I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them. The probability of that obviously is very low but laws of probability have often been known to falter at the crucial test of reality. For example, there is a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they’d eventually comes up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn’t true.

One foggy winter morning, I went walking into the marshy lands of Keoladeo National Park, a protected reserve frequented by birds from all over the place. I went looking for pelicans, ducks, herons and the coveted Siberian cranes. It was very early in the morning, I was hoping to be the proverbial early bird and catch the worm, which, for me, ironically enough, were the breakfast hunting birds themselves. The fog was heavy and it was a long wait. So my bored mind wandered down insignificant thought patterns and my eyes no longer being guided by any conscious thought went on to wander on their own. So technically speaking it wasn’t me who discovered these spider webs, it was my vagabond eyes. But they quickly caught the fascination of my idle mind as well.

I started to wonder. It hadn’t rained. It was just dewdrops. So it must be something that happens almost everyday during these Indian winters. The marshes thereabouts remained very foggy for most of the winters. My next thought inevitably was of the spider, crouched on all eights, huddled in one corner of its web, watching the dewdrops drying out in the almost inadequate warmth of the winter morning. And the dewdrops swaying gently to the cold breeze, like clothes on a clothesline, providing an ironic reminder to the metaphoric water spilt on the best-laid plans. I wondered if the spider, with its biologically complex compound eyes, could see the irony, or for that matter, the beauty that it had managed to trap in its intriguing web of deceit. I went on to wonder at the power of association. Dewdrops looked so much more docile when they rested on delicate petals of a pretty flower. By contrast, on a spider web, the gluttonous intent behind the web themselves, made the glistening balls look sinister, like landmines on a battlefield. I wondered instantly if the spider could still glide across the web, or like a foolhardy soldier, it would become a victim of its own designs if it tried to navigate the dew-laden web.

I began to think about the victim himself. On ominous days, the spider web would be virtually invisible to a merry insect flitting across the dense foliage. However, on days like this, when the web was glistening in all its glory, would the tiny insect be able to recognize the danger and steer clear from it? Or would it be mesmerized by the beauty and be drawn towards it, for after all, the insects do have a bad reputation when it comes to spotting danger in the face of mesmerizing beauty. Even if the insect, drawn towards the pearly gates of the web, landed himself bang in the middle of a messy affair, would the web be still as effective or would the dewdrops have disarmed the intricate deathtrap.

A research once told me that a goldfish has the memory span of three seconds, and I wonder how the respectable group of scientists found it out, or for that matter, what prompted this investigation. I wonder if the same group of scientists could answer the questions that came to my hyperactive mind on this lazy winter morning. I wonder if the spider and the fly realize the mental calisthenics they induced in me. I wonder.

The author, which is me, is a specialist in pricing and revenue management and writes nothing on that subject. No point giving away free what is worth quite a decent salary. In between earning his salary and spending it, he has just enough time to write his chracteristic bite sized snippets of a life less ordinary for similary-hard-pressed-for-time caught in the grind individuals. These snippets serve as an ideal 2 minute mental vacation, as they will often slow readers down to an enjoyable crawl and more often than not leave the readers with a picture in the mind and a smile on the face and the seeds of a thought lingering.

The author can be contacted by email on sandeeptiwari77@yahoo.co.uk

Money is time, a commodity which can be used to gage worth in respect to the time needed to construct, design, build, assemble, mine or in other ways accomplish a task, the creation of a product, a skill, an idea or any materialistic value. The value of a dollar changes from moment to moment depending on who possesses it at any specific point in time.

Time is the value of money, or rather the amount of your time that you are willing to trade for something you want or may need.

We all start out with a finite amount of this commodity, it is often taken for granted, and it’s perception is very closely related to the age of its possessor. It is an unknown quantity gifted to us by the almighty power, creator or God of our chosen belief and it is given to us to consume as we may desire. Our time can be shared together, used to accomplish tasks, learn new things, exchanged for material needs or wants, enjoyed or wasted, but it cannot be deposited into some other persons account. Each person’s time is theirs alone to use and to determine its true value.

Let’s imagine for a moment that dollar in the hands of a struggling migrant worker, someone has told him that an hour of his time is worth six dollars and his wants or needs are worth more in the “time is money” equation. He is and will remain a poor man. Take that dollar and put it in the hand of a Wall Street executive, who someone has determined deserves a six figure yearly income and estimate its worth. This is a wealthy man and might remain so as long as his time is perceived to be of more value than the poor migrant worker.

Who is this mystical someone that has determined this value, and why. Truly it can be said that the migrant worker will not care about buying or selling stock and may not even be aware of the stock market. He will never need the time allocated this wealthy person. Equally certain it can be said that at some time this wealthy person will want or need the produce gathered by this poor migrant worker. Equally certain it is doubtful that the wealthy person, not all but most, has no idea how or when to gather, plant or cultivate this produce. The wealthy man indeed does need the poor man. Whose time is really of greater value, who can survive without the other? Oh mystical someone, please tell me how you determine value. Now imagine if this poor man could sell an hour of his life to this wealthy person for deposit into his life’s time account, added to the finite quantity gifted to him. What then would be the worth of this hour? In terms of time and money it is understandable to some degree that the time remaining in any particular persons account may be conceived to be of a greater value when gauged by the amount of this commodity they have sacrificed earlier in their life, in their trade for knowledge or skills. Truly, I too place a greater value on certain peoples time. I am powerless to change the dollar value, which has been determined by the mystical someone, and very often I am not in agreement with the mystical someone, but they are a powerful force. They have not given us a phone number or address with which we may contact them and express our disagreements. They are self regulating and seem to favor the wealthy in determining the value of that same hour gifted to each of us by the true powers of our beliefs. Question how an earthly group can place a value on a commodity which they themselves cannot quantify or control. Can there be a Federal Time Depository? Are they the mystical someone? Does anyone out there hear me or care?

I write this and ask these questions from the perspective of a middle aged person, but wait, is this really the middle of my life? Can the mystical someone tell me? Should I expect more dollars now for each of my remaining hours?

I recently went to a Lawyer to do something which was not overly complicated in nature. Mystical someone had told this lawyer his time was worth two hundred and twenty five dollars for each hour. I would not need this lawyer except for the complexity of the laws involved. Who do you think made these laws so complex that I would need a lawyer? The meeting included my wife, myself and the lawyer in the same room, at the same desk and for the same hour. This precious hour gifted to us each was consumed, sacrificed, spent, never to be re-deposited into our time accounts. One hour of my wife’s time, value equaled zero dollars, my time the same, the lawyer’s hour was rewarded with two hundred and twenty five of these dollars. We each withdrew from our time accounts the same amount, but the lawyer exchanged his hour for a different material commodity which he could put in a different earthly account.

Excuse me mystical someone, I did not ask anyone to complicate this issue, I did not need this to be obscured in written text nor perverted or interpreted to be a complex thing. Why have you given this value to my lawyer’s hour and not to mine. Are not both of our hours irreplaceable? Oh, I forgot, you can’t answer, as you have not a phone or address to where I might direct my inquiry.

I would bet that the poor migrant worker would not need to part with this many dollars for this reason. This meeting was in regards to a real estate transaction, the same kind performed in other areas on a handshake. Curiously this is one of the few duties originally performed in this country, only by lawyers.

