'Education' Category Archive

Posted on May 18th, 2007

In eastern Cultures the passing of thought was considered valuable, so much in fact that even to this day members of those cultures respect their elders and listen to their advice. The passing of such thoughts and concepts and philosophies is of extreme value. The Christianity religion and its followers take those stories in the bible literally, almost to an absolute truth. Much of which is an incredible gift from those who came before us and experienced their lives and had something to say and tales to help the understanding of those who would come later. Jesus in the bible talks about important concepts and thoughts of what should be done and how to live with love towards your fellow man.

The Philosophers of ancient Greece; Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had many interesting and valuable thoughts. Much of which helped the well studied Thomas Jefferson in his ideas as one of our most noted founding fathers. Such enlightenment has been going on for at least as long as we have been able to acquire our written history. 10,000 years of Chinese written history, 6,000 years of middle-eastern history. As the human race branches grew together, it became more apparent that different cultures learn differently and think somewhat differently.

We can all stand to learn a lot from each other if we will listen and learn. The world is not so far apart as it once was every culture has knowledge and we should all have knowledge of every culture. Think about it.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

DNA

Posted on May 16th, 2007

A book called the Seven Daughters of Eve by Richard Sykes is worthy of a read and talks about what we have learned about the flow of human beings populations through DNA research. Thus it is safe to say that certain members of our species have developed differently and in different ways, meaning the brain also learns differently. As Scientists look at different human brains while doing various tasks and watch which areas light up with energy as it works through these different thoughts and tasks we are finding just how unique and different each mind really is.

Yet as we learn more about the brain we indeed add more questions to our studies. Why does man need to think. Why does mankind feel the need to share these thoughts and concepts in their writings? It appears that the flow of thought may be the single most important part of life. The process of thought is probably the single most important part of human life. “I think therefore, I am” Are you, is that it? So what is it with this large complex body? Is it to serve the brain? Or is the brain to serve the body? With these questions and the philosophers of prior periods and the writers and thinkers of today we can all agree that thought is one of the most important parts of self and of human life, if not the only true important part of life.

Then why do we allow thought to be controlled by religion, governments, other men? If we study the dialogues of Plato, Galelio, Copernicus, etc. we see that man has often muffled thought and that often fiction is the only way to allow for truth or thought. So we therefore live in a world with a history of imprisoning dissenting or disagreeing views. But for mankind to move forward we need to stop this and allow free thought. As we see modern day people of deep thought attempt to bring forth their discoveries and enlightenment, we see them doing so by way of fictional works. We see great thoughts in our movies, novels, stories; why should we have to hide truths in fairy tales. Why can’t we know graduate to the next level without such forced barriers? Think about it?

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Posted on May 8th, 2007

One of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World is reported (many years after all but the Great Pyramid had vanished) to be the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. This great goddess has what many archaeologists and historians have interpreted to be nearly a thousand breasts on her body. It is being commented on in this very manner as I type this. The Discovery Channel is interviewing an esteemed Cambridge scholar who looks to know his words are as wise as Solomon. The stupidity of such absurd explanations is not unusual but still it draws a smile from those who know better.

In the past few months I have read over two hundred books in whole or in part and only the authors of Carthage have an idea about the import of these ‘cosmic eggs’. They also wonder why the Berbers painted so many ostrich eggs and then threw them in garbage pits, near Cyrenaica. The Keltic serpent’s eggs from the Druidic education might provide a little insight. This next quote mentions ‘Pelota’ which we mentioned in reference to a game that took place at Chichen Itza to prevent unnecessary tribal conflict. It has other meanings and depths relating to life and the passage of the soul that are touched upon in this quote from ‘The Mistletoe Sacrament’ by W. B. Crow in ‘A Celtic Reader’ which has been a constant source of mine; for the last ten months as I have explored the origins of the ‘Red-Heads’ with an obsession some might call mania:

The Druids themselves were known to the Welsh bards by a word that means adders, and Lewis Spence is of the opinion that the ridiculous statements of Pliny really refer to the manner in which the Druids manufacture these eggs. Later bards also refer to a ceremony in which a ball was snatched and carried across the water.

The Druidic custom just mentioned, we cannot help thinking, may have been the origin of the curious mediaeval rite of ‘pelota’, which took place in certain Catholic churches in France and Italy on Easter Monday. The ceremony consisted in bringing a ball of considerable size into the church and after solemnly presenting it before the altar, certain of the clergy beginning to dance and throwing the ball about in a special manner {It would be good to know if this originated in Mayan lands or if the Druids like Quetzalcoatl and the Toltecs took it there. They are the ‘messengers’ referred to in many Indian legends like those of Grey Owl.}. The ceremony symbolizes both the passage of the sun and the planets through the heavens and also the vicissitudes of the soul of man (the causal body of the theosophists). In Egyptian mythology the trial of the soul after death is associated with the passage of the sun through the underworld. The whipping of a spinning top, representing Alleluia on the Saturday before Septuagesima, a ceremony not uncommon in this country in former times, is related to this practice.

Madame Blavatsky has some interesting remarks on the connection with the serpent cult {A serpent goes up the side of the pyramid at Chichen Itza in specific ways as the sun and shadows create the effect that the building was re-built to create by the Toltec designers after the original pyramid had been built by the Jaguar cult centuries earlier. Chichen Itza became an international court of the whole of Central America if not more.}, which was at one time widespread and which is still widely practiced in South India. The serpent is a symbol of regeneration {And the orobouros of the alchemists is a serpent holding its tail and making the infinity type of immortality symbol: or the Mayan mathematical concept of zero they are credited with discovering over a century before the people of the sub-continent of India.). Not only does it lay eggs from which new life arises after having been preserved in the dormant state, but the reptile itself sloughs its skin at regular intervals. The initiate, in the ancient mystery religions, went through certain occult processes where his vehicles {Solar body, soul, allies and ‘doppelganger’ to name a few.} were actually renewed, and in the symbolism thereof cast off his old clothing and was clad in new vestures. What better symbolism than the serpent could be chosen to represent this change in the personality? Besides this, the regeneration by sloughing refers to the regeneration of the physical body by reincarnation and the regeneration of races and worlds of the theosophic cosmogony.

Some primitive peoples, after a death has occurred, perform a ritual in which the performers are divided into two groups and a struggle for the body takes place between the parties. This refers to the struggle between the powers of light and darkness for the spirit o£ the deceased, an eschatological myth of many ancient peoples. In the course of the evolution of this ritual it became a game in which the skull alone was the object of combat or had to be kicked into the goal. The various forms of the game of football and polo, and perhaps other ball games, are supposed to have originated from this, the original religious significance having become lost. The Druidic ritual of snatching an egg and running away until one got over a stream (which acts as the goal) suggests a similar game and connects up with funeral games. The egg or ball is an excellent symbol of the causal body, if one can believe clairvoyants, who see it as a kind of rounded or egg-shaped structure, in fine matter {Similar to ectoplasm as seen in ghosts.} of the higher mental {I would definitely NOT use this word.} plane. After death, according to accounts of occultists, there is a kind of play of forces, good and evil, which do seem to struggle for the possession of the causal body and to determine whether it goes to a good or bad incarnation when next it descends to clothe itself with coarser matter.

The Druid’s egg, says Pliny, was unknown to the Greeks {They certainly knew about the Temple of Artemis with all the eggs some current Cambridge scholar thinks is breasts, and Pliny the Roman is not an initiate in the Eleusinian or Cabiri, mysteries, to my knowledge.}. But other kinds of eggs are mentioned in Greek and Hindu mythology, and the consecration of an egg was one of the most important acts in the secret ritual of the Eleusinian mysteries. The Christian Church continued the use of the same symbol, as we see in the so-called Easter eggs, and in the ostrich eggs which are still to be seen hanging in Orthodox Catholic Churches in the East. In fact a whole lecture might be devoted to the symbolism of the cosmic egg.”

