Month: February 2023

Matter Over Mind

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When is a weather balloon not a weather balloon?

We live in a physical reality. From birth we engage with this moving and static universe and learn how it works; how to manipulate it and survive.

Then someone comes along who does ‘magic’. Perhaps it was at a children’s party when you first encountered a conjurer who made objects appear and disappear. Rows of coloured flags explode from her hat and little red balls pop out of her mouth.

Suddenly, rules that govern physicality are turned upside down, so like innocent children, we just laugh.

Later on in life, we understand that magicians are illusionists. They have studied the techniques of deception and taught themselves how to use them. Here are some;

Speed; prestidigitation, dexterity e.g. playing card tricks.

Misdirection; directing the audience so that they assume the contrary e.g. which ball the cup is in. Focusing the audience on one thing whilst doing another unnoticed, such as stage ‘banter’ and ‘slight of hand’.

Concealment; classic ‘smoke and mirrors’ such as using a curtain to hide a deceit.

Props; devices which appear to be not what they are; they have hidden doors, mirrors and compartments that reveal previously hidden objects.

Psychology; hypnotism, mentalism e.g. reading unconscious signalling in facial expressions to determine personal facts.

This list is not exhaustive but the main point is, magicians do not use obvious cheating. They know that they can be accused of using ‘stooges’ to perform pre-rehearsed actions. To counter this challenge, magicians use methods such as throwing a Frisbee randomly into the audience to choose who to invite to take part in the trick. Illusionists may be tricksters, but they will need to leave the audience without any explanation of what they have just observed, or lose credulity and reputation.

picture credit: EarthSky.org

Very recently an ‘air balloon’ was shot down over North America by the USA. The official story was that this balloon carried instruments used by China to spy on America. Questions were naturally asked as to how this and many other such balloons were not monitored or even known to exist, by those in charge of defending the nation. After some ‘re-calibration’ of America’s air space, surveillance and monitoring equipment, three new objects were found. Most significantly these were never ‘rationalised’ as balloons. One was described as ‘hexagonal’ and an ‘unidentified object with no obvious means of propulsion’ and the others of different shapes, equally unidentifiable. After several days, during which wreckage was recovered, it was announced that these three objects were in fact ‘weather balloons’. Do you get the feeling that matter is being described to make you form an opinion that the government want you to have?

The initials U.F.O were avoided quite deliberately for understandable reasons. Further obfuscation (misdirection) has been created because UFO’s are now called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or UAP’s and there is an equivalent Unidentified Submersible Phenomena or USP’s. For those in the know, and as described by Dr. Steven Greer on You Tube for decades, there are clandestined (‘black ops’) projects outside of the military and government control which have built anti-gravity craft using alien reverse engineering obtained in the 1950’s. The other three UAP’s in question, were almost certainly examples of anti-gravity, human engineering. The cover-up to their undeniable discovery (prompted but not connected to the ‘weather balloon’ incident) is what the counter intelligence community term ‘stage craft’. This is a simile from our familiar family entertainment shows where illusionists make things appear and disappear at will.

This series of events is worthy of particular attention as they provide a clear example of how public perception can be manipulated to whatever the non-democratic departments of governments desire.

The illusionist techniques employed in such ‘minor’ incidents can of course be scaled up to gain public approval of serious government policy. Within the military known as ‘psychological operations’, there are ‘false flag operations’ where an innocent third party, such as a ‘hostile state’ is blamed using fabricated evidence.

picture credit: Wikipedia

For instance, the ‘Gulf of Tomkin’ incident was probably the tipping point that committed the USA to war in Vietnam in 1964. North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats are meant to have engaged American ships in the Gulf of Tomkin whereas there are other claims that these were not NVA’s craft but American. A more mainstream explanation to the illusion is that there was a ‘communication error’ by the Americans which stands out as being vague at best and unforgiveable at worst. In all cases, unforgiveable.

picture credit: Pinterest

That is not the only war needlessly started. In 2003 the USA and an allied co-coalition, invaded Iraq on the grounds that there were ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq. This despite the fact that UN observers had been searching for such weapons for months and found nothing. The war was justified as being intended to;

“disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people”. (source Wikipedia.com)

History or ‘hind sight’ now enables most people to see than none of these three objectives were justified or effective. There were no WMD’s. Hussein did not support Al Quaida and the Iraqi people did not necessarily find foreign invasion a better option to living under a cruel but stable dictator. Iraq was destroyed, leaving little working infrastructure and services, and the regional and tribal ‘commanders’ were left to fight each other in the power vacuum…so called ‘freedom’.

