It already happened.

[SecondSun]

The dimensional shift already happened. We should get over it.

Here is my reply to Daniel in "Awakening to all this."

"SS,

Yawn. I advise you not to be so strongly committed to the optical illusion of your own particular perspective.

The doom vision, to me, is just as much a boring hallucination as the vision of the Christian heaven, with eternal harp-strummings. In a way, it is still very self-important and arrogant, thinking that humans even have the capacity to annihilate themselves - as if there couldn't be higher intelligences (Gaian and Solar minds and so forth) guiding this process. It seems to me, as McKenna also noted, that we are sentient aspects of a planetary intelligence that is purposefully organizing life towards its own ends - what we see as technology, resource depletion, etc., are just interim phase-transitions in a larger process. We are being offered an invitation to learn to work at higher levels of being, at deeper levels of harmony. We don't have to accept this bargain, if we prefer our negativism, but this choice will have personal consequences.

--------------------
--
"Don't drink wine. Become intoxication." - Rilke"

It is urban life which is the illusion. The universe is not self organizing so much as humans organize the space around them to suit their needs. It is the current excess of cheap energy that makes living in cities so easy. A laptop cost's $1000 and it is not uncommon to make $20/hr. A gallon of gasoline cost's $2.39 where I live. The work produced by a gallon of gasoline is equal to 500 man ours or $100,000 dollars worth of manpower at a typical $20 wage. However slowly, over the next 200 years, oil prices will go up, to $200 a barrel and then to the point at which it takes more energy to produce a barrel of oil than that barrel of oil provides, at which point oil production will stop. This is the shift, guys.

Consciousness is completely subservient to the reality around it. We humans got drunk with power when we realized that the earth contained free energy in the form of petroleum. It was inevitable that they would burn it all off.

This is not apcalypse but a move away from the urban form of life. We will return to the earth and live off of seed bearing plants. Our technology will develop backwards as we keep only the tools which help us survive in the oilless future (2200-3000) we could easily make it to the year 3000 provided that the damage we've done so far is not too bad. The biggest threat is that we will blow each other up with nuclear weapons, but I am an optimist on that front.

We are the generation of transition. At this moment we are very much enjoying the benefits of oil as a source of energy. As we move away from energy based technology we will rediscover the life of our ancient ancestors. It will be hard for the spoiled to get used to but the working class and the working poor already live in harsh conditions.

[ April 12, 2005, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: SecondSun ]

[SecondSun]

Personally I enjoy 3D computer grahics. I find this a much more enriching passtime than speculating about the future. There is nothing wrong with living an ordinary human life. We are not gods and we will never become gods.

I'm currently working on a fast square root algorithm that uses a lookup table and newton method. It will find any square root to any accuracy very quickly. If you need square roots faster you can reduce the accuracy.

I then plan to write a vector engine that will perform vector calculations on a list of vectors. You load the vectors into a list called MEMORY_LIST and it performs OPERATION_LIST sequentially on 1, 2, 4, 16, or 32 vectors. The results are posted to RESULT_LIST.

So say you want to take the dot product of 128 vectors. Load each vector pair into MEMORY_LIST, put "dot 2" in the OPERATION_LIST and it posts the dot of each pair in RESULT_LIST.

[whitewave]

Agent Smith wrote in Awakening To All This--"daniel- i will agree with you that negativity can be an extreamly counter productive viewpoint. i also find that throughout my life i have been conditioned, and programmed to view things in certain ways, and that it is almost as if my perceptions are hardwired to scan for the negatives in what ever i am viewing."

As a person who had been deeply disturbed at the state of the world from the time I was born (and maybe before that), I have been programmed to scan for the negative. I realized it this weekend when I was talking to the yoga/writing teacher, Jeff Davis, who I met at a workshop. The name of the book I am working on is called The Apocalypse Diary. I have been thinking about the idea of apocalypse for a few years now, seeing it as an awakening, but I have not yet chosen to really write about the positive aspects of the lifting of the veil, the life on the other side. I have been focusing on the death, and while I know death may be positive when one actually experiences it, my programming to search for the negative has been keeping me in the dark birth canal for too long now. I feel like if I don't let go and slide out I will not make it out, at least in this body.

[daniel]

secondsun,

i think the oil will tap out a lot quicker than you project. I don't think the slow transition you propose is possible on any level. We have gone over this ground in older threads.

However, I think that the transition to a new form of consciousness will also bring with it new transitional technologies - biodiesel, bio (with no diesel), perhaps sooner than we can imagine, free energy based on the zero point field. I don't think we need to hypothesize the end of urban living. I think we are moving towards more choice, not less, in all areas. This may sound specious to you but it is no more specious than what you are proposing.

[willoweyes]

I don't believe that we can or should continue on with our spendthrift ways, on the hopes that when the oil runs out, we will find other energy slaves.

A valuable perspective can be found by Googling "Energy and Human Evolution" by Dr. David Price of Cornell University. I encourage anyone interested in the subject to check out this essay. A quote: "The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche."

In the service of entropy. My personal "revelation" on this subject occurred when I realized that biological systems on earth have tended toward greater complexity and a more tightly woven web of interdependence--in defiance of the law of entropy. It is as if life and entropy are at war. It is as if a battle is waging for the flesh and soul of our planet.

I don't think we can or should rely on a "greater power" which is directing things toward the greatest of all possible goods. I think, and I believe this theory resonates deep in our genes--deep in our literature and our souls--that there is right and wrong--that it is important for us to exercise our free will in this regard, and that wrong decisions have consequences. When I was young I read Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle In Time" and as an adolescent her words resonated--I knew our planet WAS shadowed by wrong choices.

I think the Anasazi and other groups of indigenous people, far from remaing in a primitive state due to a primitive mindset, relied on their shamans and visionaries to lead them from the trap of enslavement to entropy.

I think that we have been sold a bill of goods--a box of trinkets if you will--regarding the pleasures and benefits of technology. I am reminded of Dustin Hoffman's description of the hunter-gatherer existence in Little Big Man--"It was about Paradise for a boy."

I might have mentioned this before here--but I see our devotion to the gimcrack tech dream of our age, with as much sadness as one might view the Native Americans of Manhatten, trading their land for trinkets. We have traded our birthright of beauty, clean air and water, freedom, (real freedom) and holy balance, for a handful of promises and dust.

