AN EMAIL FROM MOSES (reprise)

It all began on 5 March 2010 with an email from Moses (above, left), who said he got my contact from Jason Rao - a young Malaysian who relocated to New Zealand a few years ago and found himself living with his German girlfriend in an artists' colony. Moses asked if he could come to Magick River "to meet indigenous people, learning from them to make music in their ways, spend good times together, eat, share and come together for a better world and understanding."


I replied: "Sure, you're welcome to spend a few days up here, especially if you smell good and are musical 😁 You may be a bit disappointed if you're hoping to jam with the Orang Asli (the indigenous folks who live here). The women and children are irresistible but the adult males are, for the most part, a lost cause. Anyway, I have a few instruments lying around and we can always have some fun on my scenic veranda. The biggest attraction here is the river. You didn't mention whether you're traveling alone or with friends..."


The Love Bus rolls up at Magick River

Next thing I know, Moses shows up at my doorstep accompanied by nine members of the Love Bus. For a moment I was aghast at his huge entourage, but as they trudged up the steps lugging heavy backpacks and various musical instruments, a quick scan revealed them to be mostly human angels, accompanied by a couple of monks in mufti. So I welcomed them all with a big grin, little realizing that this was the beginning of a new era at Magick River.




As it turned out, Moses is a 31-year-old former theology student from Germany officially named Andreas Moser. He's also a consummate musician and composer with a passionate, theatrical singing style. In Australia he had met up with Mitch Gittoes (a talented rapper and street musician) and a French accordionist named Pierrick Hamonet (who looks like a Merovingian prince).


They began busking together and subsequently were joined by Josh Lee (right) and his sister Tabitha (both inspired singer-songwriters whose Malaysian-born mother works as a policewoman in Brisbane). They talked about buying an old bus and driving around the country making music and generating happy vibes. Someone suggested the name "Love Bus."

The Love Bus traveled to New Zealand where they picked up audio engineer Charlie Baggins (not his real name) and Erin Crowley (a pixie-faced singer-songwriter). By the time they arrived in KL the Love Bus had attracted many more ad hoc members - mostly musicians, but those who couldn't play any instruments just sang and danced and looked incredibly appealing.



They busked at various locations in KL, using a backpacker hostel named Le Village as their base. The owner let them stay for free and they reciprocated by luring more travelers to stay at the guesthouse. Many ended up joining the Love Bus, which is a constantly changing molecular Rainbow Family.

Living outside the 3D Matrix

When we started the Magick River project in 1992, part of the vision was that we would attract a small transient population of musicians, writers, sculptors, dancers, poets, painters - and perhaps a handful of visionary engineers, permaculturists, ethnobotanists, and so on - who would form a self-sustaining, synergetic community of kindred spirits. One thing we would all have in common is an unwavering commitment to co-creating heaven on earth.

Over the last 18 years we have seen many colorful characters pass through the Magick River portal, some staying for weeks or even months, others only a few days - but each one has left an indelible energy imprint or at least a few fond memories. Magick River co-founder Mary Maguire, now my next-door neighbor, was equally receptive to the arrival of the Love Bus. "These are the beings we've been waiting to connect with for a long, long time!" she pronounced.

Most of the rainbow group are considerably younger than Mary and I - so we both feel a bit like surrogate parents. Yet in terms of our shared vision of what life could - and will - be on this planet when we've shed the old skin of reactionary competitiveness and scarcity conditioning, the Love Bus is like a massive shot in arm of pure youthful optimism.



These youngsters from the Love Bus are so open-hearted, clear-headed, receptive and savvy about what's going on in the world - and each one so eager to learn and to spread the Aquarian theme of universal love, reconciliation and redemption - Mary and I could only conclude that the Love Bus was an integral part of Magick River's ongoing evolution.

Who will inherit the earth? Cold-blooded corporations or warm-blooded human beings?

Anyway, since that first email from Moses, more than two months have elapsed. There has been a major political battle fought (and lost) in our neighborhood and a whole lot of murky water has flowed under the bridge. But the Love Bus is still around - though many relocated to Penang during the by-election, trickling back shortly after the dust settled. Now a handful of them have been recruited as extras in a feature film, Hanyut, directed by U-Wei Haji Saari. So they have been commuting between KL and KKB.

