Questions for Daniel

[johnny]

i found this thread on Sacha's board:
interesting points made about daniel's transmission (http://www.forums.ayahuasca.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=10459&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=pinchbeck)

SOMOS makes a good argument: "mystics have been proclaiming THE END TIME to be coming for a long time now... and i tend to think it represents a confusion of levels of consciousness, projecting their initiatory process outwards onto what they believe to be the world...
spirit moves in mysterious ways, and does not conform to such over-arching tendencies, a kind of monomania, or mystical hysteria."

the other point made is that many people have these experiences and people tend to handle them differently. Like, maybe not proclaiming themselves avatars.

was wondering how you see these counter-arguments, daniel?

[sacha]

people tend to handle them differently. Like, maybe not proclaiming themselves avatars. Has Daniel done that?

[Dna]

It's a tough one.

People do have experiences of this nature including myself. I was 14 - a long time ago. Being hit by a locomotive would have been softer.

When you 'receive' something like that it totally rocks you to your foundations. I am different to whom I might otherwise have been. That seed planted so long ago is still wreaking the changes it was supposed to, though the shock is long gone. To paraprase Daniel - you have to sit with these things.

I don't know Daniel personally, but I am certain that he cringed with embarrasment while he courageously let the transmission text sit here, unedited. It hit him like a ton of bricks. He probably literally shook for hours afterwards and slept badly for months afterwards.

I cannot say whether '2012' is going to 'happen', but we are, without a doubt, approaching a crisis. This will activate unused strengths in all of us. That Hopi (http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000138#000001) advice really rings true, Humming.

Daniel is one person who is bringing much needed new ideas and radical perspectives to light at this time, which we need to engage with and 'sit with'.

Dna.

[ April 21, 2006, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Dna ]

[sacha]

Yes, lots of people are getting these messages. (Me too.) If it comes through powerfully, then as DNA says, being hit by a locomotive might be easier.

If it becomes about the person who is transmitting the message, if the person starts believing that they, as an individual, are "special," then things are getting off-track. But I don't get the impression that Daniel thinks, or is trying to convince people, that this is about him.

Am I wrong?

[sidecross]

“…This is the idea that you can't tell what's going on anyway, so no matter how squirrelly what you think, it's no squirrellier or no less squirrelly than what anybody else thinks. All ideas are somehow on this even footing, including ideas that have taken hundreds of years and the talent of thousands of people to put together, and something somebody just channeled in from Francis Bacon, who's living under Catalina Island in a state of suspended animation with a troupe of Atlantean engineers who are uploading human fetal tissue to who-knows-where. [laughter]…”

Terence McKenna
http://www.abrupt.org/LOGOS/tm970423.html

[daniel]

hi johnny,

thanks for your utterly reasonable question.

I don't know exactly how to answer it - I try to be the bext journalist reporting on my own experiences while making my investigations, and the Quetzalcoatl transmission emerged during my travels - it was not something I wanted. In the book, I try to leave open the possibility that it is not valid - I was certainly reading lots of material that contributed to the transmission. But what it felt to me subjectively was that my reading - seemingly directed by myself - was actually part of the process of self-organization, allowing Quetzalcoatl to express this message.

Do I know it is true? No more than I know that "2012" has a deep significance. I stress that these are theories or hypotheses - yet to me they seem more convincing hypotheses than the counter-statements.

However if I trust my own experience, then it seems to have some meaning. Personally, I continue to find the experiences convincing, and believe that there is a rational argument (following Jung, McKenna, Steiner, etc.) that supports it.

But truly, I could be wrong.

[John Hoopes]

"Almost apologetically, the vehicle notes that his birthday fell in June, 1966 – 6/66 – 'count the number of the Beast: for it is the number of the man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.'"

Any ideas about the other number of the Beast (on the earliest known example)?

http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/POxy/beast616.htm

[sacha]

many people have these experiences and people tend to handle them differently. Like, maybe not proclaiming themselves avatars.Based on Daniel's post above, it doesn't sound to me as though Daniel is proclaiming himself an avatar.

It sounds to me as though he had a powerful experience and has been following it to see where it leads.

[ April 22, 2006, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: sacha ]

[johnny]

no, but Quetzalcoatl most certainly did. that's the issue i was trying to address. and people will bring it up once the book is out there, people have brought it up on this board and elsewhere. i think it's legitimate concern. i was curious to see where daniel was with it

[daniel]

hi johnny, sascha, and dna,

thanks for the productive and sensitive comments/questions.

