Washington Rebel

31 December 2009

Born of the Sun

I have been fond of saying, over the years, "Take a long look at me.  I'm the last of a kind."  And I chose to not have children, not so much a rational decision as a revulsion, because I did not want to explain to any offspring of mine what had become of the nation that still causes my blood to tingle when I think of her.  I love America.  I love what she stands for.  I do not like what we've become.

I come from genes that are wild and true.  I love open spaces.  I like what is just, and am drawn toward the genuine.  To sit at a table with girly men sporting earrings gives me the creeps.  To hear angry women call George Bush 'Hitler' only confirmed for me the notion that some virus is in the air that causes insanity.

Obama and his friends preach tolerance, but there is bigotry at their group's core. As displayed by the Reverend Lucy, this is a spiritually vacuous ideology. While they fashion themselves as human saviors, they clearly don't like people very much, and they despise conservatives.

I was not the least surprised when our country elected a soul-starved narcissist to the presidency.  Nothing else makes sense.  What is noteworthy, newsworthy, is how tragic this is: not for some smart ass kid that talked his way into money and power.  Tragic for my nation.  The one I love.

I have memory of other lives in other lands.  Call me mad if you must.  I don't mind a bit.  This theme we have before us now is a theme I've seen before, a pattern that spreads rings in the waters of soul.  I know how it plays.  When I was a child I dreamed of it continually.  I have seen it before.  I see the pattern that is already set.  I can tell you what will happen.  And I can tell you why.  I am here because the Lord wills it, and I am afraid.  And I have news for you, pup.  If you're reading these words, we have met somewhere else, within a similar pattern.  At some level you already know this.  It chills you to read these words, doesn't it?  That chill you feel is your own memory.  The fact that you felt that just now is a sign of the times.  Will you honor it, or brush it off?  Do you think it's time you started facing up to things, instead of scratching your ass with a giggle?

As you can see, we recently made changes at the Reb.  I reckon they're for the better.  I was able to determine who wanted to write, and who wanted to stand on the curb and wave at the parade.  My friend John Jay and I are born and bred Pacific Nor'westers.  I lecture him about the caps key, and it does no good.  Go figure.

What Fuchs is speaks for itself.  Nothing I can say would enhance it.

I invited the boys from Notes From the Resistance over because they're the kind of buck I grew up with: they like women, nature, and freedom.  If their words offend you, it's because you have the virus. 

[T]he day they come, I'll be in their living rooms. I'll make it easy for them to find me.

I come from folks who were active in Washington State's birth, who published newspapers and enforced the law.  The man I look like was town marshall just 10 miles north of where I sip my Starbuck's.   His mother was from Scotland; his dad from Wales.  The women in my family taught music, and literature.  Don't kid yourself that everyone is born equal.  I come from stock that aspires.  You can see it, if you know how to read.  Can you admit it?  It's not enough to say you're already somewhere.  You're nowhere, till you make up your mind to move forward.  That's how it is.  You want your country to get better, then you get better.  If you need a politician to give you hope, that's not good enough.  America was corrupted the day it started making excuses for not good enough.  We won't recover till we get past that.  Nothing will ever be good for you if you're not pulling your own weight, Jake.

Somewhere beyond when they put this boy in a grave.

Time to start, buckwheat.  God doesn't judge you by your bumper sticker.  He wants to know if you're a man.

Are you?

To Robin of Berkeley: There is a space for a woman here at the Reb.  You write me if you want the slot.

A special thanks to our regular readers.  It's a good feeling to know there are other vital intelligences out there who are prepared to address the virus.  You may as well speak up, lads.  Things will get no better by hiding from the Thought Police.

One final thought: Islam is Bullshit.