It is time to choose life--which side are you on?

[willoweyes]

I might also mention that last night, a group of high school students (my son's friends) stopped by to admire my garden. I showed them my potato plants. "But where are the potatoes?" they asked. They were amazed to discover that potatoes grow underground.

[Agent Smith]

from every thing i read about 'primative peoples' i am, more, and more, and continously amazed by how very fucking advanced they seem to me... adapted to, and adapting their environment...

for me the future lies not in some 'greener' version of this civilization we have now... not even the gee willikers, gosh durned most futuristicly, adavanced one... we may never find the 'zero point', or events may overtake us at that stage.. like deciding to stop eating french fries 45 minutes before your heart attack...

from everything i've learned about hunter gatherers, and other types of civilizations that were 'stone age', life in that sort of society could be quite grand... combining ideas such as 'permaculture', with stone age 'technologies', and our more 'enlightened' and 'advanced' philosophies, ethics, and such i think that the human race has an excellent chance of not only surviving, but reseeding, shaping, and reforesting the Earth, and living here just fine.

... the alternate vision i've been given is that the carbon life cycle ends... (the soil life web will die... is quite possibly dying) and Gaia starts over with the things that live on the sulfuric acid in the deep ocean volcanic vents...

the only two technologies we really need, are arboreal, and psychic/somatic... how to grow our environment to which we are genetically suited for, and how to operate our mind/bodies....

see i AM an optimist... i am just unsure that my vision is any less unrealistic than anyone elses...

[silentwolf]

I agree with you, Agent Smith, on the hunter/gatherer aspect. I feel that as human animals, this is an integral part of our nature that we have been trying to subdue since the onset of the Dark Ages. We must embrace this aspect of ourselves, and turn all of our technologies towards this.

When you work with the seasons, farming and hunting, the need for light bulbs diminishes, and the need for electricity with it; when you are outdoors the majority of the time, the need for climate-control also diminishes because we naturally adapt to the elements. The more I examine it, the only true need we have for energy expenditure is for purposes of travel, and long-distance communications. Of course, our ability to do these two things at a high rate has made our civilization what it is today.

What would happen if we lost global, real-time communications? Our civilization would begin to collapse. I feel that this is one of the heralds, for several I have spoken with who have had visions of the decline of our civilization have said to me that we will hear of a war begun between two neighboring countries, and then we would hear nothing else, for all of our communications (save shortwave, and there are few HAM operators today) will be lost in an instant. How would we compensate for the loss of this communication, and the loss of the infrastructure that carts food to your local Wal-Mart, and deducts those numerical figures from your checking account? We would have to return to the hunter/gather, farming community to survive.

This is something that I'm preparing for...I'm going to read up a bit on steam engines. If nothing else, at least I could build a toy to have some fun with.

[Agent Smith]

...huh! i just had a thought while reading your post silentwolf... (yes a rare occurance thoughts in this head of mine, but still)

...perhaps the whole 'point' of this current technological escalation really was the democractazation of knowlege, and information through our mass communication systems... disseminate enough of the critical information, to as many human carriers as possible before the rug gets pulled out from under us... maximizing the potential of as many individuals as possible...

after all what makes humans effective as animals?

once we eliminated the sabertooth tiger, we didn't really have any natural predators (except for fucking mosquitos...).

what makes you a valuable member of a clan, or tribe? it's not your alpha dogness, brute strength etc.... it's your knowlege... yeah, i can hunt the best, but grandma knows how to make the best woven reed sandles, and she can teach maybe 100 more of the tribe's children this important aspect of self sufficeincy before she goes on to join the ancesors....

...in the Dune novels Frank Herbert writes about 'Mentats' humans who have trained their minds to calculate with the perscion of, but infinitly surpassing computers, because they have outlawed 'machines that can mimic the workings of the human mind.'... with the current work that's being done in human potential, etc. i foresee this as becoming an easily achivable event....(as easy as 'zero point at anyrate) this is what celtic bardic training was about, in part... incredible feats of memory...(data retreval)

every member of the tribe a shaman, all humans cooperating with their environment, and the other beings who inhabit it.

[Agent Smith]

]...i can also easily see 'telepathy', either through dreams, or trance replacing our modern communication systems...

...i'd miss libraries though...

[ April 13, 2005, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: Agent Smith ]

[SecondSun]

Daniel wrote "secondsun,

i think the oil will tap out a lot quicker than you project. I don't think the slow transition you propose is possible on any level. We have gone over this ground in older threads.

However, I think that the transition to a new form of consciousness will also bring with it new transitional technologies - biodiesel, bio (with no diesel), perhaps sooner than we can imagine, free energy based on the zero point field. I don't think we need to hypothesize the end of urban living. I think we are moving towards more choice, not less, in all areas. This may sound specious to you but it is no more specious than what you are proposing.

--------------------
--
"Don't drink wine. Become intoxication." - Rilke"

Zero-point energy is science fiction. Biodiesel is a good small scale option. Nuclear power won't work if we don't have oil with which to mine the uranium. Of course cities, town's and what not will still exist. But electricity will be scarce. I'm glad you are optimistic about the future because as I have said am I as well. I think you are right that oil will tap out sooner than my 200 year prediction. That was meant to be a conservative prediction on all counts. What really makes imagining a future without oil hard is that everything we do today uses oil. The food we buy is farmed by oil consuming agribusiness. Everything you use is delivered on trucks. No real alternative has been found. That is, we will never get as much energy back from the alterntive methods as we do from pumping oil out of the ground.

But having less energy around is good because it will force people to conserve. We will have wars at first but then it will get to the point where the government can't afford to use it's diminishing oil supply on jet's, tanks, and ships.

Anyway since it is not really the topic of this board to discuss negative future scenarios I will move my discussion elsewhere. I have to admit I find this kind of "psychedelic futurism" a little ridiculous and I don't really want to fight about it. I'm more interested in what I can do to give my children a fighting chance in the future.

[ April 13, 2005, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: SecondSun ]

[SecondSun]

willoweyes: I don't believe that we can or should continue on with our spendthrift ways, on the hopes that when the oil runs out, we will find other energy slaves.

