But usually, when your Adjuster attempts to communicate with you, the message is lost in the material currents of the energy streams of human mind; only occasionally do you catch an echo, a faint and distant echo, of the divine voice.

                                                                                                                                                                                             –   Urantia Book,    p. 1205:5

 

In 1983, at the height of the Cold War, a movie came out  – “War Games” (with Matthew Broderick, et al.)   

                                      [film synopsis, from IMDB]:

The US Air Force has decided to change their missile strike planning and command procedure from a human directed one, where in simulations many officers were unwilling to “turn the key” upon order, to an intelligent computer process, which takes that fallible human factor out of the equation. This change has its supporters, such as NORAD chief engineer John McKittrick who suggested it, and its detractors, such as Air Force General Beringer. The system chosen is called the War Operation Plan Response, or WOPR for short, developed by brilliant but now deceased scientist Stephen Falken, who programmed the system to learn continually through game simulations. Meanwhile, David Lightman, an intelligent but academically unmotivated Seattle based high school student, is a computer whiz. In trying to hack into a video game software company, he unknowingly hacks into WOPR using one of the listed games, Falken’s Maze, as the path to discovering the system’s back door password, Joshua, the name of Stephen Falken’s son who died at age five. David and his new friend, popular but equally unmotivated student Jennifer Mack, believe he’s hacked into a games company and they start to play the most intriguing game listed, namely Global Thermonuclear War. David and Jennifer soon realize that what they are doing is not a game when news of simulated attacks on the US, exactly the type David and Jennifer plotted in the “game”, hits the media. David believes he’s in even more trouble when Joshua calls him back, still playing the game, with its ultimate goal of winning. WOPR or Joshua, in playing the game, is still simulating Soviet attacks on the US, which Beringer believes to be real and who orders appropriate responses against the Soviets. As the authorities close in on David, with people like McKittrick believing him to be a spy, David tries to enlist the help of the one person who knows Joshua’s end goal and can probably stop Joshua from achieving that goal, while he needs to elude capture by the authorities.

                                                                 —Huggo

 

It’s a good story.  And if you haven’t seen it, probably you should.

 

But that same year (in November, 1983) the entire world came as close as it (probably) ever has – to complete annihilation.

Then president Ronald Reagan referred, in a major speech, to the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire”.  The Russians were already paranoid and fearful of the U.S launching a first strike nuclear attack against them.  But when they heard Reagan refer to them in such a way, they were Very Worried.  We had already convinced them (and the whole world) that we were fully capable of initiating thermonuclear destruction, having bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Fearing war in eastern Europe, thousands of Peace demonstrators took to the streets. And when top-ranking NATO officers went into a bunker (for 7 days, for their annual war-games exercise (Able Archer) they did not think that, during that week, their communications exercises would bring them to within a hair’s breadth of igniting WW 3 … but IT HAPPENED.

And the main reason  war did NOT start was (mainly) because of ONE MAN – the Russian Army officer in charge of their main detection and response facility near Moscow.  That was Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On 26 September 1983, the nuclear early-warning system of the Soviet Union reported the launch of multiple USAF Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were felt to be false alarms by Stanislav Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack against the United States and its NATO allies, which would have resulted in an immediate and irrevocable escalation to a full-scale nuclear war. Investigation of the satellite warning system later determined that the system had indeed malfunctioned.

Background

The incident occurred at a time of severely strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.[1] Responding to the Soviet Union’s deployment of fourteen SS-20/RSD-10 theatre nuclear missiles, the NATO Double-Track Decision was taken in December 1979 by the military commander of NATO to deploy 108 Pershing II nuclear missiles in Western Europe with the ability to hit targets in eastern Ukraine, Belarus or Lithuania within 10 minutes and the longer range, but slower BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) to strike potential targets farther to the east. In mid-February 1981, and continuing until 1983, psychological operations by the United States began. These were designed to test Soviet radar vulnerability and to demonstrate US nuclear capabilities. They included clandestine naval operations, in the Barents, Norwegian, Black, and Baltic seas and near the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, as well as flights by American bombers, occasionally several times per week, directly toward Soviet airspace that turned away only at the last moment.[2]

“It really got to them,” recalls Dr. William Schneider, [former] undersecretary of state for military assistance and technology, who saw classified “after-action reports” that indicated U.S. flight activity. “They didn’t know what it all meant. A squadron would fly straight at Soviet airspace, and other radars would light up and units would go on alert. Then at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return home.”[3]

From the accounts of CIA and senior KGB officers,[4][5] by May 1981, obsessed with historical parallels with 1941 and Reaganite rhetoric, and with no defensive capability against the Pershing IIs, Soviet leaders believed the United States was preparing a secret nuclear attack on the USSR and initiated Operation RYaN. Under this, agents abroad monitored service and technical personnel who would implement a nuclear attack so as to be able either to preempt it or have mutually assured destruction.

On 1 September 1983, the Soviet military shot down a South Korean passenger jet, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, that had strayed into Soviet airspace. All 269 people aboard the aircraft were killed,[6] including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald and many other Americans.[7] The first Pershing II missiles were reportedly deployed in late November 1983.

Bruce Blair, an expert on Cold War nuclear strategies and former president of the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C., says the American–Soviet relationship at that time

had deteriorated to the point where the Soviet Union as a system—not just the Kremlin, not just Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, not just the KGB—but as a system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to it. It was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone to mistakes and accidents. The false alarm that happened on Petrov’s watch could not have come at a more dangerous, intense phase in U.S.–Soviet relations.[8]

In an interview aired on American television, Blair said, “The Russians (Soviets) saw a U.S. government preparing for a first strike, headed by a President Ronald Reagan capable of ordering a first strike.” Regarding the incident involving Petrov, he said, “I think that this is the closest our country has come to accidental nuclear war.”[9]

Incident

On 26 September 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces, was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow which housed the command center of the Soviet early warning satellites, code-named Oko.[10] Petrov’s responsibilities included observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union’s strategy was an immediate and compulsory nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.[11]

Shortly after midnight, the bunker’s computers reported that one intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the United States. Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a first-strike nuclear attack by the United States was likely to involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches in order to disable any Soviet means of a counterattack. Furthermore, the satellite system’s reliability had been questioned in the past.[12] Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm, though accounts of the event differ as to whether he notified his superiors[11] or not[8][full citation needed] after he concluded that the computer detections were false and that no missile had been launched. Petrov’s suspicion that the warning system was malfunctioning was confirmed when no missile in fact arrived. Later, the computers identified four additional missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning again, despite having no direct means to confirm this.[13] The Soviet Union’s land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon.[12]

It was subsequently determined that the false alarms were caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites’ Molniya orbits,[14] an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.[15]

In explaining the factors leading to his decision, Petrov cited his belief and training that any U.S. first strike would be massive, so five missiles seemed an illogical start.[11] In addition, the launch detection system was new and in his view not yet wholly trustworthy, while ground radar had failed to pick up corroborative evidence even after several minutes of the false alarm.[12]

Aftermath

Petrov underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions. Initially, he was praised for his decision.[11] General Yury Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense’s Missile Defense Units, who was the first to hear Petrov’s report of the incident (and the first to reveal it to the public in 1998), stated that Petrov’s “correct actions” were “duly noted.”[11] Petrov himself stated he was initially praised by Votintsev and was promised a reward,[11][16] but recalled that he was also reprimanded for improper filing of paperwork with the pretext that he had not described the incident in the military diary.[16][17]

He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the influential scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished.[11][16][17][18] He was reassigned to a less sensitive post,[17] took early retirement (although he emphasized that he was not “forced out” of the army, as is sometimes claimed by Western sources),[16] and suffered a nervous breakdown.[17]

Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counter-intelligence who knew Soviet chairman Andropov well, says that Andropov’s distrust of American leaders was profound. It is conceivable that if Petrov had declared the satellite warnings valid, such an erroneous report could have provoked the Soviet leadership into becoming bellicose. Kalugin said, “The danger was in the Soviet leadership thinking, ‘The Americans may attack, so we better attack first.'”[19]