Nobody can predict how the story will unfold. Will the energy that brought the Love Bus together begin to dissipate along with the group? Or will their lively, colorful and highly musical presence spontaneously evolve into something as yet unimagined?



The Love Bus is an organic extension of what began in the subtler dimensions as the Earth Ascension project. I can't delve into the full story here but the same evolutionary impetus resurfaced more recently in the 1950s as the Beat Generation - with iconic characters like Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and Richard Fariña setting the tone for their 1960s successors, the Flower Power movement whose credo - Make Love, Not War - is still the soundest advice humanity can possibly follow.

When Big Business and Big Media figured out what was happening, they wasted no time co-opting the revolution and turning it into a fashion statement for weekend hippies. Thus began the materialistic Yuppie Era of the 1980s which appeared to have thwarted any possibility of real transformation within the human psyche. A new incarnation of fascistic totalitarianism began to rear its hideous head, manifesting most prominently as the Bush-Cheney regime in the US.

The real hippies simply moved out of the big cities, found some land to grow vegetables and raise their families. Some formed molecular communities with varying degrees of success. A few of these pioneer communities have lasted nearly 40 years - some fizzled out after six months. Those who found themselves displaced traveled to Asia - disappearing into the complexity and diversity of Mother India where they became known as Rainbow Families.



Many of the "original" hippies - some of whom became celebrities and gurus (like Tim Leary, Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey and Terence McKenna) - are now dead. However, we are witnessing the third generation of this evolutionary impulse to break free of the Greed and Power Matrix of Fear and master the art of co-creating a conscious community of self-reprogramming humans - individuals who can enjoy their own brilliant uniqueness and yet effortlessly merge into a democratic group mind and function intelligently and creatively as One Being.





COMING UP NEXT: THE LOVE BUS @ MAGICK RIVER

MALICE IN BOLEHLAND ~ IN GLORIOUS 3D! (repost)

Tim Burton describes a scene to Mia Wasikowska who plays Alice

Ever since I saw Mars Attacks  I've been partial to Tim Burton's distinctive approach to filmmaking. As far as I'm concerned, his most magnificent effort to date is Big Fish  (starring Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Helena Bonham Carter and Jessica Lange), released in 2003. That's a movie hard to top, the wizardly way Burton mixed magical realism with sheer emotional punch, bringing out some exquisite performances from his cast.


A few days ago I got hold of a DVD of Tim Burton's latest project - a new spin on Alice in Wonderland with some of his favorite character actors (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Christopher Lee) and featuring a fresh and luminous Aussie face named Mia Wasikowska as Alice.


Most of us grew up watching Walt Disney's 1951 animated version of Alice in Wonderland  (I was a year old when it first came out) - so it formed the basis of (apart from John Tenniel's delightful illustrations) our visual reference for the unforgettable characters that popped up from the fertile mind of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (left) - better known by his nom de plume, Lewis Carroll - as he spun a wonderfully anarchic but mathematically coherent yarn to amuse his young muse, Alice Liddell.

Walt Disney studios contracted Tim Burton to direct a 21st century digitally sexed-up version of Alice in Wonderland sometime in 2007. It's interesting to hear what Burton has to say about his approach to remaking this greatly beloved classic: "It was always a girl wandering around from one crazy character to another, and I never really felt any real emotional connection." His goal with the new movie was to give the story "some framework of emotional grounding" and "to try and make Alice feel more like a story as opposed to a series of events." Burton focused on the Jabberwocky poem as part of his structure. [Source: Wikipedia]

I found Tim Burton's Alice enthralling - though hardly definitive. Indeed I view it as a cogent metaphor for the dysfunctional and absurd political reality we live in.

Under the Red Queen's demented and tyrannical rule, Wonderland becomes Underland - a subterranean dream/nightmare with surreal overtones, where the Jubjub Bird and the Frumious Bandersnatch and the Burbling Jabberwock serve as the Red Queen's law enforcement agencies. Meanwhile a riot squad of playing cards stands ready to quell rebellion with the Underlandish equivalent of tear gas and water cannons - and bloodhounds are blackmailed into the Knave of Hearts's secret service.

