From Dragon Slayer to Dragon Rider ~ The Spiral of Conscious Evolution (repost)

Midgard Serpent by Alicia Smith

Mystics (and more often these days scientists too) speak of the planet as a living, breathing organism - a macro form of ourselves, actually. Gaia-Sophia, Pachamama, Lady Melina, Mother Earth are some of the names we call her. Just like us her body is a complex nexus of electrical circuitry and magnetic fields. Mountainous areas have long been regarded as sacred, with many serving as geodetic chakras where leylines or dragon paths converge.

Mount Meru as the electromagnetic axis of the world

During the last evolutionary cycle, Mount Meru (located in the Transhimalayan mountain range formed when tectonic plates collided) marked the spiritual axis of the planet. It was said to be where the head of the World Snake (or the Midgard Serpent of Nordic mythology) was located.

Then some 60 years ago (shortly before China invaded Tibet) the World Snake began to migrate, making its way slowly towards the Andes where its head now rests. The World Snake symbolizes the planetary kundalini or activated energy field; and all along its body you will find power spots and sacred sites. Often the serpent's body also marks the meeting of tectonic plates.

Earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis and flashfloods are signs of the World Snake moving. When it moves volcanoes erupt, the ground shakes, and our daily routines are enormously disrupted (and, yes, death may be considered an abrupt termination of our everyday reality). Sometimes entire cities and continents are destroyed. And we are reminded to take heed of the fact that our physical existence is precarious and never totally predictable. Indeed, we build our towns and cities on the back of a sleeping giant whose slumber can last decades, centuries, millennia... lulling us into the complacency of busyness-as-usual.

In the past humans have sought to slay the dragon in a quest to obtain fame and fortune (for where dragons sleep it is believed great treasure can be found). The dragon or World Snake represents the elemental, primordial reality from which all life as we know it emerged. We cannot kill it without ultimately killing ourselves.

When we awaken to the cellular knowing that the planet (and ultimately the galaxy and the whole universe) is an extension of our physical and metaphysical selves, and that life itself is fractal and holographic in nature, we will spontaneously become empathetic and compassionate and begin to resonate and consciously navigate with elegance and gracefulness, with masterful restraint and gentle wisdom.

Lord Vishnu relishing his own Dream of the Universe

We will opt to learn how to ride the dragon, rather than foolishly attempt to kill it. We will get good at surfing the electromagnetic waves. And we can begin to do so by becoming conscious, individually and as a species, of the cosmic context of our being; by paying constant attention to the bigger picture and looking up every now and then from our rice bowl (or plate of quinoa) and remembering we are indeed unique parts of a magnificent Wholeness, born from the active imagination of Vishnu, the Dreaming God.

Many of us will revel in the Cosmic Dream, losing ourselves time and again in the illusion of separation, entranced by the shadow-play of Maya. And some of us will identify with the Dreamer instead of the Dream, the Eternal rather than the Ephemeral. So that when the Dream is over, we can yawn and rub our eyes and put the kettle on and enjoy a hearty breakfast before imagining another universe.

Antares
26 April 2015

SONG OF THE DRAGON

[Originally posted 10 January 2017, reposted 6 August 2019 & 8 May 2022]

Paying homage to a planetary rainbow warrior dreamtime goddess

Marianne Y. Naerebout

planetary 

rainbow warrior

dreamtime goddess

she showed me her true colors:

i felt a delightful tingle 

of molecular excitement – electric!

& sensual in a long-forgotten

or just-remembered sense

those fluid lines & funky colors:

music to the eyes – they make one

realize what a spectacular gift 

SIGHT is! oh i feel like jumping up &

dancing to that happy/lively/friendly

pulsating energy

[she had come to me, you see, for “professional advice” on the production of this “promotional tool”]

i said:

you don’t need words to sell your

pictures, they have the power

to create their own demand

she said:

what do you see in my paintings?

[i smiled & handed her her “pound of words”]

for a start: the hologram of eve & 

evolution; primary waveforms, photons,

molecules, cells; also algae, germs,

sperms, worms & axolotls; snakes,

fishes (all shapes & sizes), birds, 

turtles, tetrahedral crystals &

quetzalcoatls (yes… the feathered

serpents of the aztecs!)