SecondSun: We haven't found an alternative to oil yet. Why would we expect to in the next 50 years? When we run out of oil we will have to return to less efficient sources of energy. All "alternative" energy boils down to less efficient, be it however biofriendly, energy.

willoweyes: A valuable perspective can be found by Googling "Energy and Human Evolution" by Dr. David Price of Cornell University. I encourage anyone interested in the subject to check out this essay. A quote: "The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche."

SecondSun: Oil was not always part of our niche. It doesn't have to remain that way. Bioenergy exists everywhere in the form of ATP, the bodies gasoline. Whenever a task which requires energy is performed, flexing a muscle, walking etc, thousands of molecules of ATP are converted to ADP. It takes energy to turn ADP back to ATP, that energy is stored until it is released. No, life, and humans, get enough energy from the sun to power the whole biosphere. We need not worry about the end of petroleum.

willoweyes: In the service of entropy. My personal "revelation" on this subject occurred when I realized that biological systems on earth have tended toward greater complexity and a more tightly woven web of interdependence--in defiance of the law of entropy. It is as if life and entropy are at war. It is as if a battle is waging for the flesh and soul of our planet.

SecondSun: Not really at war. What happens is the grass gets energy directly from the sun. Then there are the animals that eat the grass, the primary consumers, then there are the animals that eat the animals that eat the grass, the secondary consumers, then there are the animals that eat the animals that eat the animals that eat the grass, like the Tiger, tertiary consumers. These animals are not at war with each other over energy, in fact there populations are linked. When the harre population plummets so does the population of the lynxs, then the population of the harre with no predator explodes only to give the lynx plenty of food. So everything is balanced. They do not annhilate each other. Even when mass extinction do occur life starts over again. The dinosaurs did not survive a meteor impact but the tree shrews did. And they eventually grew ten times there size and became humans. I won't worry about life's ability to sustain itself. The earth will not be killed by us. We only risk killing ourselves.

willoweyes: I don't think we can or should rely on a "greater power" which is directing things toward the greatest of all possible goods. I think, and I believe this theory resonates deep in our genes--deep in our literature and our souls--that there is right and wrong--that it is important for us to exercise our free will in this regard, and that wrong decisions have consequences. When I was young I read Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle In Time" and as an adolescent her words resonated--I knew our planet WAS shadowed by wrong choices.

SecondSun: I don't think there are right and wrong decisions. There are only the decisions that were made. And we all at the time thougth that they were the best decision. We shouldn't worry about some antiquated God who sets down a choice for us. When we die we lose our memories of our bad choices anyway. We shouldn't worry about our own life.

willoweyes: I think the Anasazi and other groups of indigenous people, far from remaing in a primitive state due to a primitive mindset, relied on their shamans and visionaries to lead them from the trap of enslavement to entropy.

SecondSun: I think the primitive people were stable, they figured out how to live in there enviroment, and they weren't worried about figuring out new forms of energy because they didn't need to. It is people who had to live in the cold that had to figure out new technology to make living easier. Eventually we discovered oil and beat the cold entirely.

willoweyes: I think that we have been sold a bill of goods--a box of trinkets if you will--regarding the pleasures and benefits of technology. I am reminded of Dustin Hoffman's description of the hunter-gatherer existence in Little Big Man--"It was about Paradise for a boy."

SecondSun: Well, we have a chance of returning to that paradise provided we don't kill each other for food.

willoweyes: I might have mentioned this before here--but I see our devotion to the gimcrack tech dream of our age, with as much sadness as one might view the Native Americans of Manhatten, trading their land for trinkets. We have traded our birthright of beauty, clean air and water, freedom, (real freedom) and holy balance, for a handful of promises and dust.

It is time to choose life--which side are you on?"

SecondSun: Sides? There are no sides that I can see.

[ April 13, 2005, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: SecondSun ]

[silentwolf]

The best thing you can do to give your children a fighting chance is to expand your current knowledge, expand your ability to share ideas with others (this means hearing what they have to say without being immediately judgemental based upon your current prejudices,) and save a lot of different kinds of plant seeds, including hemp.

People worry about fertilizer for the future...all you need is manure, beanstalks, and peanuts.

[SecondSun]

silenwolfxvx: What would happen if we lost global, real-time communications? Our civilization would begin to collapse. I feel that this is one of the heralds, for several I have spoken with who have had visions of the decline of our civilization have said to me that we will hear of a war begun between two neighboring countries, and then we would hear nothing else, for all of our communications (save shortwave, and there are few HAM operators today) will be lost in an instant. How would we compensate for the loss of this communication, and the loss of the infrastructure that carts food to your local Wal-Mart, and deducts those numerical figures from your checking account? We would have to return to the hunter/gather, farming community to survive.

SecondSun: In the suburbs you could turn your gardens into permaculture zones. There wouldn't be too much food at first. But at least everyone would be fed eventually. Reintroducing livestock into the community would be a good investment. Goats do quite well in our suberbs.

silentwolfxvx: This is something that I'm preparing for...I'm going to read up a bit on steam engines. If nothing else, at least I could build a toy to have some fun with.

Steam would only be good for Amtrak, Union Pacific/Southern Pacific and local gimmick railways. There will come a time when wood is less expensive than oil at which point Union Pacific will buy up the remaining functional steam engines. These engines will probably not make it that far without needing replacement parts which can be made with a wax mold. Finding scrape metal for the parts will be important and also finding fuel for the furnace. Of course we can always use wood but we are running out of that fast. At some point companies are going to realize that they should stock up on gas now while it can still be bought. At which point there will be a run on the market and everything will be bought up. Those who have fuel will use it on themselves and no others. Employment will be minimal or for no real payment at all. Payment with Rum will be common.

But, if you own a steam engine you will probably be able to sell it to either UP or Amtrak. This would be a nice thing to hang on to. Put it somewhere were you can drive it onto an Amtrak/UP line. There will be no/minimal diesel engines to move your train. You must make sure it is operationable. Best bet is to fix it up now and don't use it for awhile.

There will always be booze, either free or as payment for goods and services. Boozers will be happy.

There will be shortages of food. People are encouraged to learn how to hunt/trap animals. Meat will be a commodity. Rat meat will probably be undesirable but plentiful in an emergency. Cats will take to the streets and eat up all the birds if we don't eat them up first. China is already devouring their song bird populations.