I do not think that I - or anyone - is special, in terms of being more valuable or important than anyone else. Everyone is equally a thought-projection of God into the material realm. Everyone is, ultimately, the same.

However, having said that, I do think that there is something that people need to at least consider - this is an area that the magazine "What Is Enlightenment" has been addressing very carefully in recent years: If we want to survive as a global civilization we are going to have to allow for "natural hierarchies," based on the kinds of skills and abilities that people have developed in this life, and potentially over many previous lives as well.

In other words, you wouldn't want to watch me play basketball, but perhaps you wouldn't want to read Michael Jordan's metaphysical meanderings, either.

What WIE points out is that it is a critical problem of post-modernism that we have created a "flatland" in which everyone is considered absolutely equal, especially in areas where there are no firm or quantitative measurements (for instance, philosophizing compared to jump-shooting). Right now, with the massive growth of "user generated content" on Myspace etc., there is a mass presumption that everyone is or could be a star, and people envision themselves as mini-celebs. The wonderful book Mediated (highly recommended!) delves into this situation in detail. It is not a question of this being "good" or "bad" - it is probably both, but it is important to understand the dynamics at work (the phenomenon of "the flattered self" says Mediated), and the phenomenon's cultural and political ramifications.

It seems to me that the Internet could provide the basis for hierarchies based on trust, established over long periods, where there would be a natural emergence of leaders in various fields, based on the past pattern of their actions and decision-making. In fact, it may be that something
like this has to emerge - it is one of the eventual goals of Evolver to help create such a network.

It is fascinating and instructive the way the current media system annihilates discrimination in favor of "flatland."

When Breaking Open the Head came out, I expected that in some way the mainstream media would be curious - perhaps even slightly respectful - that I had traveled to all of these different places and gone through these ceremonies, putting myself at some risk, but they found so many ways to dismiss this - calling it "the Hunter S Thompson thing" or whatever. Direct experience is no longer valued or considered in some sense preferable to mediated experience, which is a very strange thing.

As you will see when you read "2012", I had specific past life experiences around the same time I received the Quetzalcoatl transmission that seemed to indicate why I, exactly and precisely, was chosen for this role, and what I had gone through in previous epochs to accomplish this task. Once again, I found these past life intimations - like the Quetzalcoatl transmission - to be subjectively convincing (and there were objective signs and correlations as well), yet that does not mean they were either true or "The Truth."

Time will tell, as the story unfolds...

[johnny]

i think there is also the problem of the "exalted self", yes? by that i mean. it's like what a translator does and then his genius of translation (one definition: bringing up to heaven without dying) is at once exalted and erased.

i don't know about agreed-upon hierarchies, that smacks to me of caste systems, i'll read more certainly, i very much enjoy the odd democracy of say, myspace et cetera.

i do know that i have a similar experience to yours, even your mention of past lives is similar, my calling and skillset is different 'tho. so i'm interested. cheers.

[Rob P]

i think that hierarchical systems
reflect levels of growth ....

part of the problem with the culture today is that no one
wants anyone else to be more advanced than someone else...

thus, all the parents want to be as 'cool' as their kids,
and kids have to have bland education so that one
child isn't (gasp) more intelligent than another....

i refer to the excellent book by Robert Bly- the Sibling Society.

The USA is a leader in these bizarre
peer pressure symptoms. And the leaker-in-chief
is a prime example of a person who impressed people
initially be being just as dumb as they are......

seeya
r o b

[johnny]

well, ok. but.

"Proust was most resourceful in creating complications. Once, late at night, he dropped in on Princess Clermont-Tonnère and made his staying dependent on someone bringing him his medicine from his house. He sent a valet for it, giving him a lengthy description of the neighbourhood and of the house. Finally he said: “You cannot miss it. It is the only window on the Boulevard Haussmann in which there is still a light burning.” Everything but the house number! Anyone who has tried to get the address of a brothel in a strange city and has received the most long-winded directions, everything but the name of the street and the house number, will understand what is meant here and what the connection is with Proust’s love of ceremony. (...) Is it not the quintessence of experience to find out how very difficult it is to learn many things, which apparently could be told in a very few words? It is simply that such words are part of a language established along lines of caste and class and unintelligible to outsiders."

Walter Benjamin, The Image of Proust, from Illuminations, Fontana Press, 1992 (1973) p. 197-210

[lamocan]

Greetings !

