Holy Week Services

Calendar for Holy Week Events
St. Sophia's Parish
Jersey City NJ

*** because the AGC follows the Eastern calendar, this year Easter will fall one week later than the Roman Catholic calendar.


Palm Sunday, April 12
Mass 4 pm with blessing of palms

Monday, April 13
7pm Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts and Blessing of Oil 7pm

Tuesday, April 14
7pm Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

Wednesday, April 15
7pm Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

Thursday, April 16
7pm Divine Liturgy of the Last Supper

Friday, April 17
7pm Vespers of Holy Friday

Saturday, April 18
7pm Vespers/The Lamentations

Sunday, April 19
4pm Divine Liturgy of the Resurrection


As always, Sunday Liturgy begins promptly at 4 pm, and lasts about an hour and a half, followed by food and good conversation.

Please consider bringing a snack or glass of wine if you can.

The other Holy Week Services will begin promptly at 7 pm and will last about one hour.

Please call (201) 793-8770 for directions or information.

The All Saints Accord

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation ..." - John F. Kennedy

“So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.” - Baha'u'llah

“To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.” - Charles de Montesquieu



The All Saints Accord

Recognizing the true face of Gnosis in the brothers and sisters of each of our Church communities and acknowledging our common heritage in the One Apostolic Succession through which the Master has promised to be present to his Church until the end of time, we the undersigned Bishops of the Gnostic Church in its myriad forms, do affirm and commit to uphold the following principles:

1. The right to open participation and veneration of the Sacred and Divine in its traditional and contemporary forms irrespective of social status, organizational affiliation, gender, sexual orientation and creed.

2. The common bond shared by all active Apostolic Gnostic Churches in liturgical ministry through the agency of the one Apostolic Succession and thereby the validity and value of the Sacramental and Liturgical ministry maintained by those same active Apostolic Gnostic Churches when conducted in an ethical and upright manner.

3. The invitation to all members of the Gnostic Church, and indeed all spiritually minded people, to partake of our communities, free of all obligation but Respect and Charity.

Bishop +Anthony Angelo
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica Hermetica

Bishop Dr. +William Behun
Apostolic Johannite Church

Bishop +Gerald del Campo
Thelemic Gnostic Church of Alexandria

Bishop +Kenneth J. Canterbury
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica Hermetica

Bishop +John Gilbert
Universal Gnostic Church

Bishop +Allen Greenfield
Assembly of the Knowledge and Wisdom of Solomon

Bishop Dr. +Lewis Keizer,
The Home Temple

Bishop +Thomas Langley
The Alexandrian Gnostic Church

Bishop +Valdiveso Paschal Matthews,
Oriental Apostolic Church of Damcar and the Ecclesia Gnostica Joanita

Bishop +Shaun McCann
Apostolic Johannite Church

Bishop +Rosamonde Miller
Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum

Bishop +Christine Payne-Towler
Gnostic Church of Mary Magdalene

see also:

http://egina2.blogspot.com/2006/11/all-saints-accord.html

http://church-of-damcar.org/index.php?page_id=7

http://blog.thomaslangley.net/2009/01/all-saints-accord.html

http://egina2.blogspot.com/2006/11/bishop-rosamonde-millers-response-to.html

http://egina2.blogspot.com/2006/11/bishop-rosamonde-millers-response-to.html

No Tax Exemption for Hate!

Schedule of Upcoming Activities:

Schedule of Upcoming Activities:

Divine Liturgy:

Sunday, October 19 - Holy Templars - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, October 26 - St. James the Just - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, November 2 - All Saints/Day of the Dead - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, November 9 - Plato - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, November 16 - No liturgy

Sunday, November 23 - All Gnostic Saints - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, November 30 - First Sunday of Advent - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, December 7 - Second Sunday of Advent, - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, December 14 - Third Sunday of Advent, Our Lady of Guadalupe - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, December 21 - Fourth Sunday of Advent, Archangel Raphael - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Wednesday, December 24 - Christmas Vigil and Liturgy- Mass begins at 6 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Sunday, December 28 - Feast of St. John - Mass begins at 4 pm at our *Jersey City location.

Other Events:

Reiki I & II - I will be offering both classes this fall/winter, probably on Saturdays. Each class will take pretty much a full day (about 8 hours). Reiki I includes: the History of Reiki, The Five Principles of Reiki, Explanation of the method / structure by which Reiki is taught, hand positions, and the Reiki I attunements (total of 4). Reiki II (Reiki Practitioner) opens additional energy centers and connects you to a greater 'volume' of Reiki Energy. The class includes: Reiki Symbols, distant healing techniques, and Reiki 2 attunements. The requested donation for each class is $100. Please email reiki@alexandriangnostic if you are interested.

Introduction to Nepsis, the Science of Self Transformation - date and time to be announced

Gnostic Mass this weekend

Greetings All:

This is a reminder that our next liturgy will be Sunday, October 19 starting at 4 pm at our Jersey City location. We will be commemorating the Feast Day of the Holy Templars (actual date is October 13).

The Liturgy of Divine Wisdom will begin Sunday promptly at 4 pm, and will include a special commemoration of Jacques DeMolay and all of the Templars. Following the liturgy (which lasts about and hour and a half), we'll spend some time in fun and fellowship, so bring a friend and a snack or bottle of wine if you'd like.

Email bishopthomas@alexandriangnostic.org for information and directions.

Light and Life,
Tau Thomas

Battle in Seattle: the Move Trailer

http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com/

Repost: "I'm a Gnostic! What do I do now?"

Jeremy over at Fantastic Planet addresses an important question: "I'm a Gnostic! What do I do now?" and I thought I'd take a stab at adding my own Do's and Don'ts:

Do:

1) Read Valis, the Transmigration of Timothy Archer, and the Divine Invasion. Valis in particular is a book that you'll want to return to again and again.

2) Join the discussion at the Palm Tree Garden. Spend some time just reading. There's a handful of folks there who have been at this a while, so listen a little bit before you get up on your soapbox. At the same time, don't hesitate to ask questions.

3) Try to find a real life community to interract with. The internet has some great resources, but discussion groups are not koinonia. There are a few churches around with actual parishes. The Alexandrian Gnostic Church has a parish in the NY/NJ area, and a couple of others forming soon. The Church of Gnosis, the Ecclesia Gnostica, and the Apostolic Johannite Church , among others all have real live gnostic parishes you can check out. ( a full list can be found on the Palm Tree Garden site -- some of the churches listed have parishes or local groups, others just have a web site or Yahoo group--try to find a community that has a real group that meets in a physical location)

4) Do something. And do it every day. Whether it's ritual magick, yoga, centering prayer, dynamic meditation, etc., find a practice and do it every day. Your practice may change over time, but building a daily practice right now has more value than you realize. If you don't know what to do right now, check out the Prayer of the Heart as a daily practice.