Similar examples of ‘illusion’ by politicians, industrialists, pharmaceuticals and clandestined world actors, are to be found almost everyday in current news reports.

My overall point is that a scientist is not a person who understands things, but one who questions things. In the material ‘reality’ that most people believe is ‘all and everything’, everyone needs to be scientifically sceptical about how world events are reported. The techniques of the illusionist are frequently applied in a manner that appears to be without motive. Discovering the motive is the final and most hard to find piece of the puzzle.

This subject is extremely complex and the ‘stage craft’ of the actors confirms we are watching an act, but this is not a kid’s party. Most people chuckle and sit back in their seats, rather than refuse to leave until what has really been going on, is explained. There is after all, always an explanation, it’s just that, with the serious problems of today, we get the feeling that we are never intended to find out what it is.

picture credit: AZ Quotes

All of this may be rather bleak. However, mankind was never sent here to change the world, just to learn to be a better human being. Perhaps we have to look at this problem from a completely different perspective and that is to consider why there even is matter at all. Perhaps the knowledge that matter is interchangeable with energy casts some understanding. If mind / Universal Mind was seeking to know itself it could not do this in a vacuum. It has to create a very dense version of energy, which is what we call matter. In this material universe we are able to perceive how energy works because the two are the interchangable; it’s just that matter goes slowly enough for us to interact with it intelligently.

Those lessons, which the material Universe with all it’s entanglements and complexity, are directly transferable to the energetic or spiritual universes and when applied, give the greatest understanding of this highest spiritual truths.

You want to know what is spiritual?

Don’t approach spirituality.

To know what is spiritual,

Figure out what is physical.

Master Shi Heng Li Shaolin Monk

A Gender Agenda

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In this essay, sex is a verb and gender is a noun.

For the last two thousand years or so, homosexuality has generally been ‘brushed under the carpet’ in an effort for societies to be ‘respectable’ and ‘moral’. But in present times suppression does not work. The technological ‘information revolution’ has lifted the lid of this particular Pandora’s box as it has many others.

The Church of England is presently debating the male / female duality with regard to marriage, and whether same gender marriages, should be sanctioned by the Church. The best the Church can suggest is to give a ‘blessing in church’ to gay couples. But such a lame offering, satisfies neither the lawyers nor the couples in question. A better solution, it seems to me, is to invent a word. After all, words cost nothing and there are plenty out there ready to fit new ideas. I would therefore humbly suggest that gay couples are ‘parried’ and straight couples are ‘married’. In these words I am using the Latin stem words ‘pater’ and ‘mater’. Parried will mean a legal contract with partner, with all the rights, privileges and duties, contained in marriage.

The net result of the adoption of this word, would give the dignity, equality and legal status that gay couples demand and enable church leaders and lawyers to sit back and stop trying to fit an egg into match box.

The issue interestingly raises the question; how are Western societies adapting to issues around gender and sexuality? Clearly they have risen above the hypocrisy, secrecy, guilt and shame, that was prevalent in say, Victorian England. We find in societies around the world, condemnation has been applied to homosexuality and most religions have not always embraced the question to the satisfaction of all parties.

In modern western societies, the sexual freedoms of the 1960’s contributed to the general demand for acceptance of consensual sexual behaviour with few boundaries. Whilst LGBT rights have been slowly engaged by law makers in liberal democracies, certain more conservative institutions and governments have resisted the change.

It is most likely however that eventually, however hard they try, ‘the truth will out’ and it is to this truth that I shall now turn.

Humans, in common with animals, insects and plants, have two general body forms; male and female. Carl G. Jung proposed that the mind of a male had a feminine aspect (the anima) and the mind of a female had a male aspect (the animus). Just as different gender bodies are simultaneously the same and different, the mind is also. In the Eastern traditions, in which Jung was well versed, the mind is completely integrated with the body so this idea is obvious, and today is accepted more generally by western physicians.

A homosexual male may express his femininity in a manner crudely described as ‘camp’; others may not to the same degree. But expression of feminitiy by a male, such as the use of facial make up and brightly coloured clothing, are a fun and harmless expression of self.

