"Do not try to bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, try to realize the truth... There is no spoon... Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends; it is only yourself." -- The Matrix
I got an email, from shamanic healer Ross Bishop, about some rather alarming predictions for the upcoming year, starting with a trigger on October 7th. Ross's blog provides some background on the Time Monks and how they've developed, and are refining, their prediction model. Their web bots analyze the communications patterns exhibited on the world wide web for linguistic/emotional patterns. They are effectively analyzing the collective unconscious as it is expressed in internet communication. They, themselves, admit that this is a new technology and that they have a history of both hits and misses, but their record of hits seems fairly impressive.
I have no idea how accurate the data from their latest prediction will prove to be. I certainly hope they're at least a bit off. However, I'm inclined to think they're onto something. Why? Because, I've been having intimations, myself. I discussed a bit of this here and here. But, I have to tell you, gentle reader, that this is not the sum of it. Something is shaking apart. I can feel it. I think this financial crisis is real and serious. And, I think it's the tip of the iceberg. Simultaneously, I have a sense of something dramatically "opening" in a way that could be quite extraordinary.
And then, there are the tones. Those who have known me for some years, know that I get tones in my head before earth change events. Major earthquakes and other natural disasters, as well as dramatic shifts in consciousness, for reasons I don't quite understand, cause me to hear beeps, hums, and sometimes inaudible pressures through my head. It's something I've been experiencing for some years, and it jumped to a whole 'nother level after my trip to Mexico; a trip in which I trained with Drunvalo Melchizedek and visted Teotihuacan. Well folks, my head is ringing off the proverbial hook. I haven't be treated to such a cacophony in some time, and it's been going on for days.
I should also point out that Karen Bishop has been hinting at a calamity for some time. She's written a good deal in recent months about the "old world" being in it's final fall, and endorsing her readers to try to stay in comfort space; to detach from the unfolding drama. She doesn't say anything, that I can recall, about October, but she does point to some unpleasantness in November. Karen Bishop in her August 21 update:
September will bring in more of the new….more of the beauty, simplicity, and light we have been longing for. And October will usher in more rapid and solid manifestations of our new spaces, including the supports we will need in times to come. October will be much more fast moving and intense and we will barely be able to catch our breaths with all the new manifestations occurring for us. And November will very possibly bring in a rocky, tumultuous, and gutting surprise for much of the old world.
Rocky, tumultuous, and gutting, sounds like a good description of what the Time Monks relayed in in their interview with Coast to Coast radio on 9/22. Their short and long term predictions sound pretty dire. I've posted the entire interview in a YouTube player at the beginning of this entry, but, here's a run-down of some of the major points from the Pimpin Turtle, starting with a pre-amble from their 9/2 prediction.
"The Web Bots see September 22-27, 2008 as precursor dates to the main turning point date of October 7, 2008. Closely watch events during September 22-27, 2008 for hints as to what to expect on October 7, 2008.
Cliff said whenever "it" happens, and whatever "it" turns out to be, "it" will be a date in history you remember like 9/11, we will remember 10/7.
The Web Bots foresee that October 7, 2008 to February 19, 2009 will be filled with emotional intensity, and the length of the release period will be extraordinary. The Web Bots have never picked up any event lasting this long. In comparison, 9/11 length lasted about 10 days. This event will be four months of high emotion……."
Next, is an outline of upcoming events from their 9/22 interview.
The next year will get very ugly and will change your life worse than 9/11. It is important to understand the magnitude of the data. The sort of agony, grief, pain and rage that was felt the six days following 9/11 will be felt for five and a half months. From October 7th, 2008 until March of next year….
Will there be a total economic collapse?
Yes. 2009 will be a “year of transformation.” The keyword “monumental” shows up as how the future will view our current situation. Time Monks describe this as an “epic situation”
How to prepare for what’s coming?
The Time Monks say: Have a plan in place to be as independent of the institutions of society as you can possibly get. Prepare for a situation in which you will have no water, food, electricity or heat. Have clothing for all seasons and EXTRA MEDICINE. Possibility of oil going up to $500 a barrel, also possible massive deflation from nobody buying anything. This is the kind of thing where the other nations on the planet will be so scared of what’s going to happen in the U.S. that they will begin preparing, fearing that the U.S. will go crazy. This includes mobilizing military.
