The Illusion of Time

Three videos breaking down Einstein's relativity theory:

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"Telepathic” Genius Child Tested By Scientist

Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell is a neuroscientist with post doctoral training in psychiatry who served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, and who is the author of several books including most recently “The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena”. Her position is that the world is in the middle of a paradigm shift in its understanding of consciousness… and that it is in the new answers to the age-old questions about consciousness – what it really is, how it’s created, and where it exists – that the true bases for psychic phenomena are found. From there she espouses a field theory of consciousness, and makes her point by bringing to the table decades of published studies, experiments, anecdotes, and the conclusions of men such as Carl Jung and Albert Einstein on the nature of consciousness and time. She concludes that psychic phenomena appear to be real and a potential in everyone.

 Five-year-old prodigy Ramses Sanguino has astonished his mother by displaying signs of being telepathic. According to Nyx Sanguino, 32, Ramses is able to recite random numbers written in secret - and is now the focus of a scientific study on the subject. Nyx is used to being surprised by her child, who at just five is already learning seven languages and solving complex mathematical equations. The youngster from Los Angeles, California, is believed to be one of the top five savants in the world and Nyx posts videos of her son showing off his talents online. Now his exploits have even caught the eye of the respected neuroscientist - who is studying Ramses as part a cutting-edge research project into telepathy.

American Mysticism: The Hidden History of Positive Thinking

via The Arcane Front

We begin with a succinct introduction, acquainting us with important background information…

“One Simple Idea: A Short History of Positive Thinking with Mitch Horowitz” (Video)

Now, host Stuart Davis (“The Stuart Davis Show”) welcomes author Mitch Horowitz, who unveils the hidden history of positive thinking, which includes surprising links to occult magic, moves through the White House in multiple presidencies, and spreads from paranormal research to evangelical leadership…

“American Mysticism: The Hidden History of Positive Thinking” (Video)

The Science of Happiness: Why complaining is literally killing you

via curious apes

Sometimes in life, all the experience and knowledge simmering around in that ol’ consciousness of ours combines itself in a way that suddenly causes the cerebral clockwork to click into place, and in this fluid flow of thought we find an epiphany rising to the surface.

One such point for me came in my junior year at University. It changed the way I viewed the world forever as it catapulted me out of the last of my angsty, melancholic youth and onto a path of ever-increasing bliss. Sounds like I’m verging on feeding you some new-agey, mumbo-jumbo, doesn’t it? Well, bear with me, because I assure you the point here is to add some logical evidence to the ol’ cliches, to give you what I would consider my Science of Happiness.

At the time of this personal discovery, I was pursuing a double-major in Computer Science and Psychology. Aside from these declared interest, I also had an affinity for (Eastern) Philosophy and Neuroscience. This led to semester course load comprising of two 300-level psychology courses, one 300-level philosophy course, and a graduate-level artificial intelligence course for both biology and computer science majors. This amalgamation of studies quickly tore my brain into a dozen directions, and when I put the pieces back together, I found myself resolute with rational reasons for optimism and for removing from my life the people who liked to complain.

1. “Synapses that fire together wire together.”

This was the first phrase my AI professor told the classroom, and to this day it is still one of the most profound bits of logic I hold onto in order to dictate the decisions of my life. The principle is simple: Throughout your brain there is a collection of synapses separated by empty space called the synaptic cleft. Whenever you have a thought, one synapse shoots a chemical across the cleft to another synapse, thus building a bridge over which an electric signal can cross, carrying along its charge the relevant information you’re thinking about. It’s very similar to how nerves carry electric from the sensation in your toe all the way up to your brain where it’s actually “felt”.

Here’s the kicker: Every time this electrical charge is triggered, the synapses grow closer together in order to decrease the distance the electrical charge has to cross. This is a microcosmic example of evolution, of adaptation. The brain is rewiring its own circuitry, physically changing itself, to make it easier and more likely that the proper synapses will share the chemical link and thus spark together–in essence, making it easier for the thought to trigger. Therefore, your first mystical scientific evidence: your thoughts reshape your brain, and thus are changing a physical construct of reality. Let that sink in for a moment before you continue, because that’s a seriously profound logic-bomb right there.

Your thoughts reshape your brain, and thus are changing a physical construct of reality.

Okay, pull yourself together, cause we’re not done yet.

2. Shortest Path Wins the Race.

Beyond the absolutely incredible fact that your brain is always doing this, consistently shifting and morphing with every thought, even more exciting is the fact that the synapses you’ve most strongly bonded together (by thinking about more frequently) come to represent your default personality: your intelligence, skills, aptitudes, and most easily accessible thoughts(which are more-or-less the source of your conversation skills).

Let’s dig deeper into the logic behind that. Consider you have two pairs of people throwing a ball back and forth. One pair stands ten feet apart, the other at a distance of 100 feet. One partner from each team throws their ball to their respective partners at the exact same moment with the exact same speed. The first team that catches the ball gets to dictate your personal decision and mental state of mind.

So which team will get the ball first? Basic physics of distance, time, velocity tell us that it will always be the pair standing 10 feet apart. Well this is basically how your thoughts work. Through repetition of thought, you’ve brought the pair of synapses that represent your proclivities closer and closer together, and when the moment arises for you to form a thought ( and thus throw our metaphorical ball of electric energy), the thought that wins is the one that has less distance to travel, the one that will create a bridge between synapses fastest.

3. Acceptance vs Regret, Drift vs Desire, Love Vs Fear.

In the time of my scholastic renaissance, this is where Eastern Philosophy came in and handed me a sort of Occam’s Razor of simplicity that I could use to strengthen my forming ideology.

It was simple, every time a moment came my way and brought with it a chance for reactive thought, my two choices were simple, regardless of the flavor you put on them: Love or Fear; Acceptance or Regret; Drift or Desire; Optimism or Pessimism.

And now, my friends, we have our two pairs playing catch.

Naturally, for my own well-being, I realized that all I wanted to do was move the pair of lovers closer together so they would always beat the fearful, pessimistic pair. And so I began to implement a practice into my life of loving everything that came my way, accepting it while relinquishing the need for control. The Buddhists say that the universe is suffering, and I believe this is because the universe is chaos, and thus by its very nature out of our control. When we try to force desires, we are bound to find innumerable occasions where the universe will not comply. And so I decided to stop desiring to the point of attachment. I started to practice the acceptance that Buddhists speak upon, to Drift in the Tao, to accept the natural flow with an optimistic love, to say to every moment that came my way, good or bad, “thank you for the experience and the lesson, and now bring on the next moment so I can give it the same love.” Over and over I did this, moving those synapses closer and closer together, to the point where any synapses in my brain associated with sadness, regret, pessimism, fear, desire, melancholy, depression, etc had a smaller and smaller chance of triggering before the synapses of love gave me my reaction, my thoughts, my personality. And so my default state become one of optimism and appreciation, and the illusory burdens I attached to this existence lessened.