Piece by Dutch artist Corneille
@ Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo (1922–2010)

elemental, rudimental, transcendental

micro-macro-cosmic fractal images

such as one may find in the mindscapes

of aboriginal magic art, punk 

guerrilla graffiti & some visionary

works by ernst, corneille, klee, miro

picasso, chagall et alia; or on

tibetan thangkas, guatemalan weavings,

precolumbian jugs & rugs

chromosomes at play:

highly neural (but unneurotic)

& erotic in a subliminal way –

none of that egocentric intellectualism

one finds in much of modern art –

do you know why this is so?

she said:

well, i was born in holland but

when i was 3 months old we moved

to curacao – i remember vividly

playing in the sea! later i shifted 

to the desert & recently i experienced

the malaysian jungle – i like 

movement!

i said:

do you mind being called a planetary

rainbow warrior dreamtime  goddess?

she laughed

with childlike innocence

& the wisdom of the ancients

 

kit leee

(antares maitreya)

magick river

kuala kubu bharu

july 1994

 

WORLD'S WORST JOBS IN SCIENCE (well worth reposting!)

ORANGUTAN-PEE COLLECTOR

Their work is noninvasive — for the apes, that is... "Have I been pissed on? Yes," says anthropologist Cheryl Knott of Harvard University. Knott is a pioneer of "noninvasive monitoring of steroids through urine sampling." Translation: Look out below! For the past 11 years, Knott and her colleagues have trekked into Gunung Palung National Park in Borneo, Indonesia, in search of the endangered primates. Once a subject is spotted, they deploy plastic sheets like a firemen's rescue trampoline and wait for the tree-swinging apes to go see a man about a mule. For more pee-catching precision, they attach bags to poles and follow beneath the animals. "It's kind of gross when you get hit, but this is the best way to figure out what's going on in their bodies," Knott says.

SEMEN WASHER

It's a job that separates the boys from the men. Okay, okay, their real job title is usually something like "cryobiologist" or "laboratory technician" - but at sperm banks around the country, they are known as semen washers. "Every time I interview someone I make sure I ask them, 'Do you know you'll be working with semen?'" says Diana Schillinger, the Los Angeles lab manager at the country's largest sperm bank, California Cryobank.

Let's start at the beginning. Laboriously pre-screened "donors" emerge from a so-called collection room that is stocked with girlie mags and triple-X DVDs. They hand over their deposit, get their $75, and leave. The semen washers take the seminal goo and place a sample under the microscope for a sperm count.

Next comes the washing. The techs spin the sample in a centrifuge to separate the "plasma" from the motile cells. Then they add a preservative, and it's off to the freezer, where it can stay for 20 years. Or not. Thanks to semen washers (and in vitro fertilization), more than 250,000 babies have been delivered in the U.S. since 1995.

"The hardest part is explaining it to friends," Schillinger says. "But we do have stories." Like what? "Like the donor who was in the room for the longest time. We had a big discussion about who was going to check on him. Turns out he thought he had to fill up the entire specimen cup."

MANURE INSPECTOR

The smell is just the start of the nastiness. Almost 1.5 billion tons of manure are produced annually by animals in America — 90 percent of it from cattle. That's the same weight as 14,432 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. You get the point: it's a load of crap.

And it's loaded with nasty contaminants like Campylobacter (the number-one cause of acute gastroenteritis), salmonella (the number-two cause) and E.coli 0157:H7, which can cause kidney failure in children and painful, bloody diarrhea in everybody else.

Farmers fertilize their fields with manure, but if the excrement is rife with E.coli, then so will be the vegetables. Luckily for us, researchers at the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety are knee-deep in figuring out how to eliminate these bacteria from our animals, their poop and our food. But to develop techniques to neutralize the nasty critters, they must go to the source.

"We have to wade through a lot of poop," concedes Michael Doyle, the center's director. "If you want to get the manure, you've got to grab it. Even when you wear gloves, the fecal smell tends to get embedded in your skin." Hog poop smells the worst, Doyle says, but it's chicken poop's chokingly high ammonia content that brings tears to researchers' eyes.

FARTOLOGIST

Odor analysts are common in the research labs of mouthwash companies, where the halitosis-inflicted blow great gusts of breath in their faces to test product efficacy. But Minneapolis gastroenterologist Michael Levitt recently took the job to another level — or, rather, to the other end. Levitt paid two brave souls to indulge repeatedly in the odors of other people's farts. (Levitt refuses to divulge the remuneration, but it would seem safe to characterize it thusly: Not enough.)