The incident became known publicly in the 1990s upon the publication of Votintsev‘s memoirs. Widespread media reports since then have increased public awareness of Petrov’s actions.

~~~~

There are two films on this which I would commend to you –

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKse2W1Wxz0    (Nov.1983  Nuclear War Scare  WW 3    [documentary    1 hr. 26 min.])

&

https://tubitv.com/movies/457157/the_man_who_saved_the_world    (The Man Who Saved the World    [1:49:49])

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It becomes clear   that there is no real substitute for Humanity and Decency.

 

Lt. Co. Petrov reported “false alarms” DESPITE the fact that he was uncertain as to the validity of their system’s findings.  

He was willing to risk (the sin of) allowing the deaths of millions of his countrymen … he risked his OWN SOUL … in order to save the whole world from destruction.

 

And yet he always maintained that he was no hero.

 

Well, I think he was.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bymdsSvLfJY    (War Games, trailer)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s93KC4AGKnY    (ending, War Games):  “Strange game (thermonuclear war).  The only winning move is not to play.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9LhORHbN9w    (The Real Nuclear Incident That Inspired ‘WarGames’   – 8:52)

 

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,   

which knew it would inherit the earth   

before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds   

watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom   

is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,   

more famous than the dress shoe,   

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it   

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men   

who smile while crossing streets,   

sticky children in grocery lines,   

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,   

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   

but because it never forgot what it could do.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                –   Naomi Shihab Nye

 

 

 

 

Heal us O Lord, and we shall be healed.

In other words – Send us the Cure,  we’ve got the Disease already.

                                                                                                         –    Tevye      (from Fiddler on the Roof)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A physics student will pretty soon be required to grapple with the principles of Mechanical Advantage … a portion of which involves – loads, pulleys, and ropes.

If you raise a load using (only) a SINGLE pulley (mounted high enough, and to something strong enough) … it may make your job easier to do, especially if you must repeat the process and lift similar loads again and again.  But it will NOT be because you have gained MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE … but simply because such a (basic) rig allows you to REVERSE the direction of the force required to lift your load. (By pulling DOWNWARD … you can make your load go UPWARD)   And it may also mean that you do not have to carry the load up a flight of stairs or up a ladder … and YOUR BODY weighs MORE than your load does (which means that the work of raising your own body to the same height as your load’s destination … that was all WASTED WORK.   So – doing the rigging may WELL have been worthwhile.

But, what if you need to raise a load which weighs more than YOU do?   For THIS, you need Mechanical Advantage, and you must start adding pulleys … (and, as always, have a long-enough rope)   If you add (only) ONE more pulley, you would attach it to your LOAD (and run the end of the rope up to near the first pulley, and just tie it off.  We KEPT the original rigging … just augmented it. So (to clarify): starting high, where the rope is tied, it goes down to the pulley attached to your load, then back up    THROUGH the original pulley, then back down to your hands (as it did before).

Now – you have a Mechanical Advantage of TWO, and you will be able to raise a load (nearly) TWICE as heavy as YOU are.  You are trading Distance for Force. Let’s say that with the original rig, you raised a 100-pound load 10 feet. And to do that, you applied a 100-pound (downward) force, and pulled through 10 feet of rope.  With the addition of the second pulley, you could raise the 100-pound load (the same 10 feet as before) – by exerting a 50-pound pull while pulling through 20 feet of rope. [Twice the distance, but applying HALF the force]  Mmm?

And, theoretically, you may add ADDITIONAL pulleys – (the third would be at the top, next to “pulley 1”; the fourth you would put at the bottom, alongside “pulley 2” … and so on, back and forth (odd-numbered pulleys at the top, even-numbered ones at the bottom) … till you get bored, or until you run out of rope.]

Your Mechanical Advantage   will always be equal to the NUMBER OF SUPPORTING STRANDS.

 

Now … (to explain the title of this essay) –

When the writers of physics books assign you a sample problem, they will ALWAYS tell you to “ASSUME THE PULLEYS ARE FRICTIONLESS”.

 

WHY do they do this? (tell the student – to ‘assume the pulleys are frictionless’ … when we all know that they’re NOT)?

 

Well, for one thing – a good pulley IS (almost) frictionless.  That’s why we make them, and use them – to minimize friction (… and to alter the direction of applied force, and to create mechanical advantage)  

But

Even the BEST pulley is NOT completely frictionless.

 

We are so instructed    because – at THIS POINT (in our training), our teacher wants us to comprehend the fundamentals.  He wishes us to  learn the PRINCIPLES of Mechanical Advantage (and NOT be able to calculate ACTUAL forces required to raise a load … ACCOUNTING for Friction)   Coefficients of Friction … that will come later, if we get that far.

 

To COMPREHEND THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICS is NOT an easy task … so it’s sensible to LEARN THE BASICS FIRST (and nuances will be filled in later … if, as I said before – we get that far)

 

This essay is intended as a “discussion of –  HOW to APPROACH a Problem which is difficult to understand”.

HOW can we (even) approach the Problem of Planetary Crisis? (crises)?

Well, the (short) answer is – DON’T try to do it all at once !

Begin … with the basics.   / (We’ll assume our ‘pulleys are frictionless’)   Mmm?

 

Okay … Let’s have a look –

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Our (planetary) Life-Support Systems are being damaged … and it’s we Human Beings that are doing it.  (and, of course, this is happening along a number of fronts)

 

Why?

 

Forgive me if this seems trite … but we should follow the money.

 

There are, for example, many (many) patents which are being ‘sat on’ … despite the fact that their implementation would be beneficial to All Life (and the planet itself) … because it would be financially detrimental, in the short term, to certain corporations / wealthy families.

 

This should, of course, be illegal.

 

Any citizen (of this world) should be able to apply to their (own country’s) courts for an injunction against any action that anyone is doing, if that action is harmful to our well-being or that of our grandchildren … to our Planet.  Anything else is Nonsense. It’s madness.

 

Planetary destruction/degradation needs to be (to become) illegal.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Current Corporation-Design makes (all) corporations into Sociopaths.

 

The Corporation is a Human / (Legal) Invention.  

 

We invented it.  We designed it. We can redesign it.

(And we must)  

Our grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) must be treated as (major) stockholders.

 

This is NOT something beyond our power.

It is (simply) something which is beyond our (current) will.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Suppose I’m riding my motorcycle, and I’m in a Big Hurry to get somewhere … and I get into a wreck (with a truck) … and when I come around, I’m paraplegic … wheel-chair bound.

Then I’d get to thinking – Mmm … Maybe I did have time    (to drive slow enough to be safe).

 

What we do NOT want – is to wait until the oceans die … and then say  – “Oh gosh! What are we going to do about this?”

Or let the atmosphere warm up THREE DEGREES … and then say – “Oh Dear!  This is bad!  Maybe we should change!

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Let us suppose – that there are ENOUGH of us (who want to try to save this world) … that we have the vision, the will, the resources, and determination  adequate for the task … we would (of course) encounter considerable ignorance and denial.  But we will ALSO find we are (temporarily) obstructed by insanity … by madness.

 

Did you know that the Koch brothers have spent 150 million dollars – to discredit the science of global warming? (to 2017)

                    

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/koch-industries/

 

The super-rich have figured out … how to keep themselves powerful (rich) … and everybody else poor (weak).

 

Whenever something horrible is happening … we should learn to FOLLOW THE MONEY.

(And we need to become conscious of the MEANS OF MANIPULATION & CONTROL.  Many techniques are employed which are hidden … subtle, and not at all obvious.   You should watch the videos [links for which are] at the end of this essay.)

 

IS THERE ANYONE WHO IS BENEFITING FROM THIS?  (or someone who IMAGINES that they are benefiting.)?

 

We need to get it through our head – that these people are insane.  They are mad. How else can you describe someone who chooses money   before Life?

 

They are NOT our friends.

 

We can NOT allow these sociopaths to determine our collective future.  They are clearly not qualified to do that (based on the choices they have made so far)

 

We must choose our own future.

 

Any problem that can be solved technically   SHOULD be.

But 

A Spiritual Problem   may well require a Spiritual Solution.

 

The DISEASE that we’re suffering from is a little difficult of description –

It’s a disease of the Heart.

You could call it “anomie” … or

A lack of Heart Connection  (we do not feel connected, on the heart level – to each other  OR 

to the very life support systems which keep us alive   day in and day out.

(If we DID, it would already be universally illegal to destroy (or harm) the planet … and we would NOT throw our trash out our car windows.)

 

You could call it (our “condition” … our disease):  ALIENATION.

 

(Think about it:  There is not really a “good” word for it.   “Alienation” is maybe the best one I can think of)

 

And this is why (the fact that we have this DISEASE) – we should support any activity, or thought, or action, or policy, or movement which fosters Family, or Connection, or Love, or appreciation of Nature (of the Great Mother).

[ref:  https://worldfamilytrading.com/universal-weekly-neighborhood-potluck/

      &    https://worldfamilytrading.com/more-on-stone-soup-potlucks/

                                      &      http://www.thrivemovement.com/

 

 

We should NOT expect the rich and powerful … to rescue us from Self-Genocide.

 

Nope.  

 

WE must do it.

 

 (please watch:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6unS2JF8TA    (Pathology of the Rich  – Chris Hedges)

                               &    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA-jtlV3VNs    (Noam Chomsky  – 10 strategies of Manipulation)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 The Family Is All There Is

Think of those old, enduring connections

found in all flesh–the channeling

wires and threads, vacuoles, granules,

plasma and pods, purple veins, ascending

boles and coral sapwood (sugar-

and light-filled), those common ligaments,

filaments, fibers and canals.

Seminal to all kin also is the open

mouth–in heart urchin and octopus belly,

in catfish, moonfish, forest lily,

and rugosa rose, in thirsty magpie,

wailing cat cub, barker, yodeler,

yawning coati.

And there is a pervasive clasping

common to the clan–the hard nails

of lichen and ivy sucker

on the church wall, the bean tendril

and the taproot, the bolted coupling

of crane flies, the hold of the shearwater

on its morning squid, guanine

to cytosine, adenine to thymine,

fingers around fingers, the grip

of the voice on presence, the grasp

of the self on place.

Remember the same hair on pygmy

dormouse and yellow-necked caterpillar,

covering red baboon, thistle seed

and willow herb? Remember the similar

snorts of warthog, walrus, male moose

and sumo wrestler? Remember the familiar

whinny and shimmer found in river birches,

bay mares and bullfrog tadpoles,

in children playing at shoulder tag

on a summer lawn?

The family–weavers, reachers, winders

and connivers, pumpers, runners, air

and bubble riders, rock-sitters, wave-gliders,

wire-wobblers, soothers, flagellators–all

brothers, sisters, all there is.

Name something else. 

 

                                                           –     Pattiann Rogers

 

~ ~

 

 

 

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

 than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

                                                                            –    Wm. Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

 

This is a report    based on a documentary film – “Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret”  (2017).  It is centered on the work of a doctor/investigator – Dr. Steven Greer.

 

[This is a very well done film; and I highly recommend that you see it  –

  https://www.netflix.com/watch/80171742?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2C001d3ba4055bace8ef0316e0626b52eb8b76bd75%3A23f761360cda8355dfae655509c79f3d0c672fc3%2C%2C  ]

 

When he was a kid, Greer saw a UFO – a seamless metal disc … so he knew that such things were real.

 