Oh mystical someone, I was told our business model was based on supply and demand, there are plenty of lawyers, I am told I need one, but I would rather not get one, so my demand is low. Does this change the dollar value of his gifted hour?

I often joke about teachers to my family. Not out of disrespect for the profession, but more of a confusion as to the dollar value of their hour. In my area, teachers are paid very well and pay raises are based on their level of education or degrees held, not on performance, ability or the grade level they teach. I contend that to teach a class of third grade English students, you need a little more than a third grade education. I know this is not entirely true but again I disagree with mystical someone who has determined a high dollar value for their gifted hours, there by creating an increase in my taxes. By the way mystical someone, that new library building you put such a high dollar value on is beautiful, but aren’t they supposed to have a lot of books in them?

The poor migrant worker probably never had a school, or teacher and has no need of a library, since he probably cannot read, but wait I’m getting hungry, lets go get a book to eat or would you prefer a brick?

My purpose is not to demean any profession or person and if I have offended anyone to this point, I extend my sincere apology. My journey is to locate the mystical someone so I may present my questions.

I often laugh at the value of things. Take for instance the most sought after precious metal, gold. Consider the hours sacrificed by other to mine this metal. How much gold are their gifted hours worth? The mystical someone has set a value on their hour that would barely move a gram scale. What is the value of this metal, why is it sought after? To the best of my knowledge the only use for gold is in the electrical field for its’ ability to possess very little resistance to the flow of electricity and in the medical field because of it’s inert properties, though I am sure there may be other uses, but you can’t eat it, at least not for nourishment. The combined demand in all other uses has very little effect on the value of gold, but for the demand to possess it in its purest form, for what reason I am not sure, it has little value. Would you trade all your gold for an hour of time from the migrant workers remaining gifted hours if you could be sure they would be deposited into your life account?

Ranting to be continued…
Vportweb.net

Paul "Tumbleweed"
No writing back ground, skills, training. Terrible with grammar, overly opionated, but I enjoy speaking out and stimulating others to think. That at least is my hope. Like a "Tumbleweed", I ramble on!

Let’s discuss choice and social acceptance. I had the most interesting conversation the other day with a friend at a coffee shop. I was working on a quote and read it out loud and then we discussed it for hours. First here is the quote:

"It is interesting how many groups, religions, teams, military organizations, etc. offer: “Social Acceptance” all in trade for you giving up your ideals, thoughts, personal observations and dreams."

This of course later after the conversation had two qualifiers.

First; You actually have to have formed ideals, thoughts, personal observations and dreams (Many perceive they have formed such, but in reality are brainwashed like the masses through media bombardment and the nurturing within the false land of political correctness. These poor souls have merely convinced themselves that they believe rhetoric which has been purported as fact throughout the history of mankind).

Second; The person must be somewhat similar to the others already in the group in various attributes. (for instance a black person cannot join the KKK, even if he were to agree with there premise and a Jewish person cannot join a NEO-Nazi group. A skinny person cannot join an organization of Line Backers and a Chinese person cannot join the Mayflower Society). This is because mankind in order to form social groups usually picks enemies that in turn bond the group together in a common cause. Such enemies are predetermined by the group and continually change through a gang mentality, which mankind is all to good at promoting when it serves a group they wish to control.

Now then when discussing these observations we had some other thoughts.

With such a set of choices for an enlightened individual, why bother joining any group at all? Why would you join any group that would have you as a member? Which indeed is an excellent question. If you are willing to give up your values, views and observations in trade for joining simply to be socially accepted then perhaps you are unworthy as an individual to give much to the group except numbers which increase the power of the leaders. If most groups amongst the human species are set up in such a fashion it would appear that belonging to no groups is could in fact be a greater noble calling. So then the character of the followers of the most benevolent of organizations may not be noble at all. Giving up one’s self seems to be a waste of a very large cranial cavity and potential brain capacity which mankind has available for cognitive reasoning. This is why we say it is “very interesting” how many of these clubs, religions, groups require blind following and even more interesting how many people are willing to deny their own observations, beliefs and dreams to satisfy the innate characteristic need of belonging, social acceptance and respect from their fellow man.

Obviously mankind is a social animal, which means we naturally form groups and work with each other for the benefit of the group. Maslow in his comments would agree that such a need of man is so great that they would follow into a death march, just to belong. Muslim suicide bombers comes to mind. Life itself and the essence of all we are while we are here is in jeopardy is all but wasted when we fail to question authority and blindly follow those who use our human needs against us. We also took into consideration Gangs in inner cities, kids doing drugs from peer pressure, accountants cheating to belong to a company, etc. In about an hour we came up with about 40 examples, which seemed to correspond to most of societies major current issues and problems. In the franchising industry, we believe one should keep the local community atmosphere and local feel, without having to give up their values, dreams, ambitions, self or observations.

It would behoove people to join groups to solve the needs of the human spirit that do not require one to give up their value system, dreams, aspirations, principles, personal belief system based on real observations. Any group of the sort does not serve humankind or its participants and certainly not those who become enemies of the group or are used as something to be against. We as a species ought to get along and understand that the problem is in the way we form social groups. The problem is not the fact that humans do form groups, that is clearly innate and possibly the reason that our branch of upright walking homo sapiens was the one which got this far in the first place. There appears to be some needs out there for us to continue in this tradition so we must think about what we are doing, who we are doing it with, what we have to give up to belong before we give away the greatest gift in trade. Choose both. Choose a group, which fulfills your needs as a human being and a groups or groups, which do not require your giving up your individuality or mind. After all this is a free country, soon to be a free world and we are granted freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of thought and it is worth all we have sacrificed to date. Something to think about. That is all for Coffee Shop Philosophy today. Any ideas along this theme, please post them below.

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

RICHARD FEYNMAN: - I had the great pleasure of watching a movie called Infinity by Matthew Broderick and his wife. What a joy! To see a person whose father taught him to observe rather than codify or label in order to get marks or social acceptance. Education that focuses on the soul and ethics is what humanity will need to handle the outcome of the Pandora’s Box unleashed by his fellow atom-mysticists. What a treat to see the ethics and honesty that made it difficult for him to lie to his lady even when all around them were pressuring him to do so when they thought she had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. What mastery of mind and reality to simply portray this exceptional couple as she thought first of how difficult it must have been for him to lie rather than what this terminal illness might do to her. But as usual the doctors were wrong and she had TB although it could have been discovered earlier and she might have lived if these doctors had not been trying to avoid saying what they thought.

When Feynman was at Los Alamos he danced spirit dances frequently; and he had been aware of the so-called paranormal all his life. In fact I believe I learned through the same methods he did – not in school. When he was at Princeton as a grad student the head of the Physics Department begged him to go with their government project as he said there are none like you anywhere. I loved hearing the care Robert Oppenheimer showed even though he had never met the young couple. I say that because his cousin John in London who offered to make me the head of his printing company, showed that same kind of care for me.

Feynman died in 1988 before his partner John Wheeler met Peter Lynds who is now promoting an ancient Greek theory on Infinity. Wheeler supports Lynds who has no real formal education and that is to his credit. I must say there aren’t enough people like Dick Feynman and I wish there were a lot more. Thank you – the Brodericks.