Sixteen healthy subjects volunteered to eat pinto beans and insert small plastic collection tubes into their anuses (worst-job runners-up, to be sure). After each "episode of flatulence," Levitt syringed the gas into a discrete container, rigorously maintaining fart integrity. The odor analysts then sat down with at least 100 samples, opened the caps one at a time, and inhaled robustly. As their faces writhed in agony, they rated just how noxious the smell was. The samples were also chemically analyzed, and — eureka! — Levitt determined definitively the most malodorous component of the human flatus: hydrogen sulfide.

DYSENTERY STOOL-SAMPLE ANALYZER

In the early 1980s, Virginia Tech profs Tracy Wilkins and David Lyerly studied the diarrhea-causing microbe Clostridium difficile in sample after sample after sample of loose stool from the disease's victims. They became such crack dysentery docs that they launched a company, Techlab, dedicated to making stool-analysis kits.

Today, Techlab employs 40 people, 19 of whom spend their working hours opening sloppy stool canisters and analyzing their contents in order to test the effectiveness of the company's kits. You'd have to have a pretty good sense of humor, right? Well, fortunately, they do. The Techlab Web site sells T-shirts with cartoons on the front (two flies hover over two blobs of dung; one says to the other, "Pardon me, is this stool taken?") and the company motto on the back: "Techlab: #1 in the #2 Business!"

BARNYARD WANKERS

Researchers who want animal sperm — to study fertility or for artificial insemination — have a suite of attractive options: They can ram an electric probe up an animal's rectum, shove an artificial vagina onto the animal's penis, or simply do it the old-fashioned way — manual stimulation. The first option, electroejaculation, uses a priapic rectal probe to send electricity pulsing through the animal's nether regions.

"All the normal excitatory signals that stimulate ejaculation, like touch, sight, sound and smell, can be replaced with the current from the probe," says Trish Berger, professor of animal science at the University of California, Davis. "It's fascinating. Of course, this is a woman talking."

Electroejaculation generally requires anesthetizing the animal and is typically used on zoo dwellers. The other two methods — the artificial vagina, or AV, and the good old hand — require that animals be trained to the procedure. The AV — a large latex tube coated with warm lubricant — is used primarily to get sperm from dairy bulls (considered the most ornery and dangerous of bovines). The bull gets randy with a steer; when he mounts the steer with his forelegs, a brave technician, AV in hand, insinuates himself between the two aroused beasts and deftly redirects the bull penis into the mock genitalia, which he must then hold tight while the bull orgasms. (Talk about bull riding!) Three additional technicians attempt to ensure this (fool)hardy soul's safety by anchoring themselves to restraining ropes attached to a ring in the bull's nose. Alas, this isn't always absolutely effective: Everyone who's wielded an AV has had at least one close call, and more than a few have been sent to the hospital. The much safer "digital pressure" is used mostly with pigs, who are trained from an early age to mount a small bench while the researcher reaches around with a gloved hand and provides appropriate pleasure — er, pressure.

Photo from Animalize Taxidermy

CARCASS CLEANER

Natural history museums display clean white skeletons or neatly stuffed animals, but what their field biologists drag in are carcasses flush with rotting flesh. Each museum's taxidermist has his own favorite technique for tidying things up. University of California, Berkeley, zoologist Robert Jones swears by his strain of flesh-eating buffalo-hide beetles and has no problem reaching his bare hand into a drawer to pull out a rancid shrew skeleton swarming with thousands of these quarter-inch bugs. Jeppe Møhl at the University of Copenhagen Zoological Museum deposits sperm whales and dolphins into vast empty tanks and lets nature take its course. And then there's the boiling method, useful for chemically preserved samples that bugs won't touch — an approach favored by archaeologist Sandra Olsen, who has done her own skeleton work. She recalls a particularly vivid experience boiling down hyena paws: "It felt like inhaling the gases would literally kill us." Nah. It merely gave her a lung infection.

[First posted 3 December 2007, reposted 15 December 2013, 14 October 2016 & 10 October 2023]

Dedicated to all those who arrived in 1980 and thereafter... (reprise)

The Path to Enlightenment by Steve Griffith

If you were born in 1980 you will be hitting 40 in 2020. Generally speaking, this is the age of full ripeness for most women and a few men (who usually take a while longer to fully mature, say around 44). In effect, yours is the generation that will spearhead the radical changes necessary as we quantum shift into a whole new spiral of evolution.