Under the Sign of the Cock, and Born of the Sun, I am

Most Assuredly Your Friend, Irish Cicero

Spiritual Sanctuary: Growing Up in the Hoh Rain Forest

An Evening with Irish Cicero

The Veiled Image: An Evening with Constantine Maximus

26 Reasons Why I Don't Like, or Trust, Democrats

What Cicero Was On About

 

In his final installment of What I Learned as a Prosecutor, Cicero offered that I should run the next lap.  He meant something specific, which I aim to address.  Sometimes El Cicerooney is shy about expressing what he knows to be true, as you all know.  I have heard him say, often, 'The world is filled with yapping Pomeranians pretending the fingerling between their legs makes them a giant."  He takes delight in the cryptic, you may have found.

Quoting Paul Case:

You yourself are completely filled, at all times, with the real presence of the hidden force.  All that you are is an assemblage of manifold veils that hide it, and by hiding it make it "occult."  Your body is made of it.  It is the substance of your food and drink, of the air you breathe, of the earth beneath your feet, of all your possessions.  This is the One Reality, manifest in all the things you know, and present in everything outside your present range of knowledge also.

The universe is a great ocean of vibrating electro- magnetic energy.  Psychologists assure us that this energy appears as "objects" when its vibrations are distinguished within relatively narrow fields perceptible to our senses.  If our sense organs should change very little, we should find ourselves in a new world, full of things unknown to us now.  Therefore these things actually exist, even now, though we can form no clear idea of what they are like.

The Bond

Cosmos and Psyche

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.  2 Peter 2:19 (King James Version)

18For [while] speaking great highflown words of vanity, they allure with [the] lusts of [the] flesh, by dissoluteness, those who have just fled those who walk in error,

19promising them liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a man is subdued, by him is he also brought into slavery.  The Darby Translation.

A week or so ago Cicero suggested that I might address Friend Fuchs' question -- proffered in private correspondence -- to wit: "Has the Seattle area slipped into some sort of Chicago/Detroit type of anarchy? Maybe the rubber band that holds society together is breaking, effecting the most unstable? What happens when the more rational are affected?"

We are not quite certain of that last question, but the general import is, what if society can't hold itself together (as the rational are also under seige)?

That human collectives go through epochal changes is an idea that is quite ancient.  The Indians had a whole yuga system worked out; the Greeks and Alexandrians their Aions.  Carl Jung believed that the great upheavals -- the schisms and heresies -- of 900 -1000 A.D. marked the halfway point of the Piscean, or Christian, Aion.  There was a great intellectual and moral flowering at that time stomped out by Church bureaucrats.  Dan Brown's masturbatory fiction is a bit of a play on that.

All such awakenings are bloody, messy affairs.  What feminists call "patriarchy" was in fact the Arien age stomping out the placid farming period of Taurus, when humans worshipped Demeter, Ceres, et cetera; the Arien Romans and their god Mars were killed out by true believing Christians in a bloody rampage of state vs. faith, which ended up as a hybrid of the two!  (A kind of transformation of the Arien Yaweh to the mystical god-man of Jesus, symbolized by Tarot Key 12. The Piscean Age was marked by the symbol of the "fishes.")  Approximately 200 years ago, the Aquarian Age began to throttle Christianity as the New Aion dawned on the horizon. 

We are now living in the accelerated version of the breakdown of the old.  World War I was dwarfed by World War II; World War II will be dwarfed by . . . . ?

People will go mad.  There will be wars, and rumors of wars, but mankind will go on -- perhaps not in a form we're familiar with.

Aquarius is ruled by Uranus, which governs electricity and inventions.  This is, as Edgar Cayce reported, a time when old Atlantean karma will come into play.  Expect murderous mischief of all kinds.   Unbelievable crimes will be committed -- frequently in the name of "faith", the keyword of the dying Piscean era.  The name of the game is collective power (Pisces) vs. the Individual (Aquarius).  It will take about 200 years for the stage we entered in my lifetime to pass.

By land, hunker down, and pray.  You can't control what's coming.  You can only plan a more manly death for you and your children.  No sense in pretending.

At Washington Rebel, we consider the election of Obama to be a step toward the Cosmic joke: "hope and change" is the diaper version of not facing up to things.  Those who voted for, and believe in, Obama, are pussies -- wishful thinkers who think (hope) some asshole politician will take their pain away.

And Hell is coming to breakfast.  Watch for Emanuel and others to exert state authority against individual expression.