In some cases a feeling of disfunctional gender identity, in both males and female, can become so overpowering that the person wishes to change gender. Even very young children, who are totally unaware of what sex is but not gender, can feel they were born into the wrong body and become very unhappy.

What I am building up to is asking the question of those with spiritual authority, such as the Church of England Synod, ‘where have you been?‘ Do these ‘councillors’ and ‘shepherds’ really have so little knowledge of the complexity of human feelings, including in their own. Celibacy in church leaders has been another harmful mechanism merely to ‘brush sex under the carpet’ with the result of sexual expression that has caused harm to others.

Celibacy is a gnostic practice in the East and West, based on raising the life force within the human body for spiritual enlightenment. Ignorantly copying the practice at a superficial level, is like sitting on the back of a Tiger.

Christian clerics and scholars today are having to grapple with the question; ‘what gender is God?’ Once again, language and a lack of the ability to think outside the existing lexicon, made religious scholars and law makers, recourse to dogma and literal interpretation of ‘scripture’.

But a little research into the history of Christianity will reveal that the original Trinity consisted of the Divine Masculine, the Divine Feminine and the Child. This was translated or became for unknown reasons, the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son respectively. Once again, thoughts were perverted by miss translations at best and the denial of truth at worst. Surely religious truth should provide answers not questions and the words of mystics and gnostics have been repeatedly twisted and misunderstood. The dialogues between Jesus the Christ and his disciples illustrate this process perfectly.

Past religions had in fact, given Christianity the complete concept of the Trinity only with different gods. In Babylon the ‘holy family’ were Semiramis and Nimrod, who gave birth to the Holy Child, Tammuz.

The Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, worship one God, indeed (logically) the same God. So, if God is One, then there can be no question as to what gender God is. God cannot have a gender so does not need a pronoun any more than the sky or moon do. The English language wisely dropped gendered nouns during it’s early development as ‘old English’. The Romantic languages did not do this and curiously these countries where these languages are spoken remained Catholic whilst the Anglo / Germanic countries became Protestant. Perhaps a book has been written about this?!

The ‘Divine Androgynous Unity’ has been expressed in many ways through history most notably by the Alchemists of the middle ages, who represented the two genders as the sun and moon. Human beings had bodies of both genders; somewhat comically being visually split in two, right down the middle. But the message was clear. At a non-physical, non-body, level (that is spirit or life energy) humans become complete and transform when their spiritual gender becomes as-God; neutral…Unified.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans, sometimes produced statues of gods and works of art where it is almost impossible to tell which gender the body represents. Indeed the ancient Greeks gave us the word ‘hermaphrodite’ to describe this union of opposite genders in one being and lifted the debate about gender from the physical to the spiritual.

Perhaps you agree that in modern times, there seems to be a general trend towards androgynous beings? Contemporary men have less sperm and testosterone and their voices, in my view, are becoming higher pitched. Artists such as Jason Perry express their own gender ambiguity in appropriate outrageousness and some boys going to school have questioned why they cannot wear skirts. Girls similarly dress in trousers and ties and feel perfectly comfortable. A similar trend is occurring in woman, whose dulcet tones can be heard reading the news or even on the parade ground.

Personally, I believe societies would benefit greatly from observing dispassionately and embracing, this gender neutral transition in all it’s manifestations, whether as sexual preference, gender transformation, religious doctrine or tolerance of gender neutrality.

It is beneficial to remember that gender neutrality in Christianity, produced the ‘immaculate conception of the child’. At a literal and physical level, this concept makes no sense and has to be adopted by the faithful as true only because it is written in a holy book. A more rational approach, ( which the Essenes who instructed Jesus in gnosticism at one time knew), is to interpret ‘the child’ as ‘Divine energy’. They taught gnostic methods of using this energy principally for inner transformation. But in a time when doctors and healers were generally ineffective, natural compassion must have caused Jesus to learn methods to use spiritual energy to heal and even return spirit to bodies that were in the early stages of dying.

The superior nature of ‘the child’ energy over matter, is represented in sacred geometry and architecture. The two smaller doors, openings, towers, flank an identical but scaled up feature which generally, is the practical and symbolic place of entry. In the case of the sacred pillars of Boaz (sun) and Joachim (moon) in Freemasonry imagery and architecture, the space between the pillars is the reality of the sacred energy or ‘light’. The Ancient Egyptian obelisks performed the same purpose in their Temples both metaphorically, and literally. They were power generators, as were the pillars and pyramids.