In 1990 he founded the Center for the Study of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (CSETI)  to create a diplomatic and research-based initiative to contact extraterrestrial civilizations.  It was a citizens’ diplomacy effort (similar to Physicians for Social Responsibility)  Friendly contact was not being pursued by governments.

 

By 1992 he was getting visits from the Head of Army Intelligence, from people inside the NSA and other 3-lettered agencies.

 

His intention, he says, was never to get involved in trying to disclose the issue.  He wanted to make contact for peaceful purposes, and to advance us from a planetary civilization … to an interplanetary civilization.

 

This documentary spends some time showing the extreme secrecy with which the UFO issue was handled from early on … and also explains the (highly deceptive) methods that were utilized to control public opinion and sentiment.  One pretense after another.

 

The “reason” most commonly given – as to “why the public must not be allowed to believe that UFO’s are real – is ‘to avoid panic’.  But (personally) I do NOT believe this. I do not believe that panic would ensue if the facts were left alone (and then people WOULD soon believe that we’re being visited by extraterrestrials) … NOR do I believe that the people who are making these decisions    are withholding the information (and deliberately ‘debunking’ sightings which THEY KNOW ARE REAL) … IT’S NOT BECAUSE THEY WISH TO AVOID PUBLIC PANIC.

 

There is a MOUNTAIN of evidence.  There are 3,500 cases of UFO’s leaving physical traces.  4,000 cases of UFO’s tracked on radar. An enormous amount of photo and video evidence.

ANYONE who has access to this evidence knows that it’s real … that THEY are Real.

So

The fact that they’ve COME here … means that they are (a lot) smarter than we are.  And the fact that they have NOT EATEN or ENSLAVED us (or otherwise exploited us) … means that they are better than we are.  In other words, they are OUR ELDERS.  

And the rascals who (mainly) run this world   do not want the populace to begin LOOKING TO THE ALIENS for LEADERSHIP (because then, our phony leaders would lose their authority … and their jobs)  

[Simon Sinek, the cultural anthropologist and speaker   has made it very clear – that a ‘Real Leader’ TAKES CARE OF THE PEOPLE HE’S RESPONSIBLE FOR.  He keeps them SAFE.]

 

Besides, it’s not the Aliens who are wearing the Black Hats in this story … It’s US!  We’re the ones with the black hats.  THEY are worried that we may hurt each other (which we have and do)   OR do damage somewhere ELSE in the universe.  

Whenever we’ve tried to take nuclear weapons into space, they (our elder brothers) have destroyed them.

“There is no evidence, I wish to emphasize, that these life forms from elsewhere are hostile towards us.  But there is a great deal of evidence that they are concerned with our hostility.”

                                                                                                                                      –  Steven Greer

 

Within weeks of the Roswell crash (because we now had possession of alien craft, etc.)  the CIA was formed … and the US Air Force was split off from the Army, and made into its own separate branch of the military.  And … it led to the development of Unacknowledged Special Access Projects (USAP’s) / Black Ops.

 

Eisenhower knew about these Black Ops … but by 1961, when he left office, he had completely lost control of them.  He said –  

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.”

 

He was referring here – NOT to the regular military … but to the (illegal, covert, unregulated) military-industrial intelligence complex … which now seeks total dominion and control.

Their black budget (from our tax-money) is now 100 to 200 billion dollars a year.   As of 2017 there was 2.3 trillion dollars … which we were unable to track … going to this covert operations community.  Dick Cheney, Ben Rich, Kelly Johnson, et al.

And no one … NO ONE   has oversight over them, or can control them.

They (can and do) wage their own wars.  They go into the middle east … to the oil fields.  They do whatever they like. With OUR TAX MONEY … and the WEAPONS  of OUR MILITARY.

 

The film talks about FALSE FLAG OPERATIONS.

 

We used this form of deception, for example, in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War (to get more support for the war)

 

Wernher von Braun (the German physicist who developed the V-2 rocket for Hitler …  was later brought to America.    Following the war, he was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of Operation Paperclip.

Von Braun got us to the moon.

 

Well, on his death-bed, he told Dr. Carol Rosin, of Fairchild Industries about an elaborate False Flag operation.

He said – first the Russians would be ‘the enemy’ … then it would be “terrorists” … then it would be “Third World Crazies” … and finally there would be a (phony) extraterrestrial invasion … and (he told her) – “It’s All a LIE “

 

With the knowledge we now have we could go one of two ways.  We could have most of the world in poverty (as we have now) with most of the wealth and power in the hands of a few … and continual war … or

We could have a life of universal affluence, no pollution, and virtually free energy.

 

This is the choice that’s before us.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

 

 

Steven M. Greer

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Simon Sinek

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdG2d46fPh8    (20 years of Nature’s best photography)

[I included these (above) photos … because they show us (part of) what is at stake]

---

 

 

 

Once, at a certain pond, the King of the Frogs died.

So, all the frogs from that pond had a meeting to consider who should be their next king.

Well, after considerable discussion, it was decided that Heron would be the new king.

But this did not turn out so well for the frogs.  Because, you see, the Heron wears a spear on the front of his face.  And well, he just went around the pond and ate everyone up.

 

Now … we humans (who are surely much smarter than these silly frogs) … we would NEVER do such a stupid thing.  RIGHT?

 

Anyway, let’s talk about the Heron.

 

The heron is like a Drug Lord.  He knows Power and is not afraid to wield it  (in fact he LIKES wielding it). He is a person who has the Warrior (archetype) developed … but little else.  He doesn’t CARE about ‘collateral damage’ … about who might get hurt or dead due to his actions. We should not expect a drug lord to make a Good King.

 

So, this leaves us wondering – “Who WOULD be a good choice for King?”

 

[I think it’s lovely how such a simple little fable can point us in the right direction.]

 

Here are the archetypes which I think (for our purposes here) are important –

Child

Father

Warrior

Sage

Holy Man

 

The Child represents Creativity, Spontaneity, and a capacity to enjoy the world in a Direct Way.

It brings to mind – how mature men and women of the First Peoples do not lose their ability to laugh as a child laughs.  (This is a good sign. Lots of white folks are, as adults, might grumpy. Mmm?)

And remember how (in the film “ET” [1982]) it’s the KIDS who are the heros.  The adults show up in protective white clean-suits … to capture and study the extra-terrestrial; while the CHILDREN relate to ET in a direct and Human way … like he’s Family.  And so they mobilize and try to help him.  They have to rescue ET    from the (crazy) grown-ups!

The Child    has a Direct Connection to Life.  (And the film does a good job of showing how important it is NOT TO LOSE THAT.)

 

To become a good Father (or Mother)  one must move beyond one’s (initial) selfishness & self-absorption … into Love and Service.

The Father is the Provider and Protector … and embodies Love.  The Mother is the Maintainer and Nourisher … and also embodies Love.

 

The Warrior has mastered the arts of Discipline, Training, and Preparation.  And he has come to terms with putting himself into ‘harm’s way’ for the sake of Others.  The Warrior willingly prepares and trains … then (as is required) risks Injury or Death to protect his comrades and countrymen (or species / planet).   Training is required. Valor is required.

 

The Sage has studied and has become educated.  But he possesses more than knowledge.  He has become wise.  (perhaps through suffering, life experience, and worship)

 

The Holy Man sees the events of the world  … within the context of realities beyond the material realm.

During  the Civil War someone (a unionist) asked Abraham Lincoln – if ‘God is on our side?’  He replied – “I don’t know about that. I just hope we are on God’s side.”

 

Surely we need a King … who (genuinely) loves everybody.  (The Father)

 

We want him to be creative and to relate to life directly.  (The Child)

 

He needs to be disciplined … and capable of wielding power well.  He must be able to make tough decisions, ones which the average person would not be able to grapple with.  (The Warrior)

 

We need him to be broadly educated … and wise.  (The Sage)

 

His views must be contextualized by truly elevated truths and principles.

 

Compassion is not at all weak.  It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world.  Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear;  it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion … is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.    

                                                                                                                                                                                   –     Sharon Salzberg

 

(The Holy Man)

 

Are there any of the fundamental archetypes  … which our ‘ideal King’ could do without?

 

I don’t think so.

 

He needs them all.

 

He needs to be a Complete Man.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[The story about the frogs making Heron their King – is one I heard from Robert Bly.  (And it may be that Michael Meade was in on it as well; I am uncertain.) But I remember the STORY well enough.]

 

Today in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual … So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people.

                                              — Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, October 2016.

 

  Last year data surpassed oil, and is now the most      valuable commodity in the world.      

                                                                                                   –    Brittany Kaiser

 

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.  All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.

                                                                                                   –    C. S. Lewis

                                                                                                                            Screwtape Proposes a Toast

                                                                                                                                             and Other Pieces

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week I watched a (Netflix) documentary  – “The Great Hack”. It tells about a company called Cambridge Analytica (which was) a full-service data-driven communications company.  They ‘mined’ Facebook data, developed campaign plans, and hired themselves out … to various groups, including Trump’s election campaign.  

Before that, they worked for the Ted Cruz campaign; and were instrumental in Brittain’s ‘decision’ to leave the European Union. 

 

[Brexit is an abbreviation for “British exit,” referring to the UK’s decision in a June 23, 2016 referendum to leave the European Union (EU).]

 

David Carroll (an associate professor at the Parsons School of Design, and) a father of two  … wanted to know how our data was being used … ‘Who was selling us Fear?’ … and began looking for answers.  He came to the realization that the worst possible data scenario had already occurred, when he found out about what Cambridge Analytica had been doing (to make money … “business”, you know).  He learned that CA’s parent company SCL was in London (where the data used in the Trump campaign was being analyzed). He realized that he could use a British lawyer to ask the British courts to FORCE Cambridge Analytica to ‘fully disclose’ to him – WHAT data they had on him, HOW they analyzed and used it, etc. … and “Could he opt out?!”

 

The documentary shows interviews of numerous people of (considerable) interest … including several of Cambridge Analytica’s top executives.

 

What is of (great) interest TO ME – is that of ALL these, ONLY TWO were able (through a process / some time & soul searching) to come to the realization that what the company had been doing was (for Numerous Reasons) WRONG. … Their HUMANITY (finally) won out.

 

[These two are – Chris Wylie (who helped set up Cambridge Analytica) … and Brittany Kaiser, their former Director of Business Development]

 

It is (certainly) of interest – that IT TOOK TIME … for these two     to ‘come around’. But it is of equal interest – that these others NEVER DID (and perhaps never WILL.  Who can say?)

 

And

the question we should be asking ourselves is – ‘What is the difference?’   That is – What determines whether a person will (or can) regain their Humanity?

 

[Here, by the way, are my assumptions –

Whatever ANY person does (merely) shows us

what we (each & all) are CAPABLE of.  (whether it’s good or bad. As Solzhenitsyn says –

 “The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.”)

 

Also, I want to say –

That it is (fully) legitimate to categorize an Evil Act

BY ITS EFFECTS alone. (That is, and act may (well) be evil, even though the person doing it “meant well”)]