This is my first post , even though i've been checking in and reading over here occasionally for a couple of years . I am 49 years old and have been exploring spirituality with entheogenic helpers (primarily Ayahuasaca and mushrooms) for many years .
With all due respect , at this point , I hold Daniel's transmission with a dose of healthy skepticism . A quote from the transmission :

" The writer of this work is the vehicle of my arrival – my return – to this realm. He certainly did not expect this to be the case. What began as a quest to understand prophecy has become the fulfillment of prophecy. The vehicle of my arrival has been brought to an awareness of his situation in sometimes painful increments and stages of resistance – and this book will follow the evolution of his learning process, as an aid to the reader’s understanding. The vehicle of my arrival had to learn to follow synchronicities, embrace paradoxes, and solve puzzles. He had to enter into a new way of thinking about time and space and consciousness."

So , the "vehicle" of Quetzalcoatl's arrival was chosen as Daniel , after he passed a sufficient number of tests (puzzles , paradoxes , etc.) ? And this is being reported to us by the vehicle himself ? And then the book comes out , followed by the speaking engagements and conference appearances ? And after the bold and clear pronouncements in the transmission are published , he gives himself an "out" by saying that none of it may be true . I guess that over the years i've learned not to jump on the bandwagon whenever someone begins by declaring himself "the Chosen One" . Is that not the case here ? I mean , is Daniel not saying that he has been selected as the vehicle for this great being ?
These types of visions have been coming in through many of us recently , myself included . Let's compare notes , folks . Many of us now have access to these other realms , especially with the use of entheogens . I think it would lend much more credibility to these claims if independent people were beginning to have visions (or recieve "transmissions") that one person was being chosen as the mouthpiece for Quetzalcoatl ........and his name shall be "Daniel" , or something like that .
I hope I have not just barged in here and stepped on toes . Now i'll give myself an "out" : I may just be getting cynical in my old age ! I enjoyed Breaking Open the Head and am actually looking forward to reading the new one .
smile.gif

[ April 24, 2006, 05:18 AM: Message edited by: lamocan ]

[daniel]

hi iamocan,

i totally agree with you. This is not about me - I sincerely hope that others step forward with their own experiences and transmissions and missives from their own higher selves, whatever name that higher self gives itself.

I do not think I am the "Chosen One" - I think everyone and anyone is the "Chosen One," when they want to be. These experiences happened to me - I am a writer who writes about his experiences and ideas, hence I have relayed this with as much veracity as I could. I think, if you check out the book, you will see that if anything I have gone out of my way to present the crappier aspects of my own personality - partially so that nobody would pretend I was making myself out to be better than I am.

One of my great heroes is Allen Ginsberg, and I love and admire the way Ginsberg dealt with people putting him up on a pedestal. In one story, someone was fawning over him, saying, "Oh Allen, it is so amazing the way you do so many different things - you write poems, you lecture, you sing..." And Allen simply replied, "Yes, you can never step into the same Allen Ginsberg twice." In the amazing book of interviews with him, Spontaneous Mind, he also notes that the ultimate message of the artist, when he makes his art, is not "look how great I am," but, "I am nothing. Are you nothing too?"

However: As we began to discuss above, I also think that we live in a culture of mediocrity, where nobody wants to allow anyone else to be as big or as noble or as great as they might in fact be. When somebody does fully express themselves - say, John Lennon or Martin Luther King - they are often first the victim of an ongoing media assault and then assassinated. In that sense, I would be almost happier if my work continues to be simply ignored and retroactively ridiculed by the mainstream - although once again, i think Ginsberg laid out a beautiful path of candor and open-hearted innocence that made him somehow invulnerable (of course he experienced his share of virulent media attacks).

I really like the Fairie Oracle deck of Brian Fround, and in it one of the fairies says, "People think you have to have defenses or you aren't safe. But actually, when you have no defenses, you are invulnerable."

That is, truly, the only path that interests me.

If a large number of us stepped into our greatness altogether and at once, acting in a spirit of comradeship and loving compassion, there would be nothing for the mainstream society to do - it would simply capitulate.

[jezebelle]

"allowing Quetzalcoatl to express this message"

I think Quetzalcoatl newly expesses itself through the vibrant colors we've been seeing everywhere.