In Burton's movie, the helpful bloodhound is named Bayard - but in Malaysia he might as well be called Balasubramaniam.

It's fun trying to match each character in Alice with their symbolic equivalents in Malaysian politics. The Knave represents all the power-craving sleazebags who get off on the vicarious power and privilege of pretending to serve Evil (when, ultimately, all they care to serve is their own inflamed egos).

In the book and original Walt Disney animated film, the King of Hearts (left) is portrayed as fairly easygoing but totally henpecked by his irascible Queen. I thought the pink-lipped poltroon named Najib Razak would fit the role quite nicely - but, alas, in Tim Burton's version the King of Hearts has been despatched (actually, decapitated on the Red Queen's orders when she suspects he has the hots for her younger sister, the White Queen).

No prizes for matching the Red Queen with a notorious character in Malaysian politics - even though the big hair and big head are the only clues you get. Well, okay, she'd rather be feared than loved... having failed miserably at popularity contests.

The Mad Hatter (adeptly played by Johnny Depp) is a bit harder to match, as he is quite a protean character and cannot really be pinned down.

Part fool, part sage, part shaman, part showman, part salesman, part magician, part politician - the Hatter represents everyone who dreams of overthrowing oppressive rule and tyranny. The Mad Hatter is the voice of the artist-poet-philosopher who embodies our collective dream of freedom and joy and whose inspiring performance of the head-spinning, knee-wobbling Futterwacken dance signifies that all is well in Underland as it is in Heaven - and hopefully on Earth too.

In other words, the Mad Hatter is all of us - bloggers, blog readers, regular commenters on Malaysiakini, candlelight vigilers, anti-ISA campaigners, human rights activists, civil society movers and shakers, former political detainees, wearers of Bersih T-shirts, rabble rousers, impassioned changers of punctured tubes and replacers of blown bulbs... and if there is one person I can name who already plays the role of the Mad Hatter - and does so with flamboyant relish - it has to be Hishamuddin Rais.

The Jabberwock (given voice by Christopher Lee) is depicted as a scary manifestation of primordial evil - a ruthless and indomitable foe that can only be slain by the Vorpal Sword. You could say this nightmarish creature symbolizes a primeval will to wield power over others, to subjugate and dominate through fear and terror. It is a monster kept as a pet by the narcissistic Red Queen who rules Underland with whimsical cruelty and surrounds herself with hypocrites, sycophants and parasites.

To me the Jabberwock represents the mindless brute force of jingoistic demagoguery - the sort of chest-thumping bigotry and provincialism characteristic of so many Umno warlords who have risen to power by fanning the xenophobic flames of racial and religious fanaticism. "Beware the Jabberwock!" is constantly invoked by political shit-stirrers like Ibrahim Ali, Ahmad Ismail, Ezam Mohd Nor, Ali Rustam, Nasir Safar, and Mahathir Mohamad. In effect, Malaysia's version of the Jabberwock is called the Specter of May 13.

It was the bloody beast unleashed shortly after the general election of May 1969 and kept penned up and well-fed by each succeeding Umno regime as a warning to anyone audacious enough to even question Ketuanan Melayu  (Malay Supremacy) - or the necessity of maintaining nine royal households in obscene luxury.


Incredibly, Alice succeeds in lopping off the Jabberwock's head with the Vorpal Sword she retrieves from the lair of the Frumious Bandersnatch (who succumbs to Alice's charms and transforms into an oversized pit bull on which she rides into battle against the Jabberwock).


I take this as an indication that the Royal Malaysian Police may yet be redeemable and restored to proper functioning once a bunch of oversized dickheads roll. Indeed, we the people might even discover that a large majority of the police force is only too happy to help us overthrow the absolutely rotten Umno/BN regime so they can regain their professional pride as police officers and keepers of the law.