Beginning in the mid-1960s many advanced souls began incarnating on this planet - eager to either help with a tumultuous transition between zodiacal ages and frequency zones, or to witness what some say is an incredibly rare cosmic event, the mass awakening of an entire species within a two or three generation span.

At first, these evolutionary agents passed unnoticed, and many chose to arrive as the Flower Power era was peaking; and, for sure, a large number were conceived by parents who had themselves undergone a significant psycho-spiritual shift - whether through rediscovering ancient meditation techniques or through exposure to psychotropic and entheogenic drugs like marijuana, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms and LSD.

In the 1980s, the term "indigo children" began to circulate as a description of these incoming souls - initially within New Age and esoteric circles, then gradually finding its way into the mainstream. Much has been speculated about this phenomenon, none of it definitive, but this paragraph I found in Wikipedia serves nicely as a brief summary:

Descriptions of indigo children include the belief that they are empathetic, curious, strong-willed, independent, and often perceived by friends and family as being strange; possess a clear sense of self-definition and purpose; and also exhibit a strong inclination towards spiritual matters from early childhood. Indigo children have also been described as having a strong feeling of entitlement, or "deserving to be here." Other alleged traits include a high intelligence quotient, an inherent intuitive ability, and resistance to authority. According to Jan Tober and Lee Carroll, indigo children function poorly in conventional schools due to their rejection of (fake) authority, being smarter than their teachers, and a lack of response to guilt-, fear- or manipulation-based discipline. [Source: Wikipedia]

Irene Fernandez (1946~2014)

I have chosen the year 1980 as a hypothetical turning point when the number of incoming "indigo children" began to reach a critical mass. Prior to that, of course, there were many who fit the general description of "indigo child" (and I'm inclined to include myself as one of the forerunners of this mutant breed of human beings). Perhaps even as far back as 500 B.C. there were already a handful of indigos appearing in our midst: somebody like Socrates or Prince Siddhartha, to name but two prominent examples, most certainly would have been exceptions to every established rule in their day. (In the Malaysian context, I would classify strong-minded moral warriors like the late Irene Fernandez and Ambiga Sreenevasan as early Indigo incarnations.)

A large number of the indigo wave that came in during the mid-1960s might have found themselves smashed to smithereens against the jagged reefs of societal miscomprehension - many ending up as junkies, jailbirds, sociopaths and psychotics. In America, the indigo child was often misdiagnosed with some fictitious disease called Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and prescribed zombifying drugs like Ritalin. Sadly, some of these kids subsequently turned into serial killers (ref. the shocking 1999 Columbine High School and 2007 Virginia Tech massacres).

Well, I would like to believe that the Indigos who arrived after 1980 have another significant attribute - Christ-like compassion and unity consciousness, meaning the capacity to feel and express universal love. That's why they have been dubbed "Indigo Crystals." Indigo Crystals are also known for their fearlessness and deeply ingrained sense of natural justice. 

2020 is the year of the Indigo-Crystal-Rainbow Child!

Starseed KeRa (Christy Tice) and her amazing Indigo-Crystal-Rainbow son, Akyuna Akish

I sense that very vividly, after encountering a great many young people ranging in age from 15 to 40. They may appear outwardly unmotivated, even a bit lost, but they all have a powerful core of empathy, compassion and a deep commitment to doing whatever they can to heal the emotional cancer that has brought humanity to the edge of self-destructive inhumanity.

These mutant young humans grew up in the digital age, many of them computer literate by the time they entered school or in their early teens. They are the generation of internet savvy, plugged-in youth that claimed Facebook, then Instagram, as their own preferred means of communication and took to Twitter like a flock of chattering birds. They are the ones inspired by movies like The Matrix, V for Vendetta, or Avatar. They are the ones you see wearing yellow, mocking false authority, and demanding regime change. They are equally at home in virtual as well as actual reality and are capable, not only of multitasking, but also of multidimensional consciousness.

Freedom fighter in Tahrir Square, Cairo, January 2011

They have access to far more information at their fingertips than all previous generations of humans - thanks to search engines like Google and online databases like Wikipedia. They also have access to YouTube - one of the greatest ideas since Web 2.0 was launched.

Hugo Farrant, visionary rapper

This is the generation that will end artificial barriers and boundaries; that will refuse to be categorized by race, skin color, and religion - and, if they had their way, even national identities will swiftly become irrelevant, as they become planetary nomads - relocating to wherever their hearts lead them. Truly, this phenomenon has long been prophesied in indigenous legend as the advent of the Rainbow Tribes on Earth.

