Happy New Year All!

Retrospect, Introspect and Let's have some Respect

Well the year has been an interesting one for all its ironic trials and tribulations. Doc tells me this CV writing course was something the Kommunale unwittingly obligated themselves to without reading the fine print, and why us lackies have had it pretty well dumped on us. Nonetheless, it hasn't been without its merits of insight into the business world as it stands. Especially having heard the various gruesome experiences of others with its oneupmanships has been most enlightening. With the situation as it is, alot of us are most likely better off being self-employed. Come the end of this year the politicians will have to fess up to the obvious violations of any personal dignity, though I am sure they think they are above the law. The so-called economy as we knew it is well and truly done for. I see the inevitable return of the journeyman, barter and trade akin to that of tribal communities. Mind you, this is nothing new for the village I live in, as it's been in the no-zone ever since they did in those incestuous feudal lords with pitchforks and great loads of manure. Heheh, man you gotta love these people for that. Now the fires of rebellion are flaring up again threating to break off from Ortenau for the more reasonable option of Breisgau. Indeed the former has only did their best to perpetually jerk us around...and so the legacy goes on...

Meanwhile on the cyberfront, things are greatly improving. We finally got our DSL and that with far better quality than the rest. It was a long hard uphill battle but well worth the effort. Given our remote location it only stands to reason that we need an excellent line of communication to close that gap. Thus I've been able to cover more territory in contact with others of my kindred. Indeed, my heart goes out to you my cyberfriends on Ning, Skype, Yahoo, YouTube, FB, LiveJournal, Blogger and of course MySpace; for that sharing of each our unusual experiences over such a great distance. Thank you so much, not only for being here, but being who you are.

A message to those who profess to practice "The Old Ways"

First of all, you have alot of explaining to do as to what you imply by the use of the term. Secondly, anyone who abides by old agrarian traditions can tell you things like the wiccan "wheel of the year" is not one of them. Thirdly, witchcraft by any old tradition is shamanism, namely the power of psychic expression through the crafting of one's hands- regardless if you're healing or fashioning a suitable medicine to aid in the process, creating a work of art, cooking a meal, cleaning or just washing your face. It's all about foresight and providence in what daily life presents you, for better or for worse. Of course, if you want to make a medieval, gothic, or Dion Fortune fashion statement, then by all means call yourself a witch. Just remember how many midwives took that blame for any defective or unwanted children they had to bring into a world of religious superstition.

In a way, you could say magic is Machiavellian as there is really no limit to the means of achieving an end. Rather, the success of it depends highly on how well you understand the nature of causality- i.e. that there is a time and place for everything. Bad timing or placement will get you nowhere, if not in serious trouble. Knowledge is power, so if you waste your money on a load of trendy new age twaddle and trinkets to act as your charms in aspects of life you know little about, you might as well be pissing in the wind. There is a very good reason why wisecraft was better left to the elders, unless you are truly endowed with psychic kenning. Despite popular belief, the spiritual is not some diametrically opposed netherrealm to the physical world but is the very lifeforce within it. Just how well we can relate this depends on how well we make practical use of those higher senses our brain accomodates in our bio-electromechanical being and interaction. In otherwords, use your brain. So, in essence, what do the "old ways" actually mean? It means getting back to basics, namely the cause and effect of you interacting with the world around you. Plain and simple.

The Physics of Psychic Ability

First of all, there is no such a thing as "extrasensory perception". The continuum is awash with all manner of matter and energy interacting on various levels; from which we can gather infinite information. It simply depends on our level of perception and especially its realization. This is not limited to five senses alone. For instance there are other sensors within the human neuro-nasal complex that can recognize, amongst other things, the bio-electric signatures of other life forms. While our hearing may be limited to certain frequency ranges, our sense of touch is also receptive to a whole variety of different energy signatures and vibrations. At best our brain collects all this information and maps it out into a multidimensional construct, that most times we are not even consciously aware of, except to alert us of any imminent circumstances. Thus the better choice of words is “psychic ability”, which whether we realize it or not, makes a large part of our creative ability; as we put the constructs we realize into synthesis. In effect, this synthesis has the capacity to transcend consciousness into causality.