As some film critics point out, Mia Wasikowska plays Alice as a mythic heroine in her rite of passage who faces challenges, overcomes obstacles, and emerges triumphant and victorious as a mature woman ready to step out into a larger world. Other reviewers have bemoaned the political incorrectness of Alice Kingsleigh's decision to embark on an entrepreneurial career in China (this was around the period when British business interests introduced opium to the Chinese peasantry to weaken them, before attempting to colonize the country; in the end they settled for a lucrative 99-year lease on Hong Kong).

Yet we have no idea what further adventures may have befallen Alice Kingsleigh as a young woman. Perhaps she bumped into a dashing bloke during a brief stopover in Singapore and ended up as a colonial officer's wife in Selangor; or she might have changed her mind about China and headed to Australia instead, settling in the Northern Territory as the mistress of an aboriginal chief and having a small town, Alice Springs, named in her honor.

Who do I see as Alice in the Malaysian political context? Does she represent a new generation of empowered voters, awakened from political apathy? Is Alice the voice of an assertive educated middle class that chased a white rabbit down an optic-fiber wormhole and gained mind-expanding access to hitherto suppressed information?


For sure Alice is all of this - but I would like to link Alice with a political icon who comes close to being a mythic heroine in real life - Nurul Izzah, daughter of Wan Azizah and Anwar Ibrahim. At 18 Izzah found herself up to her arched eyebrows in political intrigue when prime minister Mahathir arrested her father (the deputy PM) under the jubjubian ISA, accused him of sodomy, and tried to finish him off with a 15-year jail sentence. His daughter sprouted wings and championed her father's cause in the International Court of Public Opinion. At 27 Izzah won an important parliamentary seat on her very first attempt and now serves as the clear, intelligent, compassionate voice of Malaysia's promising future.


Few believed her father would survive this cruel and wretched political exile. However, Anwar was released after 6 years and returned to the political fray with a vengeance, leading a loose coalition of opposition parties to a stunning electoral victory on 8 March 2008 - which should have won them control of the federal government instead of just five states - were it not for massive gerrymandering, last-minute postal votes, and the habitual support of less well-informed voters in Sabah and Sarawak.

Alice Kingsleigh, we learn at the start of Burton's film, is a daughter after her father's heart. As she faces the fearsome Jabberwock alone, she recalls that her father, Charles Kingsleigh, was a visionary who made a habit of believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Listing the impossible things she had encountered since her arrival in Underland, Alice arrives at the sixth - "I believe I'm going to slay the Jabberwock!" - whereupon it actually happens.

The Jabberwock's hideous head tumbles down the steps and with the monster's death, the Red Queen loses control of Underland. The White Queen regains power and banishes her wicked sister to the Outlands (because her vows do not permit her to deliberately deprive anyone of life). The Mad Hatter performs his magical Futterwacken dance, initiating the restoration of joy and freedom throughout Underland - and invites Alice to stay on, but she is resolute about returning to her own world where she has unfinished business to attend to - like saying no to an upper-class twit who wishes to marry her.

Tim Burton's White Queen (enchantingly played by Anne Hathaway) is benign, eccentric and greatly beloved. With a touch of black lipstick and some face powder, we could turn Wan Azizah into a Malaysian White Queen.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee (superbly portrayed by Matt Lucas) are truly a classic pair and serve as a symbol for so many apparently dichotomous situations. For me they represent the cacophony of political pundits on both sides of the left-right divide who serve mainly as comic relief.

Nivens McTwisp, the White Rabbit who leads Alice down the rabbit-hole to Underland, reminds me of our civil service: he keeps an eye on the passage of time and performs bureaucratic service to whomsoever happens to be in power.

The Cheshire Cat and Absolem (the hookah-smoking caterpillar) represent the two most prominent aspects of Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) - a Houdini-like evaporizer who eludes capture and categorization with ease, as well as a pontificating pundit of hardnosed political gossip. [At the time of writing RPK was still revered as a political blogger and a potent catalyst for change; alas, the Red Queen's poison got to him and he has in recent years transformed into his own antithesis.]

Both play a very important role in the unfolding of the plot. The Mad Hatter is saved from the executioner's ax by the timely intervention of the Cheshire Cat; and Alice is forced to look within herself to find her true destiny whenever she confronts Absolem.