5) Learn about the different expressions of Gnosticism today. There are quite a few different approaches - read Varieties of Modern Gnosticism for an introduction.

6) Get a copy of the Nag Hammadi library and other Gnostic readings. Establish a regular lectio divina. If you can't find or afford a copy, the texts are online at the Gnosis Archive and at the Gnostic Center, but a hard copy is best--check Amazon.com for used copies.

7) Realize that you have just begun. This is a first step, an initial question. Yes, you are not in Kansas anymore, but you haven't reached the Emerald City yet. Be nice to the munchkins, listen carefully to the Good Witch, and find some friends for the journey--and watch out for the flying monkeys.

8) Continue to read --and not just Gnosticky religious stuff--General Semantics, Zen, Wilhelm Reich, Freud, Jung, comparative religion, etc.

9) Start keeping a journal. Record your daily practice, even if you don't think there's anything to write about.

Don't:

1) Get caught up in organizational nonsense. Schisms, arguments over legitimacy, debates about who "really is" gnostic, don't really mean much in the end--they're just fodder for the ego. Stay away from people who are caught up in this kind of nonsense. Find a group and tradition, stick with it, and be charitable to all on the Path.

2) Believe anyone who says "I (or my church or group) have the authentic Gnostic tradition. Anyone who does things differently is not Gnostic and shouldn't be allowed to call themselves such." Gnosis and Gnosticism are not the exclusive trademarked property of any organization.

3) Get up and start proclaiming your Gnosis as The Divine Revelation. Sure, you may have had an experience with the Divine. Now, sit down with some of the rest of the people on the path and listen to what they've learned. They can teach you how to integrate what you've experienced, how to use it as a spur for further growth, and how to give it context. They can also keep you from becoming a total asshole. Too many people have a Gnostic experience and immediately want to proclaim themselves as the New Prophet. You are not the New Prophet. Say it with me: "I am not the New Prophet."

4) Pay much attention to folks who issue "do's and don'ts." Madly pursue the presence of God, and let everything else flow naturally from that.

See also:
Jordan Stratford's Do's and Don'ts
Jeremy Puma's Do's and Don'ts from Fantastic Planet
Sparkwidget's Do's and Don'ts from Homoplasmate

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jeremy's list from Fantastic Planet:

“I’m a Gnostic! What Do I Do Now?”

Do:

1. Procure, and study, a hard-copy of the bulk of the Gnostic scriptures. I recommend Bentley Layton’s The Gnostic Scriptures, which contains just the right amount of historical background and excellent translations of nearly all of the most important texts.
2. Visit the Gnostic Directory at the Palm Tree Garden and see if there are any Gnostic organizations in your area, with whom you can commune.
3. Explore! Join the Palm Tree Garden forum, read through the plethora of Gnostic weblogs (the Logosphere).
4. Develop a context for practice. This could be participation in sacramental service, or it could be individual contemplative practice, but there should be some kind of action to acompany the theory.
5. Maintain a healthy sense of humor.
6. Consider the meaning and application of four virtues: inquiry, compassion, humility and service.
7. Be creative! Blog, journal, draw, paint, write. Publish your rambling manifesto about the nature of reality! Sure, it won’t ever be complete, but the very act of sorting through such things is a cornerstone of Gnosticism.
8. Try to achieve gnosis. Or, if you believe you have had the experience, try do decide what it means to you. This is what it’s all about; anything else is just a pretty flower made of frosting that looks nice but only serves to decorate the cake.

Don’t:

1. … feel obligated to make any immediate decisions. Gnosis can unfold slowly, and major decisions should not be taken lightly. It’s perfectly fine to “shop around,” change your mind, learn and grow.
2. … agree with anyone 100%. It’s perfectly okay to disagree with fellow Gnostics, and there’s not a single person or organization out there that holds the copyright on Gnosticism.
3. … move, if you don’t want to move. It’s all well and good to want to be close to a Gnostic organization, but it’s even better to start your own study circle. Rather than uprooting and relocating for the purpose of finding a Gnostic community, it’s best to sow seeds of your own.
4. … slam anyone, be they “orthodox” or fundamentalist or even a different flavor of Gnostic. It’s okay to question other peoples’ belief systems, but remember that we can never know just who has experienced gnosis, so slamming individuals for what they believe is counterproductive.
5. … ever stop asking questions. The act of inquiry defines the Seeker. The most important question is, “So?”

O Dambala, come Dambala

I Am Hussein

from http://wesleying.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-am-hussein.html:


Dedicated Obama supporters are adopting "Hussein" as an informal middle name in attempts to defuse the ridiculous negative energy around Barack Obama's middle name:

“I am sick of Republicans pronouncing Barack Obama’s name like it was some sort of cuss word,” Jeff Strabone wrote in a manifesto titled “We Are All Hussein” that he posted on dailykos.com.

...“My name is such a vanilla, white-girl American name,” said Ashley Holmes of Indianapolis, who changed her name online “to show how little meaning ‘Hussein’ really has.” The movement is hardly a mass one, and it has taken place mostly online.

...In interviews, several Obama supporters said they dreamed up the idea on their own, with no input from the campaign and little knowledge that others shared their thought. Some said they were inspired by movies, including “Spartacus,” the 1960 epic about a Roman slave whose peers protect him by calling out “I am Spartacus!” to Roman soldiers, and “In and Out,” a 1997 comedy about a gay high school teacher whose students protest his firing by proclaiming that they are all gay as well.

...Some Obama supporters say they were moved to action because of what their own friends, neighbors and relatives were saying about their candidate. Mark Elrod, a political science professor at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is organizing students and friends to declare their Husseinhood on Facebook on Aug. 4, Mr. Obama’s birthday.

Incidentally, Hussein is an Arabic name "from the Semitic word hasan, meaning 'good' or 'handsome.' Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form."

Some of the larger related Facebook groups, if Hussein solidarity sounds appealing:- Hussein: A New Spelling of My Name
- My new middle name is Hussein!
- middle names are not political issues.