We must delve into many things this quote engages. In some ways I am squeamish about doing so in this book. I have written about my experiences and research on the stele I found behind the Pelota at Chichen Itza in other books and that makes re-telling the story something redundant. The matter of good and evil and ‘Some primitive peoples’ this author is talking about is most troublesome. How can I do what millions of philosophers throughout history have been unable to fully explain? It is clear that the Christian church borrowed almost all the supposedly pagan rituals. The communion is admitted by de Vere and Gardner (Genesis of the Grail Kings and the Sarkeny Rend Rosicrucians) to be similar to their earlier adept Count Dracul or ‘Vlad the Impaler’ and the vampire practices. My experience with exorcisms is extensive enough to know that the Catholic Church takes advantage of some pretty easy situations and makes them a big issue for the purpose of self-promotion. I recommend reading The Devils of Loudon by Aldous Huxley for a documentary trip down that road. The matter of the fight over the soul that sounds like some of Dante Aligheri’s "HELL" is not the matter of Druidic cosmogony. It is the tactic of FEAR-mongering by Christianity such as the ’sins and demons’ we touched upon in the issue of medical ailments and Paracelsus.

Mr. Sharkey spoke about ‘representing each world within the other’, as he described the Druids. There was a guided spiritual ritual part to some of what went on at the Pelota in Chichen Itza with the big ball, that goes into the realm of the time-space continuum, and free choice that students of the Nagual’s Way from Castaneda might understand that I won’t delve into, again. Are there really ‘Other Worlds’ as the quantum physics ‘Many Worlds Interpretation’ assures us and Wigner or Schrödinger (Nobel Laureates) say the Mandukya Upanishads describe accurately? Have you read the Tao of Physics by the physicist Fritjof Capra and seen what he says about S-Matrix theory of Math and the ‘I Ching’? Believe me this author (Mr. Crow) might have to turn into a raven if his ‘whole lecture’ would do the trick in explaining the cosmic egg.

We have made it clear the Kelts believed in the afterlife and spirit world or they wouldn’t have made loans to be repaid after death. We have said they didn’t fear death and that they had no punitive ‘unmerciful God. But there are leprechauns and the Fianna of the great ancient Irish king Finn who the Phoenicians liked and named themselves after. So we are caught in this quandary of making seeming conflicting statements come together. We said the spirits might take a child or their energy if the parent let the spirits know the child’s name. That doesn’t sound like the work of a leprechaun! You have heard about ‘witches’ and you know we’ve been defending them, too. You probably wonder if this isn’t all ‘hocus-pocus’ and barbaric things anyway.

There are good people that I know who deny and avoid these facts like they are ‘THE PLAGUE’! It isn’t going to make your life easier when you open these doors and see the thousands more that await you beyond. Occultists are often ’sophists’ or will engage in sophistry too. Who can say what things God might be capable of? Who really believes in such a force anyway? Most people pay lip-service to it. The Kelts we have said (and Admiral Morison ridiculed) were different. Clearly the Phoenicians demanded the greatest personal commitment to their beliefs, at least from their average person or citizen. When their kings are seen having to give their first born to the god Baal (Bel = BL) are they just babel-ing (BBL and later the Bible)? Some of these kings were front men or women and there is adequate proof they did these things, but that doesn’t mean they all did it. Carthage had a democratic type of government according to Aristotle and maybe this was the cross kings had to bear like the Keltic practice of burning the leader at the end of their term in office (25 year term, and this made for less fraud and ‘cronyism’). This can become pretty barbaric as we have seen with the ‘Devoted Ones’ but it became a celebration and the forerunner of the ‘wake’. That seems proof enough that death was not feared anyMORE than the North American warriors who ‘counted coup’ feared their ‘maker’. So what if all these cultural beliefs are shared across the oceans? What does it matter to you now if you are ‘getting yours’? Why ‘open a can of worms if you can’t close it’?

Maybe we should leave this kind of talk to another book and just point fingers at the church that hides these truths from us. Maybe our happiness and freedom are better under their ministrations. If there are spiritual forces that can mess with us. There is a lot of merit in my concerns about this and there is a law of the Magi that says ‘Know, Will, Dare, Keep Silent’. We’ve already given a lot of places to look for the answers to esoteric questions like these and it might be best to keep this book on the academic level of ethnology or anthropological denial of the reasons and realities that actually’, are the nature of everyday life. We could talk about laws and minstrels and make cute poems to amuse the reader and still have done a lot to help people see the culture was no more barbaric than we are. Why did the Druids follow this law and keep so much of their knowledge in ‘verbal traditions’ such as the Qaballa was made from? Were they really so afraid of this knowledge being abused by unethical or un-disciplined ‘posers’? Did they really think their soul would be judged as unworthy of progress if they broke this law? Surely if they could sell the knowledge of shape-shifting and the ‘Lost Chord’ they could have made life a lot better for a lot of people.

The truth is they could have done anything or had anything they wanted at the point they rose to the highest level. In fact the moral strength to have such knowledge is more important than the mental or chemical knowledge in reference to the ‘Stone’. I am sure money and power is a pursuit that blinds people through their ego. This ‘blindness’ that closes the soul to ‘what is’ or as Jesus said ‘the living father within’, will prevent any politico from getting their hands on anything really harmful you might say. That might be true, too. There were some things that they knew which could be abused though, and it was (and is) important to do what is RIGHT. That is another law of the three laws of the Magi. RIGHT THOUGHT=RIGHT ACTION!

He’s dodging and waffling, you might say. What about the things this guy said about the battle over the soul when we die? What kind of authority do I have to disagree with occultists like Madame Blavatsky who heralded my favorite teacher Jiddhu Krishnamurti and helped Annie Besant teach him? In the final analysis you might say I’m a person engaging in ’sophistry’ and ego too. We know that no one person can really know God or all these things so why read what I have to say? For now I choose to say that we are going to cover the religion of the Druids who were the dominant force in thousands of years of human culture in a later chapter. But I don’t want the reader to think the Druids or Kelts were so ego driven or fearful as to worry about spirits capturing their souls once they had grown enough to know their name; they also were ‘protected’ from the lesser obsessive forces of the limbo or interstitiary state of the spirit world which may possess a soul.

Yes, they had a lot of scary legends and tales about evil acts of mischievous and other forces. Sometimes these tales are like the accounts of war on the friezes or frescoes of the Mayan, who wanted people to know the stupidity of war. Sometimes there were people who needed this motivation to take the time to learn enough to protect themself. In all cases as long as the Druids were still around (before the Roman ‘bounties’) they had recourse to protection if something really bad occurred. At the same time there was a greater element of ‘fate’ and ‘destiny’ in this religion than I think is real. I cannot say for sure that there were people at the highest level who knew better the import of ‘free will’. I cannot even be sure what degree or level of free will or ‘world mind’ existed in their collective unconscious (Jung). There are lots of Celts and people from post Druidic times who write about Druids as if they know them. Some of these people are definitely ‘far gone’ when it comes to the inevitability of the cyclical nature of the ‘forces’. The Etruscans are good examples of this and the Carthaginians who allied with them or were their ‘brothers’ surely had a lot of that in them too. But that is a time when the macho power-trippers had already made great inroads into the original nature-worshipping culture, too.

The historians have little to go with in the records of history. We often are left with the words of Caesar in the first century BC. to confirm that there were numerous schools of Druidry as the best recorded insight to earlier times. In Gaul the best knowledge seems to go back no further than the fifth century BC. and ornamentation is the hardest proof. Gimbutas has the Old European alphabet that takes us back a long way but many scholars aren’t convinced because they don’t understand the esoteric symbology. There are those who laugh and point to Stonehenge or Carnac in Brittany, and of course the Pyramid they know it’s the work of the Red-Headed League of Megalith Builders. But they can’t prove a definite connection to the Druids. At least not in the eyes of those who establish the required standards of proof in the halls of academia. They note that the term ‘goddess-worship’ or Wicca may not even have existed until the 18th century. We can say the term isn’t the point and the records of historians are propaganda.

Author of Diverse Druids
Columnist for The ES Press Magazine
Guest ‘expert’ for World-Mysteries.com

Posted on May 6th, 2007

There are adepts outside of what is called alchemy who have achieved great things in these areas and there are alchemists before Socrates and Aristotle, or Da Vinci and Newton; who all true experts know were alchemists. For any author or journalist who would produce a TV documentary on the subject and not even interview a hermeticist (much less an alchemist) it is obvious their intent is not to educate. So when you see Time/Life videos doing that kind of show I hope you know you are being fed lies. In February, 1925 Yeats wrote this in Capri.