Not like the 50's.
Now we have brightly sparkled rainbows, neons, cool ruppures in dye put on paper, gold-silver markers; all evidence of the emerging ENERGY expressing itself everywhere, the plummed serpent, great healer moving us all along the path.

love and respect to the foreum,
jez

[whitewave]

For those who question Daniel because of his claims to be Quetzalcoatl's vessel in the transmission (or Q's claim on him)....It occurred to me while reading this thread and looking again at the transmission that maybe the transmission came through in this way at that point in time because it was what Daniel needed at the time. The way he could understand it at that moment perhaps.

Also, maybe the transmission had lessons in it through the way it is worded that Daniel still had to go through. This doesn't mean that this what Daniel believes now. I think it is most important to listen to what he is saying now, not make assumptions based on his past words. The same true holds for all of us.

I have encountered a couple of men lately who are going through messiah trips as they awaken. This doesn't mean they are going to stay in this place. It seems that this is a process the male ego needs to go through...not sure why. These are just thoughts off the top of my head.

But I must say, that from reading Daniel's words I don't get the feeling that he is considering himself an avatar right now. If he did in the past, that's ok. Every time we judge another we are judging a part of ourselves that is afraid, that is stopping us from giving birth to ourselves.

I agree that we are afraid of our own light. I led a sacred song circle this past weekend and people were terrified! No one wanted to get in that center and sing, but when I did, when I showed them it was all right to shine, a couple of them did, and it was quite a beautiful thing to see people let go of their fears and be naked and raw for a few moments.

As someone who has been on this board for a few years, I have noticed a big difference in the tone of Daniel's communication that makes me think he is sincere. As the fairies say, the most powerful defense is no defense...

[johnny]

so who's being judgemental? one thing i do like about Andrew Harvey (besides getting a kick out of his very queer, don't worry i'm gay so I know camp, very operatic and overdramatic reading of his own mysticism.) which i don't doubt in the least, btw.

but now his emphasis is on love in action, and spiritual activism, and he builds his model on the revolutionary christ and on mary.

i bring him up because i think that's where daniel, and many on this board are headed and probably already there. that's fantastic.

and i posed the question to daniel because i think it's legitimate. i haven't lost faith in the culture, or myself or anyone. we'll get there, even if our first impulse isn't to dance in a sharing circle.

[geogaddi00]

In relation to the experience Daniel had on ayahuasca and being reminded of what shamanism is, I think one thing people often forget is that there are MODERN shamans that are being called, but they have to make their way through a labyrinth of complexity and are led by synchronicity and visionary experiences, and eventually, the point of full shamanic initiation. There is an excellent book about shamanism that was edited/compiled by Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, called "Shamans Through Time - 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge". They go through a great deal of anthropological literature straight back to the first accounts of early Western explorers that came across tribes and tried to understand their spirituality. They clearly show that over these 500 or so years our (white man's/victims of 'The Fall') once ignorant view on shamanism has deepened incredibly as the anthropologists and journalists have done REAL research by directly experiencing the same states of mind that the shamans go into- accessing the fourth dimension/Oversoul of the planet. We can see that even in the past 2 years there have been more great contributions to the research of shamanism by direct experience from people like Daniel Pinchbeck and Graham Hancock. And I don't think many people could forget what Terence and Dennis McKenna contributed- but do you remember what happened to them in the Amazon in 1971 after many mushroom experiences? Read "True Hallucinations".

Quetzalcoatl is an emerging archetypal spiritual force that has been gaining alot of momentum since the new millenium. Is it the reincarnation of (or a spiritual echo from) the Mayan civilization? Mel Gibson is busy finalizing his new ambitious film that will highlight the last chaotic years of the Mayan civilization before it collapsed (once it had degenerated and meandered far from its shamanic roots)- and is convinced that the parallels between the last years of the Mayans and the chaos that we are seeing in our global civilization are uncanny. And we can all remember The Passion of the Christ- apparently this one will be even more bloody, and it is called Apocalypto. Well, people like John Major Jenkins, Jose Arguelles and Daniel Pinchbeck have done alot of study into the Mayans in relation to their shamanism/spirituality, and you can expect a well integrated synthesis of it in "The Return of Quetzalcoatl"- with an overall optimistic position. Isn't that better than seeing bloody chaos on the screen depicting the dark last hours of civilization?

Anyhow, I am adding some relevant text about shamanism from Wikipedia on this post, to try to remind people about the overall implications of shamanism as it is described in an indigenous perspective, but please try to see a modern context for it as it relates to information, technology as well as art and music.