Now, as I pointed out, nature appreciates chaos, and our brain is no different. And so it’s important that I point out that this obviously is not a fool proof practice that will completely eradicate negativity from your consciousness; sometimes emotion weighs too heavy and sometimes the pair that catches the chemical charge will be the negative one; but, like any muscle, if you exercise those loving synapses enough, you will find yourself in possession of a new innate strength that will make the world shine more beautifully far more frequently. You will also find yourself being far more happy because of better health–which I’ll get to in just a moment, but hold on, because we’ve got one more point to discuss beforehand.

4. Mirror-Neurons.

So if your mind hadn’t already exploded when you learned you could alter reality with your thoughts, you may want to get ready for it.  Because guess what? It’s not just your thoughts that can alter your brain and shift those synapses; the thoughts of those around you can do it as well.

If there’s any ability that truly separates us from our primate ancestors, it’s that of imagination. It’s the root of all art and architecture, of the (fictional) stories that formed religions that now control the lives of billions—even to the point of war over which fairytale is the “right one.”

That human failing aside, imagination lets us live in the past and in the future, and by escaping the present moment we can use our memories of the past to predict what will happen in the future; ie: I know from past experience that fire burns skin, so I know inside my minds-eye that if I stick my hand into a fire I will lose my flesh. This is so instinctual we don’t even recognize it’s constantly happening with every symbol that we’re perceiving in our day-to-day moments. But it is this ability that allows us to navigate the complexity of our society. Even more exciting is the fact that this skill also works with emotions, not just situations.

The premise, again, is quite simple: When we see someone experiencing an emotion ( be it anger, sadness, happiness, etc), our brain “tries out” that same emotion to imagine what the other person is going through. And it does this by attempting to fire the same synapses in your own brain so that you can attempt to relate to the emotion you’re observing. This is basically empathy. It is how we get the mob mentality, where a calm person can suddenly find themselves picking up a pitchfork against a common enemy once they’re influenced by dozens of angry minds. It is our shared bliss at music festivals, or our solidarity in sadness during tragedies.

But it is also your night at the bar with your friends who love love love to constantly bitch, whether it’s about their job, the man, the government, or about their other so-called friend’s short-comings, or whatever little thing they can pick apart in order to lift themselves up and give themselves some holier-than-thou sense of validation when you nod your head in acquiescence, agreeing like a robot afraid of free-thought : “Totally, man. It’s bullshit.”

But it’s not bullshit. It’s life, it’s chaos, and as you continually surround yourself with this attitude, you are continually trying out this attitude by firing the synapses in your brain. And as I explained above, every time you fire these synapses, you’re reshaping your brain. This is why it is so important to spend time with people who lift you up, because your friends are moving those fearful, cynical, pessimistic synapses closer together, making your default, short-path-personality as jaded and bitter as your peers. Want to be happy? Surround yourself with happy people who rewire your brain towards love, not towards fear of being invalidated.  [[EDIT 11/8/15 : I’m NOT saying don’t be there for friends who are having a hard time and need an ear or who need to work through a difficult situation. Nor am I saying you can’t be critical about the failings and injustices in the world. Positive change usually requires critical thought.]]

5. Stress will kill you.

You see, the thing about all this negativity, of regretting, of attachment to desires, of pointless complaining about impermanent things that will always continue to pass in an existence where time moves forward—the thing is: it all causes stress. When your brain is firing off these synapses of anger, you’re weakening your immune system; you’re raising your blood pressure, increasing your risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and a plethora of other negative ailments–as psychologytoday points out below.

"The stress hormone, cortisol, is public health enemy number one. Scientists have known for years that elevated cortisol levels: interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function and bone density, increase weight gain, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease… The list goes on and on.Chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels also increase risk for depression, mental illness, and lower life expectancy. This week, two separate studies were published in Science linking elevated cortisol levels as a potential trigger for mental illness and decreased resilience—especially in adolescence.Cortisol is released in response to fear or stress by the adrenal glands as part of the fight-or-flight mechanism."

The universe is chaotic, from unpreventable superstorms of wind and rain, to unpredictable car accidents or to the capricious whims of our peers whose personal truths even have the ability to emotionally damage or physically hurt others. And every moment holds the potential to bring you any one of these things, any shade along the gradient of spirit-soaring bliss and soul-crushing grief.

But regardless of what it brings your way, your choice is simple: Love or Fear. And yes, I understand it’s hard to find happiness on those nights when you feel like you’re all alone in the world, when a loved one passes, when you fail that test or get fired from that job; But when these moments come, you do not have to live in regret of them, you don’t have to give them constant negative attention and allow them to reshape your brain to the point that you become a bitter, jaded, cynical old curmudgeon that no longer notices that the very fact that they’re alive means they get to play blissfully in this cosmic playground where you get the godlike power of choice.

What you can do is say; “Yes, this sucks. But what’s the lesson? What can I take away from this to make me a better person? How can I take strength from this and use it to bring me closer to happiness in my next moment?” You see, a failed relationship or a bad day doesn’t have to be a pinion to your wings, it can be an updraft that showcases to you what things you like and don’t like, it can show you the red flags so that you can avoid them. If there was a personality your ex-partner had that drove you insane, then you now have the gift of knowing you don’t want to waste your time with another partner who acts the same way.

If you are mindful to the lessons of the failures, there is no reason that you can’t make the default of every day better than the one before it. Do something new everyday, learn its lesson, choose love over fear, and make every day better than the last. The more you do this, the more you will see and appreciate the beauty of this existence, and the happier you’ll be.

Six Habits Of Highly Empathic People

via the open mind


We can cultivate empathy throughout our lives, says Roman Krznaric—and use it as a radical force for social transformation.

If you think you’re hearing the word “empathy” everywhere, you’re right. It’s now on the lips of scientists and business leaders, education experts and political activists. But there is a vital question that few people ask: How can I expand my own empathic potential? Empathy is not just a way to extend the boundaries of your moral universe. According to new research, it’s a habit we can cultivate to improve the quality of our own lives.

But what is empathy? It’s the ability to step into the shoes of another person, aiming to understand their feelings and perspectives, and to use that understanding to guide our actions. That makes it different from kindness or pity. And don’t confuse it with the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As George Bernard Shawpointed out, “Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you—they might have different tastes.” Empathy is about discovering those tastes.

The big buzz about empathy stems from a revolutionary shift in the science of how we understand human nature. The old view that we are essentially self-interested creatures is being nudged firmly to one side by evidence that we are also homo empathicus, wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid.

Over the last decade, neuroscientists have identified a 10-section “empathy circuit” in our brains which, if damaged, can curtail our ability to understand what other people are feeling. Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal have shown that we are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other, just like our primate cousins. And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life.

