Moving the struggle off the Boards.... How to?

[Argon Steele]

First post of the new year! Yeah! Zip, Zip, Whoopiie!!!!

So my question is, lets stop being divisive and arguing (or dialoging if you prefer) among ourselves for a moment and say...

there's alot we all agree on

sitting here and preaching to each other doesn't really accomplish much (except generate a good reading list)

So how can we reach the people we really want to educate? how can we really make some changes in this fucked up falling apart society?

I feel so ambivalent about the whole anti-war thing that's going on now, not that I haven't been to some protests, but I feel so strongly that the war itself (either with Saddam or Terrorism) is just a Bush diversionary tactic. By entering the dialectic against the war, in many ways we are just giving Bush what he wants. I would much rather march to legalize psychedelics as I honestly believe that is much closer to the root of the problem in this country.

so what other ideas to people have for practical tangible change in the new year?

[sidecross]

"…I would much rather march to legalize psychedelics…"

The slippery slope of language.

We do not need to "legalize" psychedelics. It should be decriminalized. Do we really want government and its keeper, global corporations and business, sanctioning and regulating psychedelics?

Would a board certified shaman be next?

[Woodpecker]

Argon,

I've been mulling over your question for a while. Here are a few responses.

Much of what's "wrong" with this world results from people doing what they think is the right thing. Everyone has their own opinion, and the consequent need to lay it on others. These opinions arise from our conditioning, our "independent" thoughts, our feelings, our perceptions. Many of these opinions arise from contact with "the spirit realm" or some sense of contact or communion with the divine. For example, Christians support their actions with the idea that God or Jesus wants them to do what they do. Muslims ditto with Allah. Us on this message board ditto with whatever we believe. Virtually everyone tries to do the right thing, and in doing so steps on the toes of other people to whom The Divine makes different requests.

The war of ideas. What could be better than everyone sharing, everyone having enough? Wonderful, right? That was the idea behind communism. But when Stalin tried to get peasants to shift over into collective farms, they rebelled, and he responded by starving millions of them to death.

For Christians, what could be better than being Christian? It's the way, the light, the salvation, the eternal life, the glory. When you're saved, you want to spread it around, help others. But during the Reagan regime, James Watt, the Secretary of the Interior, said we had to use up all our natural resources, because otherwise Jesus will be mad at us when he comes back. That made all tree lovers very angry. Watt lost his job.

When I used to work for Greenpeace, I wanted everyone to be an environmentalist. I still do. Well, we'll never have peace until we can stop bugging each other with our demands. Since it appears that that's impossible, we'll probably never have a lasting peace on this planet--at least not in the "foreseeable future" (which, admittedly, is a fallacious concept).

(An aside that occurs to me as I'm writing this. If one is an animist, one believes that everything is alive. Perhaps radioactivity, plastic, and toxic waste are life forms with souls of their own. And who are we to stand in the way of their evolution? Are we somehow superior to them?) (Somebody please refute this.)

Sometimes I wish that "God" would get his/her/its priorities straight and stop sending mixed messages to humanity.

Maybe that chaos is a necessary part of creation, though. The chili pepper in the cosmic soup.

Maybe it's an illusion that we can affect the big picture.

Be calm
Most of what happens
Happens without you

--Josef Albers

But if our spiritual practices are worth anything at all--and I think they are--then we humans have a powerful and subtle ability to put out love and peace into the world....

[Woodpecker]

By the way, I hope some other people will respond to Argon's question.

[PuristLove]

First, media is the key. Media determines most people's opinions, beliefs, etc. Get involved in media in some way... as a writer, artist, director or stockholder. Use that influence to change minds and hearts.

Remember, government can only rule at the consent of the governed. Government never changes society, rather society changes and government begins to reflect those changes.

My other big suggestion, make it as easy as possible for people around you to change.

Don't just ask your neighbor to recycle, offer to pick up his recyclables weekly as you go to drop yours off. You'll find people much more willing to do their part, when you offer to help them.

[Argon Steele]

Hi purist,

while I agree 100% with your comment about the media I find you statement about government a little perplexing. what about this last "election" in the US? I don't think we've consented to Bush, and yet here we are. I believe facism and totalitarianism are alive and well right now and these are very real forces whose purpose is to deprive the people of that consent. Certainly the main stream media is one of their tools, but so is election rigging, so is bursting into the control room of the news and declaring a winner when there is clearly not one. I think only a very small percentage of society really agrees with "bush," but they happen to be the richest percentage.

anyway, sorry, I'm trying to be positive, I liked your shamenism quote, that explains a few issues for me...

for my part I'm starting an orgranization here in LA... the progressive filmmaker's caucus... pretty self-explanitory, but I'll post our manifesto here...