Ok I gotta go. More later.

[silentwolf]

lol...if I build a steamer, it'll be an amphibious swamp-buggy, with plow hook-ups to it. The purpose won't be for cashing in or jumping onto rails, it'll be for doing work and moving myself and my family around as need be.

[daniel]

Second Sun,

You say that zero-point energy is sci-fi, but a lot of things in the past have been sci-fi and become realities. At the same time, the crop circles are certainly "sci-fi," but there is demonstrable scientific evidence that they are created by unknown sources of single-point electromagnetic radiation. UFOs are certainly "sci-fi," but they have been tracked doing impossible manuevers by radar for many decades. Occult experiences, poltergeist, and paranormal forces are certainly "sci-fi," but I and many other people on this board have directly experienced them.

All of these phenomena also suggest there are levels of potentiality in manipulating the physical (or psychophysical) world that are far beyond are current matrices. Since I personally have every reason to support the hypothesis that 2012 is a transition to a higher level of consciousness (experientially and theoretically), I would suspect that some of these phenomena are going to be part of that accelerated transition - and that the societal breakdown we are approaching is only the prelude to an extraordinary breakthrough, if we can keep our calm and not panic and find the right means to aid in the necessary transformations that will take place.

[SecondSun]

Daniel wrote:

Second Sun,

You say that zero-point energy is sci-fi, but a lot of things in the past have been sci-fi and become realities. At the same time, the crop circles are certainly "sci-fi," but there is demonstrable scientific evidence that they are created by unknown sources of single-point electromagnetic radiation. UFOs are certainly "sci-fi," but they have been tracked doing impossible manuevers by radar for many decades. Occult experiences, poltergeist, and paranormal forces are certainly "sci-fi," but I and many other people on this board have directly experienced them.

All of these phenomena also suggest there are levels of potentiality in manipulating the physical (or psychophysical) world that are far beyond are current matrices. Since I personally have every reason to support the hypothesis that 2012 is a transition to a higher level of consciousness (experientially and theoretically), I would suspect that some of these phenomena are going to be part of that accelerated transition - and that the societal breakdown we are approaching is only the prelude to an extraordinary breakthrough, if we can keep our calm and not panic and find the right means to aid in the necessary transformations that will take place.

--------------------
--
"Don't drink wine. Become intoxication." - Rilke

Crop circles are easy to make. You just use a little mathematics and some string and you can create some of the most beautiful shapes. Single point electromagnetic radiation? What is this even supposed to mean? You mean the wheat was magnetized? Unlikely. No I think crop circles can easily be explained as a beautiful form of art but a form of art none the less created by perfectly normal human intelligence.

Potentiality beyond our current matrices? What kind of matrix do you speak of? Like the matrices in maxwell's field equations? Anyway if a breakthrough comes that would be nice but I just don't see any reason to believe that that is happening.

[craazyman]

Anyone interested in zero point energy should check out Dr. Steven Greer's Disclosure Project info.

http://www.disclosureproject.org/

I still haven't made my mind up whether this stuff is real technology or just a trickster manifestation of some sort of labyrinth of undefineable wierdness. Although no question at all about Dr. Greer -- a stand-up, incredibly courageous individual with impeccable integrity.

[Isaiah Mpski]

The dollar is the oil of the world.
If it were not for that fact China would have taken her island and Korea her state.The chaos started by violent reaction is morally and physically wrong and would bring down a longtime great nation.

SS is right that we need to go backwards in some ways to really ascertain truth from a new prespective,that being,the word of the new messiah,
johndonaldson

[willoweyes]

secondson, From your responses to my post, I believe I did not make myself clear (it seems so clear to me--that is a dangerous position when one is trying to explain something!)

When I talk about a "war" between entropy and life, I am not talking about plants or animals battling for resources; I am talking about the second law of thermodynamics; ie as energy dissipates matter breaks down or devolves into simpler and simpler forms. Until chaos reigns. Choices --we may call them good or evil--I find I have no trouble labling a choice "evil" that has destroyed 1/3 of our ecosystem--these choices are contributing to the work of entropy.

In my personal cosmology, that which contributes to the rich flowering of infinitely varied life is "good" that which contributes to a vast stinkhole of poisoned death is "bad."

[willoweyes]

There is a book called "Bumblebee Economics." The basic thesis of this book, if I read it correctly, is that a biological system will not survive if it is an energy profligate. Waste serves entropy.

When Argentina "collapsed" a commentator said sadly, "They became a nation of consumers, not producers." That is what we have become as a species on a global scale--that is what I call "bad"-- that is what we could rectify by a change in perspective and values.

This is a true story. A national park was formed in the Mexican Sonoran desert; an Indian tribe who had lived beside a spring in that park for generations was forceibly removed. Species diversity dropped drastically.

Humankind can sing this planet into an ecstatic vessel of springing creation, or we can drown it as a seabird is drowned in black tar. It is a choice, it is a decision, and the stakes are high. To say "it's all good," is to divorce oneself from any sense of personal responsibility, and in the end, from hope.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Hope is a prostitute in LA when the apocaylpse comes.
We are promised in Revelation only a few hundred thousand will recognise the truth and "be saved".

[ April 14, 2005, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[daniel]

second sun,

you are wrong on what you think about the crop circles. I know because i did the experiential research for myself. you have simply accepted the media accounts. Knowledge always trumps belief.

i support the perspective of teilhard de chardin that the "hominization" of the planet, utilizing the stored energy of the biosphere, is an event that could only happen once. There is a kind of implied sequence of events taking place. As Chardin suggested, this seems to lead to inception of the noosphere. I have gone over this in so many other posts i can't really be bothered to do it again here. if you want a reading list so you can educate yourself i can give you one.

mpski,
i think it is absurd to take symbolic numbers as literal ones. All we do by doing that is project our own negativistic and hubristic fantasies onto the world - we project our own shadow. Who knows how many people are "destined" to survive whatever transitions looms ahead? My own perspective is that the vast majority of humanity will survive, and that the faster we can come to see the situation shorn of our own negative projections the faster we can help move the situation into the most positive possible framework. Lingering in negativity, even (strangely) "gloating" over disasters to come, is adolescent and will only help to bring such negative energies reverberating back on the sender.