Try not to panic, we have a couple of weeks. You can not store enough to get you by indefinitely. A situation my arise in which you may need to move or be relocated. Time Monks do not advocate bank runs because money may become useless. Says longer term data “implies money is less intense part of society than it is now.”
September 22nd - 27th - The Plateau of building tension.
On October 6th, 11:59 pm, the planet is going to go through a “period of release” following the traumatic event. The information will spread very quickly due to technology. The release language will start at the point of impact.
The event could be something such as a “false flag terror attack” in some part of the world, U.S. may not necessarily be at epi-center of said event. It could also be a “slow boil” event such as a bio-agent released. There are expected elements of a prequel that will set the stage for the event, between the dates of September 15th-September 27th.
So, these are the really scary bits, that have everybody worked up. There seems to be a cascade effect of horribleness, encompassing economic, military, and "terra activity," which could directly impact anywhere from 2 to 22 million people. Although, they suggest, as did Edgar Cayce, that we may be able to uncreate this manifestation through consciousness shift.
Here is some of the possible "terra activity":
December 10th-12th, 2008 - China sized earthquake in Pacific NW.
In 2009 there will be a global coastal event.
This does not necessarily mean a tsunami. If you live around water it would be good to have a boat.
. . .
Anything about Antarctica/Global Warming?
Antarctica is very important to the “powers that be”. 13% of linguistics related to the “powers that be” concern Antarctica. Antarctica is big key to whatever is driving them.
Here, they answer a question I've had, from the time I started to feel this discomfort, because my tension began concurrently with the event at CERN.
Anything to do with the Hadron Collider?
Time Monks not worried about Hadron Collider. Data so far indicates that the scientists at CERN are performing a "juggling act and keep dropping oranges". Doesn't show up in linguistics as a driver in what's about to occur.
Fair enough, but I sure do wonder what they might be juggling.
Now, this is where it gets fascinating for me.
Do you believe extraterrestrials are real and/or play a role?
Within consciousness, there is a distinct consciousness that is not human. Clear that there is something outside of the human realm that drives the “powers that be”. There is “stuff” in the model space (of the web bot) that goes through the idea of “disappearances” beginning next year (relating to extraterrestrials). It’s as if an inter-dimensional door opens up and people are sucked though the door and the door closes.
2009: Disappearance language gets more specific. Big changes. Some of the “powers that be” will disappear. “Powers that be” will be out and about with large groups of people with them and they will all disappear.
A lot of alien activity way off in the future.
Indications in language involving e.t.s (possible result of disinformation):
Alien wars are coming.
These alien events may or may not be real but people are acting as if they are real.
. . .
Big revolution coming against the “powers that be”
So, why do I find this fascinating? To explain this, I must, necessarily, digress a bit. Their description of this alien intelligence, which controls the "powers that be," sounds, to me, distinctly like the "archons." The term comes from the Gnostics. It describes an inorganic consciousness that has installed itself as the rulers of humanity. Here is John Lamb Lash's interpretation of the Nag Hammadi Codices, regarding the archons.
According to the Gnostics, the parasites or Archons, as they called them, originate with the earliest phase of the formation of the solar system, before the Earth coalesced as a planetary organism. Their habitat is the solar system, exclusive of the Earth, moon and sun. They are inorganic forms with intelligence of an electrical nature – cyborgs, as we would say.
. . .
The Gnostics taught that the Archons did not create us, but they are caught in a delusion, and they think they are our creators. One of their main goals is to convince us that they created us – in effect, to get us to think as they do... If the Gnostics were correct, the Archon ETs attempt to take credit for imparting certain skills like this to humanity, but the claim is false, I believe. We ourselves have discovered these skills, but forgotten how, so we are susceptible to accept the explanation of a foreign or alien intervention.
. . .
The NHC does not say that “the universe is a mistake.” It says that the world system we inhabit, our planetary system, is an anomaly due to the presence of the Archons who impinge upon life on earth. Gnostic cosmology explains the emergence of the Archons at the cosmic level, so Gnostics understood the origin and behavior of these alien entities.