About 8 years ago I (somehow) got myself to read the entirety of the book “Murder City” by Charles Bowden.  It’s about the horrors in Ciudad Juarez (opposite the US town of El Paso)

The phrase la linea (the line) sometimes means ‘the border’ (between the US & Mexico)  But often (in Juarez) it refers to the unbroken line between the gangs, the drug lords, the police, and the government.  (It’s horrible)

There are people whose ‘culture’ is centered around KILLING.  In Juarez, it is not unusual to find a severed human head atop a fence post (or otherwise openly displayed.  And this is done as a matter of “discipline”)

 

AND (within Humanity) are 

people (like Mother Teresa) who devote all their life energy

ministering to the poorest of the poor.

 

We seem to have well mastered the arts of Hell;  (heaven, though we dabble in it, we’re not so good at)

 

But the Big Question is-

 

How do we go about choosing Heaven?  (individually … & collectively)?

 

One thing I can say about the psyche of the (resistant) CA executives is that they are infected with ‘gold fever’.

[“There are strange things done in the Midnight Sun

by the men who moil for gold … ]

They are (passionate & devout) materialists.  Their Highest Loyalty is NOT to something (abstract) … which we might call HUMANITY.  They are power-addicted.     Mmm?

 

[and I can see that I’m going to have to soon ‘bite the bullet’ … and write about (the cosmic insanity of)  ‘Relativism’]

 

Anyway, Brittany Kaiser says that (in a campaign) not everyone gets equal treatment.  They realized that while most people are fixed in their views … there are some who are not … referred to as ‘PERSUADABLES’.   And it’s these which get identified and targeted. She says, “We bombarded them through blogs, websites, articles, videos, ads … every platform you can imagine … until they saw the world the way we wanted them to … until they voted for our candidate.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“The Great Hack”  (2019, with Brittany Kaiser & David Carroll)

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cambridge Analytica

Former type	Subsidiary
Successor	Emerdata
Founded	2013
Defunct	1 May 2018
Headquarters	London, UK
Key people	Alexander Nix (CEO)[1] Robert Mercer (investor)[2] Rebekah Mercer (investor) Steve Bannon (vice president, former)[3]
Parent	SCL Group[4]

Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA) was a British political consulting firm which combined data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication during the electoral processes.[5][6] It was started in 2013 as an offshoot of the SCL Group.[7] The company closed operations in 2018 in the course of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, although related firms still exist.[8]

The company was partly owned by the family of Robert Mercer, an American hedge-fund manager who supports many politically conservative causes.[7][9] The firm maintained offices in London, New York City, and Washington, DC.[10] CEO Alexander Nix has said CA was involved in 44 US political races in 2014.[11] In 2015, CA performed data analysis services for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign.[9] In 2016, CA worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign[12] as well as for Leave.EU (one of the organisations campaigning in the United Kingdom’s referendum on European Union membership). CA’s role in those campaigns has been controversial and is the subject of ongoing criminal investigations in both countries.[13][14][15] Political scientists question CA’s claims about the effectiveness of its methods of targeting voters.[16][17]

In March 2018, multiple media outlets broke news of Cambridge Analytica’s business practices. The New York Times and The Observer reported that the company had acquired and used personal data about Facebook users from an external researcher who had told Facebook he was collecting it for academic purposes.[18] Shortly afterwards, Channel 4 News aired undercover investigative videos showing Nix boasting about using prostitutes, bribery sting operations, and honey traps to discredit politicians on whom it conducted opposition research, and saying that the company “ran all of (Donald Trump’s) digital campaign”. In response to the media reports, the Information Commissioner of the UK pursued a warrant to search the company’s servers.[19][20] Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica from advertising on its platform, saying that it had been deceived.[21][22] On 23 March 2018, the British High Court granted the Information Commissioner’s Office a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s London offices.[23]

The personal data of up to 87 million[24] Facebook users were acquired via the 270,000 Facebook users who used a Facebook app called “This Is Your Digital Life.”[25] By giving this third-party app permission to acquire their data, back in 2015, this also gave the app access to information on the user’s friends network; this resulted in the data of about 87 million users, the majority of whom had not explicitly given Cambridge Analytica permission to access their data, being collected. The app developer breached Facebook’s terms of service by giving the data to Cambridge Analytica.[26]

On 1 May 2018, Cambridge Analytica and its parent company filed for insolvency proceedings and closed operations.[27][28] Alexander Tayler, a former director for Cambridge Analytica, was appointed director of Emerdata on 28 March 2018.[29] Rebekah Mercer, Jennifer Mercer, Alexander Nix and Johnson Chun Shun Ko [zh] who has links to Erik Prince are in leadership positions at Emerdata.[30][31]

Contents

• 1
• History
• 2
• Methods
  • 2.1
  • Channel 4 News investigation
  • 2.2
  • Assessment of impact
  • 2.3
  • Privacy issues
• 3
• Elections
  • 3.1
  • Australia
  • 3.2
  • India
  • 3.3
  • Kenya
  • 3.4
  • Malta
  • 3.5
  • Mexico
  • 3.6
  • United Kingdom
  • 3.7
  • United States
    • 3.7.1
    • 2014 midterm elections
    • 3.7.2
    • 2016 presidential election
  • 3.8
  • Other countries
• 4
• See also
• 5
• References
• 6
• External links

History

Cambridge Analytica (SCL USA) was incorporated in January 2015 with its registered office in Westferry Circus, London and just one staff member, its director and CEO Alexander James Ashburner Nix (also appointed in January 2015).[32] Nix is also the director of nine similar companies sharing the same registered offices in London, including Firecrest technologies, Emerdataand six SCL Group companies including “SCL elections limited”.[33] Nigel Oakes founded SCL Group, which is the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.[34]

Publicly, SCL Group called itself a “global election management agency”,[35] Politico reported it was known for involvement “in military disinformation campaigns to social media branding and voter targeting”.[9] SCL’s involvement in the political world has been primarily in the developing world where it has been used by the military and politicians to study and manipulate public opinion and political will. Slate writer Sharon Weinberger compared one of SCL’s hypothetical test scenarios to fomenting a coup.[9]

Cambridge Analytica was founded by conservative businessmen Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer. A minimum of 15 million dollars has been invested into the company by Mercer, according to The New York Times.[36] Bannon’s stake in the company was estimated at 1 to 5 million dollars, but he divested his holdings in April 2017 as required by his role as White House Chief Strategist.[37] In March 2018, Jennifer Mercer and Rebekah Mercer became directors of Emerdata limited.[38] In March 2018 it became public by Whistleblower Christopher Wylie, that Cambridge Analytica’s first activities were founded on a data set, which its parent company SCL bought 2014 from a company named Global Science Research founded by Aleksandr Kogan[39]who worked as a psychologist at Cambridge.

Per the Associated Press, Data Propria, a data analysis firm launched May 2018, is run by former officials at Cambridge Analytica.[40][41][42]

In July 2018, several former Cambridge Analytica staff launched Auspex International, a company intended to influence politics and society in Africa and the Middle East.[43][44][45][46][47][48]

Methods

CA’s data analysis methods were to a large degree based on the academic work of Michal Kosinski. In 2008, Kosinski had joined the Psychometrics Centre of Cambridge University where he then developed with his colleagues a profiling system using general online data, Facebook-likes, and smartphone data.[49][50] He showed that with a limited number of “likes”, people can be analysed better than friends or relatives can do and that individual psychological targeting is a powerful tool to influence people.[49]

CA would collect data on voters using sources such as demographics, consumer behaviour, internet activity, and other public and private sources. According to The Guardian, CA used psychological data derived from millions of Facebook users, largely without users’ permission or knowledge.[51] Another source of information was the “Cruz Crew” mobile app that tracked physical movements and contacts and according to the Associated Press, invaded personal data more than previous presidential campaign apps.[52]

Today in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual … So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people.

— Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, October 2016.[1]

Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix speaking in November 2017.

The company claimed to use “data enhancement and audience segmentation techniques” providing “psychographic analysis” for a “deeper knowledge of the target audience”. The company uses the Big Five model of personality [11][10] Using what it calls “behavioral microtargeting” the company indicates that it can predict “needs” of subjects and how these needs may change over time. Services then can be individually targeted for the benefit of its clients from the political arena, governments, and companies providing “a better and more actionable view of their key audiences.” According to Sasha Issenberg, CA indicates that it can tell things about an individual he might not even know about himself.[7][53]

CA derived much of its personality data on online surveys which it conducts on an ongoing basis. For each political client, the firm would narrow voter segments from 32 different personality styles it attributes to every adult in the United States. The personality data would inform the tone of the language used in ad messages or voter contact scripts, while additional data is used to determine voters’ stances on particular issues.[54]

The data would get updated with monthly surveys, asking about political preferences and how people get the information they use to make decisions. It also covered consumer topics about different brands and preferred products, building up an image of how someone shops as much as how they vote.[55]

Channel 4 News investigation

Channel 4 News, a news programme broadcast by the British public service Channel 4, conducted a four-month investigation into Cambridge Analytica starting in November 2017. An undercover reporter posed as a potential customer for Cambridge Analytica, hoping to help Sri Lankan candidates get elected. Video footage from this operation was published on 19 March 2018.[56] From the footage, Cambridge Analytica executives say they worked on over 200 elections across the world.[57] Alexander Nix was recorded in this investigation, talking “unguardedly about the company’s practices”.[58] Nix said that his company uses honey traps, bribery stings, and prostitutes, for opposition research.[59] For example, Nix offered to discredit political opponents in Sri Lanka with suggestive videos using “beautiful Ukrainian girls” and offers of bribes, even if the opponents did not accept the offers.[60] He also said he uses “Israeli companies” to entrap political opponents with bribes and sex, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that it was referring to Psy-Group.[61][62] Zamel signed a memorandum of understanding for Psy-Group with Cambridge Analytica on 14 December 2016.[63][64][62]

Cambridge Analytica said that the video footage was “edited and scripted to grossly misrepresent” the recorded conversations and company’s business practices. Nix said that he had “entertained a series of ludicrous hypothetical scenarios”, but insisted his company does not engage in entrapment or bribery.[65]

In the third part of the series, Nix also said that Cambridge Analytica “ran all the digital campaign” for Trump. Nix stated they used communications that would be self-destructive, leaving no incriminating evidence. After the news segment was broadcast, the board of Cambridge Analytica suspended Nix as chief executive officer. The company also released a statement that the allegations did not represent the ethics of the company, and an independent entity would investigate Nix’s statements.[66]

The investigation also raised questions regarding campaign finance law. During the 2016 election, the company was employed both by Trump’s campaign and Robert Mercer’s Make America Number 1 Super PAC which supported Trump. While PACs are not limited in the amount of funds they can spend on behalf of a candidate, they are not allowed to coordinate strategy with the campaigns they are supporting. Nix’s statements in the recorded video describe how the Trump campaign itself could “take the high road” and “stay clean”, while the negative attacks were handled by the firm and the Super PAC, in a way which makes it “unattributable, untrackable”. These statements potentially suggested unlawful coordination between Trump’s campaign and the PAC, although Cambridge Analytica has denied this.[67]

Assessment of impact

Canadian whistleblower Christopher Wylie who was the former director of research at Cambridge Analytica