[willoweyes]

Daniel, why do you post essays by James Howard Kunstler if this mess we are in is a mere "hominization of the planet?" Perhaps you want to demonstrate what a competent job we humans are doing?

"There is a kind of implied sequence of events. . ." show me the reading list that recommends the destruction of the biosphere as a prerequisite for humanity's assention to a higher plane; I would be interested.

I can only see your last post as a plea to ignore negativity and "move the situation into the most positive framework." While this laudable ambition surely has a worthwhile motive, it can also be used by the Bushies when they urge us to go forth and buy an SUV.

We did it, we have a responsibility to clean up the mess and return this planet to beauty. It can be done--it shouldn't be shirked.

[silentwolf]

Well, if you study archeology, this isn't the first mega-civilization that humans have built; not even the technology is "new" or "cutting-edge." There's evidence of nuclear wars going back as far as 7,000 years, and cities and monuments that predate even that.

Take Mars for example...if those images really are cities buried under ice, how long ago were they built? It definately predates our current history, even though there are old tales about "us" bouncing back and forth from planet to planet. Honestly, I don't think we can do much more than make a scratch on the surface in the scheme of things...they recently proved with a zircon crystal that the earth had oceans and was capable of supporting life 4.4 billion years ago.

Are we screwing things up? Oh yeah! Hey Kool-Aid, we're going to wreck the environment so bad on this path that we're going that if we continue, there won't be much left alive for a while...but the planet will be repopulated by one form of life or another.

There's a lot that we can do with technology, especially where RF (radio frequency) is concerned. We can make crop circles with a microwave antenna. We can make steel translucent, levitate strawberries and people, and even forge metals with electromagnetics. With fossil fuels (Key word in this being "fossils," meaning these fuels were formed by the en-masse destruction of multitudes of carbon-based lifeforms) we can build enourmous empires and blacken the skies. All this aside, there's much more that we can do with our minds.

Consciousness is what makes everything possible, and there are realms of consciousness that we are not remembering at this time how to access. Like Winston Churchill said, "The empires of the future will be the empires of the mind."

[daniel]

willloweyes,
here is a pretty intense quote on the subject from a Rudolf Steiner lecture: "Forces have to be applied for the purpose of destruction, in order that man may become free of the Earth and that the Earth's body may fall away. … By understanding the process of evolution we shall learn to assess our culture at its true value. We shall also learn that it is necessary for the Earth to be destroyed, for otherwise the spiritual could not become free."

I think the key is to reach a nondual perspective on what is happening, as we are certainly in the best of times and the worst of times. As much as it has become fashionable to laud tribal societies for their non-destructive ways, I don't think we would really want to return to those lifestyles, saturated with "manna" and the supernatural and black magic. Here once again I recommend Jean Gebser on the "magic structure" of consciousness. We also would not want to return to the rigidity of traditional civilizations that Evola and Guenon believe are the only right way. Would you like to spend your life throwing stone on top of stone for a Pharaoh's pyramid?

As Gebser lays out carefully, the possibility of the "integral structure" of consciousness could only emerge from the final crisis of anxiety and collapse of the "mental - rational" consciousness structure, which is what is currently taking place. This crisis could only be caused by the technological acceleration and biospheric collapse now upon us. I recommend Jose Arguelles' Time and the Technosphere for one articulation of this. Gebser also makes clear in his work that the integral consciousness is an "intensified Christianity" -- and we might take quite literally Christ's words that among his followers, some will be capable of miracles beyond what he manifested. I think he says that if two or three get together and have faith, they will ask a mountain to move and it will move.

As I "received" in the Quetz transmission, "consciousness is technology - the only technology that exists." Therefore it is clear we are being challenged (and deep processes in the collective unconscious have forced us into this challenge) to move into a deeper reliance -- not just faith but disciplined knowing based on self-training and experiential evidence -- on consciousness, the "reality of the psyche," to bring us through this transition into the prophecied "New Jerusalem," "Fifth World," "Jupiter Incarnation," etcetera.

As the support structures are cut away from beneath us, we will be increasingly reliant on direct connection to the supersensible world to provide for us. It is to be expected that life will become increasingly difficult and uncomfortable until full acceptance of the situation is attained.

My own intuition of what is to come increasingly suggests a situation in which humanity splits up into different "human kingdoms" for a time (as prophesied by Steiner). If you look at Tibetan Civilizations or I am sure the Classical Mayan civilization and others, the vast majority of people willingly gave their obedience to those who were in direct contact with supersensible realities - most people would not want to undergo those experiences for themselves.

In The Tao, it is said that "reversal is the movement of the The Tao." I think that part of the complete reversal of values that is going to take place when the shit hits the fan is that the visionaries and shamans of the human tribe are going to be returned to their natural state as leaders of the community. This will not be based on some strict or legislated hierarchy, but it will be made manifest by what happens in reality - control of natural forces, fair judgment, dharmic principles, etc. The Tao makes clear that the mass of people simply adopt the values of the elite at their own level of being - since the elite is now a fear-greed-ego complex, that is what people have mimicked in their own lives.

Obviously, I cannot give an exact blueprint as to how this will play out in the next years. But it is already evident that values and subliminal currents of understanding are transforming quickly.

silentwolf,
i really don't see much or any evidence for a previous technological civilization that detonated nuclear weapons. I don't think that is borne out at all by any scientific understanding of reality - for instance, dangerous background radiation did not really exist before our modern-day dabblings. I do think there is plenty of evidence for a pre-existing planetary high culture based on magic - the prototype of the Atlantean myth. This is well laid out in Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods as well as A New View Over Atlantis by John Michell. I think we need to have as accurate an understanding of what did and didn't happen as we can - although I also believe truth is relative to a certain extent.

[silentwolf]

I read somewhere ~ and I can't find the sources now ~ that there is a geological layer worldwide that shows a cloud of radioactive particles descending from the atmosphere. They've also found fields of green glass at the sites which are believed to be "Sodom and Gomorrah."

The Ramayana and a few other Indian texts also talk about a war that involved the use of weapons which fit the description of nuclear warheads.