“The End of the Cycle

A Vision A

In the first edition of A Vision the section ‘Dove or Swan’ contains a relatively long passage on the relationship of the gyres to the contemporary period and the near future (AV A 210-215), which was omitted in the second edition. It is given here for reference, with the page breaks indicated. The first sentence given here (in italics) is the last on AV B 300, and the text continues from there.

Having bruised their hands upon that limit men, for the first time since the seventeenth century, see the world as an object of contemplation, not as something to be remade, and some few, meeting the limit in their special study, even doubt if there is any common experience, that is to say doubt the possibility of science.

It is said that at Phase 8 there is always civil war, and at Phase 22 always war, and as this war is always a defeat for those who have conquered, we have repeated the wars of Alexander.

I discover already the first phase—Phase 23—of the last quarter in certain friends of mine, and in writers, poets and sculptors admired by those friends, who have a form of strong love and hate hitherto unknown in the arts. It is with them a matter of conscience to live in their own exact instant of time, and they defend their conscience like theologians. They are all absorbed in some technical research to the entire exclusion of the personal dream. It is as though the forms in the stone or in their reverie began to move with an energy which is not that of the human mind. Very often these forms are mechanical, are as it were the mathematical forms that sustain the physical primary—I think of the work of Mr Wyndham Lewis, his powerful “cacophony of sardine tins,” and of those marble eggs, or objects of burnished steel too drawn up or tapered out to be called eggs, of M. Brancussi [sic], who has gone further than Mr Wyndham Lewis from recognisable subject matter and so from personality; of sculptors who would certainly be rejected as impure by a true sectary of this moment, the Scandinavian Milles, Meštrovi? perhaps, masters of a geometrical pattern or rhythm which seems to impose itself wholly from beyond the mind, the artist “standing outside himself.” I compare them to sculpture or painting where now the artist now the model imposes his personality. I think especially of the art of the 21st Phase which was at times so anarchic, Rodin creating his powerful art out of the fragments of those Gates of Hell that he had found himself unable to hold together—images out of a personal dream, “the hell of Baudelaire not of Dante,” he had said to Symons. I find at this 23rd Phase which is it is said the first where there is hatred of the abstract, where the intellect turns upon itself, Mr Ezra Pound, Mr Eliot, Mr Joyce, Signor Pirandello, who either eliminate from metaphor the poet’s phantasy and substitute a strangeness discovered by historical or contemporary research or who break up the logical processes of thought by flooding them with associated ideas or words that seem to drift into the mind by chance; or who set side by side as in “Henry IV,” “The Waste Land,” “Ulysses,” the physical primary—a lunatic among his keepers, a man fishing behind a gas works, the vulgarity of a single Dublin day prolonged through 700 pages—and the spiritual primary, delirium, the Fisher King, Ulysses’ wandering. It is as though myth and fact, united until the exhaustion of the Renaissance, have fallen so far apart that man understands for the first time the rigidity of fact, and calls up, by that very recognition, myth—the Mask—which now but gropes its way out of the mind’s dark but will shortly pursue and terrify. In practical life one expects the same technical inspiration, the doing of this or that not because one would, or should, but because one can, consequent licence, and with those “out of phase” anarchic violence with no sanction in general principles. If there is a violent revolution, and it is the last phase where political revolution is possible, the dish will be made from what is found in the pantry and the cook will not open her book. There may be greater ability that hitherto for men will be set free from old restraint, but the old intellectual hierarchy gone they will thwart and jostle one another. One tries to discover the nature of the 24th Phase which will offer peace—perhaps by some generally accepted political or religious action, perhaps by some more profound generalisation—calling up before the mind those who speak its thoughts in the language of our earlier time. Peguy in his Joan of Arc trilogy displays the national and religious tradition of the French poor, as he, a man perhaps of the 24th phase, would have it, and Claudel in his “L’Otage” the religious and secular hierarchies perceived as history. I foresee a time when the majority of men will so accept an historical tradition that they will quarrel, not as to who can impose his personality upon others but as to who can best embody the common aim, when all personality will seem an impurity—“sentimentality,” “sullenness,” “egotism”—something that revolts not morals alone but good taste.

There will be no longer great intellect for a ceaseless activity will be required of all; and where rights are swallowed up in duties, and solitude is difficult, creation except among avowedly archaistic and unpopular groups will grow impossible. Phase 25 may arise, as the code wears out from repetition, to give new motives for obedience, or out of some scientific discovery which seems to contrast, a merely historical acquiescence, with an enthusiastic acceptance of the general will conceived as a present energy—“Sibyll [sic] what would you?” “I would die.” Then with the last gyre must come a desire to be ruled or rather, seeing that desire is all but dead, an adoration of force spiritual or physical, and society as mechanical force be complete at last. Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent

By those wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood Themselves obedient,

Knowing not evil or good.

A decadence will descend, by perpetual moral improvement, upon a community which may seem like some woman of New York or Paris who has renounced her rouge pot to lose her figure and grow coars of skin and dull of brain, feeding her calves and babies somewhere on the edge of the wilderness. The decadence of the Greco-Roman world with its violent soldiers and its mahogany dark young athletes was as great, but that suggested the bubbles of life turned into marbles, whereas what awaits us, being democratic and primary, may suggest bubbles in a frozen pond—mathematical Babylonian starlight.

When the new era comes bringing its stream of irrational force it will, as did Christianity, find its philosophy already impressed upon the minority who have, true to phase, turned away at the last gyre from the Physical Primary. And it must awake into life, not Dürer’s, nor Blake’s, nor Milton’s human form divine—nor yet Nietzsche’s superman, nor Patmore’s catholic, boasting “a tongue that’s dead”—the brood of the Sistine Chapel—but organic groups, covens of physical or intellectual kin melted out of the frozen mass. I imagine new races, as it were, seeking domination, a world resembling but for its immensity that of the Greek tribes—each with its own Daimon or ancestral hero—the brood of Leda, War and Love; history grown symbolic, the biography changed into myth. Above all I imagine everywhere the opposites, no mere alternation between nothing and something like the Christian brute and ascetic, but true opposites, each living the other’s death, dying the other’s life.

It is said that the primary impulse “creates the event” but that the antithetical “follows it” and by this I understand that the Second Fountain will arise after a long preparation and as it were out of the very heart of human knowledge, and seem when it comes no interruption but a climax. It is possible that the ever increasing separation from the community as a whole of the cultivated classes, their increasing certainty, and that falling in two of the human mind which I have seen in certain works of art is preparation. During the period said to commence in 1927, with the 11th gyre, must arise a form of philosophy, which will become religious and ethical in the 12th gyre and be in all things opposite of that vast plaster Herculean image, final primary thought. It will be concrete in expression, establish itself by immediate experience, seek no general agreement, make little of God or any exterior unity, and it will call that good which a man can contemplate himself as doing always and no other man doing at all. It will make a cardinal truth of man’s immortality that its virtue may not lack sanction, and of the soul’s re-embodiment that it may restore to virtue that long preparation none can give and hold death an interruption. The supreme experience, Plotinus’ ecstasy, ecstasy of the Saint, will recede, for men—finding it difficult—substituted dogma and idol, abstractions of all sorts, things beyond experience; and men may be long content with those more trivial supernatural benedictions as when Athena took Achilles by his yellow hair. Men will no longer separate the idea of God from that of human genius, human productivity in all its forms.

Unlike Christianity which had for its first Roman teachers cobblers and weavers, this thought must find expression among those that are most subtle, most rich in memory; that Gainsborough face floats up; among the learned—every sort of learning—among the rich—every sort of riches—and the best of those that express it will be given power, less because of that they promise than of that they seem and are. This much can be thought because it is the reversal of what we know, but those kindreds once formed must obey irrational force and so create hitherto unknown experience, or that which is incredible.