This is How to Die: Titus Pullo Slays Marcus Tullius Cicero

As always, our Tarot illustrations are acquired courtesy of.

The Moment

The truth about spirituality that few people consider is that we're not as individual as we think.  We all come from the same Source.  As "Hermes" put it:

[A]s all things are from One, by the mediation of One, so all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation.

Where we part from traditional Christianity around these parts is that we don't find it necessary for Jesus to be a "person", as odd as that may sound.  In fact, to our way of thinking, needing to worship a person is a little like playing with yourself, if I may be so bold.  Buddhists find liberation; Jews and Christians find liberation.  There were, before the Chinese Communists murdered them, some real spiritual studs of the Taoist school.  Fact is, I'd much rather have coffee with an old school Taoist priest than your average "saved" Christian.  Those were easily some of the smartest people the world has ever produced.  It would take 20 "saved" Christians to make one pimple on a Taoist's ass.  Do you hate me for saying it?  I think it's true.  You might, too, if you stopped being a child long enough to actually think.

Liberation comes when you no longer get in the way of the Source.  So long as you're practicing Theology, you're telling the Source what to do.  Most people treat "God" the way they treat their children and pets: as possessions.  When you see them bow their heads in prayer, they're training the little pet.  It never occurs to them how small and peevish the entire affair is.   That is exactly what Al Gore did: he told the God of Weather to punish the bad Republicans.  "Liberals", when all is said and done, are asshole fundamentalists.

Aren't they?

When is a man free?  The Magician tells the story in his pose.  His pose is one of perfect poise.  Each Tarot Key suggests -- shouts!  -- poise.  Look at each Tarot Key and you will see the wordless command: God is in Balance.  Not in words.  Not in proclamations.

God is in the Balance.  In poise.

So long as you're talking about God, I can be assured you have no idea what you're talking about.  Once you have sensed the great Silence, the Source, it is no longer possible to assault dignity with words.

For Hoh River Boy:

 

The Quantum Activist

The Quantum Activist : Dr. Amit Goswami Movie Trailer from BlueDot Productions on Vimeo.

In our current world, there is massive pressure to join a gym and get those glutes hard as rock.  Of course, there is daily, hourly, constant pressure to succeed materially.  We don't pressure each other into raising literary consciousness, or moral consciousness, or spiritual consciousness.  We reward and punish each other according to homes, belongings, activities.  In sum, we're a dreary bunch, enslaved to a toxic mania.  We're mad as hatters, and it's all self-generated.

Apart from the Rosary, apart from Alcoholics Anonymous, there is no general training available for the source of most of our conflicts: how do you clear the subconscious mind of clutter?  Most people are walking textbooks of neurosis, but you don't see any readily available methods for housekeeping in that regard.  People are left to suffer.  They replace mental hygiene with crazed evasion.

Nor does it do any good to maniacally pursue "spiritual enlightenment."  The "liberal" and New Ager consider themselves ahead of the game by going to drum circles and dream retreats, et cetera, but they are exactly where Jesus said you would be if you pour new wine into old bottles.  Isn't that analogy incredible?  It describes precisely the business of trying to graft  a new consciousness onto an old system.  Like putting new clothes on a decomposed body.  Even if it looks good, it still stinks.  The "liberal" who seeks to impose utopian neuresthenia on the rest of us is himself a victim of superficial reasoning and toxic emotions, and is far, far too cowardly to even consider that possibility.  The nuanced conspiracy theorist who sees evil only in business but not in state coercion is an accomplice to evil, but can no more see that than a child can understand the intricacies of economy.  The people who will show us how to live are themselves half-wits.

Everywhere you look, the quality of consciousness is under scrutiny, though most people probably don't see it that way.  Take the banking bailouts that started under Bush -- what became TARP after Obama took office.  We keep shoveling money into the Big Satan called American business, knowing full well the only result will be the destruction of the dollar.  Why?  Because of something called "toxic assets."  What would Adam Smith have called a toxic asset?  He would have been forced to utilize the 19th century term for "pig in a poke."  We are financing undertakings that have no future and yet, someone is being enriched for all our efforts.  Meanwhile, the U.S. government shoves us all toward the financial abyss.  Why?  What are we proving?  Who are we serving?