NYTimes: Obama Supporters Take His Middle Name as Their Own
Salon: Obama Should Be Proud to Be Named Hussein

The Semantics of God

THE SEMANTICS OF GOD by Robert Anton Wilson (1959)


Original

The Vatican vs. Women

Dr. April DeConick has an excellent post written in response to the Vatican's excommunication of women priests:

Consider this. We can't allow women to be priests because Jesus only selected men as his apostles. How silly is this? Let's move to another issue. What about race, age, and religion? Are men who are Asian, African-American, or Native American denied priesthood on the basis that Jesus only selected "caucasian" Middle Eastern men as his apostles? full post here

Intermediate Methods

from Archonoclast:

A problem that exists in most western religions and even some western esoteric spiritual paths is a lack of clear intermediate teachings. What I mean by this is that the problem of human condition is usually articulated clearly in terms of ignorance, sinfulness, or both. A state of perfected nature is also articulated: salvation, perfect moral behavior, etc. The problem is that there is often little or nothing showing how to get from the base to the fruit. read full post here

A New Reformation

from Fr. Matthew Fox:

Like Luther, I present 95 theses or in my case, 95 faith observations drawn from my 64 years of living and practicing religion and spirituality. I trust I am not alone in recognizing these truths. For me they represent a return to our origins, a return to the spirit and the teaching of Jesus and his prophetic ancestors, and of the Christ which was a spirit that Jesus’ presence and teaching unleashed.