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

Throughout my life, I have always known that it is not easy to fight injustices. I grew up in Jersey City and started to work during summers at the age of fourteen. I quit school just prior to sixteen and went to work full time because after 22 years my father had decided to leave my mother and someone had to do it. My mom was trying hard to go back to work after being a housewife for all those years but her health was not so great and she just couldn’t do it long.

I made God only knows so many mistakes. When Mom and Billy died in 1974 I lost the only advisors I had my entire life…I was on my own. There have been many instances where if…

When my area developer swindled me out of goodness knows how much I went as far as filing a lawsuit against the company…I did it myself…it wasn’t easy. I just came up against a dead end when their attorneys continued to throw everything they could in my path. I didn’t have the money to go to New York and fight it the rest of the way…now it seems like a memory and nothing more but it did teach me that this world is a world where if you have enough money to fight for your cause you have a chance to win. If you don’t have any money to fight oh well.

It is fine for someone like Robert Greenwald to run a production company financed by liberal elites and liberal organizations to do as he wishes to anyone and he has no responsibility to be fair when it comes to using people.

Along with the corporate officers at Walmart who are paid millions and allowed to ignore the real problems that over time millions of workers have had.

Continuously the extreme left and right wing elite do as they wish and are heard because they have money and power. It makes no difference if they are right, wrong or just in the entire thing for a laugh.

They use people on a daily basis under the cover of being righteous. I am a bit impatient. Probably because I fear that as I did with the lawsuit, once again for a lack of money and a lack of knowledge I will allow what I know is the right thing go unsaid because I have not the ability to put it out there.

Seriously, It gets old to be taken for granted. Used, misled and ripped off and have no recourse simply because there is not enough money to fight it and make the people with endless resources realize what is right is right. It makes no difference who’s side you are on.

I could promote my book or writing as anti everything…if I were really extreme I would have a much better chance at actually being noticed. If I had the ability or if I had the energy left I could wait a bit and file a lawsuit in the state of California against Robert Greenwald when he uses something in the film that I told them about and was already in the book I wrote.

I don’t know if I have the energy to do it again. Do it again and lose out because I come to a dead end.

What will it mean?

It means that a man with money and able to ask for donations to push his film making will in some way promote himself and his agenda using my information to do it. Without my permission he will be able to use the time and energy I have spent over the years and I will never even be acknowledged as a person who originally knew about all of it and made the attempt to make things right.

It would be nice if I were in a circle of people, where because I knew someone I could have someone else censored.

It would be nice if someone, anyone would just listen and realize that I am not only doing all of it because of the notoriety but because what is right is right.

Sure, I would like to make money doing all of it, I would be nothing more than a liar if I were to say that I was only doing all of it for the pleasure of waking a few people up. The problem is, I am not wealthy and I do not have an organization that is funded by anyone.

Seriously, Robert Greenwald has picked on Walmart because he is trying to be more like Michael Moore. I doubt that his reason is to be the savior of millions.

I picked on Walmart because somehow I hoped I could fix the culture that a very good man founded the company on.

I would have, while I worked for them been happy to share the things I knew.

Seriously, now that they have decided to make me into what they would call a traitor, I probably shouldn’t care about the company or those left behind.

If they had listened, there would never have been a book. If Walmart had listened, if Lee Scott and Rob Walton were not so high and mighty there would have been a better place for the workers and I would not be where I am.

The main problem was I could not continue to work for liars and ignore the unethical situations that were occurring on a daily basis. I could not watch as associates were mistreated only because it was easier to do it the wrong way instead of really taking an interest in what was happening around me. I had to buck the system because it was and is flawed.

I could have continued to have a paycheck come in every two weeks that was only a mode of surviving until something else came along or until I could actually make someone realize what I was saying.

The Walmart Culture was a cult. It was almost a religious institution. It was people working on the art of making a retail company the best it could be and loving every minute of it even if they were not getting much from it in the way of wages and benefits.

It was an icon of something right in the world that went very wrong.

About the Author

Julie Pierce has worked in the retail sector for more than thirty years. She has been a union member of the UCFW Union and the afl-cio more than once and has worked for more than one large retailer during the course of her career. She attended Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City Beach, Florida, in the nineties in the pursuit of a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications.

Some of her work has been published during the eighties and nineties in various editorial pages of newspapers in the state of New Jersey and Florida. She also did some work as a community reporter for a weekly newspaper in Panama City Florida. Other work includes an article in the Gulls Cry, the Gulf Coast Community College newspaper.

She is the wife of TSgt William F. Pierce Jr. (retired) USAF and the mother of three children and one grandchild.

DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY (ARCHETYPES): - "All material bodies are condensations of frozen bodies." (2) Jung is becoming ‘in vogue’ again, I hear. Perhaps this time around it won’t just involve so little real appreciation for all that he meant and understood. Dream interpretation and projected Western values can be a Freudian gambit - Jung grew to see things few will ever admit to in the present ideologies of the West. He was able to contact the future before the First World War and it almost convinced him he was mad, until he saw his visions were right - then he knew it wasn’t himself who was mad - it was the world he lived in! His archetypes may be a contact with the genetic ‘history book’ that the Director of the Human Genome Project talked about recently when he announced that only 2.8 centimetres of 1.8 metres of a gene are required to make the human being. It might be a collective ‘tap-in’ or even the ‘medulla oblongata’ has the ability to record the knowledge of previous evolutionary experience of man’s development. Personally I feel it is a matter of some of each of these things and the factors relating to chaos and the interference of conflicting vibrations or wavelengths in the confusing array of bandwidths and personalities.

The ‘archetypes’ and our dreams are definitely important to our discovery of what the soul and oversoul is trying to achieve. Our conscious waking experiences are far too influenced by convention and peer pressures or the five senses, to differentiate the ego’s interest from the purpose we are here to explore and refine. Is there a connection between the archetypes and the helical structure of all the naturally occurring paradigms like time, harmonic building blocks of one dimensional force, nanotubes, DNA and telomeres, etc.? Is that structure part of a form which is unique to the earth experience or does it have close corollaries in other parts of the universe? We are on the verge of breaking down the insights of intuitive attuned masters of the philosophies that are aware of the ego and its NEEDS. Soon the Eastern mystics and shamans of the world will be universally appreciated, I hope. Their ethic is a clear requirement to explore if we are to begin the ‘New Age’ in a position to make the most of all that can be! It might be required by other life forms we call alien before we are allowed to participate in the cosmos and its order. That would be great!

"When I go past the dark alleys and passages of my mind, I come to the core of my Being. - At the core of my Being I am in touch with the light and the love and the knowingness that are inherent properties of my natural state." (3)

One of the outcomes and plans involved in the rape and pillage of aboriginals and nature-worshipping cultures around the world was a history that injected war into the lives of the Mayans. Personally I have a hard time accepting that the ‘missionaries’ of the Keltic/Toltec or Druidic tradition that are reported in the stories about Kukulcan and Quetzacoatl were responsible. However, they were probably accompanied by those members of their society (or followed by) who brought the mindset of European power-mongers and aristocrats. I can see where the Ostrogoths disappeared to and it wouldn’t surprise me if the Sybarite/Milesian faction had ousted other ‘Bruttii’ before the 6th century BC., who found their way to the Upper Mississippi area of the Great Lakes before moving south to the more extensive mounds they built.