Political scientists have been highly skeptical of claims made by Cambridge Analytica about the effectiveness of its microtargeting of voters (microtargeting refers to the process of “analyzing data to predict the behavior, interests, and opinions held by specific groups of people and then serving them the messages they’re most likely to respond to”).[68][16][17] Political scientists note that access to digital data is not going to provide significantly more information than from public voter databases, and the digital data has limited value over time as the preferences of voters change.[16] Political scientists also note that it is hard to infer political values from personality traits, which means that it is easy to mistarget the messages that are sent to voters with specific personality traits.[16] Research discussed by Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College showed that it is extremely hard to alter voters’ preferences because many likely voters are already committed partisans; as a result, it is easier to simply mobilize partisan voters.[69][16] Tufts University political scientist Eitan Hersh, who has published on microtargeting in campaigns, has expressed strong skepticism about Cambridge Analytica’s methods and their purported effectiveness, saying “Every claim about psychographics etc made by or about [Cambridge Analytica] is BS.”[70]

In 2017, CA claimed that it has psychological profiles of 220 million US citizens based on 5,000 separate data sets.[71] In March 2017, The New York Times reported that CA had exaggerated its capabilities: “Cambridge executives now concede that the company never used psychographics in the Trump campaign.”[13] Trump aides have also disputed CA’s role in the campaign, describing it as “modest” and noting that none of the company’s efforts involved psychographics.[13]

According to an aide and consultant for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign, their campaign stopped using CA after its psychographic models failed to identify likely Cruz supporters. The Cruz campaign ceased access to all of Cambridge’s data after the South Carolina Republican primary on 20 February 2016 when Cruz came in third after Trump and Rubio.[13][72]

Privacy issues

The use of personal data collected without knowledge or permission to establish sophisticated models of user’s personalities raises ethical and privacy issues.[51] CA operated out of the United States; its operations would be illegal in Europe with its stricter privacy laws.[52] While Cruz was outspoken about protecting personal information from the government, his database of CA has been described as “political-voter surveillance“.[52]

Regarding CA’s use of Facebook users, a speaker for CA indicated that these users gave permission when signing up with the provider, while Facebook declared that “misleading people or misusing information” is in violation of Facebook’s policies.[51] In 2015, Facebook indicated that it was investigating the matter.[51] In March 2018, Facebook announced that it had suspended the accounts of Strategic Communication Laboratories for failing to delete data on Facebook users that had been improperly collected.[73]

Alexander Nix suggested that data collection and microtargeting benefits the voters – because they receive messages about issues they care about. However, digital rights protection groups raised concerns that private information is collected, stored, and shared while individuals are “left in the dark about [it]” and have no control.[74]

Significant backlash against Facebook came to light in March 2018, resulting in controversy as well as a $37 billion drop in the market capitalization of Facebook, as of 20 March.[75] Due to the scandal of enabling monetization of Facebook personal data, one assessment was that only 41% of Facebook users trust the company.[76] On 26 March, the US Federal Trade Commissionannounced it is “conducting an open investigation of Facebook Inc’s privacy practices following the disclosure that 50 million users’ data got into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.”[77] In March 2019 Facebook acknowledged it had concerns about “improper data-gathering practices” by CA, months before the previously reported onset-of-alert at December 2015.[78]

 

 

               Peace, n.  In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

                                                                                                 –   Ambrose Bierce           The Devil’s Dictionary

 

 

All we are saying … is

Give Peace a chance!

                                            –   John Lennon

 

 

 

The deepest knowledge, and the greatest insights      of our top scientists, thinkers, & religionists … is of great value to us (and to our children).

 

But it’s also Very Important    what Most People believe is the nature of Reality.   (and I am especially interested in THIS … and HOW ideas CHANGE    as they move from the minds of our great scientists and thinkers … to where they function in our lives       in Popular Culture)

 

Let’s look at three examples, beginning with Occam.

Occam’s razor (also Ockham’s razor or Ocham’s razor: Latin: novacula Occami; or law of parsimony: Latin: lex parsimoniae) is the problem-solving principle that states “Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.”  The idea is attributed to English Franciscan friar William of Ockham (c.1287–1347), a scholastic philosopher and theologian. It is sometimes misquoted in pop culture and other media by some form of the statement “The simplest solution is most likely the right one.”   Occam’s razor instead says that when presented with competing hypotheses that make the same predictions, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions,  and it is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions.

Similarly, in science, Occam’s razor is used as an abductive heuristic in the development of theoretical models rather than as a rigorous arbiter between candidate models.   In the scientific method, Occam’s razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result; the preference for simplicity in the scientific method is based on the falsifiability criterion. For each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there may be an extremely large, perhaps even incomprehensible, number of possible and more complex alternatives. Since one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.

                                                                                       –  Wikipedia

We are (in a way) –  the children of Occam’s Razor, are we not? …   but NOT the original principle itself,  the way that OCCAM HIMSELF UNDERSTOOD IT … but AFTER IT HAD BEEN POPULARIZED (and distorted) !            

We have become fond of simple explanations, and are predisposed toward them (and we feel that our position is validated by Occam.     Mmm?    We distorted (and misused) Occam (in our typically uneducated way) … due to our own (perverse) purposes.

However …

for several decades I have been conducting (my own, private, informal) study of WHY we make mistakes / (make wrong judgments)  and here is what I have noticed —

Our (wrong) conclusion is quite often IN THE DIRECTION OF THE EVIDENCE that we were aware of … but that conclusion was WRONG ANYWAY  … BECAUSE … the world turns out to be more complicated than the way we had presumed it to be!

 

Maybe (like me) – you saw the Cohen Brothers’ film – “Fargo”: (wherein) a man hires a couple guys to kidnap his own wife, expecting that when her rich father pays the ransom, he (himself) will be able to use it to improve his financial situation.  Well, by the point where (during the actual kidnapping) the wife hid in the bathtub, became (in the struggle) wrapped and entangled in the shower curtain, then rolled down the stairs – a shocking scene     …    then I thought – “Here we go again” — confusing the (very complex) Real World with our grotesquely oversimplified stereotype of it)

 

Also (at this point in the essay) I wish to share with you  –  (and enlist the support of) a very nuts & bolts geneticist / (scientist):

“Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.”

― J.B.S. Haldane    Possible Worlds

~ ~ ~ ~

Let us consider Darwin (and the idea of Survival of the Fittest).  

This notion has had (and continues to have) enormous effect on our world view.

Still we hear people say – “It’s a Dog-Eat-Dog world.”

 

And I suspect that the exploitation of the Weak by the Powerful     is (in some way) supported by (what people THINK are the understandings of) Darwin.   Mmm?

 

To a certain extent … Selfishness, Exploitation, and Greed    imagine that they are validated by the ‘work’ of Darwin; and I don’t think this is fair   (that is … it is unsound. It’s an abuse.  Idea abuse, I mean … [not just human abuse])

 

I would recommend to you a film – “Creation”  (2009, with Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin).

(this film does an excellent job    of letting us in on the social/religious climate of the time … and in to the private (family) life of Darwin)

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Sigmund Freud was the founder of Psychoanalysis.  In 1915 he published a paper called “The Unconscious”.  While not a new idea (the unconscious mind) Freud did much to popularize the notion.

His idea (that we humans are governed mainly by our own subconscious thoughts and emotions) – was taken up by certain American grey men.

And this story is well told in a film by Adam Curtis & Ann Bernays  – “The Century of the Self” (2002).

It describes the rise of what is now called – the Public Relations Industry (which, if properly named, would be called – the Public Control Industry), which has (well) learned how to make money from the understanding – that people are not rational, but are (largely) motivated by factors of which we are unconscious.

 

The reason that I chose (yet again, as an epigram) the quote (about peace) by Ambrose Bierce … is because Bierce means for us to understand (from his definition) – that we ACTUALLY COULD HAVE PEACE … IF WE CHOSE TO TREAT EACH OTHER WELL  

(as though we loved each other … like FAMILY).

 

But we DON’T.

 

Both of the epigram quotes     emphasize our ABILITY TO CHOOSE!

 

It has to do with PURPOSE.

 

If our purpose is to get rich, to rule and exploit the world … then we get a (stinko) Foreign Policy like the one we actually operate under.

(If our purpose were to Thrive and to Share … and to Lift Up     … then we would have a (very different) foreign policy that was consistent with THAT purpose.)

 

Just as the Grey Men in the ‘Public Relations’ Industry    do not care if (lots of) teen-age girls die every year from anorexia and bulimia …

 

Selfishness and Greed have become the ‘Reality’ they live in; so they think it’s normal.

 

 

And what is underneath this (generic) Selfishness & Greed?  —

 

The LACK of a HEART CONNECTION     … ALIENATION / ANOMIE.

 

This is the (spiritual) disease that we are suffering from – 

 We’re NOT LIVING like a Loving FAMILY.

That’s why we [everyone in the world] should be attending Neighborhood Potlucks every week.

That’s why we should abolish laws which permit Planetary Degradation.

That’s why we should revise the Structure of Corporations … so that they are required to treat the Future Generations as major stockholders.

That’s why we should strive to Educate ourselves and our children.

That’s why we should choose Peace (rather than ‘profiting’ from war).

 

~ ~ ~ ~

This is my position –

On Normal (higher) Worlds     (not like this fallen one, where we happen to be living)  

 women are NOT AFRAID to walk alone at night …

 because it is NOT DANGEROUS TO DO SO.

In other words … while Alienation, Selfishness, Greed, and Low Purpose are (here & now) common … they are (nonetheless)    UNNECESSARY.

 

 

If we can get ourselves to MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICES … 

we can live in a (much) Better World.

 

Mmm?

 

We can choose to survive.

 

We’ve been Raising Hell … but we could choose Heaven.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“The U.S. vs John Lennon”  (2006)

 

“The Century of the Self”  (2002)

 

“Creation”  (2009)

 

“The Denial of Death”   (book) by Ernest Becker   (Pulitzer prize work)

[Part 3, of 3]

 

 

 

 

And the thing that you’re hearing 

is only the sound

of the low spark of high-heeled boys.

                                                         –   Stevie Winwood, Traffic

 

 

One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self:

 of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.   

                                                                                             –    Friedrich Nietzsche

 

I do not take drugs — I am drugs.

                                                            –   Salvador Dali

 

 

 

He who knows the territory

tells the direction to him who asks the way.

                                                                        –   The Rig Veda

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1969 I received a letter in the mail notifying me that I was to report for induction into the armed services (in three months … or by that date, to be enlisted in some branch of the U.S. military).  My father had been an officer in the Air Force. I enlisted into the Navy. It was November. I was in Ohio. I had requested to attend Boot Camp in San Diego; so that’s where I went. A few weeks later, I came down with a cold.  And not an ordinary cold. The cold of my life.

You know how sometimes a cold will affect your sense of smell & taste?  Well that was part of this cold.  Except – my sense of taste was not decreased … it was intensified.  My sense of taste was amplified by at least twice.

And there were other experiences (which appeared to be symptoms of this weird ‘cold’) … including a peculiar kind of visual distortion (or disruption.   Though this lasted only briefly, probably less than an hour.)

