Francisco of the Beat Era. Increasingly, North Beach is home to thriving publishing, advertising, investment, and multimedia production houses; and to activist think tanks including the Milarepa Fund and the Earth Island Institute. For many cultural iconoclasts, North Beach is a reminder that San Francisco had atmospheric character and artistic integrity decades before the Haight-Ashbury legacy descended.

The Caffe Trieste has been the site of Sarfatti's 'self imposed' exile from the conservative academic community, and his preferred location for lecturing to a rapt audience of 'espresso scholars'. A noted personality in the North Beach scene, Sarfatti is mentioned in Herbert Gold's works Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love & Strong Coffee Meet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) and Travels In San Francisco. His colleagues include the famous Beat poet Gregory Corso, who reinvigorates poetry long demonised by the Machine Age.

'Sarfatti's Cave' has now gone online, as he utilises the World Wide Web as an interactive education tool.

This site was kindly forwarded by my friend String

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