[Agent Smith]

well...what a smart boy am i?

i for one would LOVE a reading list, to add to my ever expanding list of reads...

please daniel, how could our limited time best be spent if we wanted to have a grasp of some of the concepts you are enjoying at the moment?

[ April 14, 2005, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Agent Smith ]

[Humming]

"consciousness is technology - the only technology that exists."

I wish I had read that before my Transhumanism lecutre today, that's beautifully more concise than the way I phrased it.

As far as crop circles, Second Sun if you do read some into crop circles and look at the images themselves and then compare them to the hoaxes that have been produced by humans, they are incomprobable. The non-human made crop circles are many times more intricate, complex, and creative than the hoaxes. Upon looking at them, it's quite simple to differentiate between the ones that were made by humans and the ones that weren't.

The biggest difference, from what I've read, is that when crop circles are formed none of the individual stalks of wheat are broken. Obviously, this would be an impossible feat for humans to manage without millions of dollars of research and equipment. No hoaxer or groups of hoaxers would be able to accomplish this unless they were very involved financially, and had the technology and inclination with which to do this. Clearly, the idea that a hoaxer would do this anonymously and without taking credit is quite preposterous.

So, what makes them? Well, if you go by eyewitness accounts, people usually hear a high-pitched noise which occurs and then very suddenly the crop circles are formed. This has lead to the speculation of natural causes for crop circles, in terms of weather patterns and magnetic feilds and such. I think that this is partially true, but the symbols themselves represent something much deeper and more significant than simply electrons moving according to weather conditions.

For anyone who has never seen a real crop circle, you should check out some of the online sites. The images are phenomenally captivating, intricate and beautiful. I love crop circles. I hope to actually see one in a feild some time.

[daniel]

silentwolf,

I think you have to do better than to "remember reading somewhere" if you want to make such claims, though I know I skate on thin ice here as I have been accused of the same. However I really do feel my approach is experiential and essentially scientific, as I try to verify what I support.

agent smith,

Well, the reading list comprises most of the books I have been talking about incessantly in the last months and years.

Jean Gebser - The Ever-Present Origin - an entire philosophical paradigm about the evolution of consciousness, which fits in perfectly with Amit Goswami's thesis from The Self-Aware Universe and The Physics of the Soul, that consciousness is fundamental and evolution involves "quantum leaps" into higher levels of complexity and freedom. (A development from The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, the bestseller that noted that quantum physics and Eastern mysticism had converged). Gebser's book is the textual equivalent of Kubrick's "2001."

The Mayan material:
Jose Arguelles - Earth Ascending, The Mayan Factor, Time and the Technosphere: If you start with "T and the T" it may seem ungrounded.
Carl Johann Calleman: The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness
John Major Jenkins - Maya Cosmogenesis 2012
also:
Terence and Dennis McKenna - The Invisible Landscape and Terence Mckenna, True Hallucinations
-what one gets from this is that this new paradigm about the Mayan conception of time as a fractal or spiral ingression to a new level of consciousness (or noospheric activation) has a firm foundation now, seen from many different angles. Ian Lungold's video presentation on mayanmajix.com is a great version of this material.

Edward Edinger - The Archetype of the Apocalypse, Transformation of the God-Image

Carl Jung's essay - "Answer to Job"

Rudolf Steiner - "How to Know Higher Worlds" and Outline of Esoteric Science - It is important to come to grips with Steiner's understanding of the Christ event as a world-changing one, a spiritual advance over the Eastern perspectve that "all is suffering" and hence the goal is the transcendence of the Earthly condition. The Western judeo-christian tradition does not support that idea. We accept material and ego-istic life, and seek to liberate or redeem through the world through an intensive transformation of this reality on an ethical and spiritual level. Steiner has books on each of the gospels plus the Book of Rev. It is hard for the contemporary mind to appreciate his 19th cent style and approach at first. I also think "Philosophy of Freedom" is very important.

George Kulhwinder - Becoming Aware of the Logos - another anthroposophic text looking at the imminent completion of prophecy and the manifestation of the logos. Science is a precondition to attaining logoidal consciousness -we can see that we have developed understandings of different holonomic levels of the Logos - the "language" of genes, of molecules, of whole systems, etc.

Owen Barfeld - "Saving the Appearances"

Sri Aurobindo - "The Mind of Light" and other writings on the imminent descent of the "supermind." Aurobindo himself represented a fusion of Eastern esotericism with the evolutionary understanding developed by the West (Steiner also - they are cross-cultural brothers). The condition of "supermind" is always and already existent, in the transcendent domain beyond our current point-by-point relation to spacetime. But the necessity exists to bring this condition down to Earth, so it becomes available as a human transformative power.

AE Blake - "The Intelligent Enneagram"

Ouspensky - "Towards a Psychology of Mankind's Possible Evolution"

J G Bennett - "The Masters of Wisdom" and his book on Gurdjieff (title escapes me).

Also spend some time on the bioneers website, checking out new uses of technology and the western technical mindset to solve current critical problems, especially John Todd, Paul Stamets, Bernard Letiaer (alternative currencies). I assume the same basic argument is made in Fritjof Capra's new book, "The Hidden Connections," which I have only scanned. Bioneers founder Kenny Ausubell has written a book on a number of the visionary design scientists featured in their annual conference.

William Irwin Thompson - Imaginary Landscapes, Coming into Being, Passages about Earth: He brilliantly synthesizes current science ideas and yogic and mystical concepts, and is oriented towards establishing a new "planetary culture" through the Lindisfarne Association.

Rupert Sheldrake - Patterns of the Past: His theories of morphogenetic fields and of the laws of nature not fixed but evolving by habit fits Goswami's "science within consciousness" perfectly.

Nietzsche - Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, Ecce Homo - Nietzsche recognized that man's turning against his own nature suggested an effort of self-overcoming leading to a transvaluation of morality and a new form of consciousness which he foretold.

Walter Benjamin - Illuminations and Reflections (esp. "Theses on the Philosophy of History" from Illuminations).

Heidegger - "The Question Concerning Technology", and other selected essays.

Herbert Marcuse - "One-Dimensional Man" - masterful critique of modern industrial civilization's "irrational rationality" ending with a cry for a "Science of the imagination," though seeing no way to bring "totalitarian democracy" to an end (writing in 1962 he couldn't foresee the energy crisis and the biospheric exhaustion).