The Progressive Filmmakers Caucus

Proposed Manifesto of Organizing Principles

Whereas the moving image has become the great narrative art form of our era,

Whereas the traditional role of storyteller is the elucidation of history in order that society might progress towards a future of true equality, justice, and freedom,

Whereas artistic self-expression is a fundamental right to be exercised according to personal spiritual prerogatives,

Whereas art in an imperfect society is by definition transgressive and the artist inherently in opposition to totalitarian influences,

Whereas art in the market economy is in constant danger of co-option, corruption, and commercialization,

Whereas entertainment is the primary ambassador of ideas between cultures,

Whereas every citizen has a right and responsibility to participate in the political process particularly in time of crises,

Therefore we take responsibility for the power of this medium we have chosen and vow to use our individual and collective power to create not just entertainment but art that reflects our personal, political and spiritual beliefs.

We form this caucus in order to:

Create a community of open-minded thinkers willing to nurture, support and learn from each other.

Advocate for and protect all forms of free expression.

Participate individually and collectively in the social, economic and political arenas.

Reinvigorate an art form that has devolved into an ?industry.?

Acknowledge and enhance filmmaking as a tool for social change.

Affect the national dialog by creating an inclusive, forward-thinking organization united around the ideals of equality, responsibility, free expression, fairness, and mutual support.

Immediate Goals
(requiring no money)

Involve a core group of people

Build a consensus on organizational goals and structure

Begin fundraising including annual sliding-scale dues

Make political endorsements

Volunteer time for actions and events

Mutually support members? rights to individual self-expression

Compile lists of most progressive films and filmmakers and most politically offensive films.

Meet to socialize, brainstorm, collaborate, have fun, and watch movies

Intermediate Goals
(requiring little money)

Raise awareness of PFC within our industry

Expand membership

Start screenwriting contest and film festival

Issue yearly awards for progressive filmmaking (and irresponsible filmmaking)

Reach out towards other entertainment industries (critics, musicians, writers, etc.)

Long Term Goals
(requiring gobs of money)

Create a progressive filmmakers studio (co-op)

Open or create distribution channels

Create mentor programs

Create a progressive cable news channel

Affect the political process directly

[PuristLove]

First, compliments on the Manifesto. It sounds like your working in the right direction.

Second, If you've taken a moment to talk to the average citizen, you'll realize the vast majority of them are perfectly happy with Bush and what he's doing. They are terrified of terrorists (hmm... wonder if bin laden accomplished his goal?) and willing to give up all their freedoms in the sake of safety. If you suggest otherwise, it's not the men in black you've got to worry about, it's your coworkers and family members who will castigate and denounce you.

So, before anything can be accomplished about changing the direction of our government, first we have to garner support and change those hearts and minds.

But let's suppose for an instant you are correct, and most people very much disagree with the things W. is doing.

Why aren't they making an effort to stop him? Is it because they are afraid of him? If they give him their consent out of fear, they are still giving their consent.

If you look at every succesful major social change in history, it's because the majority of people decided they wanted that change to happen.

Take for instance Lithuania. They had nowhere near the numbers the soviet union had when they rebelled and won their freedom because they said, "You can kill every single one of us, but we will not consent to your oppression any more."

Or look at the Civil Rights Movement. This couldn't have succeeded if a great many people didn't already agree that discrimination was wrong. You could have given them all the quotas in the world, but they'd still have found ways to discriminate against minorities (and, decades later, in some parts of the country where racism still runs strong, they still do).

The first step is changing hearts and minds. Always has been, always will be. The laws can only reflect those changes, not enforce them.

[dogen]

Argon & Puristlove: This conversation seems really important to me too. While it may well be that things are so broke that they can't be fixed, every one of us (he preached ;-} ) has a responsibility to figure out how we're going to be in this world--right here, right now.

Lot of talk on this list of dimensional shifts, system crashes, and the inevitability of collapse. Lot of that talk finishes up with additional, reassuring talk about how those of us who snap out of the consumer trance & see through all the pretty lights of the technosphere will be saved when the end comes. What the hell do i know? Could be that folks who say these things have it exactly right, but i'm suspicious of this story. The psychedelic-fueled apocalyptic narrative i read with such fascination on this message board sounds a bit too like the dogma-fueled apocalyptic narratives of the world's monotheisms. The saved (those who have the gnosis) will somehow be spared the worst of the coming calamity while everyone else suffers disease, death, & destruction in this life & eternal torment in the next. Maybe the right faith saves you--even though the saved helped those who aren't saved wreck the planet.

i think all of us--even we enlightened BOTH folks--have blood (and definitely oil) on our hands. Are we nevertheless going to escape the consequences of our capitalistic, technocratic actions, magically translated out of flesh & blood just in the nick of time? Are we writers & artists & educators & whatever going to learn how to farm the poisoned soil with toxic water & rebuild Paradise after the crash comes? Will our have seen it coming have prepared us to do much more than starve to death, miserable, bitter, and shivering? What if there is no ejector seat that saves us geniuses from the crash at the last second? What if what happens to the earth and all those Wal-Mart angels someone mentioned happens to us whether we have the green gnosis or not? Are we going to sit idly or sadly or smugly or helplessly by while everything and everyone we know & love destroys itself?

i don't see how we can. Sauron will probably wipe us out, but that's no reason to simply let him have his way. There ought to be something we can do with our insights besides hope for a miraculous Hollywood escape from certain destruction.