Secondly, there are no supernatural boundaries. The phantoms we may perceive among us are a phenomenon of the multidimensional. While our biological construct is logarithmically attuned to what we perceive as the “here and now”, the spacetime continuum is multilayered, and where there are tidal effects, these different frames of spacetime can emerge between our own frames. Thus our perception of these alternative realms depend on how well our brain can tangibly map them out.While we all possess these abilities to some degree, to truly realize them is not without the trials of logical reasoning to establish the tangible facts. This is where a lot of skeptics, as well as avid occultists, tend to fall short. It is not enough to simply accept that one has these perceptual skills, nor is what science can’t define in layman terms any argument against it.

For all our modern convenience, we expect some fabulous self-help course or book is going to connect all those dots for us. However, in the real world of opportunistic marketing, you’re more apt to be herded down the trendy path of popular mysticism- yet, no matter how many tantric channels, vision quests, or gamma levels of remote viewing you believe you’ve mastered by whatever means, still can’t even predict the weather. The same goes for Tarot, Ouija, Runes, astrology or whatever other “parlor” amusements. You can learn their procedures in every intimate detail, but that’s not necessarily going to improve the accuracy of your results.

Conversely, all the academic degrees of science aren’t going to cut it either, if you don’t put it to the test of real life situations. Does an experienced farmer need to consult an oracle or call the national weather service to know when to turn his fields? Just the same, some of this “knowing” is already encoded in our genealogy; accounting for certain inherited talents (ie. artistic ability, mechanical aptitude, good with numbers, etc.). Despite popular belief, however, psychic ability is not something confined to one brain hemisphere or another, nor any particular creative skill, rather, concerns reasoning with the whole neurological process of its interactions with causality. As they say, knowledge is power - the power to see what our eyes alone cannot discern. Know yourself.

http://www.senseofsmell.org/feature/smell101/lesson1/01.php

http://socyberty.com/paranormal/polymorphic-perception-of-the-fourth-dimension-state/

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2066&C=1851

The Germanic Roots of Father Christmas

Hidden away in the popular iconizations of modern day Santa Claus, are the symbologies of bygone European shamanism. In those days, Wotan was the god of visions, traveller of the Nine Worlds. The red and white garments reminds us of the fly agaric (amanita muscaria), a popular halucinogen of shamanic practices of the time. This old folksong from Hoffman von Fallersleben of upper Selesia, gives clue to this personification:

Ein Männlein steht im Walde ganz still und stumm

Es hat vor lauter Purpur ein Mäntelein um

Sagt, wer mag das Männlein sein,

Das da steht im Wald allein

Mit dem purpurroten Mäntelein.

Das Männlein steht im Walde auf einem Bein

Und hat auf seinem Haupte schwarz Käpplein klein,

Sagt, wer mag das Männlein sein,

Das da steht im Wald allein

Mit dem kleinen schwarzen Käppelein ?

Gesprochen:

Das Männlein dort auf einem Bein

Mit seinem roten Mäntelein

Und seinem schwarzen Käppelein

Kann nur die Hagebutte sein.

In Germany, replicas of this mushroom still adorn Christmas trees, garlands and wreaths. Santa's sled drawn by 8 reindeer remind us of the solar wagon drawn by the 8 legged Sleipnir and "Wild Hunt" of old Germanic folklore, whereas reindeer are known by Siberian herders to favour the fly agaric in their forest foragings. It is from their folklore the idea of "flying" reindeer came.

In more modern German folklore there is a character who accompanies Old Nick, known as "Knecht Ruprecht". While Nikolas represents the rewarding of good, Ruprecht with his bundle of sticks is there to exact punishment of the trouble makers. He is, however, is a throwback to the legends of Rübezahl, who is none other than the spirit of Wotan as he was before his trickster attributes came to identified with Loki through the course of Christianization. Rather, Rübezahl's shapeshifting pranks served to bring due justice or reward to the unfortunate. Yule itself, is a celebration of Wotan's journey through the nine worlds and subsequent marriage with Berchta, (Hel, Holle, Holla, Freya) who was not only goddess of the underworld but queen of the dark elves and fae. In pre-Christian times marriage was not a permanent fixture, rather, vows were renewed each year following. In legends, Holla is also known for her charity and justice to the unfortunate.

While the old "Perchten" traditions of this underworld journey are still alive in the fore-Alpine regions of continental Europe, it can be seen in the masks and costumes how these figures were subsequently demonized into the characters of Krampus and Berchta of the "Schiachperchten". Only in remotest Alpine Switzerland is the original "Wildemann" Tradition to be found.