As we embark on yet another bumpy orbit of the Sun, I feel a profound gratitude that "changing the world" is no longer one of my life missions - I gleefully pass the scepter of power to these Indigo Crystal Rainbow warriors, for the 21st century is theirs to claim and reshape.

The best thing any parent or grandparent can do is to quickly recognize that the youngsters are capable of far greater understanding than all their ancestors put together. Don't stifle their imaginations - for that is the one ingredient dangerously lacking in the previous generations, the ability to imagine heaven on earth; and to invent technologies that benefit and liberate, rather then despoil and enslave.

The preceding generations have bequeathed to these Indigo Crystal rainbow starseeds a very bleak prospect indeed - a planet in the grip of massive eco-apocalypse, poisoned and ideologically fragmented - constantly on the brink of mutual assured destruction - with more and more species becoming extinct by the month, and ugly rumors of population culling as the only way to solve all our self-created problems.

Let the old ways be fondly remembered, carefully preserved in public archives and museums - but let them no longer be an obstacle to radical transformations of the human soulscape. What may have served our forefathers no longer serve our grandchildren.

Let us wish all old-style authoritarians and despots a graceful retirement or an inglorious demise in 2020.

Party on, folks! Celebrate the circumpolar rainbow bridge that bypasses Armageddon to Heaven on Earth!

[First posted 31 December 2011, reposted 30 April 2014, 3 March 2016 & 22 September 2019]

Sensational News: They Have Arrived!

THE 2026 COLLECTION
OF SUPERCOOL SHADES
BY GUCCI

[Courtesy of Demetrious Addonis, first posted 23 November 2010, reposted 12 October 2016 & 23 September 2025]

Admit it. This was much easier on your eyes than a glistening gob of spit aimed at bad government.

De Mockery of Democracy (Reprise)

[My young friend Kamil sent me the following assignment question, asking for some viewpoints from me. I figured my response to Kamil was worth sharing, so here it is...]

It has been said that democracy may not be the perfect form of goverment but it is better than the alternatives. To what extent do you agree?

Certain assumptions are being made here that may be inaccurate or incorrect, So before we can answer the question, let's examine what these assumptions are.

Assumption #1: Democracy exists and is practised in certain countries.
In truth democracy is purely theoretical. Even in old Athens where it was invented, there was only democracy up to a point - beyond which one could get arrested for subversion, imprisoned, and end up drinking hemlock. The state is forever jealous of its authority and power, and will not hesitate to use force if persuasion fails. In so-called democratic countries, we find that the public is led to believe it has freedom of choice - but in actuality that freedom does not extend beyond the most trivial matters (like the make of car you drive or the scent your date prefers). In all crucial areas decisions are made by "backroom boys" acting on behalf of a tiny handful of plutocrats (people who own banks, newspapers, TV stations, bomb factories, armies, spy agencies, and governments).

The machinery of political power is driven by popular votes. However, elections can be rigged, conducted on an uneven playing field, and stolen outright. Voters can be bought, hoodwinked, disenfranchised or overlooked completely. Because "majority opinion" is measured quantitatively, human destiny can be jeopardized or hijacked by a corrupt and dishonest clique willing to take extraordinary risks. The proverbial man-in-the-street doesn't stand a chance against a cartel of well-funded criminals, who obtain their money through illicit means and buy up all the airspace. He can't be heard against a well-coordinated media blitz.

In effect, scratch a modern democracy and you'll find mobster rule. Robber barons and pirate kings now come with a slick corporate image and very expensive tailoring. But gangsterism is gangsterism, and privilege actually means "private law." So when even the law is privatized, is it any wonder that justice is blind?

Democracy originally meant "popular rule" - in effect, government of the people, by the people, for the people. Which sounds pretty similar to Marxist/socialist ideals. However, you only have to have the means of influencing the collective psyche to make the people believe they are exercising their democratic rights when all they can do is predictably react to pre-programmed stimuli.

Assumption #2: Though imperfect democracy is "better than"...
"Better" is a very vague term and begs redefinition. This dish is good but that one is better... in reality the other dish is simply different. You cannot compare pheasant-under-glass with a hamburger. Each recipe works in a specific context. In other words, a fair comparison is hinted at where none is possible.