[daniel]

Hi Dogen,

Great post! It really gets to the crux of the matter.

All I can say is that, for myself, I am currently willing to "field test" my hypothesis that:

1. Collapse, system crash, is inevitable and happening soon.
2. At least some of the people who are awakening at this point are going to be spared the worst of it, and perhaps find themselves in a transformed and better world ten or fifteen years down the line.
3. Part of what is going to be required to make this shift is integration of archaic spiritual wisdom teachings and Easten/shamanic spiritual technologies with the modern empirical consciousness and rationality of the West.

One way this might make sense is, if the kind of material satisfations that have held the society together start to disappear or disintegrate, those who are more compelled by immmaterial satisfactions – including investigation of shamanic realms -- are going to have a better time of it. They are going to be more ready to "shift," and know that they have less to sacrifice or give up.Those obsessed with consumer goodies are going to want to check out.

You say you are " suspicious of this story." So am I – but it is the best one I’ve got!

What we are calling "gnosis" here is a recognition of the unitary nature of all mystical experiences, overcoming all sectarian differences – not "faith" but experiential knowledge based on Christ’s dictum, "Open the door for yourself, so you will know what is." It will probably also be true, as the Quran says, "Each of you must see hell – that is an irrevocable decision of Our Lord."

The purpose of modern society’s destruction of the planet’s life support systems is to force an evolution of humanity.

You right: "What if there is no ejector seat that saves us geniuses from the crash at the last second? What if what happens to the earth and all those Wal-Mart angels someone mentioned happens to us whether we have the green gnosis or not? Are we going to sit idly or sadly or smugly or helplessly by while everything and everyone we know & love destroys itself?" Well then, we go down with the ship. What else? But we can rest assured that this is not the only ship in the ocean. And we will have another chance to try again. But I suspect that what is now happening has been very carefully orchestrated on a higher level. As Arguelles writes, "The universe is God’s drama," and we all have leading roles.

You write: "There ought to be something we can do with our insights besides hope for a miraculous Hollywood escape from certain destruction." I think continuing our own awakening and personal evolution, and also awakening those around us, is very important right now. Protest is okay, but it is very important to move toward what is good and whole and beautiful rather than just "fighting against" all the time. Somehow "fighting against" seems to reinforce the negative dynamic. At least that is how I feel about it this week!

Check out Arguelles’ "Time and the Technosphere." It is very interesting!

[sidecross]

As H.G. Wells has said, " The future is a race between catastrophe and education". Or, to cut to the chase, the theme of Breaking Open the Head may be our last chance to save ourselves from ourselves.

Has anyone noticed that a quart bottle of domestic water costs more than the equivalent of gasoline? We have lived quite well before without petroleum, but life without fresh water or its equivalent would cease to exist.

As many people go merrily on their daily task to invent, market, advertise, manufacture, and distribute widgets, they hope others are navigating the future. If anyone needs to immediately be breaking open the head, it is the world's leaders; yes, those little people pulling the levers of our current Oz.

The great question that looms in the future is whether Breaking Open the Head will be seen as revelation or flaky.

[Woodpecker]

Last night at an Italian restaurant in Vienna I spoke with some strangers who turned out to work for the Banco do Brazil, dealing with the flow of money that nourishes the manufacture and distribution of things like widgets and oil. I mentioned poetry, and the Brazilian woman's eyes lit up. She spoke about its capacity to open the mind, and then turned immediately to Huxley's Doors of Perception and her readings in college on shamanism as practiced by tribes on the border between Brazil and Peru.

Hypothesis: in the future, BOTH will be seen as revelation by some and as flaky by others.

The poet Gary Snyder, whom some find flaky and others find revelatory, wrote the following in Turtle Island, published in 1975:

"A continuing 'revolution of consciousness'... will be won not with guns but by seizing the key images, myths, archetypes, eschatologies, and ecstasies to that life won't seem worth living unless one is on the transforming energy's side."

Speaking of filmmaking, as Argon was above, Waking Life by Richard Linklater is quite nice.

More Snyder, from Turtle Island:

"People of primitive cultures appreciate animals as other people off on various trips. Snakes move without limbs, and are like free penises. Birds fly, sing, and dance; they gather food for their babies; they disappear for months and then come back. Fish can breathe water and are brilliant colors. Mammals are like us, they fuck and give birth to babies while panting and purring; their young suck their mothers' breasts; they know terror and delight; they play."

"As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic; the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe."

[ January 29, 2003, 05:41 PM: Message edited by: Woodpecker ]

[Argon Steele]

it's funny you mention Gary Snyder as he's a pretty good friend of mine. His son Gen, my best oldest friend, gave me six monthes of his life working on String Theory (which Gary has seen at least twice.. i should get a quote from him). We're all from "the ridge" in northern califonia, and I've been thinking alot about moving back there (now that I've a family).

It seems like everyone on the board is pretty much in agreement that there's no way out except through the fire, the system crash. I know I feel that way, which is strange because only a few years ago alot of people though technology might still save us...