1. God is both Mother and Father.
2. At this time in history, God is more Mother than Father because the feminine is most missing and it is important to bring gender balance back.
3. God is always new, always young and always “in the beginning.”
4. God the Punitive Father is not a God worth honoring but a false god and an idol that serves empire-builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead who is as much female and motherly as it is masculine and fatherly.
5. “All the names we give to God come from an understanding of ourselves.” (Eckhart) Thus people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive.
6. Theism (the idea that God is ‘out there’ or above and beyond the universe) is false. All things are in God and God is in all things (panentheism).
7. Everyone is born a mystic and a lover who experiences the unity of things and all are called to keep this mystic or lover of life alive.
8. All are called to be prophets which is to interfere with injustice.
9. Wisdom is Love of Life (See the Book of Wisdom: “This is wisdom: to love life” and Christ in John’s Gospel: “I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.”)
10. God loves all of creation and science can help us more deeply penetrate and appreciate the mysteries and wisdom of God in creation. Science is no enemy of true religion.
11. Religion is not necessary but spirituality is.
12. “Jesus does not call us to a new religion but to life.” (Bonhoeffer) Spirituality is living life at a depth of newness and gratitude, courage and creativity, trust and letting go, compassion and justice.
13. Spirituality and religion are not the same thing any more than education and learning, law and justice, or commerce and stewardship are the same thing.
14. Christians must distinguish between God (masculine and history, liberation and salvation) and Godhead (feminine and mystery, being and non-action).
15. Christians must distinguish between Jesus (an historical figure) and Christ (the experience of God-in-all-things).
16. Christians must distinguish between Jesus and Paul.
17. Jesus, not unlike many spiritual teachers, taught us that we are sons and daughters of God and are to act accordingly by becoming instruments of divine compassion.
18. Ecojustice is a necessity for planetary survival and human ethics and without it we are crucifying the Christ all over again in the form of destruction of forests, waters, species, air and soil.
19. Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.
20. A preferential option for the poor, as found in the base community movement, is far closer to the teaching and spirit of Jesus than is a preferential option for the rich and powerful as found in, for example, Opus Dei.
21. Economic Justice requires the work of creativity to birth a system of economics that is global, respectful of the health and wealth of the earth systems and that works for all
22. Celebration and worship are key to human community and survival and such reminders of joy deserve new forms that speak in the language of the twenty-first century.
23. Sexuality is a sacred act and a spiritual experience, a theophany (revelation of the Divine), a mystical experience. It is holy and deserves to be honored as such.
24. Creativity is both humanity’s greatest gift and its most powerful weapon for evil and so it ought to be both encouraged and steered to humanity’s most God-like activity which all religions agree is: Compassion.
25. There is a priesthood of all workers (all who are doing good work are midwives of grace and therefore priests) and this priesthood ought to be honored as sacred and workers should be instructed in spirituality in order to carry on their ministry effectively.
26. Empire-building is incompatible with Jesus’ life and teaching and with Paul’s life and teaching and with the teaching of holy religions.
27. Ideology is not theology and ideology endangers the faith because it replaces thinking with obedience, and distracts from the responsibility of theology to adapt the wisdom of the past to today’s needs. Instead of theology it demands loyalty oaths to the past.
28. Loyalty is not a sufficient criterion for ecclesiastic office—intelligence and proven conscience is.
29. No matter how much the television media fawn over the pope and papacy because it makes good theater, the pope is not the church but has a ministry within the church. Papalolotry is a contemporary form of idolatry and must be resisted by all believers.
30. Creating a church of Sycophants is not a holy thing. Sycophants (Webster’s dictionary defines them as “servile self-seeking flatterers”) are not spiritual people for their only virtue is obedience. A Society of Sycophants — sycophant clergy, sycophant seminarians, sycophant bishops, sycophant cardinals, sycophant religious orders of Opus Dei, Legioneers of Christ and Communion and Liberation, and the sycophant press--do not represent in any way the teachings or the person of the historical Jesus who chose to stand up to power rather than amassing it.
31. Vows of pontifical secrecy are a certain way to corruption and cover-up in the church as in any human organization.
32. Original sin is an ultimate expression of a punitive father God and is not a Biblical teaching. But original blessing (goodness and grace) is biblical.
33. The term “original wound” better describes the separation humans experience on leaving the womb and entering the world, a world that is often unjust and unwelcoming than does the term “original sin.”
34. Fascism and the compulsion to control is not the path of peace or compassion and those who practice fascism are not fitting models for sainthood. The seizing of the apparatus of canonization to canonize fascists is a stain on the church.
35. The Spirit of Jesus and other prophets calls people to simple life styles in order that “the people may live.”
36. Dancing, whose root meaning in many indigenous cultures is the same as breath or spirit, is a very ancient and appropriate form in which to pray.
37. To honor the ancestors and celebrate the communion of saints does not mean putting heroes on pedestals but rather honoring them by living out lives of imagination, courage and compassion in our own time, culture and historical moment as they did in theirs.
38. A diversity of interpretation of the Jesus event and the Christ experience is altogether expected and welcomed as it was in the earliest days of the church.
39. Therefore unity of church does not mean conformity. There is unity in diversity. Coerced unity is not unity.
40. The Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of working through participatory democracy in church structures and hierarchical modes of being can indeed interfere with the work of the Spirit.
41. The body is an awe-filled sacred Temple of God and this does not mean it is untouchable but rather that all its dimensions, well named by the seven charkas, are as holy as the others.
42. Thus our connection with the earth (first chakra) is holy; and our sexuality (second chakra) is holy; and our moral outrage (third chakra) is holy; and our love that stands up to fear (fourth chakra) is holy; and our prophetic voice that speaks out is holy (fifth chakra); and our intuition and intelligence (sixth chakra) are holy; and our gifts we extend to the community of light beings and ancestors (seventh chakra) are holy.
43. The prejudice of rationalism and left-brain located in the head must be balanced by attention to the lower charkas as equal places for wisdom and truth and Spirit to act.
44. The central chakra, compassion, is the test of the health of all the others which are meant to serve it for “by their fruits you will know them” (Jesus).
45. “Joy is the human’s noblest act.” (Aquinas) Is our culture and its professions, education and religion, promoting joy?
46. The human psyche is made for the cosmos and will not be satisfied until the two are re-united and awe, the beginning of wisdom, results from this reunion.
47. The four paths named in the creation spiritual tradition more fully name the mystical/prophetic spiritual journey of Jesus and the Jewish tradition than do the three paths of purgation, illumination and union which do not derive from the Jewish and Biblical tradition.
48. Thus it can be said that God is experienced in experiences of ecstasy, joy, wonder and delight (via positiva).
49. God is experienced in darkness, chaos, nothingness, suffering, silence and in learning to let go and let be (via negativa).
50. God is experienced in acts of creativity and co-creation (via creativa).
51. All people are born creative. It is spirituality’s task to encourage holy imagination for all are born in the “image and likeness” of the Creative One and “the fierce power of imagination is a gift from God.” (Kaballah)
52. If you can talk you can sing; if you can walk you can dance; if you can talk you are an artist. (African proverb and Native American saying)
53. God is experienced in our struggle for justice, healing, compassion and celebration (via transformativa).
54. The Holy Spirit works through all cultures and all spiritual traditions and blows “where it wills” and is not the exclusive domain of any one tradition and never has been.
55. God speaks today as in the past through all religions and all cultures and all faith traditions none of which is perfect and an exclusive avenue to truth but all of which can learn from each other.
56. Therefore Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism are a necessary part of spiritual praxis and awareness in our time.
57. Since the “number one obstacle to interfaith is a bad relationship with one’s own faith,” (the Dalai Lama) it is important that Christians know their own mystical and prophetic tradition, one that is larger than a religion of empire and its punitive father images of God.
58. The cosmos is God’s holy Temple and our holy home.
59. Fourteen billion years of evolution and unfolding of the universe bespeak the intimate sacredness of all that is.
60. All that is is holy and all that is is related for all being in our universe began as one being just before the fireball erupted.
61. Interconnectivity is not only a law of physics and of nature but also forms the basis of community and of compassion. Compassion is the working out of our shared interconnectivity both as to our shared joy and our shared suffering and struggle for justice.
62. The universe does not suffer from a shortage of grace and no religious institution is to see its task as rationing grace. Grace is abundant in God’s universe.
63. Creation, Incarnation and Resurrection are continuously happening on a cosmic as well as a personal scale. So too are Life, Death and Resurrection (regeneration and reincarnation) happening on a cosmic scale as well as a personal one.
64. Biophilia or Love of Life is everyone’s daily task.
65. Necrophilia or love of death is to be opposed in self and society in all its forms.
66. Evil can happen through every people, every nation, every tribe, and every individual human and so vigilance and self-criticism and institutional criticism are always called for.
67. Not all who call themselves “Christian” deserve that name just as “not all who say ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Jesus).
68. Pedophilia is a terrible wrong but its cover-up by hierarchy is even more despicable.
69. Loyalty and obedience are never a greater virtue than conscience and justice.
70. Jesus said nothing about condoms, birth control or homosexuality.
71. A church that is more preoccupied with sexual wrongs than with wrongs of injustice is itself sick.
72. Since homosexuality is found among 464 species and in 8 percent of any given human population, it is altogether natural for those who are born that way and is a gift from God and nature to the greater community.
73. Homophobia in any form is a serious sin against love of neighbor, a sin of ignorance of the richness and diversity of God’s creation as well as a sin of exclusion.
74. Racism, Sexism and militarism are also serious sins.
75. Poverty for the many and luxury for the few is not right or sustainable.
76. Consumerism is today’s version of gluttony and needs to be confronted by creating an economic system that works for all peoples and all earth’s creatures.
77. Seminaries as we know them, with their excessive emphasis on left-brain work, often kill and corrupt the mystical soul of the young instead of encouraging the mysticism and prophetic consciousness that is there. They should be replaced by wisdom schools.
78. Inner work is required of us all. Therefore spiritual practices of meditation should be available to all and this helps in calming the reptilian brain. Silence or contemplation and learning to be still can and ought to be taught to all children and adults.
79. Outer work needs to flow from our inner work just as action flows from non-action and true action from being.
80. A wise test of right action is this: What is the effect of this action on people seven generations from today?
81. Another test of right action is this: Is what I am doing, is what we are doing, beautiful or not?
82. Eros, the passion for living, is a virtue that combats acedia or the lack of energy to begin new things and is also expressed as depression, cynicism or sloth (also known as “couchpotatoitis”).
83. The Dark Night of the Soul descends on us all and the proper response is not addiction such as shopping, alcohol, drugs, TV, sex or religion but rather to be with the darkness and learn from it.
84. The Dark Night of the Soul is a learning place of great depth. Stillness is required.
85. Not only is there a Dark Night of the Soul but also a Dark Night of Society and a Dark Night of our Species.
86. Chaos is a friend and a teacher and an integral part or prelude to new birth. Therefore it is not to be feared or compulsively controlled.
87. Authentic science can and must be one of humanity’s sources of wisdom for it is a source of sacred awe, of childlike wonder, and of truth.
88. When science teaches that matter is “frozen light” (physicist David Bohm) it is freeing human thought from scapegoating flesh as something evil and instead reassuring us that all things are light. This same teaching is found in the Christian Gospels (Christ is the light in all things) and in Buddhist teaching (the Buddha nature is in all things). Therefore, flesh does not sin; it is our choices that are sometimes off center.
89. The proper objects of the human heart are truth and justice (Aquinas) and all people have a right to these through healthy education and healthy government.
90. "God” is only one name for the Divine One and there are an infinite number of names for God and Godhead and still God “has no name and will never be given a name.” (Eckhart)
91. Three highways into the heart are silence and love and grief.
92. The grief in the human heart needs to be attended to by rituals and practices that, when practiced, will lessen anger and allow creativity to flow anew.
93. Two highways out of the heart are creativity and acts of justice and compassion.
94. Since angels learn exclusively by intuition, when we develop our powers of intuition we can expect to meet angels along the way.
95. True intelligence includes feeling, sensitivity, beauty, the gift of nourishment and humor which is a gift of the Spirit, paradox, being its sister.

"Do you want to know if your Christianity is genuine? Here is the touchstone: Whom do you get along with? Who are those who criticize you? who are those who do not accept you? Who are those who
flatter you?"


"Before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill! No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God."