Later in this interview, Lash discounts the idea that "the archons" were the "giant bats" encountered by Michael Harner, in the ayahuasca journey he describes, in the opening chapter of The Way of the Shaman. But, I think Lash misapprehends Harner, possibly because of the way the question was phrased in the interview. Here is how Harner describes his experience:
I became aware of my brain. I felt--physically--that it had become compartmentalized into four separate and distinct levels. At the uppermost surface was the observer and commander, which was conscious of the condition of my body, and was responsible for the attempt to keep my heart going. lt perceived, but purely as a spectator, the visions emanating from what seemed to be the nether portions of my brain. Immediately below the topmost level I felt a numbed layer, which seemed to have been put out of commission by the drug--it just wasn't there. The next level down was the source of my visions, including the soul boat.
Now I was virtually certain I was about to die. As I tried to accept my fate, an even lower portion of my brain began to transmit more visions and information. I was "told" that this new material was being presented to me because I was dying and therefore "safe" to receive these revelations. These were the secrets reserved for the dying and the dead, I was informed. I could only very dimly perceive the givers of these thoughts: giant reptilian creatures reposing sluggishly at the lowermost depths of the back of my brain, where it met the top of the spinal column. I could only vaguely see them in what seemed to be gloomy, dark depths.
Then they projected a visual scene in front of me. First they showed me the planet Earth as it was eons ago, before there was any life on it. I saw an ocean, barren land, and a bright blue sky. Then black specks dropped from the sky by the hundreds and landed in front of me on the barren landscape. I could see that the "specks" were actually large, shiny, black creatures with stubby pterodactyl-like wings and huge whale-like bodies. Their heads were not visible to me. They flopped down, utterly exhausted from their trip, resting for eons. They explained to me in a kind of thought language that they were fleeing from something out in space. They had come to the planet Earth to escape their enemy.
The creatures then showed me how they had created life on the planet in order to hide within the multitudinous forms and thus disguise their presence. Before me, the magnificence of plant and animal creation and speciation-hundreds of millions of years of activity-took place on a scale and with a vividness impossible to describe. I learned that the dragon-like creatures were thus inside of all forms of life, including man.* They were the true masters of humanity and the entire planet, they told me. We humans were but the receptacles and servants of these creatures. For this reason they could speak to me from within myself.
. . .
I was now eager to solicit a professional opinion from the most supernaturally knowledgeable of the Indians, a blind shaman who had made many excursions into the spirit world with the aid of the ayahuasca drink. lt seemed only proper that a blind man might be able to be my guide to the world of darkness. I went to his hut, taking my notebook with me, and described my visions to him segment by segment. At first I told him only the highlights; thus, when I came to the dragon-like creatures, I skipped their arrival from space and only said, "There were these giant black animals, something like great bats, longer than the length of this house, who said that they were the true masters of the world." There is no word for dragon in Conibo, so "giant bat" was the closest I could come to describe what I had seen.
He stared up toward me with his sightless eyes, and said with a grin, "Oh, they're always saying that. But they are only the Masters of Outer Darkness."
Harner associates this final statement with outer space, but I interpret it differently. I think the old shaman is describing the carefully crafted illusion in which we are ensnared. In short, the "archons" are the architects of "maya." They would be analogous to the "Smiths" in the Matrix movies. But, note that in both cases, the description is of an alien consciousness that insists that it created and controls this world, but that this is incorrect information. According to the Gnostics, this is the nature of the illusory world in which we are ensnared and remain deluded about the very nature of the universe.
But, to sum up. My sense is that things are about to change. Possibly, dramatically. There is a very jagged component to this, but there is also a sense of expansion. The problem is that I don't feel able to share some of the more optimistic information I've been receiving over the past week or so. I have not been given the go ahead by my guides. It may that the information is very selective and not helpful to the whole. It may be that I just don't have enough of a grasp of it to put it out there directly.
I do feel, though, that I need to say something about pole shift. I've been feeling like there is a very real possibility that it's imminent. I first learned about the potential for pole shift from Drunvalo and the Flower of Life curriculum. As I learned it then, the pending pole shift would be tied to a jump in consciousness.
There will be a pole shift. This will include the kind of violence that is normally associated with pole shifts, the continents going up and down, huge tidal waves that are 100 feet high, the entire south pole moving to the Equator at 1300 miles an hour and these kind of things, this may still occur. But because of something I cannot quite explain about who we are becoming and about ourselves and our ability to control our reality as a planet, we may find that the environment, even though the poles may shift, may not be nearly as violent as we think. It could actually be a very beautiful experience.