Her last encounter with Absolem the caterpillar occurs just before he metamorphoses into a pupa; but she recognizes him instantly when he alights momentarily on her in his glorious butterfly form.

Taking a cue from Charles Kingsleigh, Alice's visionary father, let's believe in six impossible things before breakfast - and transform our beloved Bolehland into a veritable Wonderland for all.


ALICE VS THE JABBERWOCKY

[First published 8 July 2010, Reposted 13 May 2013]

Reflections on Death, Resurrection, and the Afterlife

Weddings and funerals are major social events in every Orang Asli community, bringing everybody together - just as they are in every other community - obviously because they are markers in the cycle of life and death. At Bayo's funeral on June 5th, 2007, I listened to the lay preacher (a Temuan from Tanjong Malim Calvary Mission) recite the last rites just before they covered the tiny, hastily knocked-together plywood coffin with earth.

Bayo's family is one of two in Pertak Village who converted to Christianity, probably in the 1980s, before the Orang Asli Affairs Department began taking a dim view of missionary incursions (apart from Islamic) into Orang Asli communities.

"Let this be a reminder to us all," the lay preacher intoned, "that our existence on this earth is only temporary. What God gives, God also takes away. But even death is temporary, for our souls are immortal; and those who believe in Jesus Christ shall live forever in Heaven."

It's been a long time since I heard such outright nonsense uttered. I drifted out of earshot and let the brief ceremony proceed. The lay preacher was merely parroting a doctrine handed down a hundred generations. Few question these pious platitudes, because nobody I know has returned from the grave to report on the afterlife (apart from a few who survived near-death experiences and whose stories have been recorded).

True, the entire basis of Christianity revolves around the belief that Jesus was bodily resurrected from his tomb and appeared before the Magdalene and the Apostles on what is now known as Easter Sunday.

However, the Koran explicitly disputes that the Master Jesus was actually crucified. "Another took his place," the Koran says - and this view is supported by the account of the Christos Incarnations recorded by the oracle, A'shayana Deane (initiate of the Melchizedek Cloister Emerald Order), as well as many other esoteric writings. But as it all boils down to a question of belief and faith, it's pointless to get into a heated debate on this issue, since opinions widely diverge on the subject.

The Orang Asli concept of the afterlife isn't all that different from the Christian version - except it doesn't require believing that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. The physical form is only our fleshly baju (clothing), say the Temuan elders. Our roh (soul) does not die and already exists before we are born. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be much difference - apart from terminology - between what animists believe and what Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists claim to believe. The common thread is the idea that the physical form is temporary, and the spiritual essence immortal. Now that is difficult to dispute, seeing as how plants, animals, and humans all go through a specific lifespan and then wither away before our eyes.

What distresses me, however, is that this devaluation of physical existence tends to make humans careless about the natural environment, Mother Earth, that gives rise to and supports their being. It makes a big difference whether people regard their homes as permanent and bequeathable - or only rented, and therefore temporary. Why invest so much effort in beautifying a rented property when, at any moment, you might get evicted by the owner? Would this explain why the Earth has been so badly treated by her human tenants?

When generation after generation is told by professional priests (regardless of denomination or sect) that their sojourn on Earth is but temporary, that their true home is in the afterlife, can you blame humans for not taking proper care of their bodies - and, by extension, their earthly home? This sort of "teaching" also serves to placate the impoverished masses who might otherwise decide they've had enough of being exploited and oppressed by the "ruling class" and join forces to overthrow the Management (a scenario that has occurred several times within recent history, but invariably it's a case of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" as Orwell depicted so memorably in Animal Farm).

Add to this the Buddhist and Hindu teachings of karma and reincarnation (which some interpret as "fate" or "predestiny") and you have a ready-made excuse to shrug off other people's misfortunes by saying, "Oh well, it's their bad karma that they got napalmed by the Americans."

Excuse me, but I'm inclined to view America's military adventurism as the result of an egocentric and opportunistic foreign policy rather than the workings of geopolitical karma. Bad management can be identified and redressed - and each citizen of every country shares the onus of restraining their leaders from gross, power-intoxicated misbehavior on the world stage.