Though it cannot interrupt the intellectual stream—being born from it and moving within it—it may grow a fanaticism and a terror, and at first outsetting oppress the ignorant—even the innocent—as Christianity oppressed the wise, seeing that the day is far off when the two halves of man can define each its own unity in the other as in a mirror, Sun in Moon, Moon in Sun, and so escape out of the Wheel.” (1)

When he says ‘the Christian brute and ascetic’ is he making reference to the family of stoic philosophers or Bruttii including the Admiral who accompanied Julius Caesar when they met the Keltic fleet and invaded what is called Britain today after them? This same family includes another Brutus we learned about from another Hermetic named Shakespeare. That family was still standing up for Keltic egalitarianism when it killed Julius Caesar or when Rome was founded. Did he know the history of the Milesian Stuarts from before the various influxes to the Emerald Isles as they returned many millennia after leaving due to glacial effects? There is so much code in this prose and poetry. The sun and moon surely make a wheel and this ancient knowledge probably pre-exists the coming of white men through whatever adept mutation or happenstance that allowed it. I implore the reader to spend a lot of time with this one sentence—“This much can be thought because it is the reversal of what we know, but those kindreds once formed must obey irrational force and so create hitherto unknown experience, or that which is incredible.”

Author of Diverse Druids Columnist at The ES Press Magzine Guest ‘expert’ for World-Mysteries.com

Posted on May 1st, 2007

EARTH ENERGY GRID: - Sedona, Arizona is not only my own personal special place in nature - almost all spiritual organizations have conventions, churches or offices near all these vortices of earth energy and nature. There is a secret government base in a valley to the north and under a swamp some engineers found signs similar to the Nazca Lines and other natural spirit forms from ancient peoples. That was after a dry spell and I no longer have the article from a local paper to quote for you. Few people who aren’t totally dead from the neck up can say there is no earth energy. It has a wavelength of 7.8 cycles and intersects in ways that make numerous things happen. Personally I think ‘crop circles’ that aren’t made by debunkers like those who’ve found three different confessors to the Kensington Runestone, have something to do with the Earth Energy Grid. We will go into Ley lines and other related studies as well as ‘Feng shui’, later. For now, suffice it to say that the earth can conduct energy as Tesla showed in Colorado Springs when he lit the town up in the early 20th century before J. P. Morgan shelved the design (after paying a cool million for it).

The work of Dr. Robins in solid state chemistry will be dealt with under that heading even though it has much relevance to this heading. His ‘Dragon Project’ endeavour is an excellent study from a scientific point of view dealing with the Earth Energy Grid. David Hatcher Childress has some good information as well. There is a growing awareness of the whole field now that science has seen the things energy does in vacuum and other structural lattices and templates.

It takes more than one book to do the issue justice for sure. Most people are becoming aware of the integrated impact of our Gaian Mother and nature, that astrologers and shamans have known for what reasonably can be called forever. What energy comes from the earth is just part of the overall consciousness that makes all these amazing things happen around us. ‘Amber rays’ might be one way of describing the gravitational energy we saw being described earlier that is sent out from each atom or nucleus. There are those who can see these connections just as they can see our aura. I’m not one of these visually talented or gifted people, so I must operate in the feeling and intellectual spectrum.

When I read that the psychic surgeons of the Philippines and Brazil have had their energy measured during operations at the same vibration rate of 7.8 cycles it started me thinking of how we can alter our state and how others might perceive us in these altered states. Clearly if anyone could see all the spaces between our electrons and the nuclei or between the different atoms and molecules we wouldn’t seem solid by a long shot. Thus these surgeons who use no utensils would be able to energize the infected or diseased body part or tumor to remove it at an altered vibration level. There have been solid documentaries with such credible support as X-rays before a San Francisco businessman had such a tumor removed and X-rays a year later showing it hadn’t returned. The video presentation was impressive but we all know the debunkers can show how to fake these things. In the end you must decide who has the most to gain from the arguments and whether or not you want to actualize your own potential. Once you do a few things the debunkers say are impossible - then a smile will come to your face; and the intellectual conflict loses all import unless you are stupid enough to try to write a book such as this.

String Theory knows about the harmonic forces that are less than solid which somehow combine to make what we perceive as a solid. The astrophysicists now have told us that 95% of the universe is ‘Dark Matter’ or ‘Dark Energy’ - so get with it before you are invisible and don’t know it! Just kidding! We just saw Dowsing dealt with in fairly credible ways by lots of respectable people who use the results and make money by it. Maybe you already know about the ray guns and EMF equipment being used in secret research or perhaps you thought all that ‘Black Ops’ stuff was a great fiction like the ‘X-Files’ or ‘Star Trek’. If so you probably are only reading this because someone insists you do it. OK. Let’s say you accept there is a magnetic element beyond gravity, or some other forces attributable to the massive earth (small orb hurtling through space that it is) we walk upon. The interference on your cell phone near large mineral deposits might be enough, to demonstrate some of this.

Why is there a ‘Grid’ or how can one understand what level of consciousness there is? The discussion then becomes as involved as whether or not you believe you have a soul and whether or not a simple dumping of our memory onto a computer chip (Stanford 1999) is able to transfer or superimpose the soul on the consciousness already there. That conversation will inevitably get beyond the realm of provable science for those who follow the ‘Toilet Philosophy’ (‘If you can’t see it, IT doesn’t exist’ or Wayne Dyer’s You’ll see it, when you Believe IT!). At the very least it should be allowable that there are different energies and some kind of overall way these energies interact in the bowels of the earth. That is enough to end the point at this juncture.

Author of many books incuding about half of which are at World-Mysteries.com

Posted on Apr 27th, 2007

I’ll admit that I used to be jealous of my compadres who were minorities in my BFA Creative Writing program. The rest of us were just crusty white kids with no rhythm.

So, I used to be a little jealous of the amount of anger material these minority writers had access to. There is a lot of inspiration in one’s cultural identity but if that inspiration doesn’t allow the artist to create works that break past the illusory bonds of time and space to that oneness that unites us all then the art won’t last and won’t have quite the impact the artist hopes it will. In fact, here is a definition of good art you can copy paste into your brilliant quotes file. This one comes from yours’ truly, Uncle Josh:

"Art (with a capital A) is all about using the contemporary forms of time and space (people, objects and their relationships) to blow apart the phenomenal differences that keep us each locked into what appears to be an inescapable prison (our own egos which are composed of our experience and emotional and intellectual reactions to the present moment, from which we project the future)."

But it is in this projection of the future where humanity’s greatest certain unalienable right exists–the right of the choice about how to act this moment. It is freedom of choice about how to act in the moment (in other words, creating their reality in the moment through sheer will) that allowed people overcome atrocities like The Holocaust where every bit of security involved in associating through one’s cultural identity was removed completely and the individual was reduced to a scrounging animal. This is the point where survival of the fittest and preservation of self becomes king and the social morays simply drop away like burning paper mache.

I have studied The Holocaust passionately now for sixteen years. I completed course upon course in college and have read book upon book about those twenty years in Germany that saw Hitler’s rise to power and a decimation of a culture almost as old as humanity’s recorded existence.

I have long asked why when thinking about the Holocaust. This is a very hard question because you are essentially asking for a sum value of millions of peoples’ lives in terms of a historical lesson (and what historical lesson could be worth the lives of over 150 million who died in a World War which was the direct result of one man and his dream team of terror?).

But here is my why from The Holocaust–individual freedom emerged intact despite the fact that untold masses of individuals were murdered and had their most sacred identities taken away–their cultural or group identification.

There is enormous associative power in group identification–that is why we are constantly being told to choose, in the moment, which social group we define ourselves as–black, white, gay, christian, conservative, liberal, rich, poor, etc. There is a certain amount of creative inspiration to be derived from one’s social group, but if you examine this inspiration closely you will see that the majority of art that comes from this source is usually so infused with the anger that comes from the tallying of group suffering that it has no breakthrough into the transcendent mystery which lies beyond time, space and our petty egos (which only last as long as we draw breath; the spirit is eternal and therefore incorruptible or haven’t you got that memo yet?).

So, while minorities may have a lot of inspiration to draw from that produces some great Saturday Night Live and Dave Chappelle skits, most of these are without any true breakthrough; they are improper art, using the artistic aesthetics put forth by James Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

In-group anger can only take an artist as far as they are willing to ultimately let it go completely. Only by willingly letting go of our social identify and, ultimately, our individual identities in the moment, can we touch the true source of inspiration which lies inside each of us like a platinum encased diamond nugget at the centers of our being.