Assumption #3: The word "alternatives" implies Communism.
A popular misconception is that the opposite of democracy is communism. Actually, it's dictatorship we're talking about: what's antagonistic to popular rule is state despotism - whether the despot is a single individual or a faceless committee. The alternative to democracy might also be monarchy - or various spin-offs like aristocracy, meritocracy, or plutocracy. Nevertheless, there are no clear-cut categories of power. If we have an absolute monarch who is approachable, open-minded, empathetic, humble, friendly, and wise - let's take as an example the notion of a "King of Kings" like Jesus the Christ, or Aragorn of Arathorn in J.R.R. Tolkien's ringlore - the public may actually enjoy great freedom and security, prosperity and success under such benevolent and enlightened rule. As opposed to the situation where a supposedly democratic government functions under the secret orders of an invisible brotherhood of black magicians and decadent junior gods: people would endure increasing oppression and never know who exactly is taking away their freedoms and rights, life just seems to get rougher and tougher all the time.

Courtesy of Bodohland

The concept of government itself needs to be reassessed. An individual with sufficient inner discipline can be described as a Self-Governing Individual who does not subscribe to or support any form of external government. When enough such individuals emerge in a community, it's possible that anarchy will blossom in a wholesome and workable way where each member of the community cooperates with the others consciously, willingly, and wholeheartedly. Imagine the amount of creativity generated by humans no longer engrossed in destructivity or obsessed with conformity and homogeneity.

One can view government as an unwelcome intrusion - akin to a high fence built around the crest of hill to prevent people from rolling down through carelessness. In trying to ensure "public safety" what government effectively does is disempower and desensitize. After a few generations, people would become incapable of taking any initiative whatsoever, in a sure-footed way. They will NEED official guidelines, clearly-marked trails, and instructions at every turn. In effect, people would no longer be able to sit quietly atop the hill and gain divine inspiration from the beauty around them – because the man-made “security” fence mars the view and is ugly, that is, a violation of the natural environment and the unwritten laws of harmony. This may suit those in power very nicely, but it invariably incapacitates the masses from independent and original thought. They will become blind and allow themselves to be led around by ravenous wolves disguised as professional seeing-eye dogs.

What would be much "better than" democracy would be an evolutionary quantum jump that would effectively upgrade Consciousness and Intelligence and realign them with Compassion. No amount of theorizing can make this happen. Those of us who realize this simply have to embody our ideals and break free of semantic traps such as the question above. No statistics are required. It only takes ONE individual to crack the code - and before long, not only the entire species, but all lifeforms will regain their primordial freedom.

"Drug control is a thin pretext, and getting thinner, to increase police powers and to brand dissent as criminal." - William S. Burroughs, @ 1971

[Originally published 19 March 2007, reposted 27 March 2009, 25 September 2016

& 19 September 2023]

Another case of much ado about nothing (reprise)

Many years ago I met a Sufi master whose profound understanding of Islam truly impressed me.

But before I continue with this story, let me state that almost all the Muslims with whom I have had close friendships have either been Sufis - or were gravitating towards a mystical interpretation of Islam. The mystical approach is experiential and private; whereas ritualistic religion is regulated by public behavior and therefore tends to be tribalistic in nature.

I find it impossible to have an intelligent conversation with fundamentalists of any persuasion - whether Muslim, Christian or whatever. This is because fundamentalism is antagonistic to intelligence. Wherever violence erupts over religious differences, fundamentalism is invariably the root cause. Brawn and brute force override brain and heart when independent thinking is suppressed.


Looking up the word "fundamentalism" in my trusty digital dictionary, I found this concise summary:

"Islamic fundamentalism appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries as a reaction to the disintegration of Islamic political and economic power, asserting that Islam is central to both state and society and advocating strict adherence to the Koran (Qur'an) and to Islamic law (sharia), supported if need be by jihad or holy war."

There you have it. Fundamentalism is basically an outward manifestation of ego insecurity. An entire tribe or nation can suffer from ego insecurity and seek refuge in hardline dogmatism and fanaticism. You could say it's a pathological condition and, as such, can be quite easily cured - once the hidden hand behind the reactionary forces is revealed and surgically amputated.

In every case you will find that the chief puppetmaster isn't even a believer. He cynically exploits the gullibility of the mindless mob and manipulates its collective pain-body through control of the mass media and law enforcement.


Coming back to my Sufi friend who enlightened me about the essence of Islam. He pointed out the significance of a triconsonantal syllable in Arabic and Hebrew which expresses peace, harmony and wholeness: the Arabic SaLaM and Hebraic ShaLoM are the commonest embodiments of this key to being truly muSLiM.