And if we each paused for a moment and consciously decided to wholeheartedly appreciate and esteem the natural beauty around us - instead of taking it all for granted as we seem to have done for generations - then, perhaps, we may begin to realize that we lose absolutely nothing by investing our energy in making our earthly sojourn as heavenly as possible. So what if each of us can only enjoy it for a brief lifespan? Indeed we may discover that when life on earth becomes truly paradisal, we might decide to extend our visas indefinitely (instead of complaining that "life's a bitch"), thereby making translation to an abstract notion of Heaven merely optional.

Many of my friends have been interested in the idea of Ascension for years - though nobody appears to know exactly what the process entails. Some believe they can accelerate it by becoming vegan or by abstaining from sensory stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. They cling to the words of the Ascended Masters and secretly aspire to attaining similar spiritual status. Quite frankly, I seem to be looking at it all through the "wrong" end of the telescope in that I clearly remember what a joyous accomplishment it was to finally be able to inhabit a physical vehicle and explore reality in a dense body with all the miraculous sensory organs we have evolved over the aeons.

In this respect I'd much rather identify with the Descended Masters. Having experienced physical existence on this incredibly beautiful and boundlessly fascinating planet many times over (I've certainly had multiple flashbacks of parallel incarnations over the years), I've opted to adopt Earth as my base of operations and my permanent Home.

[First published 8 June 2007, reposted 1 February 2012, 25 April 2022, 10 March 2023 & 17 August 2024]

The Devil's Advocate (revisited)

In Harmonic_Concordance@yahoogroups, Carolyn D wrote (in a reply to Chandara):

With regards to Satan, my understanding of the christian mythology is that as Lucifer he was once the highest created being, entrusted with the education of Man, but when he realized that Man was destined to become a greater creation he became jealous, decieved (sic) and brought about the downfall of man; and Jesus was then entrusted to take his place. In that regard, he would certainly be considered an adversary or opponent, but that in no way implies equality to God.

[Note: All sections in italics are quotes from Ms D's original email]

Dear Carolyn D,

Our opinions are largely derived from early inputs, the books we read or sermons we heard, only too few are from personal experience or direct insight, so methinks it's a good practice to not get overly attached to even our most cherished opinions - especially the ones institutionally imprinted in our circuits or inherited as prejudice from our ancestors.

With that little preamble out of the way, let's look at scary names like "Lucifer" and "Satan" and see where they come from. For good measure we'll throw in "The Devil," "Beelzebub" and "Mephistopheles."

LUCIFEROS is Latin for Light-Bringer, a poetic tag for the planet Venus (whose esoteric symbol is the pentagram or 5-pointed star). Also known as Prometheus in Greek mythology - a young Titan from an earlier evolutionary epoch who irked the usurping Olympian gods by taking fire from the heavens and bringing it to a benighted humanity. For this terrible "crime" Prometheus was chained to a rock and had his liver eaten by an eagle during the day; at night his liver would regenerate so that the whole gory punishment could proceed all over again ad infinitum, ad nauseam, till the end of Time! This is rather revealing of the cruel and vengeful Olympian psyche which labelled Lucifer/Prometheus as a traitor or whistle-blower (the Olympians didn't want humanity to have Fire or Light so they could forever exploit us as slave labor). Bear in mind, the leader of the Olympian gods was Zeus (later Latinized to Deus), also known as Jupiter or Jove, which derives from Yahweh or Jehovah.

Indeed, it's easy to draw a mythic comparison between Prometheus/Lucifer and Yeshua/Jesus: both upset the Status Quo and threatened the Powers That Be simply by shedding their Light in dark places - and for that were severely punished by crucifixion on the cross of Matter. Both were cult heroes with one significant difference: the admirers of Prometheus/Lucifer continue to be labeled "subversives" till this very day, while the followers of Yeshua/Jesus were abducted and mind-controlled by MK-Ultra Agent Saul of Tarsus (aka St Paul) into believing they were still loyal to the ideals of their hero when, in truth, they had been deactivated and turned into docile tithe-paying citizens of the "Holy" Roman Empire under King Constantine and his best crony the Pope. In Hoc Signo Vinces. The politician unites with the priest under the sign of the cross to conquer the world.