In fact, this is the exact message that I wrote about in my short story Pyrite (http://www.joshuaminton.com/fiction.htm).

I spent a lot of my late teens and early twenties being angry for other groups of people because my group identity (middle class white kid in a sea of other middle class white kids) was the system of oppression and the source of much of their anger. But I’m through being angry and I’m through defining myself with abstract concepts; I’ll leave that to the hacks and has-beens. I’m going to do my best to teach this concept of artistic aesthetics to other talented artists so that they too may find that thorny and weeded path inside themselves that will take them to the platinum crusted diamond that waits for them within.

Joshua Minton is President of an Internet publishing and business consulting corporation, Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc. He is also author of two novels, several short stories, poems and articles on art, philosophy, politics, sociology, science, popular culture, business, health insurance administration, internet marketing, blogging and personal success.

Posted on Apr 22nd, 2007

The Luciferians are the inner cabal of the Vatican according to Malachi Martin (And have been for a long time as I have demonstrated in other books.). They created that fiction about ‘for the good of mankind’ which led to Salvation after Jesus was crucified. They have grown rich beyond their wildest imaginations as the benefits of special dispensations and confessionals have poured in to their coffers. They have been given large amounts of the land as well as special tax status that their Divine Kings share.

Chopra wrote about Merlin as an analogy of sorts; but Merlin (Who prophesized Joan of Arc for one.) may well have been a name of the advisor/sorcerer to a Arthurian Merovingian king that archaeology shows did live on Cadbury Hill. The Royal Stuart and Merovingian group when joined in social engineering efforts like religion or The Royal Society are the Hibernians. I think Arthur of the real legend was from a far earlier time; but the creation of the Grail fiction by the Hibernian who founded the Cistercian Order is a Luciferian myth. This is Bernard of Clairvaux and later we have another well known occultist participating with the Borgias/De Medicis in the founding of the Jesuits by the Alumbrados (bringers of light). The Hibernian involved with the Borgias/De Medicis in the founding of the Jesuits was Nostradamus. Bernard was a double agent in the ‘play both ends against the middle’ game they play. He sat on the Inquisitor Panels and yet helped Chrétien de Troyes write a Parsifal tale. But if Nostradamus had a “stone’ to see the future as we see on the cover of books about him; who else in their number had this awesome tool? Let us consider the words of John Dominic Crossan of De Paul University for some historical insight into Divination.

“Magic as Religious Banditry

Recall from earlier how Eric Hobsbawm’s concept of the Robin Hood element in social banditry was severely criticized by Anton Blok. Blok was, I argued, superficially correct but profoundly wrong. Bandits may seldom rob the rich and give to the poor and even more seldom rob the rich to give to the poor, but the validity and perdurance of the Robin Hood mystique is based firmly on the fact that they do rob the monopoly of violence from the rich and distribute it to the poor, and, more significantly, they rob aristocratic and structural violence of the veneer of morality under which it operates. They force the question: what is the moral difference between a gang and an army, a peasant bandit on the make and an imperial entrepreneur on the throne.

I propose now that magic is to religion as banditry is to politics. As banditry challenges the ultimate legitimacy of political power, so magic challenges that of spiritual power. Magic and religion can be mutually distinguished, in the ancient world or in the modern one, by political and prescriptive definitions but not by substantive, descriptive, or neutral descriptions.” (3)

He could have added that the illegitimate offspring who seek to return to the state of power in their father or grandfather’s time as in the case of Hitler often over-achieve. In Napoleon’s case he may have sought the legendary Tuscan noble position of many centuries earlier. Some will even say I have a genetic pre-disposition to grandeur because I am a ‘bastard’ of THE Bruce. But I am a BRD of the language of the Birds and it seems to have helped me understand the lesser codes of Green Languages.

“Divination is one of man’s oldest spiritual technologies, its origins lost in the shift from neolithic hunter-gatherers to settled agriculturalists. As the shaman developed into the priest, divination, along with all forms of spiritism, became codified into mythology. From a framework of mythic events and divination - literally readings of the divine - came language, which evolved over time into written forms based on the original symbolic elements. In turn, these symbolic elements became the focus of divinatory practices of their own, creating sub-sets of meaning within common words and phrases. From this intentional ambiguity arose the possibility of an initiate’s language, a language of the birds, or, as it was expressed by the medieval initiates, the Green Language.

Although we can point to the Green Language {Of the Hibernians including Swift, Carlyle, and many Great Scots.}in works as diverse as Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencruz, Nostradamus’ quatrains, 18th century alchemical texts and surrealist manifestos, few authors have bothered to explain it. One who did was Fulcanelli, the enigmatic 20th century alchemist and philosopher, in his masterpiece The Mystery of the Cathedrals, published in Paris in 1926. Here we have an authentic, although mysterious, voice of authority; one that was both master of the Green Language itself, and a master of the subjects usually hidden within it.” (4)

Author of Diverse Druids
Columnist for The ES Press Magazine
Guest ‘expert’ at World-Mysteries.com
Activist for transparency and against Synarchy.

Posted on Apr 19th, 2007

An event occurs, then there must be an antecedent event, prior to it, causing it and this event will serve as an antecedent to another event and will lead it, if this theory is agreed means then there must be a starting or beginning for everything. This theory is called “theory of causal determinism”. Now let us consider an event A, is said to occur, then two type or arguments can be posted one is called ‘Fatalism’ and other is called ‘Free will’.

The former concept is that whatever happens now, happened by, and going to happen in future is predetermined. Fatalism is the view that we are powerless to do anything other that what we actually do. It may be argued for in various ways: by appeal to logical laws and metaphysical necessities; by appeal to the existence and nature of God; by appeal to causal determinism.

When argued for in the first way, it is commonly called "Logical fatalism" when argued for in the second way, it is commonly called "Theological fatalism". When argued for in the third way it is not now commonly referred to as "fatalism" at all, and such arguments will not be discussed here.

The later concept is of Free will, is postulates that whatever happens are merely because of freewill, whatever he/she thinks he carries out and the corresponding consequences he faces. Free will is a concept in traditional philosophy used to refer to the belief that human behavior is not absolutely determined by external causes, but is the result of choices made by an act of will by the agent. Such choices are themselves not determined by external causes, but are determined by the motives and intentions of the agent, which themselves are not absolutely determined by external causes.

Sphere of discussion:

In essence, the sphere of discussion covering the subject human freedom and causal determinism has two poles. At the one is the idea that our will is ‘completely free’ in essence, though it may be ‘conditioned’ by the various different circumstances surrounding each person. At the other pole are the extreme doctrines of total fatalism or unalterable causal determinism. Other relevant standpoints fall somewhere between these ‘polar extremes’.

Most thinkers in the social, historical and political sciences are found well away from the poles, as are those who contribute to some form of ordinary common sense, especially in modern and more Westernized cultures.

Fatalism:

Now let us take the side of “Fatalism”. By ‘fate’, I mean what the Greeks call heimarmenê – an ordering and sequence of causes, since it is the connexion of cause to cause which out of itself produces anything. It says all actions, deeds, and their results are predetermined, prewritten. If it is so then a question may arise, why all these then? why these things should happen, what is the fruit of it?. These questions remain unanswered by these people, some theologist answer these but those were not up to the desired. This type of argument is called “lazy-argument”, and ‘If we gave in to it,’ ‘we would do nothing whatever in life.’

There are two sorts of people in this side, theist and atheist. Let me put forth a question to the theist people “Every individual during his life course does action good or bad, sometimes he stays passive, if at all, it is fate then why it is he ordered or written to do a bad thing, then why should he suffer, why supreme power did him so?”. No response for this from them. Now for atheist people, they say “for everything, it is like this that is all no reason for this and no one had made this like this. The argument is posed as follows: ‘If it is your fate to recover from this illness, you will recover, regardless of whether or not you call the doctor. Likewise, if it is your fate not to recover from this illness, you will not recover, regardless of whether or not you call the doctor. And one or the other is your fate. Therefore it is pointless to call the doctor’. Is that right? By considering these things it is clear that “the concept of Fatalism is ruled out”

Free-will:

The second dogma is that Free will, it states that “all actions deeds & outcomes are due to free will of every individual, nothing is pre determined”, and as an individual he moves according to his own will and everything is the result of his actions. Ok let me go in their way, if it is so then why should humans suffer, then why is his actions confined, why is he not opened to everything, why he is suffering most of the time, by nature no one wishes for sorrow or disasters, then why all bad happens to him. An answer can be quoted for this; it is because he is ignorant to good and bad, then what causes that ignorance, if everything is because of free will then why can’t that ignorance be evacuated.