My feeling on this may go against what a lot of people think. There are many people saying 'go out and dig holes in the ground, put lots and lots of food in, and guns and munitions and hold on for the worse'. But really what you are preparing for is that time right before the pole shift. Because when the poles shift, we will go through an electromagnetic no zone for about 3 and a half days, and then, after that time we'll be on a totally different dimensional level of the Earth. Whereby anything that is happening on this level will make no difference. That's a preparation prior to the time when all the systems, the social and the financial systems and all this kind of things break down. And it's normal for them to break down. Scientists will see in the magnetic field a direct correlation of the events of the Earth.
Prior to the poles of the Earth moving to new locations, which is when the human consciousness usually moves into the fourth dimension, there would be a period of time where there may be worldwide chaos. It is a period where most people go insane, all social systems, financial systems, political systems etc., collapse and the planet is plunged into total chaos. This time period traditionally, throughout the universe, has been about three months to two years directly prior to the actual poles of the planet shifting. We'll call this time period the Translation Period.
The chaos is caused when the geomagnetic poles of the Earth drop to zero. This causes chaos because the human being needs the magnetic field of the earth to maintain it's emotional balance and memory. When the magnetics drop to zero, people go insane.
However, to believe that if you prepare in this way with food and supplies and that everything will be the same after the Translation Period, is unrealistic. At the end of the Translation Period you will change your consciousness and begin to move through the void, the birth of the new consciousness into the fourth dimension. From there on out, everything you do to physically prepare on Earth will be of no use to you in your new world.
We are going into a dimensional consciousness change and though a physical preparation may help a little tiny bit at the beginning, as we pass through these changes. The only real help is who you are, what your character is, how much your heart is open and how well you are to love and to connect with God. So the most important thing is to work on your innerself. This is more important than preparing with food and in the little bit of time that we have left.
I did a little googling for some current material from Drunvalo on pole shift and found this video. It's about an hour long, but it's worth hearing through. The stuff on pole shift and how to move through it is close to the end, but the whole thing is fascinating, and offers some background on his book Serpent of Light. The whole thing can be viewed here.
So, I realize that this is very disjointed. I can't help that. I hope I will have more clarity in the coming days, and be able to offer more. But, for the time being, I feel like it's important to get as much of this out there as possible and let people sort through it for themselves. Try not to get caught up in the fear. Listen to the Time Monks interview for yourself and see if it resonates for you or not. Don't take anyone's word for any of this. Trust your own inner knowing first, last, and always.
How can [God] be perfect? He's not. It shows in his work... Take a look at a mountain range; every mountain different, different height, different shape. Leaves are all different. He can't get two fingerprints the same, man. He's had a billion years to work on that. Can't even give one person two thumbs the same. And everything he makes dies.
-- George Carlin, "Toledo Window Box"
I don't know why, exactly, but I've been getting a real kick out of Beliefnet lately. It's heavily linked from Huffington Post, and it's been a pleasant diversion from the endless convention coverage. So, the other night I clicked on their rundown of unusual religions. Kind of fun. Definitely some things I've never heard of. Asatru? I know of people who consider themselves Odinists and a lot of rune readers -- Ralph Blum was my author, once upon a time -- but Asatru? New one on me. It goes on... Eckankar. Who hasn't heard of Eckankar... Then I get to the punchline.
Maltheism: God vs. Humanity
Maltheism is the belief that God does exist, and that God is evil. Maltheists see God as the true spiritual enemy of humanity, and oppose God because of this. The Maltheist movement was founded by Paul Zimmerman, who was active on Beliefnet until his death in 2003. His motto was "God against Humanity: choose a side!" Maltheists believe the most important thing is how we treat each other as human beings, and support the self-empowerment of the human race.
That got my attention. This is a religion?
So, I googled it up and learned from Wikipedia that it is a Usenet creation.
Maltheism is an ad-hoc coining appearing on Usenet in 1985,[7] referring to the belief in God's malevolence inspired by the thesis of Tim Maroney that "even if a God as described in the Bible does exist, he is not fit for worship due to his low moral standards."[8] The same term has also seen use among designers and players of role-playing games to describe a world with a malevolent deity.[9]
I'm not sure if Tim Maroney is a person or a pseudonym, but I can't help reflecting on the Angel Maroni, who appears in Mormon doctrine... and nowhere else, to my knowledge.
As the Wikipedia entry makes somewhat clear, opposition to the god construct is not original, or new.