But empathy doesn’t stop developing in childhood. We can nurture its growth throughout our lives—and we can use it as a radical force for social transformation. Research in sociology, psychology, history—and my own studies of empathic personalities over the past 10 years—reveals how we can make empathy an attitude and a part of our daily lives, and thus improve the lives of everyone around us. Here are the Six Habits of Highly Empathic People!

Habit 1: Cultivate curiosity about strangers

Highly empathic people (HEPs) have an insatiable curiosity about strangers. They will talk to the person sitting next to them on the bus, having retained that natural inquisitiveness we all had as children, but which society is so good at beating out of us. They find other people more interesting than themselves but are not out to interrogate them, respecting the advice of the oral historian Studs Terkel: “Don’t be an examiner, be the interested inquirer.”

Curiosity expands our empathy when we talk to people outside our usual social circle, encountering lives and worldviews very different from our own. Curiosity is good for us too: Happiness guru Martin Seligman identifies it as a key character strength that can enhance life satisfaction. And it is a useful cure for the chronic loneliness afflicting around one in three Americans.

Cultivating curiosity requires more than having a brief chat about the weather. Crucially, it tries to understand the world inside the head of the other person. We are confronted bystrangers every day, like the heavily tattooed woman who delivers your mail or the new employee who always eats his lunch alone. Set yourself the challenge of having a conversation with one stranger every week. All it requires is courage.

Habit 2: Challenge prejudices and discover commonalities
We all have assumptions about others and use collective labels—e.g., “Muslim fundamentalist,” “welfare mom”—that prevent us from appreciating their individuality. HEPs challenge their own preconceptions and prejudices by searching for what they share with people rather than what divides them. An episode from the history of US race relations illustrates how this can happen.

Claiborne Paul Ellis was born into a poor white family in Durham, North Carolina, in 1927. Finding it hard to make ends meet working in a garage and believing African Americans were the cause of all his troubles, he followed his father’s footsteps and joined the Ku Klux Klan, eventually rising to the top position of Exalted Cyclops of his local KKK branch.

In 1971 he was invited—as a prominent local citizen—to a 10-day community meeting to tackle racial tensions in schools, and was chosen to head a steering committee with Ann Atwater, a black activist he despised. But working with her exploded his prejudices about African Americans. He saw that she shared the same problems of poverty as his own. “I was beginning to look at a black person, shake hands with him, and see him as a human being,” he recalled of his experience on the committee. “It was almost like bein’ born again.” On the final night of the meeting, he stood in front of a thousand people and tore up his Klan membership card.

Ellis later became a labor organizer for a union whose membership was 70 percent African American. He and Ann remained friends for the rest of their lives. There may be no better example of the power of empathy to overcome hatred and change our minds.

Habit 3: Try another person’s life

So you think ice climbing and hang-gliding are extreme sports? Then you need to try experiential empathy, the most challenging—and potentially rewarding—of them all. HEPs expand their empathy by gaining direct experience of other people’s lives, putting into practice the Native American proverb, “Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins before you criticize him.”

George Orwell is an inspiring model. After several years as a colonial police officer in British Burma in the 1920s, Orwell returned to Britain determined to discover what life was like for those living on the social margins. “I wanted to submerge myself, to get right down among the oppressed,” he wrote. So he dressed up as a tramp with shabby shoes and coat, and lived on the streets of East London with beggars and vagabonds. The result, recorded in his book Down and Out in Paris and London, was a radical change in his beliefs, priorities, and relationships. He not only realized that homeless people are not “drunken scoundrels”—Orwell developed new friendships, shifted his views on inequality, and gathered some superb literary material. It was the greatest travel experience of his life. He realized that empathy doesn’t just make you good—it’s good for you, too.

We can each conduct our own experiments. If you are religiously observant, try a “God Swap,” attending the services of faiths different from your own, including a meeting of Humanists. Or if you’re an atheist, try attending different churches! Spend your next vacation living and volunteering in a village in a developing country. Take the path favored by philosopher John Dewey, who said, “All genuine education comes about through experience.”

Habit 4: Listen hard—and open up
There are two traits required for being an empathic conversationalist.

One is to master the art of radical listening. “What is essential,” says Marshall Rosenberg,psychologist and founder of Non-Violent Communication (NVC), “is our ability to be present to what’s really going on within—to the unique feelings and needs a person is experiencing in that very moment.” HEPs listen hard to others and do all they can to grasp their emotional state and needs, whether it is a friend who has just been diagnosed with cancer or a spouse who is upset at them for working late yet again.

But listening is never enough. The second trait is to make ourselves vulnerable. Removing our masks and revealing our feelings to someone is vital for creating a strong empathic bond. Empathy is a two-way street that, at its best, is built upon mutual understanding—an exchange of our most important beliefs and experiences.

Organizations such as the Israeli-Palestinian Parents Circle put it all into practice by bringing together bereaved families from both sides of the conflict to meet, listen, and talk. Sharing stories about how their loved ones died enables families to realize that they share the same pain and the same blood, despite being on opposite sides of a political fence, and has helped to create one of the world’s most powerful grassroots peace-building movements.

Habit 5: Inspire mass action and social change
We typically assume empathy happens at the level of individuals, but HEPs understand that empathy can also be a mass phenomenon that brings about fundamental social change.

Just think of the movements against slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries on both sides of the Atlantic. As journalist Adam Hochschild reminds us, “The abolitionists placed their hope not in sacred texts but human empathy,” doing all they could to get people to understand the very real suffering on the plantations and slave ships. Equally, the international trade union movement grew out of empathy between industrial workers united by their shared exploitation. The overwhelming public response to the Asian tsunami of 2004 emerged from a sense of empathic concern for the victims, whose plight was dramatically beamed into our homes on shaky video footage.

Empathy will most likely flower on a collective scale if its seeds are planted in our children. That’s why HEPs support efforts such as Canada’s pioneering Roots of Empathy, the world’s most effective empathy teaching program, which has benefited over half a million school kids. Its unique curriculum centers on an infant, whose development children observe over time in order to learn emotional intelligence—and its results include significant declines in playground bullying and higher levels of academic achievement.

Beyond education, the big challenge is figuring out how social networking technology can harness the power of empathy to create mass political action. Twitter may have gotten people onto the streets for Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, but can it convince us to care deeply about the suffering of distant strangers, whether they are drought-stricken farmers in Africa or future generations who will bear the brunt of our carbon-junkie lifestyles? This will only happen if social networks learn to spread not just information, but empathic connection.

Habit 6: Develop an ambitious imagination
A final trait of HEPs is that they do far more than empathize with the usual suspects. We tend to believe empathy should be reserved for those living on the social margins or who are suffering. This is necessary, but it is hardly enough.