Yule, the Wild Hunt and the Raunächten (Raw Nights)

Traditionally it is on the eve of Yule when the "Wild Hunt" begins. Wotan who has completed his underworld journey, arises, with Berchta, the ice giants, the dark elves and other denizens to claim the old, weak and diseased. In ancient Europe this was understood as a purification process. Hence, homes and stalls were swept out and smudged with smoking bundles of spruce and herbs known to have antiseptic properties. I remember as a child, my mother would ritually bring a spruce sprig to smoke on the kitchen stove to mark the occasion. It's also this time of year the village is filled with the delicious aroma of hickory smoked hams. The ritual of feasting and clearing goes on until the 6th of January, when Berchta returns with her entourage and their quarry to her underworld domain, where they begin to fertilize the earth for the coming of Spring. This is immortalized in the mask carving traditions of the High Black Forest, called the "Perchten Walk", where people dressed up like these figures, go into the forest to celebrate with plenty of mulled wine and a dance around a great bonfire (at some appropriately located pub or lodge). The google images photo comes from the Perchten of Lake Constance, a joint celebration between France, Germany and Switzerland.

Witches Reel

With Yule fast upcoming, this is for you my witchy friends, thanks to Keith who clued me in to this old dance:

Cummer gae ye before, cummer gae ye,
Gin ye winna gae before, cummer let me,
Ring-a-ring-a-widdershins
Linkin lithely widdershins,
Cummers carlin cron and queyn
Roun gae we!

Cummer gae ye before, cummer go ye
Gin ye winna gae before, cummer let me
Ring-a-ring-a-widdershins
Loupin’ lightly widdershins,
Kilted coats and fleein’ hair
Three times three!

Cummer go ye before, cummer go ye
Gin ye winna gae before, cummer let me
Ring-a-ring-a-widdershins
Whirlin’ skirlin’ widdershins,
>De’il take the hindmost
Wha’er she be!

Common Problems with Pagan Identity

There is always the occasional pious pratt who tries to take heathenism for something either ultra-nationalistic or the quaint path of village idiot-savants. I think the popular misconception is in the title "heathen" itself. Officially, the proper title is "Pre-Christian Indigenous Tradition" because in continental Europe it is more about the respect and appreciation of one's cultural heritage and identity. This is actually the same for other tribal cultures across the world, something not only "New Age globalism" cannot seem to grasp, but particularly those of a strict dogmatic upbringing incline to regard anything outside of the ideal with contempt. This is actually the most potential bias one needs to overcome to truly realize a pagan path.

While such ordered practices as Wicca, Druidry, the OTO and Odinism may appease that need for dogma- without some form of heritage to connect to, it serves little more than pretense, though not necessarily the fault of the practice itself. I know a few serious initiates of these walks that do have their familial connections. Rather, I’m refering to those who merely assume the title to allege that they are hereditary witches of x+generations of secretly handed down knowledge. The moot point here is the attempt to compensate the lack of ancestral memory, which legendarily makes an integral part of the visionary process. This is something Ray Bowers (Clan of Tubal Cain) tried to point out with his concept of "Tapping the Bone" and hereditary witchcraft. Indeed, in true shamanic tradition, one is usually born not only with the ability but the ancestral experience from which it descends. Being born with it, though, doesn't necessarily mean it's been awakened. Some realize it in puberty, whereas others need that inevitable NDE/PTSD.

This also brings to mind the “It is written” dust collectors who will spend an entire lifetime searching whole university archives for the holy grail of ancient texts, or perusing every esoteric website known to humanity to become a virtual Fucanelli. The problem with this though, is not only the language barriers (that can be very subject to interpretation) but the lack of “on location” experience one can only gain from actual travel or having lived in the places where these writings originated.

Conversely, we also get the "chosen ones" of borderline paranoid schizophrenia/narcissistic personality disorders who, for all their identity crisis, would rather go into complete denial than venture any healthy scrutiny of what the voices are really trying to tell them. This you will find in any belief system, and is usually the want of escape from droll reality into the fantastic (or at least so they think).

While many will refer to paganism as a nature based belief, you will find, more often than not, it's biggest pretenders to be suburbanites, who despite their vast collections of new age store-bought herbs and tinctures, live largely on fast food and rarely ever had to endure the true hardships of self-sufficiency and resource management in the wilds, let alone agrarian life.