A related concept is dystheism (Greek ??????? "ungodly"), the belief that a god is not wholly good, and is possibly evil. Trickster gods found in polytheistic belief systems often have a dystheistic nature. One example is Eshu, a trickster god from Yoruba mythology who deliberately fostered violence between groups of people for his own amusement, saying that "causing strife is my greatest joy."
But polytheistic deities since prehistoric times have been assumed to be neither good nor evil (or to have both qualities). Thus dystheism is normally used in reference to God, the omnipotent deity associated with monotheistic belief. Indeed, the moral absolute of good and evil has historically arisen in parallel with monotheism. In conceptions of God as the summum bonum, the proposition of God not being wholly good would of course be a contradiction in terms.
The guy that we think is God? Third in command. He's the western marketing manager. That's all. The real God is too busy, are you kidding... He's throwing gas balls around the firmament.
-- George Carlin, "Toledo Window Box"
What came to my mind, however, was some of the Gnostic conceptions of the Demiurge and the Archons. According to some Gnostic teachings, "God" did not create this planet. Rather, it was created by a Demiurge, and is, therefore, very flawed. The Demiurge came into being by the creative of the aeon Sophia, who, according to some readings, made the error of creating without the partnering of another aeon. The result was the flawed creation and the incursion of the Archons who purport to rule the creation and all within it.
The role of Sophia in creation according to Gnostic scriptures is very curious. In the Pistis Sophia, Sophia is deceived by the demiurge and archons who make a false light shine below, and when she descends to embrace the false light they bind her and steal her Light-power. In other Gnostic scriptures she conceives the demiurge without the consent of the Most High or apart from union with her Divine Consort, thus giving birth to the monstrous form of Yaldabaot – the lion-headed serpent. In any case, in one way or another Sophia brings about a shattering of the unity and harmony of the Divine Realm, the Pleroma of Light, and in so doing becomes the cause of the imperfect creation, the Great Matrix or Entirety.
The somewhat controversial Gnostic scholar and author John Lamb Lash explains Sophia's "error" thusly:
Precise language is important in the expression of living cosmology. Precise poetic terms, if you will. The Aeon Sophia did not make a mistake and create the universe and the Archons. She acted unilaterally, without pairing with another Aeon, and projected herself beyond the galactic core. Aeons are formless powers in the galactic core of each galaxy. There are many galaxies in the Universe. Sophia did not create the Universe, she emanated the world order we experience as the triple system: sun-moon-earth. Sophia did not make a mistake, but she exaggerated her involvement in her emanation, her Dreaming. Hence, she herself became embodied in her Dreaming. This is a rare event, not typical of the way Aeons operate. As a side effect of her excessive involvement in her Dreaming, Sophia plunged from the galactic core. (Imagine a surge or spike of luminous, foam-like matter from the galactic core into the encircling arms.) The impact she made on the elementary matter in the galactic arms produced an inorganic species, the Archons. The Archons then proceeded to fabricate an inorganic planetary system, a clockwork mechanism. The Earth, the living planet that embodies Sophia, was then captured in that lifeless system. This is the “mistake” – or, better said, the anomaly of our world system.
So, from a Gnostic perspective, it is not "God" who is the enemy, as Maltheism would have it, but the Archons, who subvert our entire awareness, and endeavor to keep us prisoners of our own endless suffering. According to Lash, however, Jehovah, the Judeo-Christian God is most definitely the enemy.
Gnostic texts clearly state that Jehovah is the “Lord Archon,” a reptilian type of alien predator who dominates the hive-mentality of the embryonic or Grey aliens. Jehovah, whom the Gnostics called Yaldabaoth, is truly an extraterrestrial being whose realm is the planetary system independent of the earth, sun and moon. He is not an “advanced being” (i.e., more evolved than humans) but a demented alien with certain superhuman or deific powers. Gnostics taught that Jehovah infects humanity with the belief that he is their creator god, but in fact he cannot create anything. The NHC is very clear that Jehovah-Yaldabaoth is the commander of the Archon species.
Not so different from the nascent, Usenet born Maltheism. In fact, some of it is eerily similar. Such as this rumination from Craig Zimmerman, son of the late and lamented Paul Zimmerman.