Next up on my own study list is Buckminster Fuller, who seems to be a key figure in the pragmatic work of creating design science fit for a human and earthly future.

Teilhard de Chardin - The Phenomenon of Man

Dean Radin - The Conscious Universe: Tabulates the last century of psychic research, looking at sober statistics that provide clear evidence of the reality of psychic phenomena demonstrable in repeated laboratory conditions. Also Russell Targ's work on remote viewing etc.

For the nondual perspective, Namkai Norbu's book on Dzogchen

--

What comes through, for me, through this reading and more, is that the evolution of consciousness on the Earth is following a sequential process as carefully timed and programmed as the moment-by-moment release of chemical signals in fetal development. We are now in the contraction process leading to the birth of humanity's higher mind. We have to overcome dispersions, distractions, and negative programming to grasp and cooperate with this process, fully internalizing the Hopi notion that "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

On a global scale, what we are undergoing right now is a traumatic lesson in ethics - clearly, to get to the next level of consciousness (in which contact with higher forms of galactic intelligence become available), we cannot continue in this amoral morass that currently dominates the world. This lesson will be as harsh as it is necessary to make it.

Also I think it is absolutely necessary to understand something of karma and reincarnation to have a full sense of what is now underway, and how long it has been in preparation. Univ of Virginia Professor Ian Stevenson has compiled extraordinary data on reincarnation stories around the world, with young children remembering details of past lives and violent deaths - he would go to the morgue and photograph wounds that correspond exactly to the kids' birthmarks, plus verifying their accounts in detail. Some of the photos are available on the Net. He has written a 2,100 page book on his research.

Steiner said the mission of his life on Earth was to return a knowldge of reincarnation to the West, and wrote a series, "Karmic Relationships," tracing figures of the West back through past lives, much the way the Tibetan Buddhists do.

[Humming]

"Steiner said the mission of his life on Earth was to return a knowldge of reincarnation to the West, and wrote a series, "Karmic Relationships," tracing figures of the West back through past lives, much the way the Tibetan Buddhists do."

How was Steiner informed as to other peoples' past lives? What techniques were involved?

[Charlie]

I support the perspective of teilhard de chardin that the "hominization" of the planet, utilizing the stored energy of the biosphere, is an event that could only happen once.

Daniel: you have mentioned this before, that this is the earth’s and consciousness’ “only chance.” Isn’t this rather homo sapien-centric, for want of a better term?

For lack of evidence, you dismiss SilentWolf’s assertion that ours is not the first technologically-advanced civilization that ever existed. True enough: it’s hard to dig up evidence more than 20,000 years old. Neither can we neither prove that life exists on other planets, but given that the last Hubble telescope readings gave an estimate of 125 billion galaxies (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/TopazMurray.shtml) , I think we can safely make an assumption or two…

Current theory states that the earth is about 3.5 billion years old, with complex life support at two- to three-hundred million years. Given these “facts”, the assertion that just-as-intelligent beings existed and died off from one cause or another, is more probable than improbable. Maybe the estimated 800 billion barrels of oil (http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/fossilfuels.htm) that exist in total aren’t exclusively from plants and dinosaurs with brains the size of a walnut…

Is there a way to put your reading list on the forum in a separate topic heading, or as a permanent post that always appears on top (commonly known as a "stickie") that can only be edited by an administrator? This way you can refer people to it, rather than having to repeat yourself.

I have wanted to read Jean Gebser’s book for quite some time, but it’s a bit pricey. I will get to it sooner or later.

[willoweyes]

"It is necessary for the earth to be destroyed for otherwise the spiritual could not become free." Huh?

Speaking as one for whom the earth is a Being, this philosophy is repellant, horribly species-centric, and frankly inconceivable.

I agree that's it's very possible karma will call for some severe lesson-plan for humanity--but destroying the earth? This reminds me of the Jesus thing--God sends His only begotten Son to earth, we murder Him--so obviously God grants us salvation. (How many of you have seen "Dogville"--I think that posits a liklier scenerio for how our heavenly Father might feel toward humanity after the Jesus fiasco--and also for our present condition).

We destroy the earth--that's the way to "free" ourselves of these nasty fleshly entanglements. I've heard that promise before--that's the oldest trick in the book of eternal hucksterism. Wasn't that what the snake-guy preached in "Conan the Barbarian?"

Yes we've made a mess of things, and yes we need to straighten them out. I don't see how we can expect to flutter off into eternity while leaving our House in a mess!

Tikkun Olam is healing the world--not leaving her raped and broken. Healing--that takes work, and loving attention to her wounds. That takes nursing.

I listen to another philosopher, who said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

[daniel]

humming,

it seems that steiner had continual access to a kind of visionary consciousness only available to most of us through psychedelics. Gary Lachman considers this to be a form of controlled hypnagogia, but i don't know if this is it exactly. i would think it is closer to what one experiences during ayahuasca trips - a kind of controlled capacity to explore other realms. Having decades to explore these areas through "supersensible cognition," Steiner was able to trace the evolution of certain individualities through a series of past incarnations.

willoweyes,

once again, all i can say is that it seems we need a nondual perspective to understand this - and it is worth taking Steiner's entire perspective into account. He dedicated himself to creating techniques for positive transformation of the earth such as biodynamic agriculture, flow forms for healing polluted waters, homeopathic medicine, etcetera. i do not know to what extent he thought destruction would occur or be necessary - whether it was a complete destruction (the earth pulled off its axis by misconceived human projects, which is conceivable as the vast dam projects in india and china are apparently shifting the torc of the earth's rotation, and we do not know how delicate our orbit is - plus other insanities like throwing nuclear bombs into the Van Allen radiation belts to see what happens).