There is mounting evidence that the Basque played an important part in the Mayan scheme of things. Their language is connected as is the Rh factor in the blood. It is rare and traceable to Iberia, (the one between the Black and Caspian Sea) and the Mayan. They also seem to have lived in harmony until the Norman or other conquests were occurring in Europe. Needless to say the conventional wisdom is trying to paint them as sacrificers of barbaric proportions, but that too can be traced to Moshe (as in Moshe Rabbenue) and European influence and practice. There is no doubt in my mind that the nature and archetypes of the Mayan culture make it clear there was a long tradition of harmony and awareness of the ego and its conflict that adds so much negative inputs to our shared experience with nature. I like the words of the following author who has lived in the lifestyle or with these people even more than I have.

"Even though the Mayan temples became overgrown with jungle lushness, the Mayan beliefs have survived. Because of their togetherness all these years and their deliberate lack of contact with the Spanish, the Mayans have managed to practice their beliefs and practice them today almost as they did thousands of years ago." (4)

The Mayans say we should be careful and observe our involvement with nature and the progressions of different forces. They say: "Do not put yourself, in front of your SELF!" Most people are unable to quiet their mind and keep order in their memory and recall, due to a lack of proper tools (like Ars Memoria, in the ‘Symbols and Concepts section’) and the spiral of educational inputs that have no flow and fit. If we have a through-line of purpose and ethic these problems of the busy-mind disappear and a greater sense of mental and other well-being permeates our lives. The Mayan are naturally this way and if Western Man succeeds in abusing them with greed and need then it will be a greater loss in my heart than I wish to bear.

The inner quest

The tradition of vision, and the inner quest by the shaman, the Druid, the saint or the holy man, seem to be connected at specific places where the energy forces of the planet are located {In the microcosm of our mind or the macrocosm of the universe, too.}. The Celtic and pre-Celtic shaman, the living embodiment of the collective psyche, was the link with the ancestral spirit world. He performed the ceremonies connected with the dead, and the annual rites of renewal on behalf of the living. The age-old communal tomb which was the source of his power {Like relics of the Catholic Church. The lattices of the DNA archetypes and stone enclosures were designed to house the forces of personal and tribal attunements.} was the place where the forces of heaven and earth could meet. The vulva-shaped megalithic dolmens from Cornwall and India show how widespread was the ancient belief in the burial receptacle as a womb-place of the Earth Mother and the Other-world. These tombs were usually constructed with giant stone slabs forming a chamber and a trenched passageway, the gaps filled with dry-stone walling and covered by a great mound of earth. Dolmens, quoits and cromlechs are the remains of the original chambers. Natural caves and artificial chambers cut into the rock were also used.

The block of sandstone, 28 ft. (8.6 m) long, which is called the Dwarfie Strane, is an example, unique in Britain, of a rock-cut chamber. It may have been used for meditation or initiation; for ‘at each end is a bed and pillow of stone capable of holding two persons, with a hole above to admit light and allow smoke to escape’. {We believe the king’s chamber in the Pyramid has a resting place rather than a sarcophagus. There were no mummies or bodies therein, and there was no top to this bed. The ‘debunkers’ of ancient knowledge say there was a grave robbing enterprise. These were not robbed and their uncovering through tunneling is well recorded. The grave robber priests of the second millennia and later BC are a fact but they went were the material treasures were housed and did not get into the Giza Pyramids. They are also part of a time when the ethic and culture of the supposed Stone Age or earlier ‘primitives’ were no longer in charge. After the Trojan Worldwide War things became worse in leaps and bounds. There was a 400 year ‘Dark Ages’ as the Keltic/Phoenician ‘Red-Heads’ such as those being burned at the graves of their long ago leader Osiris; decided New Zealand and the Americas were better places to live and love life.} The early Christian saints of Ireland and Scotland {Like Columba and Pelagius, who still endeavoured to retain old ‘Brotherhood’ ideals [Iesa=Jesus] from before Rome when deviate behavior swept this opportunistic church.}continued the tradition of using rock cavities for meditation and prayer. They chose mountains, islands and desolate places not only to avoid distraction but also to be closer to the Sacred. The church near Bilbao, actually built round a group of natural standing stones, and dedicated to St. Michael, the dragon-slayer beloved of the Celts, is a remarkable example of the Christianization of a sacred place.” (5)

We will go further along the path of science that is proving the existence of templates and archetypes in all of nature as we cover Dr. Robins’ work and Lamarckian evolution etc. Yes, the universe might have an over-riding purpose and potential that insists on growth and creativity. If we don’t allow each member of our human family to be able, through enabling support, we might not only be diminished; we might have a re-start of universal proportions as Martin Rees is saying about the whole of our universe. He is a recognized expert in the field for whatever that is worth, but what he says is in line with the cycles of Hindu astrology to be sure.

Here is a simple exchange of knowledge from a forum on the World Wide Web. It includes Iesa in a gospel that reflects back to the things which ancients learned and gradually got imbedded or imbued into our genes and archetypes. But that knowledge of the ‘oneness’ or what Jung calls the ‘collective unconscious’ has another side or oppositional element. There are those who would use our ‘oneness’ against the good of ‘the collective’.

“Hymnal prayer from the Gospel of the Egyptians IE IEUS EO OU EO OUA
Truly, Truly! IESSEU MAZAREU IESSEDEKEU,
the living water!
The child of the child!
O glorious name!
Truly, Truly! The one existing eternally!
III EEEE EEEE OO OO UUUU OOOO AAAA
Truly, Truly! EI AAAA OO OO
O one who exists, who sees the aeons!
Truly, Truly! AEE EEE IIII UUUUUU OOOOOOOO
The one who exists for ever and ever!
Truly, Truly! IEA AIO, in the mind, who exists!
UAEI EISAEI EIOEI EIOSEI

This, your great name, is upon me, o faultless, self-born one, who is not outside of me. I see you, O one invisible before everyone. For who will be able grasp you in another language? Now that I have known you, I have merged myself with the one who does not change. I have armed myself with luminous armor and have been luminous. For the mother was there on account of the lovely beauty of grace. Therefore I have reached out my folded hands.

I have been formed by the ring of the wealth of light which is in my breast, which gives form to the multitude born in the light, where no accusation reaches. I shall sing your glory truly, for I have grasped you. SOU IES IDE AEIO AEIE OSIS O! Eternal, eternal god of silence, I honour you completely. You are my place of rest, O son, ES ES O E, the formless one who exists in the formless ones. He exists, he raises the one by whom you shall purify me into your life according to your indestructable name. Therefore the fragrance of life is in me. I have blended it with water, from the pattern of all the rulers, so that I shall live with you in the peace of the saints, you who exist forever.

My response:

Thank you for the Hymnal Prayer of the Egyptians. It has much of the meaning of Iesa (Iesous in the fish symbol [IXOYE] stolen by Christians) and even Zeus comes from this concept of the Brotherhood of Man. That ‘one mind’ or collective that is known to the ancients and which Jesus (Iesa through linguistics) may have allowed himself to be known.”