The world is under attack from an extraterrestrial force, not of this Earth. Those in charge deny there is a problem, deny that there is anything wrong. In fact, unbeknownst to us all, those in charge are collaborating with the enemy.More than just collaborating: they are acting as the enemy's fifth column, propagandizing to us the notion that this alien foe is really our friend, and that we should joyously embrace eternal servitude to this monstrous force.This sounds like the theme of the long-running TV series "The X Files," or the plot from a new Oliver Stone movie, doesn't it?Except it's the way things really are in this world, and the way they have been for centuries.The extraterrestrial force is God. The collaborators are the God whorshippers who tell us, despite all evidence to the contrary, that God is good, worthy of our devotion and supplication.They tell us, despite all the evil God has wrought upon us (and all the good he takes credit for that happened naturally with no assistance from him), that we should whorship him, obey him, fall in line and accept him.
In Karen Bishop's latest energy alert (just posted), she addresses the shadow work we have been slogging through, with the lunar eclipse of the 16th. Many of us are feeling vulnerable and acutely aware of our flaws.
If you are one who is unusually sensitive and connects easily, you may have experienced the lunar eclipse on August 16th with confusing feelings of low self worth, perhaps self-loathing, and even guilt for no apparent reason. You may have felt just plain icky and you did not know why. Suddenly feeling bad about ourselves for no apparent reason is simply a manifestation of the lunar eclipse supporting us in going deep within and seeing the denser aspects of who we are.
If you don't get Bishop's email notices about new alerts, you're missing out. They always include wonderful bonus material, in the form of relevant book excerpts. Sometimes those excerpts speak more to the moment for me than the alerts themselves.
In today's email, Bishop includes an excerpt from Remembering Your Soul Purpose. It's a fairly well known parable, of unknown origin, so I think republishing it in full here falls well within fair use.
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on either end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master's house. The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, but the cracked pot was miserable, ashamed that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, the cracked pot spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."
"Why? What are you ashamed of?" asked the bearer.
"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.
The water bearer felt compassion and said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming many beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That is because I have always known about your crack. Accepting what was given to me, I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."
Author Unknown
I'm sure I've heard this story before. But reading it today, I am singularly effected by the truth of it.
As one who walks the path of the wounded healer, I know well how my imperfections inform my work. I doubt that I could relate to my clients' struggles and challenges, had my life been effortlessly full.
Many times I have pondered that the greatest writers, musicians, and other artists -- the ones whose work moves me at my core -- are those who have been scarred by life. The ones whose art is a form of healing, both for themselves and for their audience.
Anyone who has ever worked a twelve step program knows that the power of that system is in people sharing honestly about their flaws, fears, and wounds. It is in that sharing of "experience, strength, and hope," that members assist each other in their recovery. The healing that comes from releasing that sense of shame and isolation can be profound.
We can appreciate the wisdom that comes from our injuries and mistakes, when we are ready to embrace life as an ongoing process. One that brings "progress, not perfection."
There is a Japanese term: Wabi-Sabi. It refers to an aesthetic in art, architecture, and life.
Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and rayed edges, and the march of time they represent.
I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.
-- Albert Einstein
I stumbled on this very compelling post in Wolf & Goddess, on science, atheism, and Richard Dawkins.
Yesterday Wolf and I were in a book shop and I saw Richard Dawkins‘ book The God Delusion. The title scared me, I leafed through it with ill-concealed hysteria and asked Wolf if he found the title sad or threatening. Wolf is grounded in his faith (unconventional, he is no monotheiest) and moves easily past naysayers. I fear contamination. A guy, a clever guy, a scientist, publishes a book asserting God is nothing more than a dangerous delusion and I linger, fearfully - wanting to read it, and yet not.
It is like passing the scene of a car accident, not wanting to look and yet wanting to. You want to look and see people ashen faced and trembling, lighting cigarettes and saying “what a relief I could have been killed”. You want to see survivors not corpses. I want to read The God Delusion and survive. I don’t want to be contaminated with even more doubt.
While doubt, as such, is not my issue, I can relate to the agita atheists like Dawkins inspire. The smugness. The certainty. Why is it that so many atheists come across as more militantly dogmatic than Christian fundamentalists? It strikes me as ironic... but, it's really not. Human beings crave certainty. We long for clean, straight lines in our reality. Throughout much of human history we satisfied that need with religious authority. Today we satisfy it with science. Science has become religion.