The second drawback of this concept is that “if everything is free will, then why some things remain unalterable? Why certain things are beyond his control, if so then what the line of separation is, where things go beyond control, what causes it. No answer is found yet. We can see immediately that this option is unhelpful and probably rather silly.

Co-Fated events:

Ok, if we rule out both extremes what is going on actually, if not fatalism or free will then what? Here comes the answer, all these can be categorized under Co-Fated events. By Co-Fated events what I mean is “no action is completely due to free will or due to fate, but both these giants have a hand”. Now for the example quoted initially of the doctor, we can say that, Some events are complex and ‘co-fated’. It is false that you will recover from the illness whether or not you call the doctor, because you’re calling the doctor, and having some treatment, may be the reason why you recover. Calling the doctor, and recovering, is ‘co-fated’. So, to take action certainly can be effective – you’re calling the doctor resulting in your recovery. So we should not simply sit and watch. This is the most apt argument of life.

Though seeing this doesn’t to any degree undermine the fatalist’s position, for just as your recovering was fated (if only you had known it), so was your calling the doctor! This might be how it happened, all right, but if the event of your calling the doctor was caused by prior circumstances (as all events are, according to the theory of causal determinism) then in what sense could you be considered to exercise your free will?

I have read a wonderful example explaining this context; this is quoted by CHRYSIPPUS (Cicero, On fate 42–3 = Long and Sedley 1987, 62C 8–9; Aulus Gellius, Attic nights 7.2.11 = Long and Sedley 1987, 62D 4).if it is added here would surely help in easy understanding, so am adapting it here.

It goes with rolling of a cylinder; he says that there are two distinct types of cause working here. One is our pushing the cylinder to make it move; this is the ‘auxiliary and proximate cause’ – we can call it the ‘external cause’. And the other is the cylinder’s being round; this is the ‘complete and primary cause’ – which we can call the ‘internal cause’. We may be inclined to object that the being round is not really a cause. It is a property that the cylinder has, as would be its redness and heaviness, just in case it is red and heavy. The color and weight of the cylinder have no bearing on its rolling – a blue, light cylinder rolls just as well – its roundness does have a bearing on its rolling: if it weren’t round, it wouldn’t roll. We would say that the roundness was a necessary condition for the cylinder’s rolling, just as the pushing of the cylinder was also necessary: no push, no rolling. But together both the roundness and the pushing were sufficient for the rolling.

Chrysippus wants us to note that both the external cause and the internal cause themselves had causes properly located in the causal nexus comprising the entire history of the world. The external cause of the push was itself caused by our foot swinging to meet the cylinder, and the internal cause of the cylinder’s roundness was caused by the manufacturing process that made it. And we may suppose that the rolling will itself cause something else to happen, such as the knocking over of a sheep, or a splash in the stream, or both. In short, nothing has happened which violates the theory of causal determinism. I think the above example would have certainly cleared everything, for this same concept I would like to quote my example. (Note: this is based on theism and for atheist I have a separate thing let me not put that here).before going into the example, by this time you would be clear that god has predetermined certain things and the rest remains in our hands, to be more clear I add the example here “the ‘fate’ is that you have to travel in a particular road, the lane you choose in that road is your ‘free will’, you may choose a smooth lane, or a thorny one. Depending on what you chose you will be given the results and that implies your good and bad deeds.” now a question may be raised if not everything is free will, or fate, but a complex of both, then where is the boundary that separates the duo. For that the above example will stand for. Thus even though deity has given us power and will, we are limited with our powers, with that power circle we can act according to our free will and that decides all. So it is clear that whatever happens now, happened by, and going to happen in future is ‘co-fated’ and doesn’t falls in either of the two poles.

In this area I have just given a brief introduction and description of what is what and why it is and why it is not. It is just a succinct picture depicted about different notions.

Bala Arjun

Posted on Apr 16th, 2007

. Human being Knowledge & social science

Human beings are the best creature of the Creator. Why? Human being has got some distinct qualities, behaviors, sensitiveness, instincts, education, capability of prediction which are absent in beasts and other creature. The mankind is considered as ‘ashraful makhlukat’ and is immensely blessed by the Creator. Only the human beings have been given the ability to acquire knowledge of different branches of civilization. But unfortunately education the prime means of acquiring knowledge, as it appears is no more knowledge based and now a days, its aim appears mainly to have an institutional degree or certificate just for securing one’s earning. Needless to say, efforts of building up the next generation and a healthy society can only ensure prosperous and happy future of our society and growth of civilization.

Man is rational animal and his activities are expected to be founded on rational thinking, conscious prediction, belief and knowledge based wisdom. Generally an educated people are considered to be a knowledgeable people. But indeed mere institutional education is not enough to be rational and knowledgeable in true sense. Rationality differs from nation to nation, society to society and it changes with time and development of civilization.

II. Components of Knowledge

For the sake of up to date development of all disciplines the people have to become knowledgeable in real sense. A man has to transform his knowledge into wisdom. In the task of locating problem, formulating plan, taking decision, execution of decision a person must apply his knowledge gathered mainly from the study of social science. Knowledge thus consists of some essential components which are as below:

a. Education
b. Ability of perception
c. Attitudes
d. Belief
e. Prediction
f. Rationality
g. Consciousness

The above components are discussed below as I have understood from the lectures listened. I consider the deliberations on the topic to be effective and fruitful for understanding the public administration one of disciplines of the social science.

II.a Education: the foundation of acquiring Knowledge

Studentship is a key part of one’s life. It builds up a man to be educated. Once this part ceases he enters into his working world where he faces the reality, solves problems by using and exercising the knowledge he gathered by way of getting education. Even though acquiring knowledge is a continuous process and it never ceases.

A man can change the structure and chemistry of his brain in a specific area by repeatedly using his mind in a certain way? The way must be a rational one. The first implication here is that he can make permanent changes in the way he thinks and feels, but there is another implication. Permanent change means that if he is to change the way he thinks, he has to undo concrete changes. This takes more than wisdom; it takes time and effort, not just knowing, but doing. Rational prediction is a brain storming task that needs knowledge and wisdom to materialize an action designed for the welfare of the society.

The question is not of knowing, but of developing our wisdom, our inner knowledge. Our understanding should increase. Wisdom is the essence of knowledge. Just like perfume is attained by squeezing the essence out of flowers, so wisdom is the sum and substance of all knowledge, all experiences. Wisdom is a fragrance. When a thousand experiences and knowledge are compressed, one drop of wisdom is attained.

Vision is to be broadened, otherwise traditional knowledge will be of no use for the betterment and welfare of the society and mankind. Now-a-days, mostly, information is regarded as knowledge. The more one knows, the more knowledgeable he considers himself to be. Quantity means quality to him. However much information he gathers, it will all be borrowed. Knowledge is one’s own.

A human being is like an onion. Remove one layer, and there is another layer; remove this and there is yet another. A man is nothing but a collection of knowledge, experience, information, understanding, education, impressions, culture and tradition. A man is hidden by his own coverings.

II.b. Ability of perception

A man has to acquire ability to perceive the ‘cause and effect relationship’ of any work or incident and its consequence. Only ability to do some work or to understand the necessity or causes of doing the work does not make a man knowledgeable. He must have some quality enabling himself to foresee the consequences of the work he intends to do in achieving the goal.

That is to say that a man must have some ability or techniques to predict the effects or consequences of the work he intends to do. In plain words, one should consider the costs and benefits. Understanding potential gains and eventual losses or effects will fuel a man’s endeavors and get his brain to cooperate. What will happen if he does not reach his goal? How will he feel? How will his life change if he does succeed? The concept of ‘prediction’ lies with the above thinking.

II.c. Diversity of attitudes

Thoughts and attitudes differ from man to man. Men having same education may not have identical attitude and way of thinking as each independent people belongs to some own values, morals, religion and they are nourished in different socio-economic environments. Besides, the family, the primary institution of human development, also significantly influences a man in carrying some settled values, norms, morals in his mind.