The Keltic program of ‘Brotherhood’ required sending children to far away places for their upbringing as we have mentioned. In the matter of psychology it served to ensure disciplined people with few ’spoiled brats’. Much of our insanity comes from a confusion created in the minds of undisciplined people. Habits and ego or choices to behave as idiots seem more likely causes of aberrant behavior than most psychologists want to allow. After all if discipline and meditation were all we needed then a lot of people would see what is going on: and education would have to become enabling for individuals rather than for our bureaucratic propaganda and psycho-civilizing purposes.

Author and activist for ethical change.

Put my full name in your browser (Robert Bruce Baird) is you want more about me.

‘Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first - the story of our quest for sexual love - is well known and well-charted. The second - the story of our quest for love from the world - is a more secret and shameful tale. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first.’ Thus speaks Alain de Botton author of the thought provoking book Status Anxiety. In this day and age, we are given respect in direct proportion to our (perceived) "success". It is like a calibration, for the world to decide how much respect they owe us. So desperate are we for status, it is the over-riding concern of our lifetimes to achieve status and respect. Increasingly, status in the West has been awarded in relation to financial achievement. The consequences of high status are pleasant. They include resources, freedom, space, comfort, time and, as importantly perhaps, a sense of being cared for and thought valuable – conveyed through invitations, flattery, laughter, deference and attention.

High status is thought to be one of the finest of earthly goods. For this reason, we worry whenever we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society. We worry that we may be stripped of dignity and respect, we worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one. We might not worry so much if status were not so hard to achieve and even harder to maintain over a lifetime. Except in societies where it is fixed at birth and our veins flow with noble blood, our position hangs on what we can make of ourselves; and we may fail in the enterprise due to stupidity or an absence of self-knowledge, macro-economics or malevolence.

From failure will flow humiliation: a corroding awareness that we have been unable to convince the world of our value and are henceforth condemned to consider the successful with bitterness and ourselves with shame. The trouble with America in particular is the belief that if you work hard, you will be proportionately blessed with financial success. The converse side of this coin is that if you lack financial succes, you simply don’t deserve it. Of course this fails to take into account the dynamics of macro economies in which national wealth is not necessarily a representation of the those who individually share in this success.

I think the problem in our competitive societies today is that the more we acquire, the more difficult we will be to please, yet at the same time the more difficult it will be to achieve status (simply because there is more to "wade through" before arriving at the peak. In modern societies if one is born into dire poverty it is very very difficult to "wade through" everything that stands in the way, and the more prosperous society becomes the more there is to wade through). The analogy is a waterfall. The people at the top are comfortably safe. Those int he middle will either sink of swim and are struggling to stay in the same place, desperately afraid of being sucked down and equally determined to reach reach the top. Those at the bottom of the waterfall simply have no chance.

I was once told that there are three possible solutions to most problems, money, a miracle or to simply change the paradigm. In the case of status anxiety, only two of those will solve it. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the Buddhist book, and instead change our perspective and realise the ultimate futility and mortality of our existence. The problem you see, only exists because we use society as our mirror. If we stopped and put it all in perspective, we might change ours. Ways to avoid stress:

1. Perspective. This is probably the most important. Will this problem affect you in a few days, in a year, or in the long term? If it doesn’t affect your overall or long term happiness it probably doesnt matter that much.

2. The solution won’t fall out of the sky. Miracles don’t happen anymore. When faced with a challenge it is best sometimes to take the bull by the horns and deal with it as opposed to ignoring or postponing your action.

3. Priorities. What is most important at the time? By prioritising, you will come to realise that you can only effectively deal with one problem at a time. Defeat each problem in chunks.

4. Life plan. It sounds awfully cliche but without a plan you will simply drift about constantly changing tack, never settling on a single course. Success at anything come wtih patience and persistence.

5. Set realistic goals. Success is proportional to expectation over achievement. If you make your expectations realistic you are less likely to be disappointed. Don’t build castles in the sky.

6.Relax! Simply take some time out once in a while to review and put things in perspective.

Ted Nichols is a writer for http://gentlemans-journal.blogspot.com and http://topicalinterest.blogspot.com

Appeals to Authority

Listen to this quote by a guy I am sure some of you have heard of:

"Our society is dominated by experts, few more influential than psychiatrists. This influence does not derive, however, from our superior ethics or goodness or from any widespread consensus that we are especially admirable…"[1]

Don’t you just love that?

He goes on to say, that Americans have become a people too dependent on so-called "experts" who "for better or for worse, exert an influence that far exceeds the actual wisdom (I might add here humility and grace) we demonstrate."[2]

Now, listen to this person’s credentials:

"Dr. Satinover is a former National Merit Scholar (W. H. Taft HS, 1965, Woodland Hills, CA) and holds degrees from M.I.T. (S.B.), Harvard (Ed.M.) the University of Texas (M.D.) and Yale (M.S.) He completed psychoanalytic training at the C. G. Jung Institute of Zürich. He is a former fellow (resident) in psychiatry and child psychiatry at Yale where he was twice awarded the department of psychiatry’s Seymour Lustman Residency Research Prize (2nd place). He was the 1975 William James Lecturer at Harvard. He was until recently a graduate student and teaching fellow in the department of physics at Yale University as part of the Condensed Matter Theory Group where he received a master’s degree in physics in 2003."[3]

The last I heard he decided to "pick up" a Ph.D. in Physics.

Phony-Baloney Detection Rule #2 is this:

"Nothing is true because some guy or gal with more degrees behind his or her name than the weather says it is."

Let’s say that you have a "cause". There is an issue that hundreds if not thousands have embraced. Within that cause, which has now become a "movement", those who have embraced this cause or issue have gathered their "experts" who come to the conventions they hold where these "experts" tell these crusaders all they want to hear.

These "experts" line up at the stage entrance with truckloads of evidence. They have manuals, books, graphs, charts, movies, and slideshows, of statistics that will be presented as "indisputable evidence" the position or ideology of the new movement is correct. The result?

"Our cause is right and just", cries the members of the new movement, "just look at all the new "facts" I can now throw in the face of the world".

Nothing is true not even if a million so-called "experts" say it is true!

This is a huge problem in American society today. We are a people who blindly trust so-called "experts" (who may not even be "experts" at all) who self-proclaim themselves as "authorities" and who gladly accept their self-proclamation and the following it has earned them.

What is even scarier is that some of these so-called "experts" come to believe, in a kind of self-delusion, they are the authorities their followers regard them to be. These "experts" begin to believe they must be "right" just because they said something was so.

What if, when you wake tomorrow, there are suddenly a gazillion "experts" with academic credentials too long to possibly list, who are now saying the sun not only does not rise in the East and sets in the West—it never has!

Would that make it so? Would the fact that these "experts", some of whom would believe themselves to be "world-renowned" authorities, deluge you with so many facts that your head explodes, make their position on this issue any more "right"?

It would not!

In the emotions and blustering of any cause or issue, humans have the almost innate desire to be "dogmatic", and in their dogmatism, forget how to cut through the bull to learn what is right and what is not.

It is the test of experiment which cuts through the "cock and bull" of anyone, self-deluded or not, who makes a claim that something is true—NO MATTER HOW MUCH "INDISPUTABLE" EVIDENCE that is thrown into your lap.