I’m sure most of you are too young to have experienced what the early (black & white) TV’s were like.  Well … they didn’t always behave the way they were supposed to.  They had little adjustment knobs on the back – one labeled “horizontal hold” … and one labeled “vertical hold”.

Sometimes you were obliged to make use of these adjustments – to make your TV screen’s display behave itself.

But, suppose it was already working properly … if you messed with the horizontal hold knob, the image would move away to the right (or left), to be replaced with another image, right behind it … as though you were pulling a film strip past the viewer … and you could make this go quite fast.  And the vertical hold knob could produce similar results (except the image would move up or down); but I think that if you turned the knob very far, the picture itself would be replaced by just black bars … which seemed to move and flicker. (And as to whether there was ever a diagonal hold knob, I am uncertain.)

Anyway … the visual distortion I experienced was a bit like this … it was as though what I was watching was some sort of electronic display … with the diagonal hold out of adjustment.

I could still see what I needed to   (I think I could have driven a car without much danger) … but the disruption/distortion (diagonal flickering) was quite pronounced.

 

Well … it was enough to make me wonder  –  Is the screen of our consciousness … in some way related to electronic displays?  (or even  … is it one?)

 

Anyway … once you see it      once you realize – that that thing you’re looking at, which appears to be ‘your surroundings’ … is actually your own dream   (a dream, in real time, of your surroundings … just the way they would appear if you could “see them” directly)  …  once you see it … you’re stuck with it.  You can’t go back. You cannot unsee it.

 

And … what can you expect?  How will this insight alter your life?

 

Will you be enlightened?

 

No.    (But it may make room for that.)

 

I can tell you what happened to me.

 

All MIU students learn about the subjective symptoms of (the various stages of) enlightenment.  So, when I had this conceptual breakthrough … I gradually learned to use it to contextualize the experiences of enlightenment.  And this was very interesting, indeed.

 

I felt as if the INSIGHT had brought me to a high ridge (such as one sometimes get to, when hiking in the high country)

It allowed me to see   not just where I had been … but a whole new ‘watershed’, as well.

 

And I presumed that the treasures lay … on the far side of the ridge, in the never-before-seen territory.   And for about THREE DECADES, that was my presumption. But THEN (I had the grace to) look back … at the slope  –  the way I had come … and where I had grown up. (And I am GLAD that I DID)

 

Allow me to tell you of some of the treasures I have found  on that very slope where we all live :

I can now see  – that we are all … ‘under (enormous) pressure’   (all day, every day) – to believe that we are IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH REALITY.  (And THIS is due to the fact that think we SEE the WORLD, as it were, WITHOUT the mediation of our OWN CONSCIOUSNESS.

When we recognize (misrecognize) our dream of the world AS the world … the dream (AS the dream)   DISAPPEARS.  And so –  every minute that we’re awake, we are … ‘having the experience’ that we are in Direct Contact with Reality.

It’s an experience.   We don’t talk about it.  We don’t think about it … but we experience it.

(and the accumulated weight of this [constant] experience … is HUGE)

It is NO WONDER … that everyone in the world … thinks they’re RIGHT!             Mmm?

Animals appear to be less inclined to fight about “who’s right” than we are … but I am confident that they experience “reality” through the same recognition /(misrecognition) that we do.  And this fact contributes to the bond that we share with them.

We humans have had a tendency to regard ourselves as a kind of ‘walking meat-ball’.

But once you see what role the waking dream plays in our lives, such a (materialistic) view of life is no longer believable.

 

We are truly miraculous beings.  Every last one of us.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Here is a “philosophical poem” I wrote a couple years ago. 

It’s an attempt to lift the veil from the face of one of the Great Mysteries.

The people who sit in a theater

Watching a movie

Understand

(without much thinking about it)

That the film they are watching 

Is being projected

(onto the screen in front of them)

From a place they cannot see

A projection booth

Above and behind

.

When a person falls in love

He sees a sort of Glow

Around his sweetheart.  But

He probably does not realize

That the Glow he sees

Comes from within himself

That it is his own

Projection.

The Jungians

(followers of Carl Jung)

Say that what is being projected

(when In Love)

Is one’s own Anima

Which is what they call the Soul.

But there is a 

GREAT PROJECTION  (compared to which, Falling in Love is child’s play)

Which we live with 

All day, every day.

In fact 

we live THROUGH it.

We live IN it, even.

It is what allows us

To live and function in the world.

For it IS our own 

Projection

OF

The World.

It is This Projection

Which seems

To BE

The world.

We recognize it

AS

The world.

It is Our Dream of the world

In Real Time.

And as we recognize this Dream as the world

(as we construe that it IS the world)

The World Appears and

The Dream 

Disappears.

And we are left simply

With an experience of

“The World”.

This is the

Waking State

(of consciousness).

We also experience the 

Sleep state and the 

Dream state.

But it is to the Waking State

That we all 

Owe

A dozen red roses.

The colors of it

(by the way)

Come from us.

They are one of our contributions

To the Great Projection.

Color does not exist in the world itself.

Wavelength (and frequency)

Are properties of light.

And while there is a correspondence

Between a given wavelength

And a given color,

Color is NOT a property of light.

It is a property of US

A property of Consciousness.

All these Colors make the projection beautiful.

But what makes the Illusion

So CONVINCING

(and it is completely convincing)

Is the fact that we seem to see

The various things of our surroundings

OUT THERE

Where the things ARE.

So, we live

As though

INSIDE our projection.

Sometimes

When we have a Sleeping dream

We are convinced (at the time)

That it is Real.

But then, when we wake up, we find

To our astonishment

That it was

“Only a Dream”.

This means that a sleeping dream

Occurs 

IRRESPECTIVE 

of our actual surroundings.

But the Waking State occurs

In the physical presence of our surroundings.

And what makes it so powerful

Is that it is a Dream

OF

Our surroundings

(and of ourSelves as well).

                                                          –   A’J

[Part 2, of 3]

 

 

 

You can be in my dream

   if I can be in yours.

                                                    –  Bob Dylan

 

 

 

 

 

This essay is a continuation of last week’s blog – ‘The Great Illusion’.

 

 

Let’s talk about RECOGNITION –

 

Suppose we’re awake … and we close our eyes for a while.  Then we open them again … for JUST A SECOND (or just long enough to “take a snapshot”).

Here’s what happens (and we’re unaware of most of this) –  First    our brain creates a ‘raw work-up’ (called the percept: and this takes place in the back of the brain.)  Then this percept interacts with our (many) cognitive categories … which are in the front of the brain.  And some of these cognitive categories will resonate with what was in the percept, rather the same way that a sitar works. 

 [A sitar is an east Indian stringed instrument, a bit like a guitar, except that it is large, is played upright … and it has two sets of strings – outer ones (which are strummed) … and another inner set (the sympathetic strings … which are just beneath the outer strings; and these are NOT touched by the sitarist.  But they vibrate – sympathetically – when a played string causes it to)]

So

When the percept connects with the front of the brain … it is as though the percept is being struck … and (on the basis of similarity) certain of the cognitive categories (lying quietly in our frontal lobes) are shaken loose (wakened up).  And these are then connected to corresponding parts in the percept  (recognition occurs). And THEN we become aware of it (but not before).

 

When a young child (who knows “kitty” … but who has never yet seen a squirrel)  sees, for the first time – a squirrel … the child might say – “Funny kitty”.

[We will always (first) attempt to make sense of anything new … in terms of what we already know.]

But then (as he learns) the child will form a NEW cognitive category:  “squirrel”.

 

 

Now let’s talk about the “requirements” for recognition.

 

How strict? … how demanding? are the requirements for recognition?

Must a certain percept be exactly like the contents of a (corresponding) cognitive category … in order for resonance (recognition) to occur?

 

No.  It is NOT like that.

In fact, it cannot be like that.

 

Suppose that (when you were a baby, but old enough to be able to recognize your mother) … suppose that identicality (100% similarity)    were (suddenly) the (generic / standard)  requirement for your brain, in order for you to recognize something.

And your mother comes into the room you are in … would you be able to recognize her?

No.

Because the lighting would have to be “perfect”, the angle of view would have to be just the same.  Her clothes, her facial expression … (everything about her) would have to be just the same as always.   And this can not happen. So recognition would NOT occur. You would NOT be able to recognize your own mother.

The whole world would appear to be brand new    all the time, each moment.  Such consciousness would be useless.

Mmm?

Our consciousness (recognition) MUST be sloppy … if it is to function at all.

We recognize something … when(ever) similarity is adequate … (NOT perfect /[identicality])

 

therefore

 

We are hardwired to make mistakes … to make misrecognitions.

 

It can NOT be otherwise.

 

If the requirements (for recognition) were too loose … too sloppy,    we would make more misrecognitions (mistakes) than necessary.

 

But if we are to have an experience of the world as being continuous, then (the inescapable cost    is that) we must be mistake-prone.  Misrecognitions will (always) be common and familiar.   (A part of Human Life)

Mmm?

 

When I first heard the Beatles song – “Yellow Submarine” … I thought they were saying “jealous of Marie”.  (I heard it like that for a long time.)

 

Maybe no one else in the world had that same (misrecognition) experience.  But … we are all familiar with (routine) misrecognitions.

 

 

What happens when we go see a (theatrical) play?

Even if the sets are very minimal, if the actors are skillful, we may easily “recognize” our experience (of the play) as reality.  (And this is a “willing misrecognition”)

 

It’s the same with watching a movie.  (Only these days, especially since the advent of computer-generated imagery (CGI) … nothing need be left to our imagination.  A movie may now be made about anything at all – real or imaginary.  (Imagination is the only limit.)

But when we go to see a movie (that we want to see) … we likewise (willingly) “recognize” it as Reality.  We know that the movie is “not real”; but while in the theater, we ‘willingly suspend’ our disbelief.                 Mmm?

 

And how about dreams? 

(I’m talking now about a “sleeping” dream … one we have at night, while we’re asleep)

 

Have we not ALL had dreams which (at the time of the dream) we EXPERIENCED AS REALITY?

 

I think this is NOT a rare experience, but something common to us all.

 

Sometimes (upon awakening from a dream) … we are ASTONISHED to find – that it was “only a dream”.  (We were convinced – that what we were experiencing was REALITY.)

 

It is during our first year of life that we learn to be “awake” … and to dream.  And (I’m pretty sure that) we learn to dream from being awake (and not the other way round).

In any case, these two states of consciousness (the Dream State … and the Waking State) … are (sometimes) equal in “Reality” (convincingness).

 

Our consciousness (you see) has ENORMOUS flexibility and versatility.  It is capable of posing as anything at all!   Mmm?

(It’s more impressive than CGI … any day)

 

Suppose some night we have a dream that we’re on a sailboat … and it’s a very “real” dream … very convincing.  We can feel the wind in our hair, the spray on our face, the sun in our eyes, hear the flap of the sail, feel the movement and pitch of the vessel in the waves.  But then … (upon awakening from this dream)    we are forced to the realization that there was NO sailboat … NO water (etc.) … but that the whole thing was our OWN CONSCIOUSNESS posing as all these things!  This is shocking … but we are forced to this conclusion.

 

But

If our own consciousness is capable of posing as a sailboat (and so on) in the ABSENCE OF ANY SAILBOAT … why should we think that it is NOT capable of doing so    in the PRESENCE of an ACTUAL SAILBOAT.

 

If we actually DO go on a REAL sailboat (just as we did in our dream) … why should we think that these two (possibly identical) experiences are somehow unrelated?  (that is – that one is a dream … and the other is NOT)

 

Well … they are related!

 

Both … are (essentially) dreams.

 

There is one difference between them   –

One was only a dream) … while the other is a dream of our surroundings … in real time … (and induced by an actual sailboat (etc.))

 

The first one happened in the Dream State (with our head on our pillow); and the second one occurred in the Waking State (when we were actually on a real sailboat)!

 