II.d Belief

Belief is the fundamental thing of all activities planned and done by men; belief awakens one’s self consciousness that help a man to exercise the moral sense or sense of right and wrong ; good or clear, bad or guilty. Thus, self consciousness and determination based on belief ultimately enable a man to design his way of action and implement of it. Consciousness relates to persons as each of persons can see himself from the inside.

A belief is inculcated in the mind of a person by various factors. But not so with knowledge. Knowledge is gained by a person by making use of his perceptional faculties. The perceptional faculties enable a man to predict the ‘cause and effect relationship’ of his action in rational way.

II.e Prediction

The concept of prediction is another aspect which is founded on

1 Knowledge
2 Self consciousness
3 Attitude
4 Way of thinking
5 Belief
6 Method of studying social science

The pattern of prediction varies from man to man because of diversity of age, values, morals, intelligence of different peoples. In the light of cause and effect relationship as discussed in the social science prediction is to be made. Imaginary prediction in fact is no prediction as it is devoid of knowledge, self consciousness and is not based on ‘causal relationship’. The ability of prediction is a special faculty of human beings which is enriched through acquiring knowledge. Prediction not based on knowledge and self consciousness will be of no use and is incomplete in nature.

II.f Rationality

Human being is a complex creature having multiplex thoughts, instincts, values etc. External behavior of a man can easily be seen and studied but his inner instincts that are invisible cannot. Man is rational being. He is able to kill the ill instincts hidden in his inner mind only through acquiring knowledge and nourishment of rational norms and values. If he fails, there will be no difference between a beast and human being.

Reason is man’s only means of knowing reality, upon which his survival in reality depends. Whether man is alone on a desert island, scurrying around with a pack of savages, or living in a city of billions: man must think—and then act on his thinking, if life is his goal. Man is a rational animal, and reality dictates that to survive, man must be rational—by choice.

The dominant position of rationality in Western civilization and philosophical tradition dates from the time when Ren È Descartes explicitly placed it in its key position within his conception of philosophy. His conception of philosophy of rationalism is based on respect for and the confidence in scientific knowledge, which he defines with his own means as an activity having rationality in its essence.

Rationality involves some universal and settled morals, values, practices, attitudes etc. In the society the matters before the men are to be viewed and considered in rational way or path by keeping the causal relationship as discussed in the social science in mind. In our civilization to act rationally means the same as to act correctly. This is in the core of the philosophy of rationalism. To think rationally means to approach decisions how to act in a correct way.

Two Kinds of Rationality

Substantive Rationality Functional Rationality It involves the way to achieve goal. It involves the strategy to be fixed for achieving the goal.

Strategy is something like technique that helps to achieve the goal through a particular way. Strategy is a changing factor depending on the needs, pattern, norms, resource, values, and habits of a particular society. Thus, formulation of strategies also needs one’s knowledge, self consciousness, openness of mind, wisdom, ability of prediction.

Human conducts and activities are pregnant of diversities reflecting various attitudes some of which may have adverse effect on the society that needs a rational control by the knowledge. For the knowledge and rational path walk side by side. Human faculties must be rational. Otherwise society, family, or community will be in disorder.

II.g Consciousness

Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant think that rationality is a distinct feature of persons. This position implies that to be a person means to be a rational being and that one cannot be a person unless one is rational. Other philosophers think that in order to be termed a person; one must have a certain level of consciousness of one’s own consciousness that helps him to acquire the art of prediction. Thus, ability to predict makes a knowledgeable person wise and vice versa. A man by exercising wisdom based on knowledge is an able person to predict the cause and effect relationship.

A man must keep his eyes and conscience open and aware of the matters and things prevailing and happening surrounding him and in the society and the things happened in the world history. A man is to keep his mind as an open window. Thus openness of mind in other words is linked with one’s consciousness.

III. Selectiveness And human perception: Modern Approaches Every man is selective in his own sphere of his activities. It is indeed inherent characteristic of human being. In the process of decision making the characteristics and attitudes of man plays a vital role. Thus, for correct decision correct prediction is essential and here also inevitably comes the concept of ‘cause and effect relation’. There are two modern approaches of selectiveness by man in social science which are as below:

1 Close system approach
2 Open system approach

Extreme close system approach prompts a man to make one eyed or arbitrary decision causing adverse effect. In this system idea of better prediction is ignored resulting narrow vision and thus a man fails to spray the fragrance of his knowledge which is called ‘wisdom’.

When a man is not conscious of abstracting, when he assumes more knowledge than he really has or when he acts as if he knows it all, he falls victim to the “allness orientation”. This is the person with the closed mind, the person who thinks he knows it all. Characteristics of a closed mind person are –

1 Extremely subtle
2 Refusal to learn
3 Refusal to listen
4 Refusal to look or look again
5 Refusal to change or keep up to date
6 Assuming knowledge that one doesn’t have
7 Refusal to ask questions
8 Jehovah complex
9 Self-satisfied Man
10 Refusal to delegate responsibility
11 One-way communication
12 Poor mental health and Inferiority Complex

We know wisdom teaches a man to select right or wrong. If the selection or any decision is right then its maker is said to be wise. Thus, we may conclude that he who applying the essence of his knowledge designs a plan or way of action predicts better is a wise man.

Multiplex principles make a man flexible in nature and attitude and thus he may sometimes fail to predict correctly before taking a decision or designing policy. In order to study social science one has to learn the ‘open system approach’ so that he becomes able to know the prevailing socio-economic picture of the society. A particular society consists of various people belonging to different religions, values, culture, ethics, needs, family structure.

There are many other variables involved in human perception. A person’s ability or capacity, his existing knowledge, education or training all play an important role in abstracting. Change and process are important limiting factors, for we live in a dynamic world where things, as well as ourselves, are constantly changing. Despite the fact that our evaluations and perceptions are personal the above variables play an important role in our consideration of dogmatic behavior.

IV. Causal Relationship and Study of Social Science

Mathematics helps to understand physical science while language helps to understand the study and research of the social science. Language is the very tool that we use in communication. Anthropologists and linguists such as Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, along with Alfred Korzybski, have emphasized the important role that language plays in thinking, perceiving and behaving.

Study of social science is essential for acquiring efficiencies and knowledge in rational way to understand the cause and effect relationship. It is to be noted that cause and effect combinedly said to be the ‘causal relationship’. Through the practice of perception of ‘causal relationship’ we may have clear ideas and prediction about the cause and effect of the events that take place surrounding us.

However, the way of proper and clear utilization of one’s knowledge in proper manner can promote human resource development and organization management.

The extensive study of social science enables a man to attain the ability of correct prediction in rational way. Methods of studying social science are:

1 Descriptive method
2 Historical Method

IV.a Descriptive method: This method has to be utilized in all kinds of research; its only difference will be either more or less. For example, we use observational technique in investigation of the problem but later we have to describe and write down what we have found from such research. Whitney points out that by descriptive method of research it means an attempt to locate and define difficulty that has started the thinking process, many checks of present status in the field of investigation may be made.

In other words, Whitney’s concept of descriptive method of research is a ‘fact-finding with adequate interpretation’. Good thinks of descriptive studies as the studies which may include present facts or current conditions concerning the nature of a group of persons, a number of objects, or a class of events and may involve the procedures of induction, analysis, classification, enumeration or measurement. Whitney divided ‘descriptive method’ of research into five different types which are as below:

1 The research survey
2 Continuity description
3 Case-study research
4 Job and actively analysis
5 Library and documentary research.

IV.b Historical Method :This method involves “the use of records of previous events for the purpose of arriving at generalizations that may be used for the solving of current problems”. We know that the past contains, if it can be located, the key to the present. Sometimes the past lends us light in taking decision by applying our knowledge to achieve the goal. Society is not a static organization, but as an organism continually growing through dynamic changes helps us gain greater insight into its structure and functioning. Everything has an antecedent history a natural development of which tends to exert influence on the present.