We also need to empathize with people whose beliefs we don’t share or who may be “enemies” in some way. If you are a campaigner on global warming, for instance, it may be worth trying to step into the shoes of oil company executives—understanding their thinking and motivations—if you want to devise effective strategies to shift them towards developing renewable energy. A little of this “instrumental empathy” (sometimes known as “impact anthropology”) can go a long way.

Empathizing with adversaries is also a route to social tolerance. That was Gandhi’s thinking during the conflicts between Muslims and Hindus leading up to Indian independence in 1947, when he declared, “I am a Muslim! And a Hindu, and a Christian and a Jew.”

Organizations, too, should be ambitious with their empathic thinking. Bill Drayton, the renowned “father of social entrepreneurship,” believes that in an era of rapid technological change, mastering empathy is the key business survival skill because it underpins successful teamwork and leadership. His influential Ashoka Foundation has launched the Start Empathy initiative, which is taking its ideas to business leaders, politicians and educators worldwide.

The 20th century was the Age of Introspection, when self-help and therapy culture encouraged us to believe that the best way to understand who we are and how to live was to look inside ourselves. But it left us gazing at our own navels. The 21st century should become the Age of Empathy, when we discover ourselves not simply through self-reflection, but by becoming interested in the lives of others. We need empathy to create a new kind of revolution. Not an old-fashioned revolution built on new laws, institutions, or policies, but a radical revolution in human relationships.

Roman Krznaric, Ph.D., is a founding faculty member of The School of Life in London and empathy advisor to organizations including Oxfam and the United Nations, and he formerly taught sociology and politics at Cambridge University. He is the author of The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live and How to Find Fulfilling Work. You can follow him on Twitter

Podcast: Project Poseidon's Channel Aquarius

We now have three episodes of our podcast available for download off soundcloud.

http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:185587404/sounds.rss

The podcast seeks to take a somewhat grounded and rational approach to fringe topics such as conspiracy theories, the paranormal, ufos, the occult, metaphysics, psychology, philosophy, and where possible, we try to reflect with a sense of wonder on this thing we call a universe.

The Dark Side of Getting to Know Yourself

via appliedjung

Sia, an Australian singer, recently brought out a video that disturbed some people and drew a fair amount of criticism. The video is of an adult male and a young girl fighting in a cage. Sia responded to this criticism by saying that the two actors portray a single person, namely herself, and represent her two warring-self states. It is a wonderful depiction of the war between shadow and ego.

Coming to terms with your shadow is hard, unpleasant and often violent. The shadow does not wait around submissively to be seen and recognized. It screams and rages and shouts and fights and bites. And, of course, it is all you. The shadow is that which has been repressed, suffocated, abused, abandoned and neglected. It is the monkey on your back, whispering in your ear, turning your head to make you look at the things that it represents, those things that you don’t want to know about yourself.

If you are familiar with the Golden Compass series, you can liken the shadow to the dæmons that all the people are bonded to. Freud’s proverbial Id, which cannot hide its face and intentions. And to have your dæmon ripped from you is fatal. It is part of you and you cannot separate from it.

People try though. They try hard to suppress the shadow. They fear it. It scares them. It haunts their dreams. They believe that they are good and kind and sincere and nice. The bad in the world is out there, they can see it all around them and they are afraid.

Some people avoid the shadow by looking at the sun. Like Lucifer they chase enlightenment. Or they pursue knowledge and the intellect and get caught in mental masturbation, suppressing their feelings of anxiety and frustration.

Other people want to find something that will protect them from the evil. They believe that either the angels or some talisman will guard and keep them safe; or that if they ignore or pray for the evil in the world it will not affect them.

Most people focus on “what could be”, “should be”, “will be.” They think that they can control themselves and their environment. If they try harder, concentrate more, focus, think positively, it will all come right. They don’t work with what is.

But the truth is that the shadow is not under your control. It is out to get you and it will, no matter what.

There is nothing more destructive than ignoring your shadow. You lie, deceive, manipulate, and act out maliciously, which you then self-righteously justify to yourself so that you can carry on believing that you are “a nice person”. And it is so easy to justify your bad behaviour.

“They deserved it.”
“They had to be stopped.”
“Who doesn’t want to listen must feel.”
“I was only defending myself.”
“I will not be abused.”
“I was only trying to help them.”
“They had a right to know.”
“They were on the wrong path.”
“What are they so upset about?”

Of course the list is endless. And all the while you are surrounded by bad people. The world is full of evil. Everywhere you turn there is meanness, violence, hatred, selfishness and people full of wickedness. News flash! They only reflect what is inside your own heart. Acknowledging your shadow is the first and hardest step to becoming whole.

Being whole and not broken. Forgiving yourself, making friends with your shadow, accepting who you are, nurturing yourself, learning to love yourself for who you are really and not who you wish you were, these are some of the benefits you will reap from working with your shadow. It is dirty work, ongoing work, but, most importantly, also very rich and rewarding work.

Facing yourself in the mirror of the other, (which is) the world around you, is often disturbing and painful. If you dislike something or someone intensely, there is shadow content hidden in this relation. The object of your dislike contains something of your shadow in it. Deep and honest reflection will reveal it to you. Realising that you have the potential for dishonesty or being unfaithful is not easy. As is realising that you carry the pain and scarring from a devastating experience. But once in consciousness, it can be addressed and opposed or healed; whilst it remains unconscious it will wreak havoc in your life.
Similarly if you love and adore something, there are also these wonderful, exciting and surprising talents and hidden potential that remain untouched and unseen whilst in the unconscious.

By unearthing these guilts, sins, desires and hidden treasures you will liberate yourself. Suppressing desire and guilt takes an enormous amount of energy and eventually will express itself in your body as dis-ease and fatigue or depression. The biggest transformation you can experience is through the mining of your shadow. Whilst the shadow’s beliefs, desires and talents are hidden in the unconscious, it will not benefit you in the slightest. On the contrary, whilst unconscious it will thwart you at every turn. You will project these qualities onto others which does not expand or improve anyone, least of all yourself. You will shrink and become less and less until you are a petrified shallow version of yourself. Liberating the unconscious removes these projections, energizes you and expands both consciousness and personality.

    Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.

C. G Jung

Please heed this warning though.

This work is not for the person who believes that they will work through the shadow and come out the other side an even nicer person! This is not the goal nor is it a realistic expectation. Whilst you have this attitude, you will not make any progress. You will remain in the false belief that you are at heart a nice person. You are not a nice person, you are a bitch or bastard and this work is about facing that about yourself and integrating it into consciousness. You can’t extract these things from your psyche. They are there to stay. It is how you work with it and what you do with it that counts, but that means that on a daily basis you will be confronted by your shadow. You have to accept that these things are part of you and love yourself for it. You are not a cardboard copy of a perfect person. You are a human being and being whole is about embracing your humanity. How can you have compassion with the beggar and lost souls of the world if you do not recognise and have compassion for the beggar within?