Sin-Lam-Mim (Arabic: س ل م‎ S-L-M; Hebrew: שלם‎ Š-L-M) is the triconsonantal root of many Semitic words, and many of those words are used as names. The root itself translates as "whole, safe, intact."
[Wikipedia]

Note that this triconsonantal syllable forms the root of the words "Islam" and "Muslim." This places the frequency of peace, harmony and wholeness at the very core of Islam and any sentient being that consciously aspires towards attunement and harmonization with the Whole of Existence is intrinsically Muslim.


When one has embraced the essence of Islam, no other rules apply. All observances, injunctions and rituals (specific to a historical and sociocultural context) immediately become irrelevant and meaningless and fall away of their own accord. As such, Islam in its pure, essential form can be said to be the ultimate guide to attaining cosmic equilibrium and liberation from illusion. This is precisely the teaching of wu-wei found in the Tao Te Ching and it corresponds perfectly with the highest aspirations of Zen Buddhism. It also resonates effortlessly with the concept of yoga or sacred union with the Godhead or Source.

What about the name "Allah"? Does it have a special meaning? My learned friend explained that the word, written as Al-Lah means The Great Void - or The Nothingness from which Everything was born. In other words, Source.

Every Tibetan Buddhist aspires to return to and consciously merge with The Great Void. The Nothingness is a key element in Chaos Theory which postulates that Order (structured existence or an actualized state of being) emerges either randomly - or as a focused expression of desire and will from the Primordial Chaos (Infinite Potentiality). It all makes perfect sense to me.

The mystical understanding of Allah and Islam frees us from a narrow and limited distortion that can only lead to divisiveness and discord. Indeed, the way my Sufi friend explained Islam made me instantly receptive and I realized that this was truly a sophisticated philosophy with universal appeal and cosmic wisdom. No compulsion, no harsh and punitive rules, no exclusivity.


Alas, the crafty hoodlums who rule over unthinking mobs must of necessity opt for the most demented, inane and constricted interpretation of any belief system in order to have any control over the untutored passions of their flock. They will set up formal councils and academies to determine the parameters of belief and behavior and vigorously persecute (and even execute) anyone who preaches any form of "deviancy" from the orthodox doctrine.

We have seen what the Spanish Inquisition (which lasted from 1478 till 1834) was really about - the brutal and violent suppression of religious dissent and heresy for the benefit of a corrupt and greedy ruling elite. In this day and age we need a Malay Inquisition like we need a hole in the pocket.

Allahu Akbar! The Nothingness is All! So why so much ado about NOTHING?

[First published 1 February 2010. Reposted 19 April 2011 & 21 March 2024]

Meet Sanuk, my techno-wizard friend (repost)

"Music is a purposeless play, an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living." ~ John Cage (in a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music)

Deejay Sanuk (Daniel Schwörer) has been playing with sound since 1993

Born and raised in Zurich, Switzerland; now residing on Koh Samui, Thailand, where he DJs at parties and produces music on the side, using state-of-the-art hardware and software.

That's a one-line description of Daniel Schwörer, my techno-wizard friend who kindly agreed to digitally enhance and remaster my 1986 solo album, 2nd Coming. On Facebook he is known as Deejay Sanuk. In Thai, sanuk is a multi-purpose expression meaning pleasure, joy, delight, euphoria, contentment, bliss...

How I found Sanuk is a story unto itself. And why he would offer to me his expert services as an audio sculptor and sound cosmetician is another mystery I would prefer to remain unsolved.

Especially when the sort of music Sanuk manufactures in his tropical paradise lab is mainly for beach parties under the full moon - while the music I generated back in the 1980s can be described as mostly anarchic, expressionist, idiosyncratic journeys through inner space - not exactly danceable unless you happen to be a post-modern choreographer who has evolved beyond the Cagey silences and random industrial sound effects favored by Merce Cunningham.

Anyway, it all started with a visit to the SPCA a few years ago. Two of my cats urgently required spaying and I was pleased to meet a vivacious animal-loving young lady named Farida who was a volunteer or part-time staff.

I discovered that Farida was also a blogger. Apart from that she enjoyed beach parties in Thailand and that's how it came to pass that the first time Farida visited Magick River, she had this Swiss DJ on a visa run in tow.