I think the most obvious crash would be if the third world just started boycotting multi-national goods, that would bring us to our knees very fast.

what ever the apocolypse that is coming, whether global warming, nuclear war, terrorism, facism, economic meltdown, riots,- my guess is it won't be like anything in history before it. Yet none-the-less I think about the holocaust.

My basic theory of life is that God creates us all perfect but then throws us into the world, a great realm of chaos where we have free will and His hand is hidden. Through out life we make as many choices as we can, but that chaos is always there also and sooner or later, in one form or another, it rolls over each of us and we die. Come back and try it again, do what you can to ease the chaos.

When america dropped the atom bomb none of those 100,000 people knew what was happening, had any chance to fight it. Blink they were gone. What ever choices they got to make in life, being part of that event wasn't one of them. Unless they chose, earlier, not to be in the city anymore.

Nazi Germany didn't just drop out of the sky. A good amount of people were able to read the writing on the wall and get out of the country. A lot of people didn't.

Gary Snyder said "back to the land" 30 years ago at the close of the sixties. That is definitly where it is at. I would have thought it was going to be an environmental apocolypse, but the way Bush is going on, who knows. But I'll bet it hits the cities hardest.

[Phil Thompson]

Still all this talk of disaster... just before the clock struck 12 on 2000..... many thought this would be the end, yet we are all still here fighting our thoughts trying to make sense of this mess we all decided to play a part in.

When you think about the mess that follows a single leader with a corrupt mind (or miss led mind).

Look at the mess now.. Only a hand full of leaders are conducting this war on the world.

Its seems crazy that throughout history only a hand full at a time can create so much death in all forms and manner.

Once this is learned then we can all move on for sure.

Right now we have Bush, Blair, Sadam, Bin Laiden... and a couple more.

Apart from them... the whole planet wants peace + Love, every nation is full of normal people that do not wish harm on their neighbours.

None of us agree with war or greed... yet live every day putting up with the mess because of our leaders. Humans are great at adapting.

In recent times, say the last 2000 years.. most civilisations had a leader at some time who got greedy and thought about taking over a nearby or distant lands. Even religions set out to take over other religions by death. Every one of us has a warrior in us if promted.. even Carlos Castaneda - in the book he wrote called "The Wheel of Time".... he writes about controlling the warrior inside us all.

All nations are guilty of killings and greed at some time.. what goes around comes around the karma must be even before forward movement.

Lets hope this war faze we are in is the last.. we may go to war to hit rock bottom. Just to teach us all one final lesson before we have a clear run ahead (at least for the next period of time anyway). We must understand how to control certain emotions before we are released into the universe with the next form/level of travel. If we could visit other planets now and Bush or Sadam where flying the ship.. you could just imagine what he would think of doing if he came across a planet of love.. or a planet of evil?? he would feel that he needed to save his people from them or send them over.. that is his mind condition right now. So we all need to learn to just be...

At the end of the day.... its our leaders that have the say.. and i do believe that our governments are the number one organised crime of the world right now.

As soon as you enter into politics you are taught corruption and deceit. If you are successful in any field, then your head can quickly end up...up your arse... we all know someone like this. As soon as your head is up your arse then absolutely nobody can tell you otherwise and you make mistake after mistake.

This is where Bush, Blair, Sadam are i feel... they think they are right and they feel that they are doing right for us in there own way but we can see it is wrong, as we are ahead of our selves. Think of the early Americans who wiped out the Native Indians... in my previous life i was a native Indian, i was a leader of a tribe and got myself killed by not listening to advise given to me by my piers. I was very aggressive in my nature and this led to my death in the end. I would rush into battle, thinking i was protecting my tribe and ended up getting wounded. This is what is happening right now with this planet, but on a bigger scale.

I keep saying to friends-----> what if you could sit our leaders down at the same table. Lock them in a room for a week with hi-tech translating gizmo's... feed them some powerful mind expanding substances at the same time. Then watch them squirm in there own thoughts..

Do you think they would come out the same... still wanting to be the most powerful, still wanting to rule their people, still wanting to control everyone...

We must all understand that this is a cycle... it goes on and on... and on... errrrr.... and on

yes it hard to understand, we are mere humans.. we are not made to understand it all...when we are here we must understand how to live and be happy with each other. That is the point, in my opinion.

Its a nice thought... Heaven on Earth is closer than ever--------------->
Not a nice thought... Hell.....

we have the choice... free will - you know this.

[dogen]

Daniel & others: Looking at Daniel's hypothesis, i realize that we're in essential agreement. Like Daniel, i foresee a devastating system crash coming in my lifetime. i also assume that there will be survivors who, if they wish to continue to be survivors will need to experience some kind of fundamental change in consciousness to not repeat the mistakes of the current age. i guess, then, i agree that those who are getting ready in the here-and-now will have an easier time of it when the inevitable arrives.