Anyone, no matter how beloved, no matter how many books he has written, no matter how many conventions he has been the keynote speaker at presenting his truckloads of "proof", must have someone, somewhere hold his feet to the fire of the test of experimentation in the form of the following process:

1) Observation, 2) hypothesis, 3) prediction, 4) testing, and the attempt to 5) reproduce steps 3 and 4 used to form a theory (the last step of the scientific method).

Without the test of experimentation, without an objective third party (peer review) being able to reproduce the so-called expert’s proof then all the "expert" is presenting to you in his truckloads of "statistical proof" is SPECULATION!

It is not proof. It is nothing more, nothing less, than SPECULATION!

No matter the credentials, no matter the reputation, no matter how much the much-loved guru of your movement quotes as proof, without the test of experimentation, you have no tool to discern whether what he is telling you is the truth or not.

Those who spew facts, figures, and stats, would not too often go wrong if CONCLUSIVE scientific testing was always possible. Unfortunately, it is not. In situations where limited testing can be done and even when the test results conflict, it is the ethical responsibility of the "presenter of the facts" in any issue to say so!

It is then, when the so-called "experts" who at least attempted to employ the test of experimentation, have to say,

"This is inconclusive but it would appear from what we presently know that ___________".

Even the "experts" have biases. Some of those will spew as "facts" what is instead "speculative biases" (and they know the difference) and not tell you so. From the dishonest to the sincerely deluded "experts", some spew what is mere "speculation" under the disguise of "indisputable evidence". That is the difference between "politics and truth".

As a columnist who is supposed to be trained to keep a story at 650-words, I am committing a sacrilege—this one is over a 1000. May my editor’ forgive me!

If an "expert" is spewing a string of facts and stats, and is not citing the "tests of experimentation" from which these stats were derived, then that is how you know you are being fed SPECULATION (cock and bull?)!

What cuts through it all—THE TEST OF EXPERIMENTATION!

The next "Phony-Baloney Detection lesson #3" is Straw Man Argument.

[1] Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth; Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.; Baker Books; page 31
[2] Ibid
[3] http://www.satinover.com/main.htm

Doug Bower is a freelance writer, Syndicated Columnist, and book author. His most recent writing credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad. He is a columnist with Cricketsoda.com and the Magic City Morning Star, and more than 21 additional online magazines. He lives with his wife in Guanajuato, Mexico. His newest books, Mexican Living: Blogging it from a Third World Country and The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico can be seen at: http://www.lulu.com/mexicanliving

And there will be many ‘experts’ who say that light speed is still not transcendable or that time is linear and it is not possible to do many things that I posit in these pages, I know. I offer up this site to these people and say that the whole truth of what Black Ops and other agents of real knowledge pursue is not under the control of NASA or The Smithsonian and other public or relatively transparent structure of academia and government. Here is a site worth looking into that discusses some of the things that many have known for a long time. It does not include the Catholic scholar/physicist who reportedly has developed a chronovisor in conjunction with Werner von Braun and Fermi’s inputs that would be similar to one thing the Philosopher’s Stone could achieve (http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/TM-107289.htm).

“Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti (1925-1994) was a Benedictine priest, scientist, and world-class authority on "archaic" music (pre-Christian to 10th century A.D.). He claimed to have yoked quantum physics to the occult arts to construct a time-machine– the chronovisor. Father Ernetti said he had traveled to Rome in 169 B.C. to witness a performance of the now-lost tragedy, Thyestes, by the father of Latin poetry, Quintus Ennius. He claimed to have used the chronovisor to watch Christ dying on the cross. Why would so distinguished a churchman have felt the need to confabulate such a story? Is the Vatican suppressing the full truth of Father Ernetti’s life and achievements?” (1)

It is correct to say there are many impressions of what the Philosopher’s Stone is or what the ‘Great Work’ of The Philosopher’s might truly be. There probably have been some that are considered alchemists who have misled the general public about it at various times due to the Inquisitions just as was true with another of the quests of the alchemist. I refer in this instance to the homonunclus or artificial man that was made by Thomas Aquinas and his mentor and one-time Dominican bishop Frater Albertus Magnus. They were almost as Divinely Inspired as Constantine in their answer to the agents of the heresy trial they were about to face.

Personally I would give Constantine the Peabody Award for Marketing as he (A Mithras worshipper who was made divine by his children at the point of his death in the pagan custom of Roman Empire-builders, who also had many of their relatives killed in horrific ways at that juncture.) co-opted the teaching of Christ. It is my opinion that Christ was an alchemist as were his ancestors including Solomon, and Melchizedek. The intrigues are many to say the least. Today most people still think there is truth in the lie that alchemists were hermits seeking to make lead into gold and yet that was the desire of entirely materialistic medieval kings and nobles. Alchemists like myself do have to live the hermit existence if they (like me) are unwilling to sell out, but many of them are within the bowels of the hegemony. They encouraged many fakirs to lay claim to having the ability to do things they could not do.

Aquinas and Frater Albertus (greatly admired by one of the Illuminati founders - Goethe) said that their homonunclus was ‘the talking-head of Jesus’. Now what might that really have been that they made? I suggest they were in the process of making a Stone and had a way to foretell certain events that the likes of Edward Kelley did. He too is said to have had a Stone and England’s arguably greatest scholar (and spy) John Dee believed Kelley. But I think Aquinas and Magnus had the same thing Kelley had - a scryring stone or skull. Such skulls as are found in Mexico have a many millennia artifactual relationship in ancestor-worship throughout the ages and all cultures have had some kind of shamanistic people who attuned through them.

I know that this is not a full answer and there is no way I can give a real and full answer in a few pages. The lies of those hiding the knowledge are equaled by the lies of those seeking or fearing the knowledge.

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

DERVISH: - Whirling and ecstatically altering their conscious and soul full interconnections with all around them. These people of the Middle East are a lot like Native dancers and dream dancers from the whole of the world and deep into the dark recesses of human existence on earth. Needless to say their behavior has little relevance for the western academics of such soul-denying professions as those who do NOT know how to actually cure people or why the soul is important in that process of wholistic balance in human lives-and JOY! The quotation from the book ‘Wonder Child’ is the kind of thing we should read over and over again until we know why it makes ‘common sense’ versus the constant bombardment of manipulative messages and fear-mongering to divide the human family.

In our entry on the origins of language (Ogham) we mentioned ‘Huna’ and Max Freedom Long’s work with the chants and mind-altering effects of the Hawaiian language. Here we see him engaged in something the ‘real’ world we live in, can seldom observe, and most scientists would hesitate to hold forth their ‘expertise’ and try to explain.

“Max Freedom Long gives a detailed account of how his mentor, Dr W. T. Brigham of the British Museum, was taken onto fresh boiling lava near a volcano on Kona Island by three Kahuna - local magicians. They instructed him to take his boots off as they would not be covered by the Kahuna protection, {The ‘protection’ needs more conscious soul to connect with or through the state the Kahuna [perhaps Druids are their teachers according to my Wiccan high priestess] generate with their discipline and understanding.} but he refused. As he watched one of the three walk calmly onto the lava flow, the other two suddenly pushed him and finding himself on the hot lava, he had no choice but to keep on running to the other side. In the course of the 150-foot dash, his boots and socks were burned off. The three Kahunas, still strolling barefoot on the lava, burst into laughter as they pointed out the trail of bits of burning leather.