Like alcholics, we're going to have to reform ourselves once all is lost.

It doesn't have to be that way.

But that's how it is.

Catalyzing Consciousness

That Big Krispy Kreme in the Sky

When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out - because that's what's inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.  Wayne Dyer

It is the rare person who can conceive of the Tarot as being an "intentional instrument of initiation."  The phrase itself inspires dread, ridicule, skepticism, confusion and, of course, numerous doctrainaire reflexes from every part of the sphere of consciousnes.  Only the most sober person can, first, allow that it may be true and, second, pursue the inquiry beyond its usual superficialities, such as fortune telling.  That I know this to be true of Tarot is the result of a nearly 40-year journey, going back to the wild, tumultuous Seventies; successful experimentation with self-hypnosis and study of the Edgar Cayce readings in the 80s; delving into the world of holographic kinesthesia, courtesy of Robert Monroe and Paramhansa Yogananda in the 90s; and, finally, settling into Builders of the Adytum even as "devout" Muslims were killing hard-working Americans at the start of this century.  (B.O.T.A. literature made it to my bookshelf in 1995 while participating in competitive speech via Toastmasters, but just sat there for five years.)  In reality, each of these stretches into new territory had their Genesis in one place: the Hoh Rain Forest.  It just took me 30 years to find the steps.

Merkabah

HBKRM

Patrice Chaplin: City of Secrets

'Mystical Legends - Girona, A City Of Secrets' from Carrie kirkpatrick on Vimeo.

Washington Rebel Previously reviewed Patrice Chaplin's book, City of Secrets, here.  In light of Cicero's observations regarding religion in his latest correspondence, it will come as no surprise to our regular readers that we regard the Grail myth as an initiatic -- or mythopoetic -- corpus;  emblematic, rather than symbolic.  Those who have delved into the Grail imagery know full well it has played a much more central role in Western history than is currently imagined, and this has nothing to do with Dan Brown's cute little books!

After Walter Stein, the 20th Century's leading Grail scholar was none other than Rudolf Steiner, a true hero by any reckoning.  Now comes the third, and most mysterious, installment: proof, so far as I'm concerned, that there was a Qabbalistic order in Spain entrusted with the ritual aspects of the Grail!  All Rosicrucian aspirants can appreciate the significance of this marvelous book, City of Secrets.  Can't wait for the sequel!!

Missa Luba: Kyrie (Muungano National Choir, Kenya)

Hildegard Von Bingen - Vision

Reading Mitch Horowitz

 

Annuit Coeptis: American First Person Series

Picked up my copy of Mitch Horowitz' Occult America yesterday.  It's a fantastic little reference source -- brisk, easy to read, and chock-full of Rebelesque "links."  I get the feeling Mitch was holding back a little -- not really laying out what he believes completely.  That feeling of restriction only makes the subject matter more intriguing.  You put the book down and you're ready for more, baby!

Of course the very first thing that disturbs most people is the word occult which, in their minds, can only mean "truck with the devil."  Indeed, for many who dabble in such things as "magick" and so on, it may have that very meaning, just as the word "conservative" denotes a mean-spirited war-monger by practitioners of kindly, open-minded "liberalism."  In other words, cultural permeations and persistent misuse of the King's English often renders a word meaningless.  Mitch comes to our rescue with a first-rate definition (I'll tweak it for him below):

The Work of the Chariot

The Collider, the Particle, and a Theory About Fate

The term "Work of the Chariot" is associated with the prophet Ezekiel, who had a vision of the heavenly realm, often described as a "Chariot." As mentioned, Ezekiel's experience gave him a "view" of all four Worlds, although not nearly as clear as some other prophets, particularly Moses in the Torah, and John in the book of Revelation. To review (from the "bottom up") Ezekiel: was existing in the physical world of Asiyyah (A) saw the angelic realm supporting the Throne in Yetzirah (B) saw the "likeness of a throne" in Beriah (C) saw the "likeness as the appearance of a man" in Azilut (D)

The left side is often associated with obedience to the Torah's commands, and the right with the desire to do things for God. An example of a person who is "out of balance" to the left side, might be someone who studies the commands of Torah but is complacent about transforming what they learn to their life. (i.e., Matthew 23:23; 1 Corinthians, 13:1-3). Someone out of balance to the right side may be "fanatical" for God in their own mind, but not according to what God wants as shown in His Torah.