- Oscar Romero

McCain's Favorite Evangelist Justifies Holocaust - Says Hitler Did God's Work

from Queerty:

John McCain’s got another John Hagee headache on his hands.

Hagee, whose endorsement McCain fought for, has previously made comments against gays and called Catholicism “the great whore.” The latest dust-up comes with relation to a late 1990s sermon in which Hagee claimed Hitler was doing God’s work. The remarks, of course, will have Jewish voters - and others - up in arms.

Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said ‘I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.’ So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

“Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says — Jeremiah writing — ‘They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,’ meaning there’s no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don’t let your heart be offended. I didn’t write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth.

Way to pass that buck, John!

Initiation

"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."

The Problem with Rev. Wright ... There are Too Few Like Him

from Counterpunch:

Sabotage, Division or Sedition

The Problem with Rev. Wright ... There are Too Few Like Him

By BROTHER BEDE VINCENT

Now is the winter of our discontent?
made glorious summer by this son of York;?
And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our house?
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

-- Richard III

After his sermon at the National Press Club in April, there was renewed uproar in my parish about Rev. Wright, based on the belief, asserted no doubt in many other circles, that Jeremiah Wright was now egotistically, upstaging his former parishioner. Reverend Wright was accused of selfishly chasing the media so as to effectively sabotage Senator Obama’s candidacy. There was Obama working like the sorcerer’s apprentice to get the Democratic nomination -- remember Mickey Mouse in the Disney version -- and his Christian broom had taken on a life of its own. Much to the chagrin of Obama and his supporters that attempt to counter the Muslim associations of his name by actively embracing his Christian church has now turned into a media challenge to put down that very Christian pastor who according to Obama actually drew him into the Church.

The attack on Obama, using Wright’s outspokenness, did not originate with his statements to Bill Moyer or the National Press Club. For decades US Americans have been conditioned to believe that one third -- and in some parts of the US one half -- of the population constitute a “special interest” because of their skin colour. This has perverted the country’s political culture -- just like the 19th century Supreme Court decision granting corporations more civil rights than ex-slaves. Rev. Wright probably would not have drawn much attention in the first place had the Right not thought his old sermons would be good ammunition against Senator Obama. He was thrust into the limelight by the campaign -- not the other way around. Reverend Wright was correct to see and say that the attack on him and indirectly the challenge to Obama was not even an ad hominem but an attack on the Black Church and on African-American culture itself. In short it was an attack on the validity of the prophetic voice of the central African-American religious experience in a country which itself has no political culture divorced from the Church. In a secular society like some in Europe this would be relatively unimportant. However in a country whose entire socio-political culture is church driven, to attack the validity of the Black Church (by no means a monolith) is even viler than to attack the polling stations. No white candidate would have been forced to distance himself from the obnoxious pronouncements of New York’s John Cardinal O’Connor in order to establish his right to candidacy. Even when the US elected its first Catholic president, there was no serious talk of Kennedy renouncing Cardinal Cushing.

With all respect to Obama's Philadelphia speech in March -- truly an excellent piece of oratory -- the senator from Illinois is responsible for at least two serious weaknesses which had nothing to do with Wright -- his soft-jingoism in aligning himself with Israel and disregarding the truly catastrophic consequences of US policy both for Palestine and for Muslims everywhere -- and his failure to address the fact that the majority of people who are going to war for the US are the poor, a substantial number of whom are Black Americans. The same was true of the military in Reverend Wright’s days, forty years ago, when US soldiers were being recruited to kill "dinks“ instead of "rag-heads“. These poor are being made even poorer by the wars the US has been fighting for decades against what used to be the Third World (and is now merely the lower half of an increasingly polarised economic system).

You just have to look at the current on-line recruiting material of the US Army today to see that the US armed forces still fill most of the enlisted ranks with people who are simply glad the military gave them a job or an education -- an indication of just how difficult it still is to get either in civilian life if one is not deemed white and/ or rich. It ought to be a disgrace when a man or woman has to become a trained killer in order to enjoy a monthly salary and a college education. A presidential candidate who cannot or will not make the connection between the suffering in Iraq (or elsewhere) and the portion of the population, who only have the military as an employment option, is irresponsible. If he cannot say that because his campaign strategy prohibits it, then he should have the courage to leave those who do not run for president to say what needs to be said.

Now even black nationalism has been resurrected as a straw man to blame Wright’s vocal and independent criticism of yes -- the rich, white male rulers of the US -- for being "racially closed-ended and culturally closed-ended“. Wright’s polemic must be like a nightmare for those who currently run the US government since nearly all the top jobs of the Bush regime have been held by people who were starting their careers when King and Malcolm were assassinated. Their attempts to discredit Obama using Wright rely on pervasive media-maintained amnesia. In Philadelphia, Obama tried to cast another spell which would return his "broom“ to an inert state by associating Wright’s preaching with the experience of some prior angry generation: as if a disproportionate share of prison "chain gangs“ today were not comprised of African-Americans, like in those bad old days. Was Obama saying that Black Americans today do not have a right to be angry? By accusing Wright of sowing division, he was calling for a return not to the spirit of Martin Luther King but to the Booker T. Washington tradition.

It is not black liberation theology or Black Nationalism that causes division in the US, but rich, white minority and corporate rule. Even Martin Luther King found that just before he was murdered there was a point at which Christian faith required speaking the truth and not only talking about justice but naming the sources of injustice. People cannot fight "injustice", they have to fight those whose actions cause or maintain it (not mythical terrorists or Sadam Hussein but, the upper 10 percent of the US that controls most of the country’s wealth). King was shredded for his Riverside Church sermon, esp. by his middle-class supporters. Soon after that he was dead. Reverend Wright preached the sermon that should have reminded Americans of Oscar Romero, the Catholic archbishop of Salvador murdered in 1980 by people supported by the US government, of US religious throughout Latin America also murdered with the tacit consent of the US government in the name of their “peculiar institutions.” Reverend Wright’s sermons should have reminded even Senator Obama that god did not anoint the US as the divine wielders of lethal nuclear force.

However to talk today requires a different and perhaps deeper courage when confronted with so many mirages of equality. It is tempting to be confused by these oases of opportunity and forget the desert of inequality through which most people are still struggling.

For nearly thirty years now the US has had open season on Black Americans in the media -- whether talk radio (most of it Right wing) or the decisions of courts and legislatures throughout the country, not to mention the executive. There was no righteous indignation and still is none when whites malign the other half of the Mayflower and Jamestown heritage. If the blood count for „negroes“ had the same validity as the pedigree of the Mayflower and DAR descendants, then most African Americans would be colonial bluebloods in the US. But instead whites were imported with greater intensity after the US civil war to neutralise the impact of slavery’s abolition. (Apartheid South Africa was less successful with this strategy.) These immigrants from Europe were given "letters patent" while African-Americans were still being lynched.