The Waking State is (basically) a Disciplined Dream.

 

It’s a Waking Dream.

 

Like the Sleeping Dream … it is an inner experience.

 

We ‘recognize’ BOTH of them (at the time) – as Reality.

(It’s only when we AWAKEN from a sleeping dream … that we conclude that what we were experiencing … was actually our OWN CONSCIOUSNESS    (posing as whatever).

 

I suppose – what I am trying to get you to do is to  ‘awaken’ from your Waking Dream … that is – to (similarly) come to the realization   that our waking state is (also) an inner experience which we (mis)recognize AS ‘Reality’.

This is how our consciousness WORKS.

 

Every moment that we’re ‘awake’ … we think we ‘see the world’. 

(and, in a practical sense … we DO … but)

What we are actually experiencing is our Own Consciousness … posing as (whatever is around).

 

It’s a Projection.

 

And we (seem to) live IN it.

 

The REAL WORLD is (of course) … SHARED SPACE … a shared Reality.

However

that THING we’re looking at

(all day, every day … which we think is the REAL WORLD)

is (in fact) our OWN CREATION …

our own (personal / not public) DREAM

(of the world)

 

Also … we should realize (and appreciate) that –

in the same stroke …

(when we “recognize” our DREAM of the World   AS the World)

our EXPERIENCE (ITSELF) disappears … (in favor of the world) …

and (thus) we DISOWN our experience !

 

 

Our (extravagant) ability to “see” the world …

this is a gift from our own consciousness.

 

Mmm?

 

Is it not so?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[You may want to have a look at the following excerpt from The Urantia Book.  I have emboldened the passage regarding the First adjutant mind spirit (“Intuition”) … as (I am pretty sure that) it is the one which bestows upon all of us – the ability to “see” the world.

(and I suspect that this information is the (spiritual) solution … to the Brain-Mind Problem)] –

^{36:5.1 (401.5)} It is the presence of the seven adjutant mind-spirits on the primitive worlds that conditions the course of organic evolution; that explains why evolution is purposeful and not accidental. These adjutants represent that function of the mind ministry of the Infinite Spirit which is extended to the lower orders of intelligent life through the operations of a local universe Mother Spirit. The adjutants are the children of the Universe Mother Spirit and constitute her personal ministry to the material minds of the realms. Wherever and whenever such mind is manifest, these spirits are variously functioning.

^{36:5.2 (401.6)} The seven adjutant mind-spirits are called by names which are the equivalents of the following designations: intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge, counsel, worship, and wisdom. These mind-spirits send forth their influence into all the inhabited worlds as a differential urge, each seeking receptivity capacity for manifestation quite apart from the degree to which its fellows may find reception and opportunity for function.

^{36:5.3 (401.7)} The central lodgments of the adjutant spirits on the Life Carrier headquarters world indicate to the Life Carrier supervisors the extent and quality of the mind function of the adjutants on any world and in any given living organism of intellect status. These life-mind emplacements are perfect indicators of living mind function for the first five adjutants. But with regard to the sixth and seventh adjutant spirits—worship and wisdom—these central lodgments record only a qualitative function. The quantitative activity of the adjutant of worship and the adjutant of wisdom is registered in the immediate presence of the Divine Minister on Salvington, being a personal experience of the Universe Mother Spirit.

^{36:5.4 (402.1)} The seven adjutant mind-spirits always accompany the Life Carriers to a new planet, but they should not be regarded as entities; they are more like circuits. The spirits of the seven universe adjutants do not function as personalities apart from the universe presence of the Divine Minister; they are in fact a level of consciousness of the Divine Minister and are always subordinate to the action and presence of their creative mother.

^{36:5.5 (402.2)} We are handicapped for words adequately to designate these seven adjutant mind-spirits. They are ministers of the lower levels of experiential mind, and they may be described, in the order of evolutionary attainment, as follows:

^{36:5.6 (402.3)} 1. The spirit of intuition—quick perception, the primitive physical and inherent reflex instincts, the directional and other self-preservative endowments of all mind creations; the only one of the adjutants to function so largely in the lower orders of animal life and the only one to make extensive functional contact with the nonteachable levels of mechanical mind.

^{36:5.7 (402.4)} 2. The spirit of understanding—the impulse of co-ordination, the spontaneous and apparently automatic association of ideas. This is the gift of the co-ordination of acquired knowledge, the phenomenon of quick reasoning, rapid judgment, and prompt decision.

^{36:5.8 (402.5)} 3. The spirit of courage—the fidelity endowment—in personal beings, the basis of character acquirement and the intellectual root of moral stamina and spiritual bravery. When enlightened by facts and inspired by truth, this becomes the secret of the urge of evolutionary ascension by the channels of intelligent and conscientious self-direction.

^{36:5.9 (402.6)} 4. The spirit of knowledge—the curiosity-mother of adventure and discovery, the scientific spirit; the guide and faithful associate of the spirits of courage and counsel; the urge to direct the endowments of courage into useful and progressive paths of growth.

^{36:5.10 (402.7)} 5. The spirit of counsel—the social urge, the endowment of species co-operation; the ability of will creatures to harmonize with their fellows; the origin of the gregarious instinct among the more lowly creatures.

^{36:5.11 (402.8)} 6. The spirit of worship—the religious impulse, the first differential urge separating mind creatures into the two basic classes of mortal existence. The spirit of worship forever distinguishes the animal of its association from the soulless creatures of mind endowment. Worship is the badge of spiritual-ascension candidacy.

^{36:5.12 (402.9)} 7. The spirit of wisdom—the inherent tendency of all moral creatures towards orderly and progressive evolutionary advancement. This is the highest of the adjutants, the spirit co-ordinator and articulator of the work of all the others. This spirit is the secret of that inborn urge of mind creatures which initiates and maintains the practical and effective program of the ascending scale of existence; that gift of living things which accounts for their inexplicable ability to survive and, in survival, to utilize the co-ordination of all their past experience and present opportunities for the acquisition of all of everything that all of the other six mental ministers can mobilize in the mind of the organism concerned. Wisdom is the acme of intellectual performance. Wisdom is the goal of a purely mental and moral existence.

^{36:5.13 (403.1)} The adjutant mind-spirits experientially grow, but they never become personal. They evolve in function, and the function of the first five in the animal orders is to a certain extent essential to the function of all seven as human intellect. This animal relationship makes the adjutants more practically effective as human mind; hence animals are to a certain extent indispensable to man’s intellectual as well as to his physical evolution.

^{36:5.14 (403.2)} These mind-adjutants of a local universe Mother Spirit are related to creature life of intelligence status much as the power centers and physical controllers are related to the nonliving forces of the universe. They perform invaluable service in the mind circuits on the inhabited worlds and are effective collaborators with the Master Physical Controllers, who also serve as controllers and directors of the preadjutant mind levels, the levels of nonteachable or mechanical mind.

^{36:5.15 (403.3)} Living mind, prior to the appearance of capacity to learn from experience, is the ministry domain of the Master Physical Controllers. Creature mind, before acquiring the ability to recognize divinity and worship Deity, is the exclusive domain of the adjutant spirits. With the appearance of the spiritual response of the creature intellect, such created minds at once become superminded, being instantly encircuited in the spirit cycles of the local universe Mother Spirit.

^{36:5.16 (403.4)} The adjutant mind-spirits are in no manner directly related to the diverse and highly spiritual function of the spirit of the personal presence of the Divine Minister, the Holy Spirit of the inhabited worlds; but they are functionally antecedent to, and preparatory for, the appearance of this very spirit in evolutionary man. The adjutants afford the Universe Mother Spirit a varied contact with, and control over, the material living creatures of a local universe, but they do not repercuss in the Supreme Being when acting on prepersonality levels.

^{36:5.17 (403.5)} Nonspiritual mind is either a spirit-energy manifestation or a physical-energy phenomenon. Even human mind, personal mind, has no survival qualities apart from spirit identification. Mind is a divinity bestowal, but it is not immortal when it functions without spirit insight, and when it is devoid of the ability to worship and crave survival.

[Part 1, of 3]

 

 

 

The whole order of things is 

as outrageous as any miracle 

which could presume to violate it.

                                      –  G. K. Chesterton

 

 

 

 

The universe is not only queerer than we suppose,

it is queerer than we can suppose.

                                                                        –    J. B. S. Haldane

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you sometimes feel that Existence is a bit ‘ho-hum’  or boring

or

if you have wondered WHY everyone (in the world) seems always to think ‘that they are RIGHT’,

or

if you are uncertain whether human beings (or animals) actually deserve compassion,  respect, love, and care …

then

this essay may be of some help to you.

And it WILL be of use to you …

 

IF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND IT.

 

Now … the REASON I say that … is because it’s a hard idea to entertain.   

It’s simply a DIFFICULT idea.

 

And what makes it difficult is that (in order to see it) … one is required to interpret our (most fundamental) waking experience in a different way from how we’re used to.

 

I’m telling you … it’s a TALL ORDER.

 

[It’s possible, of course, that you already understand it … but it’s not likely]

 

In MY case, it took me nearly TWO YEARS to see it –

(between my receiving the ‘assignment’ [which I did not clearly understand] …

and the experience of the necessary insight.

[which insight amounts to a Reinterpretation of Reality])

 

(If you are interested in the story of the “assignment”

I’ll include it at the end of this essay.)

 

Actually I suspect that there are quite a number of people who (over human history) have also come to the same realization.  But it has never become common knowledge, simply because the idea itself is nearly impossible to share.

 

Between 1976 and 1980 I attended MIU (Maharishi International University, now called ‘Maharishi University of Management’).  It’s a small Liberal Arts school in southeast Iowa … apparently rather ordinary … except that at this college – everyone practices the Transcendental Meditation Technique.  Faculty, staff, and students.

(I count myself Very Fortunate to have been able to spend those four years there.  Wonderful people.)

 

In my (graduating) class were about 200 students.  Now, it wasn’t till well into my second year there that I (finally) had the insight.

But, of course, after I did, I tried my best to share it with my fellow students.  And at that school, CONSCIOUSNESS is understood to be the basis of EVERYTHING, so it’s a common topic of conversation; and – people there are actually interested.  And (besides that) there is considerable opportunity to share ideas (with one’s entire class).  Nevertheless, I think I was successful in sharing this idea with only a few people … perhaps 10% of my class (and they ALL HEARD what I had to say)

 

My brother is smart … (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering  and and M. D.).  A Data Whisperer.  A scientist. And he assures me that he believes that HE does (still) not understand it.

 

It’s a HARD Idea.

 

But

ENOUGH WHINING, already !

            Let’s just assume we can DO this.

    Let’s GO for it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

We THINK that we see the world … but we don’t.  (at least – not the way it seems)

 

(I mean – the world REALLY IS THERE … only we don’t “see” it the way we think we do)

 

We think that our ‘sight’ goes out from our eyes … and (sort of) feels the environment.

(out there where it is … however far away)

 

We say that we look out of a window.  We think we look out through the windshield –  

“This windshield is so dirty (or – the rain is falling so hard) … that I can hardly see out!”

 

 

Every freshman (taking Psychology 101) learns (and believes) that the direction of perception is (always) inward.   Only this understanding has no effect on the way we construe the experience of seeing.

It still seems to us … that the direction of seeing is outward.

 

 

Most of us (now) believe – that the sun does not (actually) “rise” … or “set”.

We now believe – that this phenomenon is due to the rotational motion of the earth on its axis … that it rotates one full turn every 24 hours … and that’s why the sun appears to come up in the morning and go down in the evening.

However

We still “see” the sun rise … and we see the sun set.