The Work of the Chariot 

Tree of Life

The Difference Between Kabbalah And Religion - Free videos are just a click away

Reverend Michael Laitman

The Veiled Image: An Evening with Constantine Maximus

I finally got the opportunity to interview the most taciturn of our contributors -- "the big cat", Cicero called him -- Constantine Maximus.  I was a little afraid of him, but . . . hey.  He had Russian tea cakes.  We sat in a sea of books and sucked down some nasty coffee in between guffaws and hoo-hahs. Excerpts follow.

Enigmatic Adumbrations

The Veiled Image at Sais

The kings were appointed from the priests or from the military class, since the military class had eminence and honor because of valour, and the priests because of wisdom.  But he who was appointed from the military class was at once made one of the priests and a participant in their philosophy, which, for the most part, is veiled in myths and in words containing dim reflexions and adumbrations of the truth, as they themselves intimate beyond question by appropriately placing sphinxes before their shrines to indicate that their religious teaching has in it an enigmatical sort of wisdom.  In Sais the statue of Athena, whom they believe to be Isis, bore the inscription: "I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my robe no mortal has yet uncovered."  Some Dude Called 'Plutarch'

 

The Real Revolution

You are a Child of the Stars.  Collectivism Defines You as a Possession of the State -- Constantine Maximus

Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.  Albert Einstein

"Is There a Communicative Symphony Happening All the Time that Remains Invisible to Our Current Technology and Awareness?"  Did you know your heart is an electromagnetic system that produces an energy field measurable outside your body?  From 4 to 12 feet?

Didn't, eh?  Might want to give that one some thought.

Here is why we're conservative at Washington Rebel:

First, the green human personality must be tamed through self discipline.  External coercion is a constant, in one form or another, but liberation, as understood by mystics, can be gained only by individual aspiration.  Pounding the table with demands to be imposed on others is not only undignified, it's dangerous because it threatens war.  You "liberals" are far more dangerous -- and bloodthirsty -- than an old C.S. Lewis conservative like me.

Second, "progressive" politics has "evolved" to a reflexive statist position that is not geared toward resolution of challenges, but the suppression of dissent.  Whether it's healthcare or the environment, the "liberal" position is angry, forceful, and statist.  The most dangerous person on earth today is the anti-American, anti-liberty Leftist: crazed, useless, and dangerous.  They crave violence, though few will admit it openly.  Everytime a "liberal" grows up, as did "Robin of Berkeley" and David Mamet and David Horowitz, they make the world a kinder, more prosperous home.  See the difference?  Punishing people as polluters is a condemnation, a posture leading to the Zyklon-B "solution."  Changing your consciousness to a more dynamic vibration is liberating and intelligent -- and moral.  Barack Obama's going to make things wonderful, is he?  Do you realize how poofter that thought is? You who call yourselves "progressive" have no idea how dull and clogged up you really are!  Grow up!

The sole basis of all sound, intelligent religion was articulated by Patanjali 2,200 years ago:

Union, spiritual consciousness, is gained through control of the versatile psychic nature.

Those of you who are moving past cowardice and childishness and looking for the grownup course in how to be human can find it here.

Stop bullshitting yourselves and get to work.  The real revolution is the transformation of consciousness, not waging war on personal liberty.  The Real Revolution is the stewardship of consciousness, not a "progressive" ideology.

Born of the Sun

Part I of XVIII-part BBC Documentary on Leonardo da Vinci

Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great
by Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.

"Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

"What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

"Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor."

What does it mean to be born of the Sun?