This is why the ‘holy child’ or ‘holy spirit’ is so significant. The ‘father’ and ‘mother’ are not central in the whole picture. They are depicted in Early Renaissance art in particular, as servants of the child, looking on and holding it with devotion and obedience. The holy child is not wearing a pink or blue outfit as happens in modern times, because children and the spiritual dimension that they represent, are gender neutral.

The ‘sexual’ energy that causes humans so much pleasure and grief is that given by the serpent or dragon. It is a realisation of mortality and a ‘fall’, as depicted in the biblical story of Adam and Eve, where physicality takes over from the Divine and perfect spiritual realm.

They started life naked and sans-gender and on realisation of their gender difference, were ashamed.

Gender in it’s many manifestations has a lot to be responsible for in human life, both through the ages and today. But perhaps at this time of rapid changes, the eye of truth is taking over from the eye of denial. It is a great blessing for humans to express the ‘freewill’ that was given to them, the freedom to love each other, without judgement.

Hive Mind

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This essay will explore the philosophical implications of this idea from the insect kingdom, a ‘hive mind’. In a very special way it might enable us to explore the mystery of our own ‘consciousness’ as an individual, in a group, and in spirit. The ‘hive mind’ concept has been more widely understood, since the eponymous non-fiction book by Garett Jones published in 2015.

Today, scientists are exploring the question of how sentient, animals are. They define this as ‘having a sense of self’. Animals, seeing their reflection in a mirror, react as if another animal was present; a being which is non-self. But there are some life forms that move ‘as one’; such as a flock of birds. Their sense of ‘self’ or ‘being conscious of self’ , becomes subservient to their social group’s consciousness. Picture credit below of a bird shape murmuration, to Country Living Magazine;

I would argue that this capacity to act either as a group or individually, is found in nature on a graded scale, that is; solely, partially or totally and every grade between these. In other words, some (if not all living beings) are able to act both individually and collectively at different times depending on the objective.

Let us examine this idea in more detail. I would like to start with the mineral kingdom, as the understanding that minerals in their many forms is conscious, is not so odd. Indeed, most indigenous people’s live comfortably with this concept. However, as this idea may seem ‘odd’ to city living humans, let us start with the vegetable kingdom. This image from the National Forest Foundation shows a map of tree connections.

Certainly trees have a historical place in the line of sentient beings in the cultures of indigenous communities. Modern Japanese today venture into mature forests to absorb the energetic ‘atmosphere’ which they term, ‘tree bathing’. Scientists have discovered that trees communicate with each other through their roots and associated connecting fungi. One tree may tell another, for instance, of a disease or insect infestation, which is attacking it. The other trees then initiate chemicals into their own sap that will protect against this attack to themselves and collectively; a form of viral inoculation and lock down.

J.R.R. Tolkien in his book The Lord of the Rings, imagined a race of giant trees called ‘Ents’ who were as alive as humans. Today the film ‘Avatar’, features a civilisation of other worldly beings whose lives centre on a magnificent sentient tree with enormous spiritual significance to their society.

The insect world is clearly where the idea of a ‘hive mind’ originated. The queen, workers and drones each have their own specialisation which is hard wired into their DNA. As a group, bees communicate on matters of hive survival using dance to express information. Their consciousness could be defined as ‘collective’ for this reason and there is a limited sense of self in each bee; at least enough to ‘speak’ to others.

Ants and termites (above) operate in the same way as specialised entities with specific functions to act for the benefit of the community. The structures they can build are extraordinary in their size and complexity. Surely, only a sense of communal consciousness could maintain this level of concentration on the task and produce something far greater than the individuals power to do so.

Interestingly, some insects are more individualistic. A spider, for instance, generally works alone as it needs space to create it’s webs. Without anthropomorphising, such a creature must surely feel that it is separate from the reality it senses, otherwise it could not ‘plan to catch another life’.

In animals we find a similar spectrum of ‘degrees of self awareness’. The birds are the most well known for acting in flight as if they were one organism in some species. Scientists who have study these ‘murmurations’ have proposed that each bird acts a micro-second after it’s neighbour. This may be the case but it does not rule out a collective consciousness governing their behaviour.