Archimedes said, give me one firm place to stand and I will move the world. This image is an almost perfect metaphor for becoming conscious and working with the shadow. The firm place that is referred to is the ego-consciousness. The ego is the centre of, and our access to consciousness. The consciousness referred to here is that of self-awareness and self-knowledge. This work is about strengthening and amplifying ego-consciousness. Only by taking the role of the ego seriously can you do shadow work. The shadow represents the opposite to the conscious ego position; it is the true other in the psyche. Only by being fully incarnated in and present to the ego can this work be done. If your approach is to dis-incarnate (transcend) your ego-consciousness in favour of a “spiritual” or “karmic” type outlook, this work is not for you. If you are part of a new age movement, where the ego is something of a dirty word, something to ignore, because you are part of “a much bigger spiritual reality”, don’t pursue this path.

This work is for people who realise that they are human and fallible. It speaks to those who recognize that they have something to do with what they are experiencing in the world. It is for the courageous and fearless. It is for people who are willing to forgive and open their hearts to themselves. It is for people who, to borrow from Jung; want to be whole, not perfect.

8 Great Philosophical Questions That We'll Never Solve

via io9


Philosophy goes where hard science can't, or won't. Philosophers have a license to speculate about everything from metaphysics to morality, and this means they can shed light on some of the basic questions of existence. The bad news? These are questions that may always lay just beyond the limits of our comprehension.

Here are eight mysteries of philosophy that we'll probably never resolve.

1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

 Our presence in the universe is something too bizarre for words. The mundaneness of our daily lives cause us take our existence for granted — but every once in awhile we're cajoled out of that complacency and enter into a profound state of existential awareness, and we ask: Why is there all this stuff in the universe, and why is it governed by such exquisitely precise laws? And why should anything exist at all? We inhabit a universe with such things as spiral galaxies, the aurora borealis, and SpongeBob Squarepants. And as Sean Carroll notes, "Nothing about modern physics explains why we have these laws rather than some totally different laws, although physicists sometimes talk that way — a mistake they might be able to avoid if they took philosophers more seriously." And as for the philosophers, the best that they can come up with is the anthropic principle — the notion that our particular universe appears the way it does by virtue of our presence as observers within it — a suggestion that has an uncomfortably tautological ring to it.

2. Is our universe real?

 This the classic Cartesian question. It essentially asks, how do we know that what we see around us is the real deal, and not some grand illusion perpetuated by an unseen force (who René Descartes referred to as the hypothesized ‘evil demon')? More recently, the question has been reframed as the "brain in a vat" problem, or the Simulation Argument. And it could very well be that we're the products of an elaborate simulation. A deeper question to ask, therefore, is whether the civilization running the simulation is also in a simulation — a kind of supercomputer regression (or simulationception). Moreover, we may not be who we think we are. Assuming that the people running the simulation are also taking part in it, our true identities may be temporarily suppressed, to heighten the realness of the experience. This philosophical conundrum also forces us to re-evaluate what we mean by "real." Modal realists argue that if the universe around us seems rational (as opposed to it being dreamy, incoherent, or lawless), then we have no choice but to declare it as being real and genuine. Or maybe, as Cipher said after eating a piece of "simulated" steak in The Matrix, "Ignorance is bliss."

3. Do we have free will?

 Also called the dilemma of determinism, we do not know if our actions are controlled by a causal chain of preceding events (or by some other external influence), or if we're truly free agents making decisions of our own volition. Philosophers (and now some scientists) have been debating this for millennia, and with no apparent end in sight. If our decision making is influenced by an endless chain of causality, then determinism is true and we don't have free will. But if the opposite is true, what's called indeterminism, then our actions must be random — what some argue is still not free will. Conversely, libertarians (no, not political libertarians, those are other people), make the case for compatibilism — the idea that free will is logically compatible with deterministic views of the universe. Compounding the problem are advances in neuroscience showing that our brains make decisions before we're even conscious of them. But if we don't have free will, then why did we evolve consciousness instead of zombie-minds? Quantum mechanics makes this problem even more complicated by suggesting that we live in a universe of probability, and that determinism of any sort is impossible. And as Linas Vepstas has said, "Consciousness seems to be intimately and inescapably tied to the perception of the passage of time, and indeed, the idea that the past is fixed and perfectly deterministic, and that the future is unknowable. This fits well, because if the future were predetermined, then there'd be no free will, and no point in the participation of the passage of time."

4. Does God exist?

 Simply put, we cannot know if God exists or not. Both the atheists and believers are wrong in their proclamations, and the agnostics are right. True agnostics are simply being Cartesian about it, recognizing the epistemological issues involved and the limitations of human inquiry. We do not know enough about the inner workings of the universe to make any sort of grand claim about the nature of reality and whether or not a Prime Mover exists somewhere in the background. Many people defer to naturalism — the suggestion that the universe runs according to autonomous processes — but that doesn't preclude the existence of a grand designer who set the whole thing in motion (what's called deism). And as mentioned earlier, we may live in a simulation where the hacker gods control all the variables. Or perhaps the gnostics are right and powerful beings exist in some deeper reality that we're unaware of. These aren't necessarily the omniscient, omnipotent gods of the Abrahamic traditions — but they're (hypothetically) powerful beings nonetheless. Again, these aren't scientific questions per se — they're more Platonic thought experiments that force us to confront the limits of human experience and inquiry.

5. Is there life after death?

 Before everyone gets excited, this is not a suggestion that we'll all end up strumming harps on some fluffy white cloud, or find ourselves shoveling coal in the depths of Hell for eternity. Because we cannot ask the dead if there's anything on the other side, we're left guessing as to what happens next. Materialists assume that there's no life after death, but it's just that — an assumption that cannot necessarily be proven. Looking closer at the machinations of the universe (or multiverse), whether it be through a classical Newtonian/Einsteinian lens, or through the spooky filter of quantum mechanics, there's no reason to believe that we only have one shot at this thing called life. It's a question of metaphysics and the possibility that the cosmos (what Carl Sagan described as "all that is or ever was or ever will be") cycles and percolates in such a way that lives are infinitely recycled. Hans Moravec put it best when, speaking in relation to the quantum Many Worlds Interpretation, said that non-observance of the universe is impossible; we must always find ourselves alive and observing the universe in some form or another. This is highly speculative stuff, but like the God problem, is one that science cannot yet tackle, leaving it to the philosophers.