Yet, despite all this, some are quite happy to travel their own path of self-discovery, without the need of labels, interpretations of mysterious codes or dogma for that matter. Just a healthy sense of adventure, challenge and fascination for whatever life dishes out to them. Indeed, there is more wisdom in the realization of “know yourself” than you’ll ever find on the world wide web. Sometimes, you just have to get back to basics to realize the bigger picture.

Castles in the Air

On the British satellite Eurobird, one of the channels I get is called "Controversial TV". They show the odd interviews from the Conscious Media Network with various aspiring alternative thinkers. Yesterday they aired one on Gary Schwartz and his extensive research with mediums. I'm inclined to give his observations credence as he does not allow the medium and the subject to interact, let alone see each other.

As he mentioned there are some mediums who cheat by empathically probing the person. There are also various body language gestures one can read of a person on visual contact, and emotional impressions one can pick up through smell (pheromones). Thus I am not so convinced of John Edwards regardless of what credence Schwartz gives him. Such cut and dried sessions as illustrated on "Crossing Over" leave me cold. It's as if to suggest that borderline state is like Grand Central Station with them all trying to make a collect call to the land of the living. I'm sure that without some serious editting, there's no way they could present it as anything acceptable to the audience.

We live in a gravitational node so flooded with energetic noise, perception is one thing, and distinction another. While I can sense out the presence of things otherworldly, whatever lies beyond the humanly present may only come to me in a brief instant upon that portal opening. A great deal of energy seems to issue from it, followed by a sudden dead silence as soon as it closes. I've had some pretty strange experiences with my father's passing, starting with the shadow fylgia that passed through me three days before he died. It was that part of him that died in the first stroke, probing my empathic bond to the rest of himself. I could feel it sucking up those energies, chilling me to the bone. I knew it was time to let go and I detached myself before it could leave me with that raw amputated feeling. When he finally passed there was little more than a sense of elation followed by brief emptiness in that part of what some might call the collective unconscious. A few days later I was at the computer when an odd feeling drew my attention to the hallway, catching a glimpse of a dark fleeting form. It raced from down the hall into my study, leaping into the air with a bound out the balcony door behind me. The ringer on a broken alarm clock went off and the TV switched itself on. I'm not sure what to make of such things, but then his behaviour always inclined to puzzle me at the best of times. Our bond was purely empathic and not so emotional. Just the same, I'm not sure what to make of what these mediums suggest. On a night before my mother had her mini stroke I felt that portal open and something touched me with a compassionate sense of forewarning- a messenger of sorts. This came with a warming radiance like the rays of a spring sun. I'm not sure who it was except to be wary of my mother's condition, though the impression was that the outcome would be positive.

Adepts of the shamanic path say that these things only assume a form familiar to the contactee if it's the only way they can get through to them. I guess that means I simply lack fear and accept things for what they are. Mind you, "Grenzgängers" like Johnston in his house in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, are ones that have suspended themselves chronokinetically. They have not yet left that boundary state into higher dimensionality. Nonetheless, it should be interesting what Schwartz's experiments have revealed on the subject of mediumship. The term Afterlife, in itself, I find a strange concept. I've never really concerned myself with that particular transition zone from one causality to another, rather the cycles themselves. I've had too many bizarre chronokinetic experiences to want to mess with that one, as there's a time and place for everything. On the other hand, it's not so much death that most seem to fear as much as the meaning of life. I've seen this fear so prevalent in some, it's amazing what lengths they gone to desperately appease it.

I took the liberty of watching a CMN interview with David Icke where he describes the series of mental breakdowns he experienced prior to his alleged revelations. While some may suggest these are schizophrenic delusions, to me they show all the classical symptoms of a narcissistic personality disorder. The withdrawal into innocence, wanton of spiritual guidance by forces beyond his control, conveniently writes off those inner demons as some alien insurgent. Yet as much as he denies his comparison to Jesus as having any relevance, it does carry the obvious undertones of a self-fulfilling persecution complex. I don't doubt the despotic control freakdoms amongst the powers that be, but just where is this new world order? Behind all that starry eyed rhetoric is nothing more than a carbon tax for the lack of Iraqi oil to bail out the banks of a doomed economy. Another come-on to keep those old corporate dinosaurs alive.

Yes, it's been a while...