Haven't gotten far enough into Arguelles to determine if i'm convinced that we're talking about this crash happening 10 years from last month or not. But, just at the level of damage done to the environment & the unsustainability of our consumerist culture--not to mention the complete lack of vision by the actual and elected power players in the governments of the various industrialized nations--i don't think that my son's generation and thereafter will have the fossil fuels, socio-political infrastructure, or the food, water, and arable soil to do much more than worry about subsistence for a great many years. i don't quite see things getting as bad as the Mad Max/Blade Runner vision, but i think we can take it for granted that we're talking about a massive die-off of species, including our own.

i guess where our perspectives might diverge is on the matter of whether--or to what degree--the crash manifests or will lead to a supernatural phenomenon. Phil's post seems to assume that we'll be released into other dimensions/other worlds some day. That seems to be a conclusion that Daniel is willing to draw as well--and, if i'm reading him right, he's also saying that the crash will precipitate this shift for some of us.

i think that, even if the human race never escapes this plane of space-time, the crash and its aftermath will constitute--at a minimum--an opportunity for our species to write a radical, new chapter in its evolution. We could crawl out of the plane wreck, determined to rebuild Eden, and make it a religious principle to live in harmony with what's left of nature & humanity. For this to be possible, some kind of intellectual/spiritual revolution will have to occur--indeed something like the blending of eastern & western science and mysticism that Daniel mentions. Without some kind of over-arching vision, we could just as likely crawl from the wreck, blaming each other & attempt to resuscitate the fallen idol in the Slaughterhouse of Mammon & eventually finish ourselves--and most of the rest of the earth's living beings. Sort of the Return to the Planet of the Apes vision where, even after the Apocalypse, we're so consumed by the wish to dominate, control, hoard, etc. that we finally erase all life on earth rather than learn how to live in harmony with all beings. i think it's an open question whether or not the survivors of the crash will learn the obvious lessons & change our minds/behaviors for the good of all.

Put another way, the question in my mind is whether such a crash & its aftermath must necessarily involve other-dimensional beings & a supernatural evolutionary leap for the human race. Since this thread is about the pragmatic question of what we do with revelations that other planes of existence exist & that the world is systematically wired for self-destruction. My spiritual training has led me to assume that the journey and not the ultimate destination matters. So, i'm willing to work the system that we have for as long as that's possible to avert the apparent disaster (though my heart tells me we've already crossed point of no-return). Failing that, i think there's still merit in trying to soften the landing, to preserve as much of the natural world as we can so that future generations will have something to live on. My working hypothesis is that we're never escaping this space-time because that's where our genetic & spiritual roots are and so i'm not looking for anything more than an "evolution" based entirely on the causes and conditions that we've created for ourselves. But if, as the journey unfolds, it turns out that our plane is essentially orchestrated by other beings, that we'll experience a quantum evolutionary leap of consciousness and leave this plane for another, i'll let go of this idea & pick up the new one. Learning to disinvest oneself from any and all stories about "how it is" and to work to ease suffering and create harmony in the reality we find ourelves in--whatever that reality is--may be the best preparation for what's to come.

[daniel]

My hypothesis - something I feel strongly these days - is that this is a very tightly orchestrated situation we are in right now. It is like the end of a symphony, where all of the different phrases and patterns have to be woven together perfectly to bring it to a harmonious, and despite appearances, just, conclusion.

My thesis is that 2012 is.... something, something big. Perhaps we won't even known it exactly at the time. A change in the basic orientation of the human species, in the comprehension of the meaning of our existence on the planet. That is why I am so excited about Arguelles' The Mayan Factor. He suggests there might be a highly developed galactic civilization that sees its goal as "harmonic resonance" - helping evolving planetary intelligences get in synchronization with the methods and purpose of their local sun and the galaxy. It makes so much more sense, really, then what we are doing!

Humanity is the geological - "biogeochemical" - event on planet Earth right now. We are being forced into conscious, reflective understanding of that. Meanwhile, globalization is spreading "spiritual technologies" across the world. Through shamanism and psychedelics, it is possible to work with "elemental energies" and change the physical nature of the Earth. Through massive focused intention and group meditation experiments, we cannot even imagine what might be possible - total planetary regeneration, perhaps.

For a hint or two, check out a new book "The Field" by Lynn McTaggert or "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot.

This is where I see the future - the imminent future - going.

[Argon Steele]

daniel- you are freak out guy! I must ask you if you have just continued to go further out since writing BOTH or if you were concealing your conspiranoia godhead self when you were writing?

well I know lots of people waiting for the consciousness shift in 2012, but I must say, and sorry to be the negative guy, that seems like wishful thinking to me. It also feels egocentric or speciescentric.

maybe it can be explained without aliens guiding races and just with good old fashion shaminism, souls, and prophecey.

DMT took me to a place outside of time, where I met other souls. Perhaps there is going to be nuclear war in 2012. An event like that would reverberate so strongly that shamens from all times would have premonitions. Maybe the species will survive, but starting over from scratch in a contaminated world, the final expulsion from eden.

Well that's very negative thinking, but it seems just as possible, actually much more, than being saved by aliens.

again, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to be honest...

[sidecross]

Terence McKenna said that if time travel came as concrescence, then his time wave theory and 2012 became totally irrelevant.