A short while ago, I was listening to this interview with Brian Weiss. In it, he shares about an exchange he had with Carl Sagan. These two men of science butted heads about the validity of Weiss's renowned work with reincarnation and regression therapy. Sagan, not surprisingly to the those familiar with Sagan, was initially very dismissive. But Weiss pointed out to him that he was dismissing something without actually looking at the body of research Weiss has accrued -- the documentation of people who found historical records confirming their past identities, the cases of people speaking in foreign languages they did not know, and that his regressed patients get better. Sagan admitted, according to Weiss, something fairly extraordinary. "Brian," he said, "I've not been acting as a scientist, have I?" (Weiss discusses this incident and explains his own beliefs that science requires an "open mind" beginning at the end of video 6 in the series.)
This is my biggest problem with both practitioners and laymen in this new discipline of scientism. They view science as an entity, an authority, and a kind of unassailable "book of facts." Anyone who thinks of science as something that establishes "facts" is neither practicing, nor honoring the scientific method. Science provides few definitive answers. It is, rather, a method of asking questions. Good scientists are involved in a process of discovery. They are not absolutist.
A linearized, pragmatic scheme of the four points above is sometimes offered as a guideline for proceeding:[25]
1. Define the question 2. Gather information and resources (observe) 3. Form hypothesis 4. Perform experiment and collect data 5. Analyze data 6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis 7. Publish results 8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
Step 8 in that list is fairly important. Science, far from providing final answers, is constantly revising itself. A great many "facts" that we learned in school have been adapted and changed. Just recently, for instance, I read that falcons can no longer be considered close relatives of hawks and other raptors. They are, rather, close cousins of parrots.
When a falcon swoops from the sky to seize its fleeing prey, no one would mistake the sleek predator for a gaudy parrot.
Yet the secret kinship of falcons and parrots is one of many surprises in a landmark genetic study of 169 bird species being published by Field Museum researchers.
. . .
The analysis also showed falcons are more closely related to parrots than to other hunters such as hawks and eagles. If true, the finding would mean that falcons do not even belong in the scientific order originally named for them.[emphasis mine]
Science provides an ever evolving body of knowledge. Not only are scientific findings and categories being constantly revised, there is much that remains unknown in various scientific fields. Otherwise, a lot of scientists in a wide range of fields would be out of jobs. And yet, many practitioners of this new religion of scientism tell us that much that we observe and experience cannot exist because it cannot be clearly and consistently observed and there is no scientific evidence for it. But the world turned on its axis before we knew that it was round, or had any conception of an axis.
In recent years, for instance, there has been a good deal of breakthrough research into insect aerodynamics. But, throughout much of the modern age, it has been a mystery.
Traditionally, scientists assumed that the basic physics of insect flight resembled the basic physics of human aviation.
For example, there's an urban legend that many decades ago, scientists analyzed the plump bodies and stubby wings of bumblebees and concluded they were too heavy to fly. Over the years, during repeated retellings of this story in schoolyards and barrooms, it acquired a punch line: "But bees don't know they can't fly, so they fly anyway."
The urban legend is based on fact: A bumblebee study was conducted in 1934 by the European scientists Antoine Magnan and Andre Saint-Lague. They applied mathematical analysis and known principles of flight to calculate that bee flight was "impossible," say insect-flight researchers Douglas L. Altshuler, Michael Dickinson and three colleagues at Caltech and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in an article for today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Since this time," the authors note, "bees have symbolized both the inadequacy of aerodynamic theory as applied to animals and the hubris with which theoreticians analyze the natural world."
Nothing in the natural world needs the imprimatur of our scientific institutions to function. Nor, does anything in the unseen or metaphysical world. For those of us who have seen glimpses of what lies beyond the veil, it is every bit as real as the flight of bumblebees.
None of this is intended as a disparagement of science; only to the practice of and belief in science as somehow conclusive and absolute, and the negation of all that lies undiscovered. The greatest scientists have been those who were open to the mysteries. Lahirondelle of Wolf & Goddess closes her rumination with an Einstein quote; the same quote alluded to by Weiss in the interview linked above.
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.
-- Albert Einstein
Yes, Mr. Weiss. Einstein was almost certainly a mystic.
Addenda: -- The title quotation is from "The Simpsons," episode "Lisa the Vegetarian." -- Books by Brian Weiss can be found in the bookstore in the Past Life Work section.