6. Can you really experience anything objectively?

 There's a difference between understanding the world objectively (or at least trying to, anyway) and experiencing it through an exclusively objective framework. This is essentially the problem of qualia — the notion that our surroundings can only be observed through the filter of our senses and the cogitations of our minds. Everything you know, everything you've touched, seen, and smelled, has been filtered through any number of physiological and cognitive processes. Subsequently, your subjective experience of the world is unique. In the classic example, the subjective appreciation of the color red may vary from person to person. The only way you could possibly know is if you were to somehow observe the universe from the "conscious lens" of another person in a sort of Being John Malkovich kind of way — not anything we're likely going to be able to accomplish at any stage of our scientific or technological development. Another way of saying all this is that the universe can only be observed through a brain (or potentially a machine mind), and by virtue of that, can only be interpreted subjectively. But given that the universe appears to be coherent and (somewhat) knowable, should we continue to assume that its true objective quality can never be observed or known? It's worth noting that much of Buddhist philosophy is predicated on this fundamental limitation (what they call emptiness), and a complete antithesis to Plato's idealism.

7. What is the best moral system?

 Essentially, we'll never truly be able to distinguish between "right" and "wrong" actions. At any given time in history, however, philosophers, theologians, and politicians will claim to have discovered the best way to evaluate human actions and establish the most righteous code of conduct. But it's never that easy. Life is far too messy and complicated for there to be anything like a universal morality or an absolutist ethics. The Golden Rule is great (the idea that you should treat others as you would like them to treat you), but it disregards moral autonomy and leaves no room for the imposition of justice (such as jailing criminals), and can even be used to justify oppression (Immanuel Kant was among its most staunchest critics). Moreover, it's a highly simplified rule of thumb that doesn't provision for more complex scenarios. For example, should the few be spared to save the many? Who has more moral worth: a human baby or a full-grown great ape? And as neuroscientists have shown, morality is not only a culturally-ingrained thing, it's also a part of our psychologies (the Trolly Problem is the best demonstration of this). At best, we can only say that morality is normative, while acknowledging that our sense of right and wrong will change over time.

8. What are numbers?

We use numbers every day, but taking a step back, what are they, really — and why do they do such a damn good job of helping us explain the universe (such as Newtonian laws)? Mathematical structures can consist of numbers, sets, groups, and points — but are they real objects, or do they simply describe relationships that necessarily exist in all structures? Plato argued that numbers were real (it doesn't matter that you can't "see" them), but formalists insisted that they were merely formal systems (well-defined constructions of abstract thought based on math). This is essentially an ontological problem, where we're left baffled about the true nature of the universe and which aspects of it are human constructs and which are truly tangible.

The Yin-Yang of Fortune and Misfortune: Alan Watts on the Art of Learning Not to Think in Terms of Gain and Loss

via brainpickings

“The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad.”

“The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is,” Kurt Vonnegut observed in discussing Hamlet during his now-legendary lecture on the shapes of stories. But this idea was first articulated by British philosopher and writer Alan Watts (January 6, 1915–November 16, 1973), who began popularizing Eastern philosophy in the West during the 1950s and 1960s. Fusing ancient wisdom with the evolving insights of modern psychology, Watts’s enduring teachings addressed such concerns as how to live with presence, what makes us who we are, the difference between money and wealth, the art of timing, and how to find meaning in meaninglessness.

 Although he wrote beautifully and authored a number of books, Watts was a remarkably charismatic speaker and delivered some of his most compelling ideas in lectures, the best which were eventually published as Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks 1960–1969 (public library).
In a talk titled “Swimming Headless,” Watts explores the psychological dimensions of Taoist philosophy and its emphasis on cultivating the mental discipline of not categorizing everything into gain and loss. Learning to live in such a way that nothing is experienced as either an advantage or a disadvantage, Watts argues, is the source of enormous empowerment and liberation.
He illustrates this notion with an ancient Chinese parable:

"The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune."

 In the book adaptation, the parable makes the same point in slightly more refined language:

"Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.” The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The farmer steadfastly refrained from thinking of things in terms of gain or loss, advantage or disadvantage, because one never knows… In fact we never really know whether an event is fortune or misfortune, we only know our ever-changing reactions to ever-changing events."

 Complement Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life with Watts on death, the difference between belief and faith, and what reality really is, then revisit philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti and physicist David Bohm’s immensely stimulating East/West dialogue on love, intelligence, and how to transcend the wall of being.

The 7 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Learning Magick

via ultraculture

 Avoid these common pitfalls when studying magick, meditation or mysticism

 Magick is a very strange hobby. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been drawn to it for lofty reasons: You want to understand the universe and your place in it. You want answers to the questions of life, the universe and everything—not just second-hand faith in somebody else’s proclamations. You want a heightened sense of personal dignity, integrity and power to achieve the goals that matter to you the most. And—most of all—you want enchantment. You want to live an enchanted life—one in which you can immerse yourself in wonders and mysteries, and experience intensity that people who are checked out in front of their phones or TV screens never will. You want a heightened reality, or even to quest for absolute reality itself.

So, for any of these reasons or more, you step into the Circus of Magick. You might spend some time browsing occult Web sites, or visit a New Age bookstore. You might buy a workbook or two, and try the exercises. You might join a society like Freemasonry, a Wiccan coven, or even a Meetup group, and begin to meet others in your community with similar questions.

As you do this, you will slowly be leaving the “consensus trance,” the one created by the daily ritual of Commute-Job/School-Consume-Television. And you will find yourself in a new “trance,” one defined by ideas of magic, personal possibility, awakening, new group dynamics, alternative life paths. You will likely encounter a lot of incredibly inspiring ideas, and also, unfortunately, a lot of disempowering ideas and beliefs.

Here’s a useful way to think about it: Mainstream society is a program designed to work the best it can for the widest number of people possible. Generally speaking, that means good, decent people who are happy to live quiet, decent lives, and content themselves with the victories of career, family, health, happiness and making it through another day. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Outside of mainstream society, however, you will find a very different reality—the
“wildlands” of modern civilization. Its denizens, for one reason or another, don’t feel satisfied by consensus reality. That could be because they’re ahead of the curve, or it could be because they’re far behind the curve. That makes the “wildlands” an exciting, and dangerous, place. The “wildlands” are where society puts the ideas that are too disruptive of its daily activities, for better or worse. The strange ideas, the discredited ideas, the untested ideas, the potentially liberating ideas.

Magick is one of those ideas—or, rather, a gigantic cluster of ideas (a memeplex). Many of those ideas are really cool, and many should stay in the trash-heap.

But let’s be clear: To engage with magick is to begin to sort through society’s trash, looking for anything of value. Glamorous, no? Remember, alchemy is the art of turning shit into gold. “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone…”

Well, if you’re going to go looking for gold out there, at least allow me to guide you through the territory, so that you can avoid the seven biggest mistakes that people make when learning magick (I’ve made them all!).

1. Poorly Defined Goals

What do you want?