...just too much happening on all fronts since the new year started. My brother and his wife have since moved in, given the unrelenting economic crisis. Indeed this is a year of many changes and subsequent reorganization. It boils down to that realization that governments are no longer cost effective and rapidly becoming too great a tax burden. I mean really, let's cut to the chase here, just who do they think they're fooling? First they use our hard earned money to bail out their bad investments in Iraqi oil. That has to be the biggest con of the century, but it doesn't stop there. Now they want us to raid granny's little treasure chest to cover the astrophysical proportions of their global inflationary gold deficit. While the conspiracy theorists are on about some New World Order, all I see is that old Rothschild dinosaur still trying to raise its greedy head. Yes, the arctic may be melting but I'd be freezing my ass off here, if it were not for the one good investment my father made in a wood stove. Nonetheless, I don't envy these warmongers in palatial mansions. They're so far removed from reality they would starve to death if they had to grow their own food. I would much rather see this, than all those left to die fighting on foreign soil while the real enemy lurks within our own boundaries. No I am not some fanatical idealist, just an ordinary citizen who can't see how melting down granny's baubles is gonna reduce the carbon footprint of perpetual bullshit. Read between the lies.

Another One Bites the Dust

Another "chosen one" preaching his wicca like a monk from another planet. Claims to have studied under Raymond Buckland personally since 1964, although I doubt they would have taken anyone that young. Rather, I suspect it was his mother who attended, at least until 1973 when Buckland Left for New Hampshire. Then there was Buckland’s brief flirt with Seax-Wicca in San Diego that he also undoubtably missed. So, if all accounts are true, he actually started with an Alexandrian coven. Indeed much of what he says is its' classical take on the earth/underworld goddess connection. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with any of that, or what anyone chooses to make peace with their innermost fears. It’s when they start dropping names to preach about giving up one’s “differences” to serve the “common cause”, that’s when I get leery. Despite all good intentions such ideals tend to overlook certain facts, that make that critical difference between reality and delusions of grandeur. Especially the idea of collectively using “magic” to “heal the earth” tends to leave me cold. It strikes me as a cop out from any real efforts at conservation. It’s rather like those people who preach about saving the forests, but have never planted or cared for a tree in their entire lives, to think nothing of the paper they relentlessly wipe their butts with . I think the flaw in the whole concept here begins with the meaning of “crafting”, in other words the “kenning” of what it really is you’re dealing with.

Last night, one of our members was holding a wiccan yule ritual in the chatroom and of course this wise guy couldn't resist the urge to intervene. Naturally, failing to give the impression he had hoped for, he implied we were little better than an RPG site. Heh, that's what he would have liked to believe, especially trying to come onto us like we're a bunch of neophytes. A colleague told me she had this flash of seeing this jerk in a room full hoarded popular pagany books, presenting their contents, word for word as his own. Indeed, this wouldn't surprise me. Such wannabe gurus always need some kind of written gospel they can preach, after all, to them it's all about peer worship. We get the same crap from Asatruar that try to preach the Havamal. Aside from the fact of the obvious Christian pathos, it would never occur to such fools that some of us have our own indigenous cultures and can do well without these damned missionaries. Yep, it's the spanish inquisition all over again. Well, the good news is that the blighter's account's been closed and is no more.

Harvesting Riesling on the Kaiserstuhl with my Coursemates

To break the conundrum of the bureaucracy in this CV writing course, our lady director slated last Tuesday for grape picking at the local ancient volcano in this fair region of the Upper Rhine Valley. I'm sure the wine gods were smiling on us as it was a perfectly clear and sunny day like no other!

Much Ado About Atlantis

No, this isn't about the netherrealms of magic crystal weilding superbeings that came to naught for messing with the earth mother. Indeed, like with the Mayan calendar doomsday prophets there has been alot of pretty fantastic ideas about the lost civilizations of a whole diaspora of different legends around the world. When you consider that some 18,000 years ago when great ice sheets dominated the northern regions, sea levels were about 120 meters (394 feet) lower than they are today, the real picture becomes clearer. Imagine what our ancestors thought when the Mediterranean and the Black Sea began to inundate, as a series of earthquakes began to break the divide between the Eurasian and the African tectonic plates. Consider the climatic changes subsequent to the shift in ocean currents and magma flows under the Earth's crust. Although this didn't all happen overnight, there were episodes of massive upheaval and flood that any survivor would certainly give account to future generations as a warning. Such is the story of Atlantis.