In a year which may make the difference between potential peace or another decade of war, a candidate who does not have the knowledge of US history to campaign for justice in your country or the courage to withstand strong opinions, will have no chance -- even if elected -- in suppressing the demonic forces by which the military-industrial-financial complex dominates the US.

There is nothing flattering to say about the history of the US. On the other hand, that unpleasant odour when the US sits at the table of the united nations can only be ignored with the strongest perfume or the greatest mendacity. It strains the imagination to believe that a presidential candidate can spend a year campaigning for hope and at the same time not have the courage to speak with a passion for justice. Justice cannot come from ignorance. It behoves a polite and respectful host to ask his disagreeable guest to wash before dining with the rest of us. Or to put it another way, true humility before god means washing one’s feet before prayer. That means that a presidential candidate for justice has to educate or if he cannot, then he should allow and encourage others who do.

There is no "Southern Strategy" for Obama to win over the whites who are not already on his side. He has to hope for a fair election (and after two fraudulent presidential elections that will take a lot of hope.) Obama has to deliver not only an end to the trillion dollar war but a way of putting that trillion back into the living conditions of over half of the US population from which it has been robbed and which is getting poorer every day.

This is a dangerous road to follow. King and Malcolm were run off that road. But the lesson is not that somehow public speech has to be toned to flatter rich whites and their corporations. People will have to start shouting very loud to be heard over the din of lies that appear in all the mass media everyday. Not only are Black Americans still getting poorer, there is going to be a steady stream of Black Americans coming back in uniform psychologically damaged if not destroyed who will find that just like King said they will have killed for a "freedom" abroad that eludes them at home -- to this very day.

If Obama is the great hope, then the African-American clergy and for that matter any other true patriots should be urging Obama to speak for justice and not only for hope. If people like Wright do not use their exposure to push the agenda of justice and Obama cannot, then who will? The demand for justice is divisive and culturally closed: it divides those who seek justice from the unjust. It rejects a culture that promotes individual or corporate profit at any cost.

Until white Americans have a practical, lived notion of justice, based on recognition of their country’s history of systemic injustice maintained to this day by those who rule the US, how will they ever get beyond the empty phrases of that pledge each school child is supposed to take? This means naming names. It is not so long in the history of the US that cars could be found with bumper stickers saying, “Kill an Indian, save a walleye”. Sins are not committed in the abstract and crimes are not theoretical. Jesus may have asked God to forgive his crucifiers because "they know not what they do“. However, "not knowing what they do“ is no excuse for the rest.

The problem with Reverend Jeremiah Wright is that there are too few like him who are speaking for justice and truth first -- instead of branding the truth sedition. Only when there has been truth and justice can there be reconciliation. Too many people want to take the short cut. They want African-Americans to reconcile themselves to a government, which does not represent them, actively disenfranchises them, destroys their homes (and whole cities if need be), imprisons their children and ships the rest off to war, and never ask why or who is responsible. This is the reconciliation „on the cheap“ -- cheap for white and corporate America that is. Reverend Wright offers Obama an opportunity, it is a shame he has declared himself unwilling to take it. That is not Wright's problem. That is America's problem. It is America that is the embarrassment not Wright -- who merely points out what the country still has not deigned to admit, let alone correct.

Brother Bede Vincent, a former teacher, educated in the US, Brazil and Europe, is working in a project the working title of which is "An Ecclesiastical History of the United States". He is affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Cultural Studies (www.maisonneuvepress.com) in College Park, MD and can be reached at bede@maisonneuvepress.com.

Aleister and Me

A great read from Ash93:

When I wrote my essay on Aleisterianism, I was motivated by the understanding that all spiritual systems are artificial (although they are meant to reflect the natural). They are constructed to help mediate the relationship between humans and reality, specifically in terms of meaning. There are of course many components to spiritual systems, including a desire for control, safety, love, power, and joy. But at the root, I believe, is the fundamental human need to be connected with something larger than or beyond the self, along with a sense of what such a connection means.

What I call Aleisterianism is a compilation of pre-existing spiritual concepts and practices that were meaningful to Aleister Crowley. They were mostly a collection of ideas gleaned from popular Victorian occult movements and eventually contextualized within the mythology Crowley constructed for himself. There was nothing especially unusual in what Crowley did; it was and remains a popular pastime with many spiritually-minded people who have strong personalities and a powerful imagination. However, few people will ever have the strength of personality that Crowley had, and his large body of works will ensure that the ideas he promoted and his mythology will live on.

My own relationship with Aleisterianism changed radically within the last three years or so. I lost interest in the hocus pocus, in the focus on Crowley the man, and in his personal philosophy. The trite master/slave mentality he promoted is especially offensive to me, both intellectually and morally. I also got tired of a system that was largely set up as oppositional—to Christianity, to society, even to basic human needs. In this way, Aleisterianism promotes rebelliousness; which is fine, of course, and can certainly be both fun and transformative, but rebelliousness is a largely an adolescent function. A fully mature system needs something more.