Steiner's vision is that everything is conscious at its own level, and continuously transforming - either moving into higher states of consciousness, or degrading into lesser and more insensate states. i would say that like de chardin he considered human consciousness and the earth consciousness as inseparable - we represent the psyche of the earth at its - and our - current state of evolution. William Blake had the identical vision, noting that when he looked at the sun he didn't see a material body but a kind of harmonic orchestration of higher consciousnesses. i would say that the movement into noospheric activation would mean that we would become consciously aware of our own synchronization with the Earth and also other planetary bodies - that our evolution is embedded in the solar system and even in the universe as a whole. What we think we are doing at this point in time is actually just happening - being done through us - until we attain a higher level of consciousness, and take on for ourselves the task of maintaining the earth. We are still in a kind of adolescent stage - probably "2012" means "childhood's end."

as for the hominization of the planet an event that could only happen once, i think it is obvious, as this requires a sufficient population density and the development of global communications, global transport, which takes a huge toll on the living systems of the earth and also utilizes the vast reserves of stored sunlight left, perhaps, for this exact purpose. Read Thomas Hartmann's wonderful book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, for more on this.

i don't think it is arrogant to assume that the development of human consciousness is meshed with the destiny of the planetary intelligence - i think it would be arrogant to presume the opposite, that the "Gaian Mind" didn't know what she was doing when we emerged, and that therefore we have been allowed to run rampant. In fact, it really does seem to be an intelligently guided process, orchestrated by the immanent higher consciousness operating from a transcendent dimension.

As one example of this, consider the origin of LSD in 1943 in Basel, Switzerland, just as the Nazi Holocaust was sweeping Europe. The date of the first intentional LSD trip was the same day that the Nazis began finally clearing out the Warsaw Ghetto, and it seems there is some particular relationship between Jewish mysticism and LSD. LSD, released by the noosphere into human consciousness at that particular point in time, led to the psychedelic upsurge of the 1960s, a kind of counterforce of spiritual and psychic consciousness opposing the Ahrimanic destructiveness of the "one-dimensional" materialist mindset.

I would say the discover of the Nag Hammadi gospels in a jar in 1945 - including early Christian texts such as the essential "Gospel of Thomas" -- was another noospheric event. Similarly, according to Arguelles, the opening of Pakal Votan's tomb leading to our currently unfolding understanding of the hypertemporal vision of the Maya. It seems to be a carefully timed process where crucial information is being released to us in a necessary sequence, if we can find the "ears to hear."

[willoweyes]

Daniel, thank you for making this argument clear enough for me to understand. I can see how you have a valid point--and I will freely admit that I am still at a stage where I cling to the earth like a child to a beloved mother.

I am sorry some of my posts have been so shrewish. (How do other people seem to make their imprudent posts disappear?)

If such is truly the way the world must go, (and we know change is the only constant) I can do nothing but accept it. Meantime, my own calling requires that I celebrate Life as I find it, and fill in the erosion gullies.

[Agent Smith]

nothing to see here.

[ April 15, 2005, 03:14 PM: Message edited by: Agent Smith ]

[Agent Smith]

ah yes, i see that i will have to revise my approach to steiner if indeed he was able to maintain a prolonged state of 'hypnogogic exploration'....seeing as how this is what i use in lieu of psychedelics these days...

thank you.

[gone]

Originally posted by Charlie:
I support the perspective of teilhard de chardin that the "hominization" of the planet, utilizing the stored energy of the biosphere, is an event that could only happen once.

Daniel: you have mentioned this before, that this is the earth’s and consciousness’ “only chance.” Isn’t this rather homo sapien-centric, for want of a better term?It might be worth thinking of de Chardin’s view more as Christocentric, as Christ (let’s say “Christ Consciousness” for all you folk who find the Word on It’s own a little spooky) is the conclusion that his evolution points towards. If we can then accept that the Christ Consciousness is the Divine Order it is a little easier to accept it inhabiting the central position, and the path toward it.

[willoweyes]

My inner Shrew, like the Undead, cannot Rest In Peace.

Gelfer, I do not understand your last post. Are you saying that Jesus would be in favor of using up the earth and going out with a bang?

Please use small words.

[gone]

How about small words with capital letters smile.gif ?

Simply that for de Chardin, evolution culminates in Christ/Omega; this is the centre of the story. I can’t really comment as to whether Jesus is in favour of using up the earth and going out with a bang, but I would not be surprised if the steps which take us to the centre of the story and varied. Perhaps some of the steps which appear unsavoury from a person-centred perspective appear less unsavoury from a Christ-centred perspective.

[Agent Smith]

i'd call that one 'the light adam destroys the unclean material world creation of the evil one' meme parasitically piggybacking on the christ meme...

Gaia's a player though... those thought forms don't know who they're fucking with.

[Humming]

"Perhaps some of the steps which appear unsavoury from a person-centred perspective appear less unsavoury from a Christ-centred perspective."

Absolutely. That was a great succinct phrasing, Gelfer.

A question, is it possible that someday everyone will realize the Christ-centered perspective? To what extent is this necessary for positive change?

Another, more deeply philosophical question would be, if the Christ consciousness is unified, why does it choose to appear divided at all? Why does it percieve suffering? If it is unified, how is suffering even possible?

Of course, I have my own ideas about the anwers to those questions, but I'm always intrigued by this discussion.

[silentwolf]

How can the "christ-consciousness" be explained without using the word "christ?"

[daniel]

willoweyes,

i truly and completely do not think that 2012 is the literal "end of the world." I think it is the birth of humanity's higher mind as a noospheric collective. The "Christ consciousness" for me can be understood as acting from direct awareness and connection to the atemporal origin (Gebser) or the "supermind" (Aurobindo). It is not refusal of the world at all but the complete opposite - it is the demand that the world come into accordance with the transcendent domain, and acting as if that was already the case (even to the point of literal and hideous self-destruction as in JC's story). Christ's story is a prefigurement of how we will be acting, shortly, of necessity. And I believe his sacrifice at that point in time - the shocking ethical and psychic explosion that he represented, which has travelled on through the incredible distortions proposed by patriarchal churches that have utterly perverted his message (as he also foretold) - was also necessary to ensure that similar sacrifices will no longer be required by those who "carry his cross." Even though as recently as the 1960s that has been the case (think Martin Luther King).

The return of Christ can only be a large-scale movement, to be incited by a section of humanity that has reached the requisite evolutionary point in their ethical and spiritual and intellectual evolution through a cycle of preceding lives, now able to hold that "vibration," when push comes to shove. Steiner predicted Christ's return in the "etheric realm" rather than in the physical world as a single individual - the literalization of the "second coming" of Christ by fundamentalists is laughable.

Once again, Jung's "Answer to Job" is a difficult but necessary text.