(despite the fact that we believe, on the level of intellect, that that’s not what’s happening)

IT STILL SEEMS TO US – THAT THE SUN RISES AND SETS.

 

When we become infatuated / “fall in love” with someone … (the Jungians would say that) we project upon that person … our own anima (the Jungian word for ‘soul’) … and that we do not realize that we are “projecting”.          And I think that this is basically true.

But

THIS projection is CHILD’S PLAY compared with the Great Projection which we create … ALL DAY, EVERY DAY (when we’re in the Waking State).  

We live BY this great projection.      And we even seem to live IN it.

 

How did this come to be?

 

How did it happen ?

 

We LEARNED TO DO IT … when we said goodbye to … when we graduated from our own infancy.

 

By about the middle of our first year of life … we learned to have a fairly ‘high fidelity’ experience of our surroundings (even though we did not yet BELIEVE IN our surroundings)

 

Here’s what we can observe –

 

An infant is put in his high chair and is given something (on the tray) to play with.  He will play with it … and maybe he will inadvertently knock it off the tray. It falls to the floor, where it is hidden from his field of view.  And (at first) – HE WILL NOT HUNT FOR IT. (It’s simply GONE)

 

But then he goes through a transition, such that (in a similar situation) – when something he likes disappears from his field of view – he will HUNT FOR IT.  He (evidently, now) believes that it still exists.

 

Psychologists say (with Piaget) that he has learned to ascribe (to objects) the ‘property of object permanence”.

 

Now … while this explanation is NOT INCORRECT … I assure you that this description    does NOT begin to do justice to the Philosophical MAGNITUDE of what has taken place.  

At the core of our transition from infancy is an AUDACIOUS philosophical transaction.   What allows us to move into childhood is … that we POSTULATE THE EXISTENCE OF THE WORLD.

AND 

We (further) postulate … that WE ARE SEEING IT.

 

So … right then … in that one stroke of cognition and recognition

(which, in a strict sense, is a MISRECOGNITION)

the WORLD appears before our eyes … AS the WORLD.

[and now – HERE WE ARE in the WAKING STATE ! ]

 

And … just prior to this Great Transition … what was going on?  (what is the nature of Infant’s Consciousness?)

Well … we were watching the show … only we did not realize that it was a SHOW OF SOMETHING.

(And, of course, we could hardly participate in the events of the world, because we did not yet believe in the world … or think that we can SEE it.)

 

But … we FIGURED IT OUT … that the WORLD is REAL …  and THAT’S what I’m seeing !

 

(THAT is the Great Transition)

 

It’s STUPENDOUS !

 

However

 

It’s (somewhat) ILLUSIONARY.

 

We ARE (in a PRACTICAL sense) “seeing” the World (and we can now PARTICIPATE in it)

But

(in a strict sense) 

We are NOT seeing the (actual) world

 

We are (instead) looking at our own (internal) WORK-UP of the world

(which, during our first half year of life, we learned to construct.  It’s a “dream” of the [real] world … in Real Time.)

And eventually we learn to “recognize” that (inner) dream-world … AS the (actual, material) world !

But

(strictly speaking) 

that (brave and wonderful and empowering) Recognition

Is (in fact) a misrecognition.

 

Mmm?

 

 

I am unaware of any reason to conclude – 

that there is any such thing (in the strict sense)    as ‘red’ light … or ‘purple’ light

(or light which is [inherently] any other “color”)

 

What scientists know … is that there is a (particular) frequency (and wave-length) which corresponds to light which we experience as a particular color (such as ‘green’ … or whatever) but

THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE COLOR INHERES IN THE LIGHT (as a property of the light itself)

 

To me it makes (much) more sense – to regard that color (rather than being a property of the WORLD) … is instead – a property of CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

While color is (admittedly) a very important aspect of our (day in and day out) experience of the world … I think we should realize that it (color) is OUR contribution.

 

Anyway, it’s not the COLOR which makes our Great Projection (the “world” which we seem to live in every moment we’re awake)  – so “REAL”.    It’s the WHERENESS of it (of our projection)

We seem to see the world OUT THERE    where we know it to be !

THAT’S what makes it so utterly and compellingly (and inescapably) convincing!

Mmm?

 

It is miraculous … is it not?

 

And all the animals (even insects, with eyes) see “the world” by means of this very same illusion.

 

We are all the same in this way … (which is partly why we are all in the same Family)

 

And because we all see the world through this (illusionary) Projection, we all have the experience (all day, every day) – that we are in Direct Contact with Reality.

 

And it’s because of THIS … that we all think we’re (always) Right.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“A’Journe Gets an Assignment”

 

I grew up in semi-rural northwest Ohio.  

When I was 14,  just after I entered Shawnee High School, I matriculated also into a school which I could not see. 

I do not know whether I had more than one teacher, or of what order of being they were, but they were not human.  I couldn’t see them.

Nevertheless, I was being taught.

There were no scheduled classes.

I was simply having my attention directed to certain things that were happening around me.

For example: to what was happening when a fellow student eagerly filled in a gap in their understanding.  Clearly this was being done because they were not comfortable with the “hole”; and they didn’t much care what it got filled in with.

Well !

That very moment I vowed I would never do such a thing.

If I didn’t understand something, I would live with the “blank”. 

(I would wait TILL I DIED if necessary.)

I would wait till the understanding came.

 

I gave myself – completely – to this Training.

I was more devoted to it than to the education I was receiving in the school I could see, and from the human teachers I could see and hear (and whom I liked quite well enough)

 

Fifteen years later I was living in Seattle, Washington.

One day (in the spring of 1976) I was “auditioned”.

I was asked to work through, to think through : the Freewill / Determinism Paradox.  

(Do human beings have free will, or not?)

I agreed to do so.

It was not the first time I had thought about this issue.  I had not thought much about it for some time; but I agreed.

After a couple weeks, it occurred to me that I had done what I could do with the idea.

So I “notified my Teacher”, and “handed in my work”.  

There was nothing written down.  I guess I figured they would be able to handle my thoughts directly (as perhaps they may have been recorded).

I sort of just “handed in my mind” to be reviewed and considered.

I didn’t hear any applause or anything like that; but I got the feeling that it was considered to be Satisfactory.

Soon after that, a certain thought came into my mind:  that there are two components (or aspects) of what we call  (here & now) “Experience”. There is an outer, material aspect; and there is an inner, subjective, non-material aspect.

(As I look out my window, I see a pond.  It has water and fish, etc. That is material.  

Also there is my (inner) experience of it.  And this is made of Mind Stuff. It is not material.)

Now, everybody knows this.

And I had no reason to be thinking about it.

Furthermore, attached to this idea – was an INTENSE sense of URGENCY,

which I did not put there.

(And the idea didn’t come from me, either.)

I had been auditioned … and then had been given an assignment.

 

For the next year and a half (till the “answer” came)  I was, I believe, as true to my assignment as I could have been.

Those next (4) years – I spent at MIU (now MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa.  A liberal arts college where everyone – faculty, staff, and students – practices TM (Transcendental Meditation).  And since consciousness is there regarded to be the basis of everything, there is more than a little talk about it.

So whenever it seemed pertinent to a given discussion, I would interject something about my assigned idea (the outer and the inner).

Students came to talk to me.  In a steady stream. To encourage me.  

The environment was about ideal.

But it was not until late in the fall term of my second year there that the Insight finally came.

In the class I was taking we were watching one day a film strip about a baby in a high chair, playing with some toy on the tray in front of him.  He knocked it off the tray, and the object fell out of his field of view. But he does not hunt for it.

Then the baby goes through a Transition.  THEN when his toy lands outside of his field of view, HE HUNTS FOR IT.

This immediately struck me as very important.  Significant.

But it took about two weeks for the Insight to present itself.

Then I understood it !  

I had completed my assignment.

 

RECOGNITION is the key.

We watch the inner

And we recognize it 

As

The outer.

 

 

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

                                                            –    Albert Schweitzer

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the least polarized of all our major “And vs Or” battles … is the fight over Nature vs Nurture.

 

As far as I am aware – everyone who has ‘weighed in’ in this fight … actually acknowledges that their opponents’ view is (somewhat) true.  The imagined (and hoped for) victory, then … is seen as achieving clear dominance.  

 

Here’s an excerpt from “The Childhood Quality That’s the Best Predictor of Wealth, Health, and Happiness”, by the Foundation for Economic Education –

“Self-Control Is the Most Important Childhood Trait.

However, according to famed family physician and author Dr. Leonard Sax, … His research shows that there is one thing parents can instill in their children to ensure a successful future. That thing is self-control:

What characteristic, measured in childhood, best predicts health, wealth, and happiness in that individual 20 years down the road, when the child is an adult? Is it intelligence? Grades in school? Ability to make friends? No. It is none of these things. Longitudinal cohort studies consistently find that self-control in childhood best predicts health, wealth, and happiness in adulthood, far better than IQ scores, grades in school, friendliness or popularity.

Unfortunately, self-control is something that many adults don’t even have. How, then, can they instill self-control in their children? Dr. Sax suggests two ways this can be done.

The first is to “educate desire.” Dr. Sax describes this as “instill[ing] a longing for something better, more lasting, than video games or Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner on Instagram.” In other words, children who have a steady diet of fun, entertainment, and superficial niceties will turn out to be as fluff-filled as those items.

Children raised to value a standard of excellence in the books they read, the (minimal) entertainment they watch, and the activities they participate in, however, will add a far greater depth to their lives. In all likelihood, they will also gain familiarity with other tools to help them accumulate more self-control in their lives.”

[ref:   https://fee.org/articles/the-childhood-quality-that-s-the-best-predictor-of-wealth-health-and-happiness/   ]

 

Of course, the idea – that one’s genetics do not matter … that’s clearly nonsense.

 

[ref:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRKbZtpBcgI   

(Nature and Nurture: The Study of Twins)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The battle between self and other … hardly exists in this culture.  That’s because it’s commonly regarded as a ‘no contest’.   We presume – that the selfish life … is the way to go.

 

This, however, (as it turns out) … is flawed.

 

Consider the epigram (the remark by Schweitzer, about service).

 

Also, we should be aware of (and take to heart) the work of Robert L. Humphrey.

 

Humphrey spent most of his life in studying the nature of human nature … and what he came to realize is what he calls the ‘dual life value’: self and other.

 

He points out that – to threaten someone’s life or well-being (anywhere in the world) … is the second most dangerous thing you can do.  But to threaten the life or well-being of a person’s loved ones … is the most dangerous thing you can do.

 

Self and other.

 

We value both.

 

It’s our nature.

 

We need to understand that our preoccupation with (and validation of) the selfish life … is a mere (perverse) cultural artifact.  (a cultural error).

 

Selfishness is unavoidable.

 

But those who adopt selfishness as a life-style and a primary mode of operation … we have a name for such people.    Criminals.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The most fear-laden (of all our major “Or vs And” battles) … is our struggle with capitalism vs socialism / (communism).

 

I was alive  during the McCarthy Witch-hunts.  (I was young … but I can remember it.)

During this period, the fear (of communism) was palpable.

 

Our ‘soft-headed’ (uneducated & ignorant) nationalism … combined with (considerable) fear (as well as our predisposition toward pathological mutual exclusivity) … proved itself to be an unfortunate and unproductive program.

 

I think there is (very) good reason to suspect – that Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevera, & Fidel Castro … are people we should be learning from, respecting, and looking up to.

 

Should we simply wait – for Sanity and Rationality to (somehow) arrive?

Or should we pursue them?

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[book:  Values for a New Millennium – by Robert L. Humphrey   ]