Shamanism:

Aspects of the practice
Different forms of shamanism are found around the world, and practitioners are also known as medicine men or women, as well as witch doctors.

Initiation and learning
In Shamanic cultures, the shaman plays a priest-like role; however, there is an essential difference between the two, as Joseph Campbell describes:

"The priest is the socially initiated, ceremonially inducted member of a recognized religious organization, where he holds a certain rank and functions as the tenant of an office that was held by others before him, while the shaman is one who, as a consequence of a personal psychological crisis, has gained a certain power of his own." (1969, p. 231)

A shaman may be initiated via a serious illness, by being struck by lightning, or by a near-death experience (e.g., the shaman Black Elk), and there usually is a set of cultural imagery expected to be experienced during shamanic initiation regardless of method. According to Mircea Eliade, such imagery often includes being transported to the spirit world and interacting with beings inhabiting it, meeting a spiritual guide, being devoured by some being and emerging transformed, and/or being "dismantled" and "reassembled" again, often with implanted amulets such as magical crystals. The imagery of initiation generally speaks of transformation and granting powers, and often entails themes of death and rebirth.

In some societies shamanic powers are considered to be inherited, whereas in others shamans are considered to have been "called": Among the Siberian Chukchis one may behave in ways that Western clinicians would characterize as psychotic, but which Siberian culture interprets as possession by a spirit who demands that one assume the shamanic vocation. Among the South American Tapirape shamans are called in their dreams. In other societies shamans choose their career: First Nations would seek communion with spirits through a "vision quest"; South American Shuar, seeking the power to defend their family against enemies, apprentice themselves to accomplished shamans.

Shamanic illness
Shamanic illness, also called shamanistic inititatory crisis, is a psycho-spiritual crisis, or a rite of passage, observed among those becoming shamans. The episode often marks the beginning of a time-limited episode of confusion or disturbing behavior where the shamanic initiate might sing or dance in an unconventional fashion, or have an experience of being "disturbed by spirits". The symptoms are usually not considered to be signs of mental illness by interpreters in the shamanic culture; rather, they are interpreted as introductory signposts for the individual who is meant to take the office of shaman (Lukoff et.al, 1992).

Practice and method
The shaman plays the role of healer in shamanic societies; shamans gain knowledge and power by traversing the axis mundi and bringing back knowledge from the heavens. Even in western society, this ancient practice of healing is referenced by the use of the caduceus as the symbol of medicine. Oftentimes the shaman has, or acquires, one or more familiar helping entities in the spirit world; these are often spirits in animal form, spirits of healing plants, or (sometimes) those of departed shamans. In many shamanic societies, magic, magical force, and knowledge are all denoted by one word, such as the Quechua term "yachay".

[sacha]

Good post, whitewave (IMHO).

From Lamocan's words, and from what silentwolf says in another thread, it seems that some of the attacks on Daniel are coming from other channelers. Lamocan says:


These types of visions have been coming in through many of us recently , myself included . Let's compare notes , folks . Many of us now have access to these other realms , especially with the use of entheogens . I think it would lend much more credibility to these claims if independent people were beginning to have visions (or recieve "transmissions") that one person was being chosen as the mouthpiece for Quetzalcoatl ........and his name shall be "Daniel" , or something like that .
As you say, Lamocan, more and more people have access to these realms, especially through the use of entheogens; and I think that the opening up of more and more people to receive channeled messages is a manifestation of the waves that are passing through our species groupmind at this time of Transformation.

"Let's compare notes, folks" -- well, we are basically getting the same message, about the Transformation, or Dimensional Shift, or Great Awakening, or whatever term might be used.

But one thing that sidetracks a lot of people in dealing with channeled messages -- whether messages they receive themselves, or messages that come through others -- is that they focus on the source, whatever that source may be alleged or defined to be.

Some people, for example, get hung up on whether a channeled message "really" comes from a "separate" being or "only" from one's subconscious mind -- as though that distinction ultimately had any meaning. There are no boundaries in the dimensions of consciousness.

But the only thing that really matters about a message is its content.

We don't need to receive a message about someone else being a "chosen one." It doesn't work that way. (All channelers are "chosen ones," after all. Just like anyone who gets married is a "chosen one" -- chosen by somebody!)

How it works is that you hear the message and see if the message resonates with what you have received yourself.

The content is what matters.