It’s a simple question, but most who enter the world of magick and alternative spirituality never ask it, or never fully define the answer. As a result, they’re caught up in the “dazzling lights” of the New Age Pinball Machine, and bounced around between experiences, groups and teachers, never finding themselves or getting to their core issues and drives.

You need to ask this question up front: What do you want? Do you want greater creative skill and power? Do you want to fix a trauma or personal challenge? Are you willing to give up everything and seek enlightenment? Whatever it is, define it now, and then ask yourself if magical means are really the answer, or if more mundane means would be a lot easier. Be clear on this, or you risk getting caught up in the glamour of magick, and forgetting that it’s just a tool, and only one tool of many available to you right now.

2. Staying in the Shallows

Magick is a giant buffet table. Thanks to the shrinking of the world by global communications, you’ll find material from every world faith and esoteric path readily available to you. Hermeticism/Golden Dawn/Thelema; Yoga; Vedanta; Vajrayana Buddhism; Sufism; NLP… the list is limited only by the demand of the New Age marketplace for the next big kick. Just a hundred years ago—in some cases, just a few decades ago—all of these subjects would have been incredibly hard to discover information on. You wouldn’t have been able to just pop down to Barnes & Noble or go on Amazon and have it all handed to you. And in all cases, once you discovered the entry to a path, you would be confronted with a teacher who would explain that the path was the work of a lifetime.

That puts modern seekers in a unique position. We don’t lack access—but what we do often lack is commitment to a path. Most likely, students will browse here and there, reading on a wide variety of paths, or even joining several groups in sequence. This is an incredible way to learn quickly; however, if the buffet table approach takes the place of deep, committed learning in one path or tradition, what happens is you stop making progress. You just get to the edge of your comfort zone in one path before starting over in another, never taking that crucial jump into the unknown. Ironically, this probably takes more time than sticking to one path, at least until you reach that path’s completion stages.

However, if you go in the complete opposite direction, and become a “Path Zealot,” you will make the third mistake:

3. Thinking There is One True Path

Once you’ve experienced peak states or personal breakthroughs in a system, it’s easy to generalize: “This is absolutely incredible… everybody should experience this!”

If you’re not careful, you soon become a missionary, talking non-stop about what you’ve experienced, trying to get your friends or family into whatever practice caused the peak state or breakthrough, or even, at the high registers of “Kool-Aid Intoxication,” thinking that you have found the One True Path, and that all other paths are lesser or deluded.

People can stay stuck in this state for days, weeks, months, or years—even their whole life. It tends to be a blockage to progress. It’s a classic behavior of an individual with a weak sense of self: Deep down, they feel themselves to be inferior or lesser than others, so they place all their focus on an all-consuming ideology or charismatic leader that they derive strength and self-worth from serving. If this sounds like an obvious trap, and one you would never fall for, think again: The “One True Path” disease has been responsible for many of history’s greatest tragedies, including the Third Reich or the many historical genocides committed by overzealous religious missionaries that worked to “convert by sword.”

If your path is the One True Path, it’s time to leave your cloistered room or insular community and experience what life is like for others of different faiths and life backgrounds. Make some new friends.

4. Us vs. Them Mentality

Because people who are into magick and alternative spirituality are often on the fringes, it’s easy to adopt belief systems that reinforce an oppressed identity or “us vs. them” story. This becomes a particularly acute problem when the magick that people are doing isn’t working, or not producing a good quality of life, and instead of changing the behaviors or beliefs that aren’t working, people create a narrative in which some “other” individual or group is keeping them down. These stories about why failure is OK quickly blossom and cross-pollinate, becoming wide-scale conspiracy theories potent enough to infect whole cultures, leaving disempowerment, misery and even genocide in their wake (again see the Third Reich). Examples of this include:

• “The Illuminati are out to get me because I have secret knowledge.”

• “Shapeshifting reptilians/Archons/evil spirits/Satan/etc. are controlling reality and don’t like me.”

• “I’m way too enlightened/edgy/intense/real for mainstream society to handle.”

• “I am a lightworker charged with battling the dark forces, and the dark forces are in control.”

Do you have any of these beliefs, or any similar ones? Let’s take a look at them—what’s the underlying message of all of them? Personal significance. Me me me. All of these scripts allow for personal significance through failure. They all allow you to be a complete fuckup and to simultaneously have the illusion of “winning.”

They are all poison. Jettison them immediately, and instead focus on your personal growth and happiness, and how you can be of service to the people around you.

5. Substance Abuse

Drugs and magick have been linked since the very first prehistoric shaman chewed some strange bark or fungus that let her talk to the spirits of the forest, and the spirits of the forest turned out to have some pretty useful stuff to say.

In recent times, magicians like Aleister Crowley, William S. Burroughs, Terence McKenna, Carlos Castaneda and others have hyped the spiritual potential of psychedelics and even harder substances. Some of them have also fallen prey to addiction, and the destructive behaviors that come with the disease of addiction. This is one of the major reasons why magick has been so discredited—it allows people to say “Yeah, but you were just high,” or to look at the addiction behaviors of people like Crowley and attribute them to magick instead of their true source, the drug addiction itself.

Drugs may be a fast route to altered states, but they are not a sustainable one. In our current moment—world economic crisis, instability and uncertainty—I suggest that magicians don’t have the time or luxury of drug use. We need to be sharp, frosty—Navy SEALs, not Deadheads. Remember: The Baby Boomer generation could burn decades with drug experimentation because it was the richest, most financially secure generation in history. That is not the case for Millenials or those younger. The world reality is a live-fire situation, a war zone, and you don’t dull your edge or disorient yourself in a war zone.

(It’s not an “Us vs. Them” war zone, by the way. It’s a free-for-all, as everybody scrambles to survive the challenges created by the acceleration of technology and growth of the human population.)

6. Trying to Be the “Best Magician” Instead of the “Best You”

When overachiever types get into magick, they try to learn every single aspect of it and become a Total and Formidable Master. There is no mastery; leave this archetype in the Saturday morning cartoons it came from. Remember: Magick is just a tool. Know your goal, and use the tool to achieve your goal.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be so linear: You may simply be seeking the regular, sustainable spiritual growth that comes from a regular practice of meditation, dreamwork, journalling, yoga, ritual and any other tool you have chosen to use. Wonderful.

The key here is: It’s not a competition. There is no prize, other than becoming more yourself.

7. Giving Your Power Away

Particularly as a young and untested magician, you will likely be confronted with situations or people that tempt you to surrender your power. Whether it’s an autocratic or abusive guru, a regimented and controlling magical order, or even a tightly controlling ideology, you might be tempted or even frightened into surrendering control of your life in exchange for some tangible or intangible reward.

If you do this, get ready for a painful learning experience!