What does go on in a fire-walk? Dr White expresses the widely held view that the walkers are in an exalted state of mind which suppresses pain. Yet there are fire-walks without trance or ecstasy. Neither is there any evidence to suggest that damaged tissues heal up so rapidly that they are not noticed (a process sometimes observed among Dervish, Hindu, Balinese and other body-piercing devotees) {Including piercing with swords.}. In The Crack in the Cosmic Egg (1973) by J. C. Pearce, the author suggests that the firewalk is a classic illustration of the creation of a new reality (albeit temporary and local) in which fire does not burn {But why did Brigham’s boots burn?} in the familiar way. As long as this reality is maintained all is well, but the history of the fire-walk contains many accounts of gruesome fatalities and shocking damage to those whose faith is snapped {Brigham was not a ‘faithful’.} so that they were plunged back into the world where fire burns. The magical state of affairs in which flesh, and sometimes other material, is immune to fire is created, it seems, by the person who officiates at fire-walking ceremonies. Leroy’s Muslim writhed on the ground in agony as soon as the Maharajah announced the end of the proceedings. It was explained to the bishop that the man had taken the burning upon himself. In ‘Women Called Wild’, Mrs Rosita Forbes describes a fire-dance ceremony in Surinam, presided over by a virgin priestess, among descendants of African slaves who had intermarried with the local Indians. The priestess was in a trance for the duration of the fire-dance, and if she had emerged from it unexpectedly, the dancers would no longer have been immune from the flames. We have to agree with Dr Comey that psychical and psychological theories alone do not account for what happens {Unless you are more than just a psychic like the Kahuna, Druids and Yamabushi.}, and that some physical phenomenon takes place…

{This is the crux of the lack of ‘thinking’ that goes on in the paradigm which tries to say it is ‘open-minded’ and able to observe the real world. What is psychic if not physical? Are they saying cellular phones are able to communicate through ‘magic’? Just because you can’t see ‘protection’ or conscious attunements that make each part of the body able to absorb the fire’s energy and translate it to other specific uses doesn’t mean it isn’t real.} … which has not been understood or explained.

Pearce’s theory of fire-immunity as a product of a state of temporary reality invoked by a magician explains why the fire-walk has so shocked and offended those who depend on using the reality they have grown accustomed to as a bulwark against the apparition which Freud {Whose student Jung, said Freud was unable to contemplate the metaphysical real world due to his fears and insecurities.} called ‘the black tide of occult mud’. In recent years, however, fire-walking has been used in the West as a motivational tool in the more extreme types of leadership training as well as in courses for personal growth and development. The successful fire-walker achieves a ‘natural high’ through the conquest of his or her rational fear, a triumph of ‘mind over matter’ that sets them apart as a kind of shaman and enables them to believe that they are capable of achieving anything." (11)

The de-materialization entry has some application in another approach to ‘possibility-thinking’ for what might be going on here. In bi-location a body may de-materialize and send itself through the cosmos to another place like teleportation. Thus appearing to be in two places almost simultaneously. OK! If you have a better explanation for actual occurrences, I’m listening! Let us give you the experience of Joseph Campbell of a trip to Japan, first; and then all of us can ‘think’ about what is really going on. The key thing in this story that adds to the Brigham or other experiences is the ‘healing use’ of the energy in the fire.

"On May 21, the Buddhist saint Shinren’s birthday, the streets of the neighborhood were hung with colorful streamers and lanterns. Airplanes flew overhead strewing paper lotus petals, and enormous crowds surged everywhere in the streets of Kyoto. Campbell and his companions watched a few minutes of the Noh-play taking place on the Nishi Honganji temple grounds, and then were whisked rather urgently away to the ninth-century Fu-do Myo-o-in temple. As they arrived, so did an important-looking Shinto priest in full regalia, and then a small group of Buddhist monks. ‘One cannot tell where the Buddhism ends and the Shinto begins,’ wrote Campbell.

They were early and were given seats in the front row facing the altar. But the ceremony due shortly to unfold would be conducted by neither traditional Buddhist nor Shinto priests, but officiants more akin to shamans: the Yamabushi, the independent mountain-dwelling ascetics of Japan.

‘There was a large, square, roped-off area before us, with a big, square pyre in the middle, covered with evergreen boughs. Beyond that was an altar, the length of one side of the area, set with offerings: cakes, oranges, etc., all neatly stacked. At each comer of the area was a large wooden tub of water with a long-handled scoop–to be used on the fire. And in the comer at our right was a large bell-gong set on a table. At about 4:30 p.m. the Yamabushi arrived - in their fantastic costumes. They had been on a procession through certain parts of the town. (Biblio and notes bring us important historical insight: ‘This curious order of monk-magicians,’ Campbell wrote in his journal, ‘is said to have appeared in the 8th century, as a protest against the governmental control of the Buddhist religion comparable in a way, I should say, to the hermit movement in Christendom after the moment of Constantine. Refusing the usual ordinations by the government, they retired to the mountains and lived as holy hermits, and like the friars of later Europe, were responsible for spreading the religion among the common people. Buddhism in Japan before their time had been largely an aristocratic affair. Moreover, they were strongly influenced by the 7th century Tantric lore and principles.’)

They stood in two rows before the altar, and beating time with the jingles of the staffs and batons in their right hands, chanted, ensemble, the ‘hridaya’ sutra. This finished, they went and settled on the seats prepared for them at the two sides of the area. The abbot in his robe came to our side and sat facing the altar. And another, very nice gentleman, who was a kind of second abbot, came and thanked us for being present. {The honor of energy and soul among the rituals of all disciplines is more than Robert’s Rules of Order or any polite and pernicious etiquette.}

In a moment, another, smaller group of Yamabushi arrived and were ceremoniously challenged at the entrance by two Yamabushi guardians. In a kind of Noh play dialogue…the newcomers, through their leader, were asked the meaning of the term Yamabushi and the reason for each of the elements of the costume. The replies were given with great force - as though an actual battle were taking place {It is my opinion that much ancient art and frescoes showing battles are of this nature and that many battles were avoided by use of such display of force.}, and in the end, when they had proven themselves, the new group was admitted to sit with the rest, after ceremonially circumambulating the pyre.

A little Yamabushi now got up, with a long bow and a sheaf of arrows, and at each of the comers pretended to shoot an arrow into the air. {Were the comers aligned with the points on a compass like the sabbat rituals, with their fires surrounding?}

Next, another Yamabushi got up with a sword, and, after praying before the pyre, waved it at the pyre and returned to his seat. The abbot stood before the pyre and read a sutra from a piece of paper which was tucked into the pyre. And then the stage was set for the great event.

It began with two Yamabushi bearing long, flaming faggots, one at either side of the pyre, reaching in, low, and setting the pyre aflame. (Biblio and notes: ‘Campbell wrote in his journal: ‘It is most remarkable that in the Goma fire sacrifice that we were about to witness, elements of the Brahminical Soma sacrifice, as well as of the much later Tantric Buddhism of the great medieval period were synthesized, and colored, moreover, with the tincture of Shinto. Hanging around the sacred area were strings bearing the jagged paper offerings characteristic of Shinto–not white, but colored.’)