But a channeler with a rich and sophisticated vocabulary of words and concepts offers an entity the opportunity to render more subtle, nuanced, and complex messages. So it doesn't surprise me that Daniel, as a person with metaphysical sophistication and fluency in language, would be "chosen" by something that wanted to convey a certain kind of message. And there are probably other factors besides that, in his being "chosen" for this particular message.

But let's just wait to see the content of the actual message, and then let's judge.

[ April 25, 2006, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: sacha ]

[Humming]

I saw a dude today with a t-shirt that read, "Be Your Own God". Perhaps this relates to what Daniel is doing.

When you take seriously the idea of an achetypal or mythological consciousness, you realize that all of the myths and stories of the past are a part of your own history, the history of humanity, and that those patterns of energy and expression that formed the ancient god-forms are present within our consciousness today.

For example, the reason why the chakra energy system is relevant for many modernized, Westernized, non-Hindu people today is that thousands of years of practice working with energies patterns and using focused, meditative thoughts have imprinted the experience into our psyche. So now even a beginner who is not connected to the original culture that created the chakra system is able to access it.

The spirit of Quetzacoatl remains within our knowledge today because of the intensity of its original expression. The same applies for prophets and luminaries and mythological figures like Ghandi, Rasputin, Kali, Hitler, Nostradamus, Thor, Jesus, etc. etc. The meme will be sustained and revitalized if it is important enough to remain in our consciousness.

This kind of energetic activation is happening across many realms right now. People are learning what it means and how it feels to "Be Your Own God".

[johnny]

and maybe it would be better to stay away from actual "transmissions" and "prophecies" and rather focus on the intricacies and process and uncanniness of embodiment of these energies within (or however they manifest within us). or at least, take them with a grain of salt. exegesis are hymns of a lazy muse, i think. there is wisdom, but the sifting through and trying to access certain coordinates of meaning within a web is almost, to me, like reaing a map too closely. it disintegrates in your hands.

for instance, it's been amazing to witness daniel's integration of this, just as one example, and the realization that all go through this and either reject and deny or embrace it and surrender. that's great! and meaningful and human.

that to me, does not indicate a need to denigrate other's shining and beautiful light. that just means, again to me, that we really are in this together and we're doing the best we can.

[sacha]

But it's not so hard to extract meaning from it -- given the striking commonalities of the message that so many people, and more and more people, are receiving spontaneously now. (Though I am surprised to hear that we all go through the channeling experience. But we might indeed be headed to a point where we all do!)

These messages now are not about our individual development. They are about us as a groupmind and how we are transforming ourselves at a species and planetary level.

2012 is already here. We are living during the "2012" right now. It is in the collective consciousness. 2012 is not a date in linear time down the line in the future. It is a collective focal point for the human species groupmind, so that as a groupmind, we can focus our consciousness together and collectively decide just where this change is leading. 2012 offers a focal point for us to align our consciousness together, and to decide -- not just at a mental level, but at a psychic/energetic level -- where we as a species are going at this critical time.

It doesn't matter if it came from "Quetzalcoatl" or a source that identified itself in another way. As has been pointed out by Humming and others, Quetzalcoatl is an archetype within the collective consciousness; the "gods" are repositories of great stores of energy.

(What Jung seems to have missed is that the "collective unconscious" -- which is conscious in its own way -- is dynamic, changing, evolving. We as a species have a collective memory of everything that has ever happened to us -- and collective decisionmaking as well. We are bringing that awareness to the "conscious" level now, hence the urgency of the transmissions that so many are receiving, consciously or not.)

I resonate with not only the content but the sense of force and urgency of the message that came through Daniel. I know what it is like to receive overwhelmingly powerful messages, so when I read the Quetzalcoatl transmission, I sympathized with Daniel and his experience, rather than interpreting it, as some seem to, as some sort of self-aggrandisement.

[daniel]

i'm really appreciating this discussion - very intelligent and sensitive points, and I also dig jezebelle's comments about the colors.

i had experiences several times at burning man especially at dawn where it seemed like new colors were being added to the spectrum. I feel there is some possibility that our perceptual range is being increased/intensified as part of the transformation of consciousness. Wonder how you would measure this...

[Isaiah Mpski]

How bout by the number of turds and their density you find within a 100 ft radius of your tent.
Burning man is full of a bunch of shitheads.
Hopefully you guys and the Rainbow community can start meeting at the same time and place every year.