Here is the actual dialog:

In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods.Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided.And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago. I listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonise, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to execute the task which you have imposed upon us. Consider then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Timaeus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis
http://atlantis-today.com/Atlantis_Atlantis_Code.htm
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/ice-ages-and-sea-levels.html
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/iceages.htm

Vik, Iceland

In the summer of 1981, I returned to Iceland for another brief interlude away from the chaos of densely populated continental Europe. This time I managed to make it to Vik along the south coast, and spent a night in a peculiar guest house, attached to an old corrugated Nissen hut. Atop the steep rise behind it, I could see the skeletal remains of an old air base. All along the coastline the beach is black, largely the flood plain of the Myrdalsjökull glacier where Katla recently erupted. Out to sea against the stormy horizon, stand several stark black pinnacles of basalt, seeming much like you've reached the legendary Ultima Thule.

Exhausted from the long drive across the midlands, I readily went to my room, tossed aside my gear and practically fell asleep the minute I hit that bed. I had the strangest dream. I was a British ordinance Major, in some makeshift officers club. The place was packed and spirits were riding quite high. Somebody came up and took me by the shoulders wholeheartedly cheering excitedly, "We won, old chap, we won!" It's my good guess this was the end of the war we were celebrating. When I finally woke up, I felt somewhat askew, so I left the room and went down to the small sitting lounge of the reception, to make some sense of things. At some point I just plonked myself down on a sofa, shaking my head, still befuddled. It was then I realized the owner was standing there grinning at me like a cheshire cat. The grin broadened ever more as he cut straight to the chase; "Strange dreams, huh?" "Yeah, no kidding" I blurted out eying him curiously. Obviously I wasn't the first this had happened to, as I didn't have to say much. He explained that amongst other things, Vik had been a refueling station for transatlantic missions towards the end of WWII, and that practically all his guests had had strange dreams about it.

It's been said that around Iceland, there are alot of places that seem to border on the otherworldly. Indeed, no surprise what inspired the extraordinary myths of their Norse ancestors.

The Physics of Psychic Ability

First of all, there is no such a thing as "extrasensory perception". The continuum is awash with all manner of matter and energy interacting on various levels; from which we can gather infinite information. It simply depends on our level of perception and especially its realization. This is not limited to five senses alone. For instance there are other sensors within the human neuro-nasal complex that can recognize, amongst other things, the bio-electric signatures of other life forms. While our hearing may be limited to certain frequency ranges, our sense of touch is also receptive to a whole variety of different energy signatures and vibrations. At best our brain collects all this information and maps it out into a multidimensional construct, that most times we are not even consciously aware of, except to alert us of any imminent circumstances. Thus the better choice of words is “psychic ability”, which whether we realize it or not, makes a large part of our creative ability; as we put the constructs we realize into synthesis. In effect, this synthesis has the capacity to transcend consciousness into causality.

Secondly, there are no supernatural boundaries. The phantoms we may perceive among us are a phenomenon of the multidimensional. While our biological construct is logarithmically attuned to what we perceive as the “here and now”, the spacetime continuum is multilayered, and where there are tidal effects, these different frames of spacetime can emerge between our own frames. Thus our perception of these alternative realms depend on how well our brain can tangibly map them out.

While we all possess these abilities to some degree, to truly realize them is not without the trials of logical reasoning to establish the tangible facts. This is where a lot of skeptics, as well as avid occultists, tend to fall short. It is not enough to simply accept that one has these perceptual skills, nor is what science can’t define in layman terms any argument against it. For all our modern convenience, we expect some fabulous self-help course or book is going to connect all those dots for us. However, in the real world of opportunistic marketing, you’re more apt to be herded down the trendy path of popular mysticism- yet, no matter how many tantric channels, vision quests, or gamma levels of remote viewing you believe you’ve mastered by whatever means, still can’t even predict the weather. The same goes for Tarot, Ouija, Runes, astrology or whatever other “parlor” amusements. You can learn their procedures in every intimate detail, but that’s not necessarily going to improve the accuracy of your results. Conversely, all the academic degrees of science aren’t going to cut it either, if you don’t put it to the test of real life situations. Does an experienced farmer need to consult an oracle or call the national weather service to know when to turn his fields? Just the same, some of this “knowing” is already encoded in our genealogy; accounting for certain inherited talents (ie. artistic ability, mechanical aptitude, good with numbers, etc.). Despite popular belief, however, psychic ability is not something confined to one brain hemisphere or another, nor any particular creative skill, rather, concerns reasoning with the whole neurological process of its interactions with causality. As they say, knowledge is power - the power to see what our eyes alone cannot discern. Know yourself.

http://www.senseofsmell.org/feature/smell101/lesson1/01.php

http://socyberty.com/paranormal/polymorphic-perception-of-the-fourt...