Thus we see that historical method of research can be applied to use in all disciplines regardless of their natural or social sciences .Historical approach is universal in almost all disciplines. For example, the physician secures case-history from the patient, the lawyer asks his client to disclose the whole story from the beginning, and psychologist inquires about the past of the patient’s mental malfunctioning or lack of adjustment. According to Gottschalk the historical method consists of –

1 The collection of probable sources of information

2 The examination of those sources for genuineness (either as a whole or in part).

3 The analysis of the sources or parts of sources proved genuine for their credible particulars.

Shahinur Islam
A student of Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka having special interest in writing assignment on different topics. Now studying in 2nd year BSS (hons). Keenly interested to have higher degree on the discipline in abroad.

Posted on Apr 15th, 2007

College students tend to wax enthusiastic about the lessons they pick up in class. Curiously, this very admirable trait, a thirst for knowledge, has a downside to it. When one learns at a rate best described as "alarming," which college students often must do, little time exists to sit and sift through all that new material carefully. And this burdensome task would mandate yet more study time, which luxury few students can afford.

This means that, for very practical reasons, they will tend to accept readily the sermons that echo from academic pulpits. Consumers of media information have nearly the same problem — a large flow of information thrust at them, and little time to sort through it. Election years only magnify this problem, and political candidates can grind axes with the best of them. When a scandal breaks out, the media blitz can sometimes blind even the more critical viewers. So we have done some of the extra homework for these groups to help them make the best of this unhappy situation. Here, we offer a clear-headed set of rules to disperse the fog quickly, adding daylight to the topic at hand.

As a first step in adopting a cautiously critical posture, we would like to introduce the rule, "take careful notes and develop a long memory by referring back to them now and again." Spin-doctors count on the fact — a most unhappy truth — that most people do not remember what the sales script said that they fed to the masses last week. This way, when they later change the story, you can call them on it. If it’s a political speech in question, "Tivo" it, so you can play it back when later when spin proponents deny that their guy ever said it in the first place.

Second, isolate the parts of the speech or lecture that seem to form the main points of the argument. Often this or that advocate will avoid stating the main points of his argument explicitly, only implying them. Make the implied parts explicit yourself by asking, "what assumption(s), does this depend upon that he has not stated openly?" Then write them down. For instance, if one were to argue, "We had to attack his country because the guy is a tyrant," then note that this assumes — unless otherwise qualified — that we must attack all countries where tyrants rule. Given today’s political climate, this would not promote a very promising course of action. So stated, we would have to attack almost everyone, starting with the I.R.S.

So remember to make a list of the important claims in question — whether the speaker or writer has stated, implied, or simply assumed them.

Third, "Always examine a claim by itself first."

This provides a fast and easy way to prevent reckless professors, for instance, from hoodwinking students into bogus philosophies (as is their custom). For instance, consider the popular claim, "There are no moral absolutes." This would mean that claims about morality necessarily have exceptions. Evaluating this claim by its own words, however, quickly reveals that it provides to us an example of a moral absolute. It allows no exception, while speaking to the topic of morality.

Ironically, then, the claim instances an example of just what it denies. The claim cannot be true on ITS OWN terms. Such claims would play the roles of felon AND whistleblower all at once. They represent a form of logical or propositional suicide, since they affirm by example, and yet forbid by principle, the very same thing. Look for these and you will find more than you imagine might suffuse popular chatter.

Fourth, compare and contrast these claims, assumptions, and implied assertions with one another, asking, "Are these logically consistent with each other, or do they get along like Larry, Moe and Curly when the ladder-swinging begins, and the paintbrushes start to fly?" Sometimes speakers will utter logically incompatible sayings within a very short span. So you will need to learn to identify them to note when this happens. Here, you will have located spin, exaggeration, unwarranted claims, or even outright lies. You might even get two-for-one.

For instance, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, it did so against the voice of the U.N. inspectors, who wanted more time. This shows that the U.S. (or at least the current administration) believes it proper to ignore whatever authority the U.N. might have when it deems it necessary. Yet when Iraq defied the very same U.N. authority (Saddam, as we say, "dissed" the U.N. inspectors) the Bush administration claimed that this provided grounds to invade Iraq. The "Okay for us, but not for them" trick is called the fallacy of self-exception. One commits this error in reasoning when he lays down a rule for everyone or every argument, and then arbitrarily excuses himself (or his position) from following, or being subject to, the same rule.

Finally, spin-doctors notoriously create mind-fog by abusing langauge. Sometimes they utter deliberately vague or ambiguous sayings. Sometimes they simply make fine-sounding claims and offer no proof. You have heard this many times: "Our product delivers twice the chocolatey goodness and only half the calories!!" (And Joe Fried-potato, who happens to be wider than your dining room, AGREES!!). The simple way to fight mind-fog comes from asking questions that clarify.

For instance, in your criminology course, you might ask Professor Plumb, "Professor, you said something about a candlestick in a library. Precisely what did you mean by "candlestick," and did you mean to refer to this literally, or as some sort of symbol that stands for something else? Press the point, when you feel that someone tries to sell you something, as it were, under-the-table — and make them sell it over-the-counter instead. Make them say just what they mean, clearly and precisely.

Once you have a clearer idea of the nature of the claim he wishes to promote, you can toss it into the pool of "noted claims to compare and contrast," first measuring that claim by itself, and then by checking it against the other claims in the pool. Some claims will swim, while others will plunge like the Titanic at an iceberg party.

Here, just below, we have collected a few of our favorite sayings popular on college campuses, most of which we have heard Professor Spin mumble more than once from his academic pulpit. Not only do most of these refute themselves, but they also don’t get along with each other very well, as we will see. Our helpful and irreverent responses to these appear in brackets.

1. No one can really know anything for sure, when all is said and done. [Really? Are you certain?]

2. All religions are equally valid [Most, but not all, religions deny this] [But we are absolutely sure this is true anyway].

3. We must tolerate all views [except those which deny this][Which includes most, but not all, religions] [but we are absolutely sure that the dissenting religions are all equally wrong][And, of course, we will not tolerate those dogmatic religions].

4. There are no ethical absolutes [And we mean absolutely none] [Note: This claim contradicts #1, 2, and 3 also.]

5. Slavery is wrong [Although this is true, we put it here so you would notice that it contradicts #1, #2, #3 and #4, which shows that claims 1-4 are false, but popular enough anyway].

6. Education is the key to solving the world’s problems [Unless we count all the logical problems created by educated people (see above) who say impossible things]. [Note: this also contradicts #1, #2, and #4.]

7. Your western views are too binary [You see, there are only binary views, and non-binary ones — which is itself a binary view — oops] [hint: all views logically exclude some other views] [Which, of course, shows that NOT all views are equally valid] [Some views, like "the earth is flat" are just goofy, and these are only "equally vaild" with other stupid ideas].

8. Religion is responsible for killing too many people [which implies that murder is wrong, even though this sounds like a moral absolute] [This also contradicts claims #1-4, and #7.] [And note that, if this statement were true, it would render all religions equally bad, not "equally valid," whatever that might mean].

9. Bible-thumping Christians are too dogmatic. [It is written: Thou shalt not be dogmatic!] [And we are sure of this] [So, follow instead OUR dogma, even though it refutes itself] [Which means that BTC’s should not be tolerated, contrary to #3 above] [And that their religion is not "equally valid" with non-thumping religions, contrary to #2].

We could go on, and have great fun doing it, but you get the point. This band of hired accusers failed to coordinate their testimonies in advance. And so many of the views promulgated from academic pulpits turn out just a little nuttier than Jif. Just because a confused-but-confident professor, politician, or spin-doctor says it loudly and often — this doesn’t make it true. So when she says, "question authority," you might want to take her at her word, and start by putting her own claims on the chopping block first.

In any case, by keeping these five rules handy, you can arm yourself against all manner of rhetorical shenanigans and verbal skullduggery.

Carson Day has written some 1.3 gazillion articles and essays, with insightful (if alternative) viewpoints. He presently writes for fun and profit, and specialized in the history of ideas in college. He has been quoted as saying "What box?" and remains at large despite the best efforts of the civil authorities.

You can visit his blogsites at http://ophirgoldcorp.blogspot.com (Carson Day’s Free Web Traffic) or http://ophirgold.blogspot.com (Carson Day’s OmniBlog) or http://extremeprofit.blogspot.com (Carson’s Day Trading Outpost)

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