Though it can sometimes be easy to forget, you are the true magician, the true master of your reality. To fully illustrate this point, I’d like to include a story from the author John Fowles, who kindled my early teenage interest in testing the nature of reality. It’s from his 1965 novel The Magus:

Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father’s domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.

But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling, creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

“Are those real islands?” asked the young prince.

“Of course they are real islands,” said the man in evening dress.

“And those strange and troubling creatures?”

“They are all genuine and authentic princesses.”

“Then God must also exist!” cried the prince.

“I am God,” replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.

The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.

“So, you are back,” said his father, the king.

“I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,” said the prince reproachfully.

The king was unmoved.

“Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God exist.”

“I saw them!”

“Tell me how God was dressed.”

“God was in full evening dress.”

“Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?”

The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.

“That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.”

At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.

“My father, the king, has told me who you are,” said the prince indignantly. “You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.”

The man on the shore smiled.

“It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father’s kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father’s spell, so you cannot see them.”

The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye.

“Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?”

The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves.

“Yes, my son, I’m only a magician.”

“Then the man on the other shore was God.”

“The man on the other shore was another magician.”

“I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic.”

“There is no truth beyond magic,” said the king.

The prince was full of sadness. He said, “I will kill myself.”

The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.

“Very well,” he said, “I can bear it.”

“You see, my son,” said the king, “you, too, now begin to be a magician.”

Unexplainable UFO Phenomena To Be Scientifically Analyzed In New Project

via iflscience

An international team is trying to create a systematic and rigorous approach to studying unexplained aerial phenomena, commonly known as UFOs.

The non-profit organization is called UFO Detection and Tracking, (UFODATA) and it seeks to construct a large network of surveillance stations to monitor the skies 24/7 using optical and infrared cameras, sound and ultrasound detectors, weather stations, Geiger counters, and magnetometers.
"[…] we are going to use astrophysical methodology in order to carry out research on light anomalies appearing in our atmosphere, where we expect to obtain an optimum signal-to-noise ratio due to the predictably high luminosity of the phenomenon and its relative closeness to the observer," Astrophysicist Massimo Teodorani, a member of the UFODATA science team, said in a statement. "In such a way – with precise numbers in our hands – we are in a condition to select very carefully truly anomalous cases from cases that can be explained by prosaic causes."

Aerial anomalies almost always have a very mundane explanation behind them: planets, stars, meteors, weather balloons, planes, and atmospheric events are often responsible for what might appear mysterious at first. However, the team plan to focus on those events that are less easy to scientifically explain, and show what they could be.

A scientific approach of this type would provide a rational answer to various UFO phenomena, as well as potentially delivering a large amount of data regarding our atmosphere. It could also provide data on rare and unusual atmospheric episodes such as ball lightning.

The last few years have seen a dramatic change in how UFOs are reported. The availability of smartphones and image manipulation software has seemingly increased the number of fake reports from fame-seekers, with many videos purporting to show extraterrestrial phenomena easily dismissed as fabricated on closer inspection.

"It has become clear that any breakthrough in our understanding of the UFO phenomenon will require a break from the past," added Mark Rodeghier, leader of the project. "Witness testimony, photos and videos, and government documents have taken us only so far; instead, we need to record and study UFOs directly, as other sciences do with their own specific objects. Of course, this is a daunting task, but it is made conceivable by advances in technology, software, communication capabilities, and power sources."

More information regarding the project can be found on the UFODATA website.
 

 

What is Magic - Alan Moore

"Magic is a state of mind. It is often portrayed as very black and gothic, and that is because certain practitioners played that up for a sense of power and prestige. That is a disservice. Magic is very colorful. Of this, I am sure." - Alan Moore

The Rise of America's Secret Government

When and how did the "secret government" arise in the US? It could easily be traced to the creation of the CIA after World War II. Special guest David Talbot joins the Ron Paul Liberty Report to discuss his new book, The Devil's Chessboard, about Allen Dulles and the deep state.

Mysterious Ancient Geoglyphs Discovered In Kazakhstan Leave Archeologists Perplexed

via iflscience

More than 50 remarkable ancient earthworks have been discovered in Kazakhstan, although archeologists are at a loss to explain who made them and for what purpose. The geoglyphs, which have been likened to the famous Nazca Lines of Peru, are scattered across a vast area of the Kazakh steppe, and were first discovered by archeology enthusiast Dmitriy Dey using Google Earth.

An international team of researchers from the Lithuanian Institute of History and Kostanay University in Kazakhstan are now attempting to decipher the age, meaning and function of the man-made features, yet have so far been left scratching their heads. Speaking to Live Science, archeologists Irina Shevnina and Andrew Logvin explained that “we can say only one thing – the geoglyphs were built by ancient people. By whom and for what purpose, remains a mystery.”

This uncertainty has led to speculation and disagreement about the nature of the earthworks. Dey and the team at Kostanay claim they could be up to 8,000 years old, based on how much the mounds has eroded and the age of Neolithic flints found at the sites, and built as part of a sun-worshipping cult. However, Dr Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute of the Lithuanian Institute of History disputes this and dates them at under 2,000 years old, using a different method called luminescence dating, which looks at exposure to sunlight over time. She told National Geographic that they may have been “built as a kind of landmark, something that could be seen from river valleys far away.”

Among the structures are a number of crosses, rings, and a hooked cross that resembles an ancient swastika. This symbol has been found at ancient archeological sites across the world, ranging from engravings on Hindu temples to Nordic stone carvings, and has been associated with a number of different meanings that are not related to its modern, negative connotations.

The symbolism of water - Carl Jung

via jungcurrents

Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious.

The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the “subconscious,” usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness.

Water is the “valley spirit,” the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water- a yang in the yin, therefore, water means spirit that has become unconscious.

Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious

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Depression and spiritual awakening - Lisa Miller

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Is depression, as most of us experience it, meaningless suffering? Dr. Lisa Miller presents research that lends meaning to the experience of depression and to our experience on planet Earth.

Dr. Lisa Miller is perhaps the world’s foremost expert in the relative study of psychology and spirituality. Dr. Miller is Professor and Director of Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she founded and currently directs the Spirituality and Mind-Body Institute, to innovate, disseminate, and train healers in foundationally spiritual treatments. Dr. Miller solo-edited the Oxford University Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality (2012) and has published over seventy articles and chapters on spirituality in mental health and wellness. She has acted as Principle Investigator on several million dollars-worth of grants from corporate and family foundations as well as the National Institutes of Mental Health. Dr. Miller is Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the new APA publication, Spirituality in Clinical Practice, and also serves as associate editor of Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, the official journal of APA Division 36, Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, for which Dr. Miller has served as President and is now APA Council Representative. Dr. Miller has been elected to Fellow of the American Psychological Association and awarded the Virginia Sexton Mentoring Award. She is a graduate of Yale University, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania, where she studied under Martin Seligman, Ph. D.