Now from the viewpoint of humanity, Lucifer/Prometheus is a cult hero - a cosmic Robin Hood, Daniel Berrigan, Julian Assange or Edward Snowden - whose love for humanity (or justice and truth) overrides his fear of the Olympians' wrath. Imagine some Deep Throat from within the White House leaking some confidential information that could topple the regime. Fire is a metaphor for Intelligence, Knowledge, Technology, Illumination, Cosmic Gnosis. What's the connection with Venus? Apart from being the brightest visible planet, Venus is reputed to be the home of the Kumaras and the Hathors - spiritual guides to an evolving humanity. It so happens that Venus is the Roman name for Aphrodite, Greek goddess of erotic love - that's right, the source of our sexiness. In effect, the female aspect of Lucifer/Prometheus is Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. And we know how terrified of sex the patriarchal god of Abraham was (and still is) - note the many taboos against "carnal knowledge" unless "sanctified" by the Church through "marriage." And where does the Serpent come in? That's right - he encourages Eve to taste the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of Immortality.

Notice how the serpent in indigenous mythology is invariably associated with the Life Force, with the Kundalini, as the Guardian of Secret Lore and Wisdom - while it's viciously reviled by all the patriarchal Book Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The Serpent also happens to be the emblem of the House of Enki, while the Eagle represents Enlil, in Sumerian mythology - but we won't delve into the subject of sibling rivalry for now or the story gets too complicated.

My point is: when you study the etymology and mythology of the names "Lucifer" and "Prometheus" it's impossible to pin anything "evil" on this archetypal entity. Indeed, it's fairly easy to end up admiring Lucifer's heroism in defying the Johnny-come-lately "deity" or local administrator known as Zeus/Yahweh/Jehovah/Jove.

Let's elaborate on what Lucifer/Prometheus's fate means: to be chained on a rock (a dense planet called Earth), liver devoured (lifetime after lifetime, the liver symbolizing the seat of the soul) by an Eagle (interchangeably a Phoenix or Scorpion, all symbols of resurrection) suggests that the defiant and rebellious Light-Bringing Spirit became imprisoned within the 3D Matrix and had to experience multiple incarnations within the physical realm... and yet could never really die because it would rise again repeatedly like the phoenix. Doesn't that sound pretty much like what all of us have had to endure? Are we not the descendants of Lucifer, still imprisoned by the Frequency Fence installed by an insecure Anunnaki godling named Enlil, later called Eli, Allah, Yahweh/Jehovah (or J. Edgar Hoover)? And are we not, like Yeshua/Jesus, perfectly capable of liberating ourselves from the illusion of death, resurrecting our bodies, and transmuting them into ascension vehicles of Light fueled by Love?

Moving on to "Satan": the word derives from the Arabic/Hebraic shaitan which simply means "nemesis" or "opponent." In effect, anyone playing opposite you in a friendly game of ping-pong can be described as your shaitan or Satan. Yup, Satan is your chess partner. And, remember, to your opponent, YOU are "shaitan."

In short, the naming of "Satan" as the opponent of "God" could well be a surreptitious insert contrived by a special committee appointed by King James I some time in the 17th century, when the Old and New Testaments were first translated into English - based on the Latin version, translated from the Greek which in turn had been translated from the Hebrew, drawing on fragments of the original Aramaic documents inscribed by the Essenes from a multitude of oral traditions going all the way back to Mesopotamian times and the Enuma Elish - and eventually made available to the masses through the newly invented Caxton press. God knows what idiosyncratic modifications, omissions or mistranslations found their way into the Authorized King James Bible - used as the basis for most "modernized" editions published by various evangelical factions with different agendas. (Indeed, just to further complexify the issue, Mormons say that the tabernacles revealed to Joseph Smith in the 19th century by the ascended master Moroni are the missing chapters of the "unwholly" Bible. The original Tabernacles inscribed on gold plates apparently vanished soon after Smith had copied them into his journal).