Occult America

All The Power That Ever Was, or Will Be, is Here Now

Many persons like myself believe the idea of America was the emergence of an archetypal event.  For example, 300 years before the invention of the printing press, the Holy Grail completely possessed the entire European Imagination.  Your fare was paid and a bed guaranteed if you could regale the local court with the Welsh legends that would later be called the Arthurian Round.  Most people don't stop to think why Dan Brown's little foray into nonsense had the effect it did.  Whether you realize it nor not, the Grail is an active part of your imagination, too.  21st Women flocked to that story for the same reasons 14th century women flocked to that story.  Think about that!

America is no different. Sometime in the 16th Century, the word America appeared in the human lexicon.  Fortune seekers and paupers alike got on ships, voluntarily and involuntarily, to build a new world, many of them against their will!  A New World Order.  What's that about, really?  Do you know?  People say they know, but they don't.  At some level beyond our ordinary comprehension, America seized the human consciousness and set entire waves of unprecedented history into motion.  America, not Canada, not Australia, was the bench mark of modern history.  That's how it is, kids.

Starter Kit

The Unobstructed Universe

All human knowledge is conditioned and limited, at present, by the properties of light and human symbolism.  The solution of all human problems depends upon inquiries into these two conditions and limitations.  Count Alfred Korzybski

WE LIVE in an electric universe.  Our bodies are electrical machines.  The food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the clothes we wear, the houses over our heads -- everything in our world is made of electricity.  Our senses tell us we are surrounded by things innumerable,  Ageless Wisdom declares: "There is only ONE THING.  Modern science confirms this ancient teaching.  Physicists now picture the universe as a great ocean of pulsing, vibrating, electromagnetic energy, and psychologists tell us that this One Thing, electromagnetism, presents itself to our consciousness in the particular forms which we call "things", because our senses are what they are.  Let the range of our senses be augmented ever so little and we should find ourselves in a different world, containing any number of things of whose existence we cannot even dream, at present.  Paul Foster Case

Quantum Communication

Under the Shadow of the Almighty

 

Michael, Archangel of Fire

It is well to remember in this time that the United States -- indeed, all people on the planet -- are under the "shadow of the wings" of the Almighty.  War, in the terms of modern parlance, brings to consciousness those beliefs which we hide from ourselves -- making us conscious of our conflicts and prejudices.  (See the Voyager of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis.)

It is well for Conservatives to remember that, although we have morality on our side, we set a trap for ourselves when we imitate "liberals" and leap to condemnation.  If we are to set this nation back upon its proper course, we must win these errant children over with persuasion and love.

I know.  It's the shits.  But it must be done nevertheless.

Psalm 91

 ¹He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Revelation

Third Alchemical Stage: Revelation

Modesty is a capstone over all the virtues

A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge
To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land,
The priesthood's secret learning to explore,
Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,
And still was hurrying on with fond impatience.
Scarce could the Hierophant impose a rein
Upon his headlong efforts. "What avails
A part without the whole?" the youth exclaimed;
"Can there be here a lesser or a greater?
The truth thou speak'st of, like mere earthly dross,
Is't but a sum that can be held by man
In larger or in smaller quantity?
Surely 'tis changeless, indivisible;
Deprive a harmony of but one note,
Deprive the rainbow of one single color,
And all that will remain is naught, so long
As that one color, that one note, is wanting."

Awakening

 

"Do you wish to rise?  Begin by descending.  You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds?  Lay first the foundation of humility."  St. Augustine

The Second Alchemical Stage: Awakening

I usually congratulate people when they tell me, "I don't know who I am anymore."  Then they look perplexed and ask, "Are you saying it is a good thing to be confused?"  I ask them to investigate.  What does it mean to be confused?  "I don't know" is not confusion.  Confusion is: "I don't know, but I should know" or "I don't know, but I need to know."  Is it possible to let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are?  In other words, can you cease looking to conceptual definitions to give you a sense of self?  Can you cease looking to thought for an identity?  When you let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are, what happens to confusion?  Suddenly it is gone.  When you fully accept that you don't know, yu actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be.  Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.  Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Entrenched

  

"There is no possible source of evil, except good."  St. Augustine

The First Alchemical Stage: Bondage

Those unable to look beyond form become even more deeply entrenched in their beliefs, that is to say, in their mind.  We are witnessing not only an unprecedented influx of consciousness at this time but also an entrenchment and intensification of the ego.  Some religious institutions will be open to the new consciousness; others will harden their doctrinal positions and become part of all those other man-made structures through which the collective ego will defend itself and "fight back."  Some churches, sects, cults, or religious movements are basically collective ego entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.