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2066&C=1851

April, April, Weis Nicht Was Er Will

It's the old German addage that April doesn't know what it wants. Indeed things have taken that rapid descent into hell again. I'm up to my eyeballs in burocracy, while all the rest is going to shit. The temperature has taken a nose dive again, carrying a nasty flu epidemic in its wake. Of course I had to unwittingly pick it up in town on Wednesday...and although it didn't seem as bad as the last one, today I sounded like a herd of treefrogs when I phoned about a job I had applied for over a month ago. As I might expect, they already reviewed all the applicants, but never bothered to inform me. At the same time I finally got a rejection notice from another firm I had applied to around the same time. I've had to unplug the sewer at least three times. My Honda Dax finally gave up the ghost and I spent the past two days trying to get the other Mokick to work. Despite switching the batteries, as this one was dead, something in the electrical system is so fecked, I neither have headlights nor ignition. So I resolved to call the local repair (they're never open on Mondays), then proceeded to investigate the heap of bicycles in the shed, for a reasonable alternative. Of the four, I finally found one that didn't have a flat tire (although I had already replaced them in November), only to discover one of the foot pedals is fecked. Daylight was disappearing fast and so was the weather, so that repair will have to wait for tomorrow too. Just don't ask me what it is that I must endure this curse every year around the same time, but I'm sure that soothsayer in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" had it right. Beware the Ides of March. The good news is that the BF had his mechanic friend give it a go for far less the price and hassle. This proved to be a wise move.

The Goldenville Experience

Every so often on my physical journeys to a particular location a spirit will tell me a story of it. This was my experience in a small hamlet called “Goldenville” near Sherbrook, Nova Scotia. I had been searching for a friend’s sister who had gone missing for several weeks. Rumour had it she landed in the clutches of some Manson-style self-proclaimed guru who had bought some property there. I knew this creep only too well, and when he came around with some dubious premise that he was under psychic attack- I played along with my own plan in mind. Needless to say, my suspicions were confirmed. He had her there drugged on rediculous amounts of synthetic mescaline. What he didn’t know was that I had a high resistence to the stuff since my LSD days in Westphalia, Germany. When the lot were too busy getting wasted and talking a lot of pseudo-religious nonsense, I buggered off into the shale fields to work out my plan of escape. It was there after a while I felt something call out from deep within that rock, a very ancient spirit. I sat down and let the images come to me as it told me its story. Where I sat was once the center of a great continent many millions of years ago. I saw the great swamps that formed in its midst, teeming with strangest life. Then came a great catastrophy and the continent divided. Spirit then explained how these cataclysmic cycles contributed to the great diversity of life forms out of which we were born. Although I knew much of this already, Spirit helped me put it together into a tangible stream of causality. This was excellent, as I was otherwise wasting my time there in that bleak landscape. As for the guru, on the following morning I threatened to torch his house lest he drive me back to Halifax, and he knew I certainly would have. Of course, once back in Halifax with 50 dollars to buy my silence, I informed my friend’s mother, who immediately sent the RCMP to raid the place on the charge of kidnapping (snicker).

About Ghosts and Spirits

It's a popular misconception that ghosts should appear transparent, rather they are a very solid looking manifestation of altered time. Take for instance the case of Roman legions marching through the basement walls of a house that was built atop an ancient road. The figures look very real, yet, pass through the basement as if its walls didn't exist. Indeed, these walls didn't exist in their time. These, however, are not to be confused with spirits, whose forms can be highly suggestive. Either way we can forget about catching them on optical frames of visible light, rather, would require algorithmically mapping their quantum signatures- something which our brain actually does quite unconsciously- that we have yet to replicate technologically. At most we can only catch the thermal absorption anomalies they leave behind, otherwise it's about as effective as trying to photograph radio waves.

The earth is a great natural dynamo for all the tidal forces in its atmosphere, the great oceans, and the magma convections under its rather tenuous crust. This, along with the gravitational effects of its mass spinning at an equatorial speed of 1,674.4 km/h or 1,040.4 mi/h has a measureable effect of distortion on the fabric of spacetime, and that’s aside from orbiting the sun at a speed of 29.77 km/s. Thus, it should be no surprise that we see some pretty strange things wherever these forces attenuate into the transcendental.