Apocalypse is not anything new; 99% of species are extinct. What all the drama seems to be about is that our species may be on the list, and in short order at that.

I too do not feel the tug or hear the voice of aliens or any thing woo woo. I feel quite mystified in knowing that some 90% of brain function is unused, and that most sequences of DNA seem to be a mystery.

[Phil Thompson]

Check this book..

I had a spiritual reading of my soul by this woman, she was 100% spot on. Everything she told me about past lives and my purpose of living, made sense and struck home to my soul. I was guided to her by my spirit friends, she is very talented. What she does is look into the blue print of your soul. There is a kind of agenda to each of our lives, like minutes of a meeting. We all go through motions and lessons we choose before we are born.

Its says on the back of the book....

ETA: A FUTURE TALE,

is written from a unique point of view of spirit, not the point of view of man. It encompasses the long-term interaction between extraterrestrials and earth bound humans whose positions are interchangeable. A story that has never been told before and need to be told now, ETA stands in a class of its own.
This story contains predictive global material. ETA was copyrighted prior to the announcement on the news that an international space station would be in place by the year 2002. In this story we estimate the time as 2005. All predictive material in this book is balanced between conflict and resolutions giving the reader new philosophies to live by and applicable solutions to the pending earth changes.
Today more than ever it is imperative to unite the governments of the world. ETA serves as a stepping stone towards that goal. It is a tale about immortal life and the evolution of the human species.
Although written as fiction the characters and events of this story are known by the authors.

you can order from amazon books, ISBN 0-9640104-5-3

Her web site is sayahda@gci.net

please check out her web site, Sayahda is very connected to the higher entities that look over all our moves and thoughts. The book i recommend was written with the aid and consent of higher beings.

Sayahda's real name is Sandra Viola, together with a close friend Gillian DeArmond they wrote a short story book, based on what faze the planet is going through right now.

Sandra is an internationally accredited clairvoyant and healer from Juneau, Alaska.

I read this book Jan 2000 - i also had feelings from a about the age of severn that we would all get blown up someday by a bomb. I remember waking up and crying to my mum because i did not want to loose her, all i had in my mind was a bomb.. and i was very upset!!

Deep inside we all know this could happen, maybe that is why we are here, talking about all this. What if we are the ones that may help in a small way to help others in a small way, every little seed grows.

Planting seeds of wisdom that has been lost by greed and materialism. Look what happened after 9/11.....

The world came together through disaster... this is true for every disaster. Except 9/11 woke the world to how much jealousy and hate there was towards the western world and its thoughtless short sighted ways.

You can be in a plane crash and be the only survivor with out a cut or bruise.... like a miracle you can survive a tragedy - no matter how it looks before hand.

We have friends that care - they still love us, even if we are ignorant of them, they understand us, as they are superior to us. They made us..... so they know why we act certain ways. Surly anyone who as experimented in mind expanding substances knows and feels inferior to the systems you enter.

To live, means you must try every tangent, fractal possible - learning from the outcome.

Light is there at the end of the tunnel.

I am very interested if anyone buys or has read this book and there comments please.

[julonred]

it was after reading the mayan factor in the early 80's that i experienced an alien presence settling into my body for what might have been a short time, or jesus, could still be in there for all i know.( i posted something about that briefly on the transformations board). daniel, you may be way out there, but i appreciate where your mind is taking some of us. not saying i follow all of what you are saying, but your views are inspiring me to look deeper, uncover past mystical experiences, dust them off and look at them in a new light. i appreciate your book and the boards, reading the genius thoughts posted here. thanks

[daniel]

Argon writes: "daniel- you are freak out guy! I must ask you if you have just continued to go further out since writing BOTH or if you were concealing your conspiranoia godhead self when you were writing?"

I know it is strange. I am still capable of thinking entirely in the materialist vein about the world situation - I just wrote a piece I am very proud of that will be in the next issue of BookForum, reviewing a bunch of books on globalization, talking about Empire and One-Dimensional Man for context. And yet, I have been continuing to have experiences, usually with no substances involved, that require an entirely different level of thought and articulation for comprehension.

In my book, I talk about Gurdjieff's notion that a different level of being is required for a different level of knowledge .Arguelles articulates the same idea in a different way, as the quality of "resonance." Here is a quote from The Mayan Factor:

"Resonance means the quality of sounding again. … From the perspective of resonant harmonics, information is the form-vehicle of qualities of energy passing between two agents or parties. As a sounding again, resonance is information.

The essence of information, then, is not its content but its resonance. This is why feeling or sensing things is so important. To sense the resonance of incoming information cocreates a resonant field."

In Steiner, you have a mode of thought or expression that seems to be simultaneously allegorical and literal. To me, it does "feel like" -- it resonates -- as a new form of science, one that is congruent with the deepest ideas of quantum physics, the collapse of subject-object distinctions, and so on.

I believe that if you meditate on the ideas of The Mayan Factor, In Search of the Miraculous, Steiner's Harmony of the Creative Word, as well as many other such texts, a new, resonant field starts to be created that allows you to think in the syntax of a new paradigm - the only one that allows for further human evolution without nuclear war.