When Daniel (who hadn't morphed into Sanuk at that time) heard I was also a musician he was curious to check out some of my early output. Played him a few tracks of recently digitized material and he found it intriguing. He asked if he could have a copy of the CD so he could fool around with the sound.

Months passed. One day I found a package waiting for me at the post office. It was a CD from Daniel Schwörer, posted from KL by Farida, who had been carrying it for weeks in her backpack.

I put on the CD and sat for a whole hour mesmerized.

What Deejay Sanuk had done was literally massage the music back to life. The material had originally been recorded on 2-inch, 16-track acetate, mixed down to 2-track stereo masters on ¼-inch magnetic tape, and dubbed directly to compact cassette (so that it could be played at home).

Another Daniel - a Tang - had laboriously digitized hours of material and saved it all on DVDs as wav files. However, without equalization and processing, the sound was dull and flat. Converting analog to digital isn't a straightforward task. The vitality of analog waveforms tends to get lost when translated into raw binary code.

Without altering the music in any way, Deejay Sanuk had succeeded in restoring the brilliance and clarity of individual instruments while consolidating the dynamic balance between the highs and the lows. In other words, whatever he did and however he managed it, my audio wizard friend from Switzerland had injected new life into music recorded in 1986, making it sound as fresh as when I first created it.


Sanuk's cultural imprinting as a Swiss native stands him in good stead as a techno-wizard. He is meticulous to a fault and ended up working obsessively on my Lazarus Project, tweaking hours of digitized music files.

Finally, many weeks of sweat later, he delivered two versions of the 2nd Coming master - one upfront, the other laidback - plus a completely unretouched version, tape hiss and all, as a reference to how the original mix sounded. I listened to both versions carefully, decided on the one to release, and wrote Sanuk a thank-you note via Facebook, incorporating some feedback. This is part of his response:

i have done the best i could not to deliver you something that sounds nice but shows its shortcomings when played at high volume, even though most people will not listen to it too loud i guess. i have used very drastic equalization which you will not hear in the final mix, i added bass frequencies in the low end which i then would cut back again. then after having cut low frequencies back i compressed the piano line as the leading element of dynamic in the mix. some other instruments had very extreme peaks in the problematic frequency range (e.g 1 khz, 3-4 khz ) so after any frequency manipulation and compression i had increased noise occurrence which i had to get rid of again without taking out the brilliance. so imagine that as an iterative process trying to achieve an acceptable result. i did the final step with a special emulation of the famous SSL (Solid State Mixing Consoles) equalizer and buss compressor.....

all in all i used quite a lot of different tools and dunno how many steps of rendering different versions from which i worked further where needed. that's only possible since we have powerful computers and can stay in the digital domain where there is no loss of data. another trick is to first transform the original file into a floating 32 bit data file since the good plugs all work in the 32 bit or 64 bit domain, then in the end you dither the whole thing back down to 16 bit 44.1 cd quality.... However, thank you very much that my work finds appreciation, it's the most difficult thing i have ever done and was a real challenge since it really is a remarkable recording with all possible sound elements and dynamics in it.

All the best and thank you again for the opportunity to work on something like that. best regards from cloudy Samui

I am none the wiser as to how Sanuk does it, since I know zip about the technical aspects of sound mixing. He did explain to me that he has special software that allows him to analyze the sound spectrum layer by layer and sculpt soundwaves with far greater precision than was possible in the analog era.

Of course, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to have met this wonderful wizard who happens to be a perfect blend of artist, scientist, aesthete, philosopher - and cultural philantrophist too, for I can't imagine getting this sort of magical results even if I could afford to fork out thousands. If you're interested in sampling some of Deejay Sanuk's head-banging dance tracks, go here. He has also produced soundtrack music for various European filmmakers.

Sanuk's amazing achievement is that he succeeded in restoring vitality, depth and presence to my 1986 recordings. I'm particularly pleased with the way he tweaked the piano so it sounds as if you're listening to a live performance. In short, I feel totally assured that the 2010 edition of 2nd Coming can hold its own anywhere in the world as a recording, in purely technical terms.

However, whether or not listeners will be receptive to the utterly unclassifiable music is something I cannot and dare not predict. Be warned: this album was recorded in the mid-1980s before music videos contributed to shortening people's attention spans.

But if you're curious enough, or kind enough, to order a copy:

2nd Coming is now downloadable online! 

[First posted 2 September 2010. Reposted 17 September 2018]