full post here


see also: Aleisterianism

In Defense of Rev. Jeremiah Wright

In Defense of Rev. Jeremiah Wright By Mel Reeves, Black Agenda Report Posted on April 9, 2008, Printed on April 29, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/81651/ I heard that great humanitarian Karl Rove criticizing Dr. Jeremiah Wright's sermon in which he talks about a black and poor Jesus being crucified by the Roman ruling class. He expressed outrage that Dr. Wright would say this. At that point it clarified for me why so many people had rushed to call Dr. Wright's words hateful and racist. The reverend had attacked all of America's sacred cows, including its civil religion, in which the idea of a black Jesus just doesn't fit. The theology of liberation is a direct challenge to the philosophy and tenets of American Civil Religion. Civil religion, to paraphrase the scholar Robert Bellah, is a public religious dimension that is expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals. Civil religion's philosophy is essentially racial and political, rather than universal or spiritual. It has its own symbols, its own codes, its own holidays and even its own morality. Bellah, in his essay "Civil Religion in America" points out that the adherents of the philosophy have, "an obligation, both collective and individual, to carry out God's will on earth. God's work will be our own." And therein lies our problem. One of the primary tenets of American civil religion is that the people who came from Europe were the new Israelites or, to be clear, the "Chosen People." These immigrants, like the Israelites of old, had made their "exodus" from Europe and were chosen to take over the "Promised Land." And like the Hebrews of the Old Testament, God had granted them the right to take over this land, by any means necessary. Some know it better as "Manifest Destiny," and according to its tenets and, of course, consistent with the Hebrew scriptures, they were compelled to take over the land of Canaan. Already inhabited, no problem, we are the chosen people, and the Indians, well, "not so much." What followed was the annihilation and dispossession of the Native Americans. The land that the new Israelites inhabited was hard and unwelcoming. So they reached across the waters and again their canon of scriptures aided them. Their black African brethren -- the descendents of Ham who had been biblically cursed (Genesis 9:25) and designated to be "the lowest of slaves to his brothers" -- were perfectly suited for the task. When they needed to buttress this flimsy justification for dehumanizing their fellow human beings, they used Joshua 9:23, which spoke of another curse of folks, unfavored by God, who were to be Israel's "hewers of wood and carriers of water." This is why the U.S. government's history of conquest and exploitation can be so easily explained away and there is so little national angst. It was blessed, sanctioned by the Almighty, a part of our destiny. Those others just got in our way and, besides, left to their own devices they would have done far worse. The Native Americans would have killed one another off anyway, and the Africans we kidnapped, would have knocked one another off eventually -- after all, look at them now. So we did them a favor by civilizing them. This kind of racist discourse is still considered acceptable in some circles. Signs of this religion are everywhere. All one has to do is look at your currency, every bill says, "In God We Trust." Every time you attend an event, the national anthem (the religion's hymn) is played, and you pledge allegiance to its symbol, the flag, and acknowledge "one nation under God." Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States, words in Latin proclaim, "God has favored our undertaking." It even has its own holidays, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. The beauty of civil religion is that it doesn't interfere with any specific religion, which is why conservative and right-leaning Christians have no problem with the doctrine. However, those who use a word other than God to address their Higher Power are looked upon with suspicion and enmity. Other significant features of the pantheon of civil religion are the philosophical tenets (sacred cows) that keep its adherents from peeping behind the throne. When Dr. Wright criticized the role of "rich white folks" or the ruling rich for making many of our lives and folks in the rest of the world miserable he challenged the long-held myth that "you can get rich if you work hard enough." Poor white folks and working-class white folks wanted badly to identify with the people who bear their skin color but who are really wealthy and run this country. They badly want to believe that they too can be rich and take their place in the front of the line and be exploiter rather than exploited, boss rather than bossed. Unfortunately, the Horatio Alger tale was a cruel exaggeration, and while a few actually rise above their class status, the rest are stuck. And while working-class whites may look like their richer cousins, the truth is, they are "their color but not their kind." While pointing out the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as touching on the U.S. failure to stand with the rest of the world against the former Apartheid South Africa, the pastor challenged the blind loyalty that birthed the phrase "my country right or wrong." And this government has been wrong quite a bit. Its military adventures dating back to the pickpocketing of Mexico to its intervention in the Philippines to its more recent plundering of Vietnam and its meddling in Latin American affairs, while deposing leaders it didn't like, were not ordained by God but were dictated by capital's need for new markets, expansion and accumulation. And today U.S. imperialism is wrongfully in Iraq and, yes, Afghanistan as well. And nearly always its victims have been people of color. Another sacred tenet states that "thou shalt not criticize Israel." And this is not because of a powerful Jewish lobby as many wrongfully interpret but because supporting the Israelis fits the needs and the desires of U.S. imperialism. The Palestinians are an oppressed people and deserve our sympathy and support as well as that of the rest of the world. Wright even challenged the notion that white life is more valuable than any other and challenged the idea of the sacredness of white womanhood. He took issue with the fact that night after night, the big business press trumpeted the continued search in Aruba for the then considered missing young Alabama girl, Natalie Holloway. What happened to young Holloway was indeed tragic. However, the constant trumpeting of her disappearance and the daily and almost hourly updates and attention paid to her was out of proportion. This was so, especially when one considers that the conflict in Darfur was going on, a war was being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a large part of the mostly colored Third World goes to bed hungry most nights and is being felled by preventable diseases and scourged by new ones such as AIDS. What can one conclude from this strange imbalance and preoccupation? I read several websites, blogs and news sites in which respondents repeatedly accused Wright of being racist because he said, "The government gives them (poor blacks) drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strikes, and you want them to sing 'God Bless America.'" Of course the song is another hymn in celebration of the civil religion, but the anger directed at him is a result of their unwillingness to believe that this government really does give blacks and especially poor blacks, the back of its hand. Ultimately what has some folks so up in arms is not that Dr. Wright was angry and seemingly hostile as many would have us believe but, rather, the implications of what he said. What Dr. Wright did more than anything was to challenge all the accepted illusions that allow citizens of all colors, sex and ethnicity to wrap themselves in a fake patriotism buttressed by a made-up religion, which prevents them from looking critically at their country and its policies. Mel Reeves is an activist based in Miami. He can be contacted at mellaneous19 at yahoo.com. © 2008 Black Agenda Report All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/81651/

50 shots - the murder of Sean Bell

Killer Cops Acquitted

Members of the NYPD who murdered Sean Bell on his wedding night were just acquitted of all charges. Once again, policemen and their family celebrate while another young black man is dead...

Peoples Justice is calling for everyone in the NYC area to come out to protest tonight:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JUSTICE FOR SEAN BELL AND ALL VICTIMS OF POLICE VIOLENCE!!

COME OUT APRIL 25^th THE DAY OF THE VERDICT!!

In Nov. 2006, Sean Bell was murdered by the NYPD in a hail of 50 bullets. His friends - Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman - were seriously injured. 3 of the officers involved now await the verdict of their trial. The judge has stated that he will announce the verdict on FRIDAY, APRIL 25th. PEOPLES JUSTICE for Community Control and Police Accountability is calling for a rally and community speak-out in front of the Queens DA's office ON THIS DAY*.

COME OUT: APRIL 25^th at 5:30 pm

@ the Queens DA's Office

125-01 Queens Blvd. (between Hoover Ave & 82nd Ave.)

E or F train to Union Turnpike

The NYPD's murder of Bell and attempted murders of Benefield and Guzman are NOT isolated or random events. They represent the continued targeting of communities of color by the police and the lack of accountability for police misconduct and abuse.

Endorsers (list in formation):

Audre Lorde Project	Black Radical Congress-NY
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities	Center for Constitutional Rights
Congress for Korean Reunification	Critical Resistance
Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)	DJ Chela
Domestic Workers United (DWU)	FIERCE
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)	Hasan Salaam
Hip Hop Caucus	Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project
International Action Center	Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ)
Justice Committee	Lynne Stewart Organization
Make The Road By Walking	Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Mano a Mano	May 1st Coalition
National Hip Hop Political Convention	New Abolitionists
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development	October 22nd Coalition
Parents Against Police Brutality	Rebel Diaz
Revolting in Pink (R.I.P)	Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities (RIPPD)
Sylvia Rivera Law Project	Sylvia Rivera Law Project
VAMOS Unidos	War Resisters League
Where We Live Radio Program/WBAI-FM NY

Hearing the Bible in Different Ways

from Kushana's Bible Question Page:

I would like to draw your attention to two recent radio interviews:

The first with James Cone:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89236116

(Read his book God of the Oppressed (978-1570751585). Drop everything and read it, even if nothing about it seems interesting to you. It is one of the best books on theology that I have read in the past 20 years.)