[Douglas]

Humming,

I saw a dude today with a t-shirt that read, "Be Your Own God". Perhaps this relates to what Daniel is doing.Yup. Just like the temptation in the Garden of Eden, I'm afraid. (No knee-jerk responses, please. This is serious business, and truth isn't quite as evanescent as some seem to make it seem.)

[johnny]

hey guys,
i got a hold of 2012 two days ago at my local barnes and noble. so i'm about halfway thru and really enjoying it. i do have some reservations.

daniel, it seems we have a similar background, Bank Street, hooray for generalists! UWS, don't know where you went to HS, I went to Fieldston, but I ended up at Berkeley and you at Wesleyan. All of this to say that I didn't have the same experience as you, quite. I'm a poet and an artist. Started my own literary journal, ended up in some anthologies. Half of me went on red alert as soon as i got thru your descriptions of growing up in the same milieu that i did, probably knowing the same kids, certainly the same landscape et cetera. My red flag is this: i know that we all come to a certain crisis stage of "who am i" at different times and different stages of being and different sets of circumstances. i know that most of us have some coping skills and survival mechanisms set in place that bring us through (or don't) this stage. Mine was an opening, without psychedelics, to deep energies and archetypes that I almost didn't survive, firmly planted in the foundational ecstasies, almost mathematical in their incisiveness and power. Let me explain, while Quetz seemed to undulate above the city waiting and watching, believe me, there are other energies: whether ancestrial, or family or World. There is the Divine Mother, there is Hermes T, there is the Christ, there is the Magdalene, there are so many and all have the same face of God. And they were an overlay, not a refutation of site and place, and I agree it would be naive to turn your face from what is wrong and what needs to be changed, and i think the way thru is total acceptance of the way things are.,. which is so very hard and what we can do given these "principalities", and the way they come thru our bodies and mind, and given meager tools to either cope or work with them; they are still there. I say I almost didn't survive because at first I took them for something outside of myself, the way you define the "greys", which is a really good reading of it i think.

and douglas, you might want to accept that Christ is next to you on the street, and the Magdalene is next to you in bed, and somewhere a huge freaking scary dragon bird is giggling, and love is in your heart and in your texts, because that's the only thing that will bring us anywhere.

lately, i've been doing mindfulness meditation, it helps. i love my body, isn't that cool? all these years and i took it for granted, as a vessal. but now, it's an integral part of who i am. and tantra, i've been practicing without knowing it. greening.

we are the ones we've been waiting for, and i'm glad. but it all is frightening and i'm sure that i'm placing unneeded boundaries somewhere to a way of being that we can't even imagine. it's hard to not feel exalted and/or degraded. because reality is fiercely frightening right now.

i liked sacha's "I am loved" meditation, and i like synchronicites, and i found too, that if you chase synchronicites too far you get lost. so go ack to your body, and take care. we're so much more than we can imagine. and we're right here.

[sidecross]

The ‘bottom line’ on daniel’s book should be is he a good writer and story teller.

[johnny]

yikes! we're at the bottom line already?...in that case i would add, "and the stories we tell ourselves, are important as well...."

[daniel]

hi jonny,

thanks for your post - glad to hear we are leaves off the same culturally progressive tree.

i don't totally understand what you are asking - perhaps you are not asking anything? When you write "... total acceptance of the way things are..." it raises my hackles a little bit. I feel that is more the path of the East, and the Western path is one of integration of the levels (of "heaven" and "earth") that actually requires activity on our part.

I tend to agree with Gurdjieff, by the way, that "ordinary effort" doesnt count - only "super effort" counts. However, the ultimate goal might be something like the integration of effort and effortlessness, so you move like a ballet dancer through realms of increasing complexity and chaos, while remaining perfectly centered and composed.

[johnny]

(sorry that was before coffee this morning)

wasn't really asking anything, just kind of mulling some things over.

ordinary effort, i think for me, doesn't exist. you either engage with all your faculties, or you disengage. If you hide, these energies within and without will do what they will, and one feels very very small or exalted as the case may be.

what i meant by acceptance is that you suspend and change habits and reactions that have been karmically engrained, you shed them by giving them first your attention, and then your acceptance, and then your embrace. you can get to a place of peace. this is what it is. i can act from that. and this takes enormous amounts of energy, flexibility and being present, and it demands a sense of humor (which my gosh can be hard). all the earmarks of being a warrior. would you still say that's ordinary?

i think it's sort of like arjuna. this is who you are. this isn't "other" in any sense of the word. this is me.

anyways, cheers on the book. i'm really enjoying it.