But the ego is destined to dissolve, and all its ossified structures, whether they be religious or other institutions, corporations or governments, will disintegrate from within, not matter how deeply entrenched they appear to be.  The most rigid structures, the most impervious to change, will collapse first.  This has already happened in the case of Soviet Communism.  How deeply entrenched, how solid and monolithic it appeared, and yet within a few years, it disintegrated from within.  No one foresaw this.  All were taken by surprise.  There are many more such surprises in store in store for us.  Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth.

What the Human Heart Provides

 

Sacred Wood, Arnold Bocklin

What can the state provide that the human heart cannot?

The sickness of our time takes two forms: (1) the externalization of happiness onto an outer condition, such as wealth and poverty, measured by the possession of things or, just as prevalently, an addiction to outer stimulation designed to prevent introspection; and (2) a yearning for someone else, or something outside us, to deliver the goods.  Hence, President Obama.  He, better than anyone else I know, represents the current psychic condition of Americans: a dried, feeble relation to life seeking to explain itself by such pseudo-intellectual contrivances as convince readers of the New Yorker of their uniqueness.

It is a curious phenomena we're watching among Americans who have worked for nothing, bled for nothing, and whose "problems" are so pressing that they habitually hoist upon the state some duty -- artificially cultured -- to solve problems as perennial as racism and poverty when the solution for any and all problems lies in their hands and hearts, in front of them, inside them.  Why do you believe the state must do that for you?  And why should you make excuses for the role coercion plays when the state's power is invoked?  Have you no mercy?  No courage?

Who can solve these problems best?  Some ignorant, judgemental, intellectually deficient government hack?

Or self-directing American citizens of good heart and soul.

You need to answer that.

I Love Humanity, but I Hate People  Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Root of Revolution

The history of Communism, originally inspired by noble ideals, clearly illustrates what happens when people attempt to change external reality -- create a new earth -- without any change in their inner reality, their state of consciousness.  They make plans without taking into account the blueprint for dysfunction that every human being carries within: the ego.   Ekhart Tolle

Western man has two models for revolution: the American Revolution and the French Revolution.  The American Revolution was based on the pursuit of liberty as an individual responsibility; the French Revolution was based upon the imposition of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" by the French equivalent of a dictatorship of the proletariat.  The internicine conflicts during the American Revolution were mostly worked out through argument; the French resorted to the guillotine and collective madness.  The American Revolution resulted in unprecedented prosperity; the French Revolution ended as a bloody nightmare, not too much different from the "progress" of the Third Reich, at least in tone.

Revolution by coercion is a hateful thing.  It is based on an individual's sense of superiority, a la, "dumb people join the service" kind of snobbery.  The single biggest moral shortcoming of today's "liberals" is that they can't confess their inherent snobbery, or that their beliefs are, potentially, bloodthirsty.  They sit back in the easy chair of moral and intellectual superiority and peddle a Ward Churchill brand of revolution.  The fact that a majority of our college faculty have fallen into a poltically correct, cultural-relativistic comparison of our nation to the rest of the world is a death symptom: an elite composed of pseudo-intellectual girly-men who can't be trusted with our destiny.  True freedom cannot be derived from the imposition of our American elite's desires for us.  True political freedom can only be secured through a Republican form of government wherein the mob can't resort to killing, or even resort to yielding to an elite -- as the United States has done.  Ayn Rand did a lot of thinking about these things.  I leave you with her writing:

"Freedom, in a political context, has only one meaning: the absence of physical coercion."