A second program where two scholars discuss Black Liberation Theology:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88744273

In the debates about Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks both those who seek to defend and condemn him seem to know little about the denomination that ordained him or the theological tradition he works from. full post

Starring You

The Tru-Man Show,
starring You

Truman Show

"You do not realize your own situation. You are in prison.
All you can wish for, if you are a sensible man, is to escape."
-G.I. Gurdjieff

The Brainsturbator Fractal Toolkit

“EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG.” That’s such a cliche it became a joke before I was even born. The good news is, I’m not here to sell you on mere paradigm change. (Although, if you’re looking for some, check out Hump Jones.) What I’m referring to here is Euclidian mathematics—flat surfaces, straight lines, and solid objects. I have no words to explain the rage I felt when I first got into fractal math and realized I’d been saddled with useless, outdated bullshit in high school. I’ve been working on correcting that ever since (and as anyone can see, failing more or less completely).

I’m not going to explain why everything you know is wrong. Too much work. Instead, I’ve compiled the single best collection of resources for fractal self-education that exists. I say that with total confidence because I’m psychotically arrogant—but also because I’ve spent a long time building up this collection and I haven’t seen anything better. Furthermore, anything online that comes close to this is already included here, so this list has eaten the competition, at least according to Set Theory: Brainsturbator contains them, yet they do not contain Brainsturbator.

>>>LINK

Self Observation

Man is a machine. All his actions, words, thoughts, feelings, opinions, and habits are the results of external influences, external impressions… It is possible to stop being a machine, but for that it is necessary first of all to know the machine.

– G. I. Gurdjieff

Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.

– G. I. Gurdjieff

Tibet: Who's for feudalism?

from the Guardian:

Easily the most popular cause at present for film stars, pop stars and what Greg Barns in the Hobart Mercury calls "celebrity politicians" is freedom for Tibet. The "freedom" they want would return Tibet to feudalism, to the system that prevailed before 1951.

The country would once again be ruled by the Dalai Lama, a prospect that the incumbents in both the White House and Downing Street would clearly welcome. And why not? For all their noise about fostering democracy, the leaders of the US and Britain have no difficulty cosying up to feudal autocrats in the Middle East or Asia or anywhere else such relics can be found.

Britain has been actively interfering in Tibet (and also in Afghanistan) since the 19th century, but stepped up its activities after the victory of the Revolution and the Chinese Red Army in 1949. Together with the US, Britain helped to provoke the flight of the Dalai Lama to India....

"In short, the CIA/NED directly bankrolls the apparatus that runs the Dalai Lama’s international campaign for a non-violent revolution in Tibet to overthrow the Chinese."

The brutal way the Dalai Lama’s supporters hacked to death ordinary workers — shop assistants and others — during their "revolutionary" riots suggests that their leader’s appeals for non-violence were a sop to the Western media.

For the Dalai Lama is not after democracy or indeed any form of popular rule. He wants to be restored to power, and images of benign monks exuding love and kindness simply aren’t supported by the historical facts.

Barns has him pegged to rights: "The Dalai Lama leads an elite of families and religious figures that once ruled Tibet. And the Tibet they ruled was one of the most backward and inhumane societies in the world.

"Almost 90 percent of Tibetans were slaves before the Chinese invaded the country".

read full article here

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

(updated and expanded version, January 2007)

I. For Lords and Lamas

Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism. Standing in marked contrast to the intolerant savagery of other religions, Buddhism is neither fanatical nor dogmatic--so say its adherents. For many of them Buddhism is less a theology and more a meditative and investigative discipline intended to promote an inner harmony and enlightenment while directing us to a path of right living. Generally, the spiritual focus is not only on oneself but on the welfare of others. One tries to put aside egoistic pursuits and gain a deeper understanding of one’s connection to all people and things. “Socially engaged Buddhism” tries to blend individual liberation with responsible social action in order to build an enlightened society.

A glance at history, however, reveals that not all the many and widely varying forms of Buddhism have been free of doctrinal fanaticism, nor free of the violent and exploitative pursuits so characteristic of other religions. In Sri Lanka there is a legendary and almost sacred recorded history about the triumphant battles waged by Buddhist kings of yore. During the twentieth century, Buddhists clashed violently with each other and with non-Buddhists in Thailand, Burma, Korea, Japan, India, and elsewhere. In Sri Lanka, armed battles between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils have taken many lives on both sides. In 1998 the U.S. State Department listed thirty of the world’s most violent and dangerous extremist groups. Over half of them were religious, specifically Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist. read full article

Martin Luther King Jr. - "Why America May Go to Hell."

from Free Democracy:

"If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty, to make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to Hell…."

The incendiary speech of Barak Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Hardly. These words were spoken with great fervor by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., American hero, not long before his death.

Forty years ago this week – April 4, 1968 – King was staying in Room 306 of the homely Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis. According to historical accounts he was working on a speech called, "Why America May Go to Hell." read full post

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

from http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative....

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Read the whole letter here.

In the name of Love

Your words are lies

Why they killed King

King's last speech

Mass beatification of Franco supporters

When the fascist army marched into my grandmother's home village in Andalucia, in the very first weeks of the war, it was the Catholic priest who betrayed local people to the invaders. He gave them a list of everyone who lived in the village, so they knew if anyone had fled or gone into hiding. He told them who the 'troublemakers' were, who the leftists were, the intellectuals, the trade unionists, the people who didn't go to church regularly and those who had not baptised their children. It did not take long for the fascists to round all of these people up, along with anyone they didn't like the look of and men of fighting age, and shoot them all en masse in the village square.

read full post here

Passover Song

an excellent post from Eugene:

The most sacred text that will be sung, read and celebrated this week of Passover is the Song of Songs, originating from love songs of the ancient Egyptians handed down through the Canaanite peoples, whom were both Jews and Palestinians.

And it is a text celebrated by all Abrahamic religions; Jews, Muslims and Christians. Ironically it is a profane text, one that makes no direct reference to God. It is a love poem a pagan paean to Eros not Agape.

The Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, the Shir HaShirim, the Holy of Holies, the Canticle of Solomon, all its various names is one of the shortest texts in the Old Testament, but one pregnant with Qabbalistic , Gnostic and occult meaning.

I have studied this text for thirty years. And I consider it the meme of all Western Occultism. full post