Spirits are a different story, for the simple fact that they interact with us; though most times on a subliminal level. They are everything from wights and little people, down to the unresolved souls of the dead. One must understand local spacetime on this earth as a multilayered thing, with the occasional “thinning of the boundaries” at the nodes of these attenuating forces. We can suddenly find ourselves within their alter-reality in a different order of time- where a few seconds can seem like hours or quite the opposite. They may come to us through a mere energy signature, rather like a signal- the experience of their presence seeming more a tele-projection or dreamlike synthesis. Sometimes we may only hear a voice, or perceive a very vivid scent. To understand the nature of these different manifestations gives us something more tangible to work with in comprehending their messages- in effect, learn how to work with them in a better understanding of existence as a whole. This is the essence of spirituality as nature intended it.

Encounters With Johnston

The six years I spent in Westphalia Germany, was in an old fortified medieval town called Soest. A great circular maze of old cobbled streets, alleys, and houses so ancient, their walls of clay and straw were seldom straight. There were plenty of strange old spirits. You could even hear them joking and playing cards in the old guard house of the town's main gate on warm full moon nights. Thus when we moved into an old colonial Victorian house in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, I was already well accustomed to these things. It would happen late at night, just as I was drifting into sleep, something relentlessly pacing throught the attic above. The mutterings would escalate into somekind of philosophical perplexity, as whoever it was, was obviously trying to figure something out. Whenever I sat in deep thought at the window or on the door step, it would empathically intervene, in cynical agreement of my insights. Despite my young age I already had quite enough of society's rediculous gestalt games. He agreed that humanity had obviously missed the big picture somewhere down the line. Then he would ramble on and on about some strange mystical formula, that I later learned was Rosicrucian. He was looking for the key to some higher realm of existance. It was right there under his nose, but he just couldn't see it for all his mystical precepts. It was futile. He just wouldn't let go of any of it, eternally trapped in his own quasi-temporality until hell knows what for the sake of immortality. Thus these late night haunts became tediously annoying, to say the least. Then the news came from Germany of my grandfather's stroke after a low flying fighter jet had shattered all the windows in his neighbourhood. It was barely a week later, I was tossing in my sleep with the most nagging feeling of his imminent death, when the pacing suddenly stopped with a loud crash. The phone rang and it was my father calling to tell us that Opa had just died.

For my brother, it was a different story. He actually saw the man one morning at sunrise, hovering cross legged before the window, leering at him. I think what shocked him was the fact of something so alter-real actually blocking the sunlight as a solid form. My friends, however, were a foolish lot, often dabbling in things they just didn't have the guts for. One night they tried to hold a seance in my bedroom. I only laughed and said "heh, I hope you realize what you're getting yourselves into". Needless to say, our resident spook did not approve, and a cold hand on the shoulder soon sent them fleeing out of the house.

The large house had been divided into a duplex, and our side of it had no access to the attic. In the basement there was a door to the other side, but it was locked. Of its "living" residents was a divorced woman who worked at the bus terminal and her elderly bed ridden father. She had a terrible reputation as a nattering gossip, so I did my best to avoid her. At first I wondered if the pacing at night was the old man, that maybe he wasn't so bed ridden. She was always giving him hell, which was very disturbing indeed. I felt for the poor man. Then one day he died, and the house was up for sale. We were not yet required to move, pending the decision of the new owners. Nonetheless the pacings and mutterings did not relent.

With the other side now vacant, I took the liberty of picking the lock of that basement entrance. Reaching the ground floor, I found myself in a beautiful spiral stairwell with a stained glass skylight. I ascended into the attic but all was empty and silent as it should be, still there was a feel to that whole side of the house, of something lurking on the temporal borderline. A well educated quaker friend, upon learning where I lived, told me it was the "Johnston House", the summer residence of one of Nova Scotia's first premiers. An extremely eccentric chap who despite his public Christian standing, was a notorious Rosicrucian. My brother went down to the Dartmouth Heritage Museum to check this out. Not surprisingly the face in the picture matched the one he saw leering at him that one morning. When we finally moved out, I could feel the man watching from his attic retreat as he said "You'll be back", but I knew deep down it was only his wishful thinking and turned away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Johnston