It went up with a great belch of smoke, which billowed heavily to the left (our left) and completely engulfed the Yamabushi. Since I was taking pictures, I was glad that the; breeze leaned in that direction—{Smoke is easily moved and the Yamabushi were so gracious that they made it possible for him to see and take photos, too.} though the air seemed, actually quite still. Rather soon, that side of the area cleared and the smoke curved around back of the pyre and over to the right, and then, rapidly, it engulfed our part of the area: remaining, however, only for a moment, it was, presently, back where it had been at the start {Where the Yamabushi would imbue their energy through smoke to fire and then logs, perhaps.}. It was a terrific mass of smoke, full of sparks and blazing fragments, and when it came around our way again {Picking up energy of the four primary forces at the cardinal grid points.} it burned a couple of neat little holes in my blue Dacron suit–which has been my chief suit throughout this journey. There was a great chant in progress that reminded me more of the noise of the Navajos than anything I’ve ever heard {And he traveled widely as a scholar observing with an open mind the spiritual and rich cultural heritage shared in similar ways throughout every region of the world.}, and the general atmosphere was a bit exciting. One of the young men inside the area came over and said something to Haru, who then pointed out to me a Yamabushi who was sitting about eight feet off my starboard bow. ‘That’s the one,’ he said, ‘who is making the smoke go round.’ I looked, and suddenly realized what I was witnessing. The chant was filling all the air. The smoke, definitely, was circulating in the clockwise direction (Joseph illustrates this with a rightward pointing swastika in his journal {The swastika is adapted by Gurdjieff from a Tibetan symbol and mandala of great antiquity.}): and this Yamabushi, with an attendant beside him, sitting on his shins, was moving his hands, pushing, conjuring, and pulling, like a cowboy turning a steer with a rope–only the rope couldn’t be seen. I was so surprised I felt a sudden thump inside me, and I began taking photos of this little man, like mad. Four Yamabushi with water scoops, meanwhile, were dipping water onto the sides of the fire–ostensibly to keep the flames under control, but perhaps also to give a bit of mechanical assistance to the magic.

After a while, when the smoke diminished and the flames increased, my Yamabushi began, ceremonially, tossing little stacks of wooden tablets onto the fire, on which the votive prayers of individuals in the congregation had been inscribed… When all the packets had been thrown in, the pyre was pulled apart and the logs were dragged over to a pit on the right side of the area over which they were placed, as a log lid. Beneath, the flaming coals and smaller wood then was put so that tongues of flame leapt up between the logs–and many of the people of the congregation, removing their ‘getas’ and ‘zori’, prepared to walk across. The nice gentleman who had welcomed us would be the first to go. The wizard was at one end of the pit conjuring a power to cure into the fire and cooling the flames: his assistant was at the other end, doing the same. And so, since I had seen, through his work on the smoke, that he was a true master of fire, I caught the fever and began to decide that I might walk across too.

I was wearing on my right ankle–the one I had sprained at Angkor– an Ace bandage, which it took me a while to undo. This made me the last on the line, but the flames were still leaping up high between the logs– say, some eight or ten inches. The two youngsters just in front of me dashed across as fast as they could, but I decided to take my time and see what it really was like to walk on a wizard’s fire. My first step, with my right foot, was a bit timid, and a bit off to the side, where there were no leaping flames. But then I thought, ‘Well now, come on!’ and seeing a nice fat flame right in front, I put my left foot down on top of it, squarely. Crackle! The hairs on the lower part of my leg were singed and a pleasant smell of singed hair went up all around me, but to my skin the flame was cool–actually cool. This gave me great courage, and I calmly completed my walk, strolling slowly and calmly right down the center of the road. Three more steps brought me to the end, and the hands of several Yamabushi helped me off. I went back to our seats, and the two ladies in our group were gasping at what I had done. I went out to one of the water tubs to wash my feet and get into my socks and shoes- -and it was only when I was putting on my right shoe that I noticed that the swelling in my ankle had gone down {The day might come when we see healers at work with sports personnel.}: all the pain had disappeared too. Around the remains of the fire in the center of the area a lot of little old women were standing who had gone over the fire, holding their hands out to the burning cinders and then rubbing their poor, aching backs–dear souls. It had certainly been a great and wonderful event. The courteous gentleman was greatly pleased that I had participated and invited us all to come back someday. We gathered our things and presently strolled away.

{The notes say he was told a month later that the layout of the fire had much to do with why the smoke behaved as it did. The authors ask a good question. Why make believe it was magic and not tell people? This is the way of power and manipulation but the fire work they did was already most impressive, so one might allow they simply thought the smoke was a part of the ritual and not the real point anyway.}

Two days later Joseph wrote to Jean about the event: ‘When you come to Tokyo I’ll show you three cute little fire holes in the suit, which I shall wear henceforth with secret knowledge.–The next day (22nd) I walked some eight or ten miles at Nara and Horinji–and the ankle is still good.’

Shortly after Jean had received her letter, she got a phone call from Aldous Huxley, who wanted to speak to Joseph. Jean, still full of the excitement of the account, told Huxley the whole story, how Joe was in Japan and had just firewalked. Huxley became excited and told his friend Gerald Heard, also interested in magic and the paranormal, who later contacted Campbell to get his firsthand account of the experience.

Campbell later learned that Fu-do Myo-o, the name of the patron deity of the temple where he had seen the ‘Ceremony, means ‘very still, even in fire,’ Sometimes the god is depicted as a red figure sitting in a fire, with one eye open and one eye closed, like the Norse deity Odin. Japan had already shown Campbell its artful surfaces, now she showed her mythic depths.” (12)

What a bunch of weirdos believing in such trash! No wonder Huxley and Campbell are the epitome of the New Age that wishes to get back to what Australian aboriginal adepthoods or nature-worshippers allover the world remind us is our true roots. Here in places where no journalists or empire builders have polluted the human environment we find talent and discipline that took hundreds of thousands of years to refine and yet science today has no explanation.

Does the consciousness within the atoms of the body choose to be there? Bucky Fuller writes that the finely crafted wood in an artisan’s sculpture or furniture is there because it chooses this in some manner that involves us or our design leader the soul. The ability of these atomic level consciousnesses to be worked with in the case of the healing fire is greater than most firewalkers and indicates a cross matter communication. It is one thing for affinity to exist in the muons separated at the old Inco nickel mines in Sudbury, to communicate. When one is energized, the other moves; it was reported in the last year or so. It is another level entirely when these atomic and conscious forces do so almost independently with other bodies and kinds of matter they have no apparent innate similarity to. As in the case of de-materialization the atoms of the body are released from the intellectual and other bonds we place upon them through whatever holds us and keeps us from knowing the beauty of the next realms; or what we are part of (in the multi-dimensional soul, or as reported in past lives). If we really try to find explanations they are there! The conscious specialness humanity carved out for itself through ego and ignorance is not so great as those materially focused people would like it to be; and that begs the quest- ion of the great bard himself! ‘To be or not, to be?’ And where you place the punctuation allows a lot of different points of view in this question especially when you place the concept of righteousness after the last word by saying ‘To be or not to be, Divine?’

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