How about "The Devil"? Where does THAT come from? The dictionary says it's etymologically derived from the Greek diabolos (one who curses God). But the word may also have its obscure roots in the Sanskrit deva and devi - meaning "god" and "goddess" but oftentimes applied to the overlighting Spirit of a particular area, element, or species. The gross distortion probably originated in the Zoroastrian era when the word deva became associated with the Asuras - an invading race regarded as barbarians and therefore "demonized" as an "evil" force. Even the word "demon" has its source in the Greek daemon (which in New Age circles would be described as a spirit guide or Muse); only in the 19th century did the concept of daemon acquire a negative connotation when its spelling was changed to "demon." Spelt backwards, the Devil merely comes across as one who has Lived!

And Beelzebub? What's the etymology here? Ba'al or Bel (from which the French word "belle" may have derived) was the tutelary spirit of the Philistines - a non-Semitic tribe that came into conflict with the Israelites and therefore got seriously badmouthed. Today a Philistine refers to someone totally uncultured, just as "barbarian" originally meant someone from Barbary (northwestern Africa). "Ba'al Zebub" (Lord of the Flies) is just a literary epithet for someone extremely scruffy and unwashed - which is how the bourgeois nouveau riche often views their rural brethren. Interestingly, words like "pagan" and "heathen" originally referred to the peasantry - in other words, plain-living, unsophisticated countryfolk.

As for Mephistopheles (possibly a combination of "mephitic" and "anopheles" - meaning "foul-smelling" and "unprofitable"), the name was coined by the anonymous 16th century author of Faustbuch who inspired Christopher Marlowe's - and later Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's - world-famous Dr Faustus from which we get that exquisite metaphor, the Faustian pact of Hi-Tech Man (or as George Harrison sang: "We were talking/About the world that's gone so cold/And the people/Who gain the world and lose their soul...") In this instance, Mephistopheles is clearly the personification of Scientific Materialism - or the twisted notion that "Man was created to have dominion over Nature."

So... who, what, where is God's Adversary? Perhaps those Doomsday Preachers who deceive and stupefy In Her Name - all the while raping and pillaging Her beauty and bounty!

The Essenes and gnostics considered that the creator of the world, called the "demiurge", was the equivalent to the jealous, punitive god of the Old Testement (sic) and was not the highest authority in the universe ......

Yahweh or Jehovah is indeed a junior godling, a sort of regional administrator who botched up big time (in all fairness, perhaps through bad advice from a bunch of mediocre intellects with severely aberrated reptilian egos, just as GWB, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton have served the secret government as a front for hideously arrogant and stupid ambitions). But we live and learn – or soon get demoted.

Whether Satan exists in actuality or allegory, or both, I don't know; but I do know his cult following is something you don't want to mess with.


It all begins as a "cult" - and when there are enough followers, it becomes an entire "culture." Take blood sacrifice and flag-worshiping for instance. A bunch of demented wannabe teenage "magicians" sacrifice a black cat in the woods - and there's a huge brouhaha when they get caught. But put them in public office and let them sacrifice thousands, even millions, of human beings in nonsensical wars - and they get hailed as Conquering Heroes, Loyal Nationalists and Empire Builders! You're quite right, Carolyn - you don't want to mess with this sort of coldblooded cult or they'll rocket-bomb you in bed.

I rest my flaming suitcase.

[First posted 2 February 2007, reposted 11 June 2014, 9 November 2016 & 4 November 2021]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUDDHA! (reprise)

Buddha is NOT a personal name. Buddha is a state of consciousness. When one awakens from the cultural matrix into which one is born and ceases to react robotically to environmental circumstances, one instantly attains the first degree of Buddhahood. Contrary to popular expectations, most humans today are closer to Buddhahood than they realize.

On Vesak Day, celebrated as the Buddha's birthday, awaken and claim your own Buddhahood!

One can be a Buddha regardless of one's religious or non-religious affiliations.

Being Buddha simply means you are fully conscious - and therefore fully accountable for whatever happens within and around you.

Happy Birthday to the Buddha That You Are!

[First posted 19 May 2008. Reposted 8 May 2020]