Remember Gurdjieff's notion that everything is physical in some way - even the Absolute, he says. Understanding is a real force that can change the nature of "reality."

[dogen]

I believe that if you meditate on the ideas of The Mayan Factor, In Search of the Miraculous, Steiner's Harmony of the Creative Word, as well as many other such texts, a new, resonant field starts to be created that allows you to think in the syntax of a new paradigm - the only one that allows for further human evolution without nuclear war. It's this possibility, coupled with the notion that one can in certain shamanic states materialize things is what's been helping me keep my skeptic-dog tied up on the porch.

i'm convinced the path we're on is terminal and that nothing short of a widespread revolution of consciousness--right now--can avert a systems meltdown. But throw in the towel! No FN Way! Perhaps the Arguelles', Gurdjief's, and Steiners of the world--along with critical mass of folks willing to hear them out--can shift the paradigm. Gotta do something with the short, sweet time we've got in the light.

[whitewave]

A mass prayer of those of us who choose to embody peace will take place this Sunday, Feb. 9 worldwide,led by peace troubadour James Twyman. Check out the website www.emissaryoflight.com (http://www.emissaryoflight.com)

[PuristLove]

Ok, this post seems to have become an arguement over whether or not an apocalypse is necessary to fix things, however, even daniel has seemed to agree that taking positive actions in the world can only help. I'm wondering if we could use this thread to list things we are each doing at this moment to help make a difference...

I moderate a forum at a harm reduction message board, use my live journal and other forums as places to raise consciousness about issues, write short stories and novels with themes that deal with all of these things, and do what I can to make each person I encounters day or life a little better.

[Anita]

I also am taking part in the mass prayer this coming Sunday,Thanks for posting it here Whitewave.
I read The Isaiah effect,decoding the lost science of prayer and prophecy by Gregg Braden recently and highly recommend it.

[whitewave]

Anita,
I just finished the Isaiah Effect two days ago and want to recommend it as well. Braden does an excellent job at delineating how 20th century discoveries in quantum physics account for the disparity in the Isaiah Scroll, part of the Essene Gospels discovered in the 1930s,regarding the future of human beings on earth (as well as many other ancient prophecies). For example, many ancient texts say that the world will end in 2012, while also saying that humanity will enter a new golden age where peace will prevail. Experiments in quantum physics have shown how atoms can occupy the same place at the same time, and that human consciousness has the ability to effect the material world on the subatomic level (read McTaggart's The Field for lots of interesting evidence of this phenomenon). Braden believes that Isaiah, et al, predict two destinies for humanity at the same time because we have a choice. We can choose the path of destruction that we are currently on, or we can choose to move into a world where harmony prevails. The choice, however, cannot be made only with our minds. Our hearts must be transformed. The following passage from the Essene Gospels is, according to Braden, a lost mode of prayer, suppressed by the Council of Nice in the early days of Christianity, in which we are taught to embody peace, instead of asking for it from a place of doubt and fear.

First shall the Son of Man seek peace within his own body; for his body is as a mountain pond that reflects the sun when it is still and clear. When it is full of mud and stones it reflects nothing.

Then shall the Son of Man seek peace within his own thoughts...There is no greater power in heaven and earth than the thought of the Son of Man. Though unseen by the eyes of the body, yet each thought has mighty strength, even such strength can shake the heavens.

Then shall the Son of Man seek peace with his own feelings. We call on the Angel of love to enter our feelings, that they may be purified. And all that was before impatience and discord will turn into harmony and peace.

I have been feeling the shift for the past year or so and was perceiving it as destruction, in great part because I was clouded by alcohol. Now that I have renounced the booze my thoughts are clearer and my feelings are sometimes positive,although I still experience despair. Please join in this Sunday and help choose the parallel universe where harmony prevails!

[sidecross]

whitewave writes:

"…Experiments in quantum physics have shown how atoms can occupy the same place at the same time,…"

What experiments do you have in mind?

I have heard about empty space not being fixed at completely zero because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal: it could not have a precise zero value and a precise zero rate of change.

The recent experiments in entanglement have shown that sub particles can communicate to one another outside of the time space continuum, but I have not read about atoms occupying the same space and time.

[ February 05, 2003, 07:11 AM: Message edited by: sidecross ]

[whitewave]