Do not be misled . . . by an old collectivist trick which goes like this: there is no absolute freedom anyway, since you are not free to murder; society limits your freedom when it does not permit you to kill; therefore, society holds the right to limit your freedom in any manner it sees fit; therefore, drop the delusion of freedom—freedom is whatever society decides it is.

It is not society, nor any social right, that forbids you to kill—but the inalienable individual right of another man to live. This is not a “compromise” between two rights—but a line of division that preserves both rights untouched. The division is not derived from an edict of society—but from your own inalienable individual right. The definition of this limit is not set arbitrarily by society—but is implicit in the definition of your own right.

Within the sphere of your own rights, your freedom is absolute.  Ayn Rand

John Jay: Liberals as the New Aristocracy

City of Secrets: One Woman's True-Life Journey to the Heart of the Grail Legend

  

Museu d’Història dels Jueus a Catalunya -
Centre Bonastruc Ça Porta

The Kabbalist Center of Gerona.  From the very beginning two opposing tendencies appear among the kabbalists, the first seeking to limit the Kabbalah to closed circles as a definitely esoteric system, the second wishing to spread its influence among the people at large.  Throughout the history of the Kabbalah right down to recent times these two tendencies have been in conflict.  Parallel with this, from the time of the appearance of the Kabbalah in Gerona, two attitudes developed concerning the relationships of the bearers of the rabbinic culture to the Kabbalah.  The kabbalists were accepted as proponents of a conservative ideology, and as public defenders of tradition and custom, but at the same time they were suspected, by a substantial number of rabbis and sages, of . . . . being innovators whose activities must be curtailed wherever possible . . . . In these disputes, the Kabbalah of the Gerona scholars seemed to be a symbolic interpretation of the world of Judaism and its way of life, based on a theosophy which taught the inner secrets of the revealed Godhead and on a rejection of rationalist interpretations of the Torah and the Commandments.

.  .  .  .

This combination of the theory of the Sacred Names and the speculations using the methods of gematria with the theory of the Sefirot of the Gerona kabbalists contains . . . . . a powerful renewal of ecstatic tendencies, which took on the new form of "prophetic Kabbalah."  Gershom Scholem.

I first became aware of Patrice Chaplin while listening to the Coast-to-Coast show, Mysterious Portals (Is she dating Dr. Who?, an impatient listener asked).  Before that time I knew nothing of the importance of Gerona to the development of Kabbalah -- just as I knew nothing of Patrice Chaplin.  I am grateful many times over that I caught that delightful installment, which I have downloaded to my computer and am listening to as I write this!  I ordered Patrice's book, City of Secrets, (published by Quest Books) and devoured it as soon as it arrived.  In fact, I took time off from work today to read it a second time for the puporse of this review, and believe me, I didn't need to be forced.  The book is vital, energizing, and intelligent -- an excellent, invigorating ride.  I can't say enough about it!

An Object, A Ritual or a Place?

Graal = Gradalis = By Degrees

The sword will withstand the first blow, at the next it will break in twain,
An thou to these waters bring it, from their flow 'twill be whole again.
Yet where at its source the streamlet flows fourth from its rocky bed,
Shalt thou seek those healing waters ere the sun stand high o'erhead.

Book V

 Here begin the terrors; here begin the marvels

Buried Treasure

 

Photo Courtesy of Joyous World

As you pass through these seven stages, you will neither gain anything, nor will anything be added to your present equipment.  Powers already present in the depths of your being will be expressed.  Hidden potencies will become manifested abilities.  Vague impressions will take form as definite Mental images.  This will come about, not through acquisition, but through expression.  At this very moment you are full equipped.  You have the seed-forms of all that you need in order perfectly to express the special tendencies of the Life Power which are concentrated in your personality.  You don't have to get anything.  You have to discover what you already have.  Then, when you have found your treasure, you have to practice until you can use it with skill and wisdom.  Occult Fundamentals and Spiritual Unfoldment

Paul Foster Case, founder of Builders of the Adytum

According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.  Exodus 25:9

Tarot Reflections