Penguins survive in extreme climates by acting in favour of the community and the individual. Those on the outside of a large formation of birds standing in a blizzard, will be allowed to edge to the centre of the huddle and then start moving towards the perimeter again. This flow gives and even chance to each bird of enjoying the collective heat of their bodies.

At the other end of the spectrum of animals acting individually, is the wild and domestic cat. It appears to have a high degree of sense of ‘self consciousness’ and will act according to it’s own rules and commands. The Lion as the ‘King of the Jungle’ indicates this propensity to act according it’s own survival needs and a sense of ‘self’ compliments the demands of the pride.

The mysterious process of the evolution of the domestication of wild animals gives reason to consider how wild and domesticated animals differ. In what ways are they different mentally, as well as physically? Personally, I believe that domesticated animals have a higher degree of sense of self than their wild relatives. This is because their consciousness is less centred on survival and is able to focus more on itself. It feels both individual and aware of it’s relations with other sentient beings, such as humans and other domesticated animals.

With humans these matters become more complex. I would suggest that we are at the high end of the sliding scale of individuality; that is we are distinctly individual both in appearance and a sense of self or self consciousness. We might identify collective behaviour such as tribal dance or even military tattoos as a ‘hive mind’ ability. But personally, I believe this is merely ‘mimicking’ the hive mind consciousness through repetition. This is to rule out the spontaneous consciousness of the group as a whole but this effect only happens in special moments, as most dancers would assert.

Humans differ also in that we have access to another dimension of consciousness. Professor G.J. Jung called this the ‘collective unconscious’. This concept of a hidden process of motivation in human activity, is at first difficult to understand – which it is by definition of being ‘unconscious’. Humans can not only manipulate consciously, as in politics and advertising, but confuse personal identity with the collective. In other words, our sense of ‘self’ is easily confused. We believe that everything in our mind, is us. For instance, supporters of a team watching a football match become identified at an individual and collective level with the game they are watching. They may have dressed in colours of their team to create this illusion of identification, and will certainly feel to their core the associated feelings of success or failure with the (their) team and it’s individual members.

In other words, humans become confused at a most fundamental level, with what is ‘the hive mind’ and what is their own. There is a comfort and protection in this illusion and it is hard to break. At it’s most malign manifestation, a group of humans will riot and cause damage and injury to others that as individuals, they would never do. In some cases, whole nations can be caused to commit acts to harm other nations, known as war.

The few humans who have leapt out of this illusion are the prophets, saints and mystics. At a spiritual level, such persons have separated their individual sense of ‘self’ and entered what is called the ‘Universal Consciousness’. Such figures are revered in all religions and an example in modern western societies would be Jesus the Christ. He is revered for having ‘died for others’, in other words, to have completely surrendered to the hive mind both in the physical dimension and spiritually.

I would argue that the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms also have access to this spiritual / universal dimension of consciousness but not in a sentient way. In other words, they are so limited by their DNA , instincts and highly specialised physical bodies, that they cannot gain discernment of the ‘Universal Mind’ as humans may. We are uniquely able to enter higher dimensions outside of our own bodies. Humans who have physically died and then come back into their bodies recount remarkably similar spiritual experiences, ( including the most ‘hard headed’ scientists ) and their stories abound on social media.

In this spiritual kingdom, there is another, similar hierarchy of self awareness and communal awareness, on this planet.

If one can accept the idea that ‘mentality’ can exist in the ether without physical form, then it becomes easier to understand, if not experience, the other entities or beings, described historically and universally in the spiritual dimension.

These start with the identification of ‘spirits’ which are either of a natural or human origin, move through ‘jinn’ to higher intelligences such as angels and arch angels, and summit in the concept of ‘God’ – or to the non-believers, ‘Universal Mind’.

The concept of hive mind, enables one to grasp the idea of a universal consciousness. All of this, that we see as individuals, is an illusion. It is not ‘us’. Self is merely a manifestation of the infinite consciousness, the great Mind ‘who art in heaven’. It is expressed more perfectly in mathematics than attempts in words, however, geometry is traditionally the closest expression of the Creator’s Mind.

How apt it is then, that when the Great Bee Keeper in the Sky, lifts up the frame containing the honey of heaven, what have our little bees made? – why, a maze of perfect hexagons.