As my information was gained from Braden's book, The Isaiah Effect, I shall quote him. "Quantum physics has a name for the reality that occurs during the time that two atoms occupy the same point, in the same space, at the same time. Such an outcome is called a Bose-Einstein condensate, honoring the authors of the equations that predict such an occurence. These condensates have now been observed and documented under laboratory conditions. Jeffrey Satinover reports that Bose-Einstein conditions have occurred with 'condensates of up to 16 million merged beryllium atoms' formed in the laboratory in the late 1990s. Moreover, Satinover reports that the material created from the experiments is 'large enough to be seen with the naked eye and has been photographed.'" (p.98) In the notes to the book, Braden cites Satinover's book Cracking the Bible Code. I noticed in an earlier post, Sidecross, that you mentioned the well-known fact that we only use ten percent of our brains. On the same page where he explains the Bose-Einstein experiments, Braden draws a parallel between this phenomenon and the recent discovery through the use of supercomputers that 90 percent of the universe very quickly disappears according to the models developed to track the steps of creation back to the Big Bang. (He cites Eugene Mallove's The Cosmos and the Computer:Simulating the Universe in his notes.) Braden points out that the observations of physicists and life scientists have failed to take the concept of dimensionality into account when trying to determine how the universe came into being. To quote Braden, "New research shows that our world does not end with the vibrations noted on conventional charts of cosmic waves, vibrating at over [10 square 22] cycles per second. Cosmologists now suspect that shortly after the moment of creation, the universe was expanding so rapidly that its vibration could no longer express within the lawas of three-dimensional experience. According to this theory, 90 percent of the universe literally vibrated itself into higher states of expression! It is this 90 percent that may represent the place where the parallel universes of quantum theory live."

note about brackets--I don't remember a whole lot about math. Braden had a 10 with the number 22 in small numbers to the right. I think that means square. And thanks for making me go back to check my facts! I tend to be sloppy about the details as I aim for the essence.

[sidecross]

Thank you whitewave for supplying the passage of the source of your information.

What was referred to was the Bose-Einstein condensate. While experiments in 1995 did involve atoms in the form of rubidium gas cooled to 170 billionths of a degree above absolute zero (170 nanokelvin). The condensate lasted for 15 seconds, but it involved bosons, a sub particle of the atom, not the entire atom itself.

My information was gathered from Q is for Quantum: An Encyclopedia of Particle Physics by John Gribbin. Yes, this may be hair splitting, but so be it.

"…Braden had a 10 with the number 22 in small numbers to the right." A number expressed that way is 10 followed by 22 zeros. A big number indeed!

[Anita]

Some more stuff on two dimensional Bose-Einstein cond.can be found at www.newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.415.htlm#3 (http://www.newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.415.htlm#3)

[gone]

Luckily we all have the luxury, if we choose, of adopting both an orthodox and an unorthodox methodology in our personal approach to what may happen in 2012.

Sometimes I enjoy using scientifically verifiable ideas – I might take comfort in contemplating gravity should I get in a panic about dropping off the planet into space. Sometimes I see that such a vocabulary isn’t appropriate for what I’m talking about – much of the discussion on this board, for example. It doesn’t have to be all one or the other.

I remember as a theology undergrad attending a lecture by the now deceased Ninian Smart. This world-respected theologian and anthropologist began by saying, ‘When I stand on the right of the overhead projector I am speaking as an academic; when I stand on the left of the overhead projector, I am not.’ By weaving together these two approaches he made an unfortunately rare amount of sense.

I actually think this combination is not only useful, but essential to understanding our current human condition. We are on the cusp between an old way and a new way. At the moment we *must* have a foot in both camps to bare witness to where we have come from and where we are going.

One practical example of this is an argument I use for vegetarianism. I agree with meat-eaters who say our bodies are physically suited to eating meat, but I make the point that human evolution progresses beyond the mere physical. Psychically, we have evolved to the point where, given the luxury of choice, we are probably *not* suited to eating meat. Here we can see a concrete example of the evolution of the body beginning to lag behind the evolution of the mind.

As for 2012, who knows? I *feel* that things are going to get worse before they get better, but that it is not part of the human story to dwindle out at its own hand. Transformation is inevitable; the question is simple one of timescale.

[daniel]

gelfer writes: "as for 2012, who knows? I *feel* that things are going to get worse before they get better, but that it is not part of the human story to dwindle out at its own hand. Transformation is inevitable; the question is simple one of timescale."

How about things getting much better and much worse simultaneously? That seems to be what is happening at the present - Burning Man was, for me, a great confirmation of it.

[gone]

Sure thing – the bread and butter of our experience doesn’t have to be all one way or another. Getting away from polar thinking is a crucial part of the development. We can all do a Kali.

[ February 20, 2003, 05:46 AM: Message edited by: gelfer ]

[Seph]

I've just ordered the 'holographic universe', I was wondering if this was the same theory that I saw in New Scientist last year, to do with the nubler of bits you can fit in a black hole, and the only explanation was that the universe is just a holographic projection of an energy pattern that exists on the 'edge' of eleven dimentional space.
If this is right, I see this energy pattern as the jungian collective mind, and we are just the universe experiencing itself subjectivly as is every other thing in the universe. So a shift in the pattern and anything's possible to my mind, I don't see what's to stop reality from shifting instantaneously.
So the 2012 thing seems plausible to me, even NASA has 2012 as a year to watch for the sun's flipping it's poles so might the earth, really nasty solar radiation blasts for the planet if they happen at the same time.

In case anyone didn't notice these aren't new ideas I was introduced to some them via Bill Hicks, and the others from scientists gone by but I reckon there's something to them so I adopted them tongue.gif .

Still that said no point putting all your eggs in one basket, best to deal with stuff as it seems to be too.