Friday, March 22, 2024

Advent of The Bunyip ~ musings about my son (repost)



Grandfather Dai had only three sons, but he had had countless daughters. Countless… because many of them had been drowned at birth in huge jars of urine kept as manure for the fields. In those days a Patriarch’s word was law. The Patriarch was the Progenitor – and the Progenitor held the lives of his progeny in his hands. Taking a daughter’s life was not regarded as murder. It was simply a means of ensuring fewer mouths to feed. ~ Dai Moong Yang (In Those Days, 1995)


Ahau's 13th day on earth
IN EARLY 1993 I spent a few weeks editing and retyping a collection of stories written by my maternal Aunt M.Y. (also known as Grace Lee) - but the significance of the lines quoted above didn’t fully register till 30 December 2012, during a long conversation I had with two healer-counselor friends, Heiko and Selina Niedermeyer, who have studied a wide range of emotional and psychospiritual healing modalities over a span of almost 20 years. They had recently completed a workshop with Bert Hellinger, founder of Systemic Family Constellation, which postulates that no soul enters into physical embodiment in isolation – it invariably enters through a complex soul cluster called the Family Constellation and therefore any healing process must always include an overview of the individual’s family dynamics.

Early blowpipe practice
In the course of our conversation, Selina mentioned that Bert Hellinger had discovered a nexus between murder in the suppressed family narrative (literally skeletons in the closet) and mental/emotional dysfunctionality. Apparently it is not uncommon for the souls of the murdered to be reborn within the murderer’s bloodline – but with characteristic disabilities like Down syndrome, autism or schizophrenia. The moment I heard this I had goosebumps. My sweet cousin in Singapore (the late Dr Dixie Tan) had two dysfunctional sons and two fairly normal daughters. My own brother Mike had been diagnosed with schizophrenia decades ago; and my only son Ahau, labeled autistic by some, was unlikely to ever interact “normally” with others because he was born with an unusual vocal cord that makes it difficult for him to simulate human speech.

Ahau at age 6 (pic by Emanar)
Our great-grandfather Dai, through sheer ignorance compounded with arrogance, had been instrumental to the murder of many newborn female babies. Perhaps the same number that had returned as dysfunctional males to haunt the bloodline like a family curse.

During a two-hour session I had with Heiko and Selina in the first week of January 2013, I conjured the spirit of my great-grandfather Dai. He had the haughty air of a typical Mandarin, scion of a rich land-owning clan, and it took him a while to even acknowledge that drowning newborn female infants was nothing less than murder.

His only defence was that he wasn’t the only one who practiced infanticide; it was fairly common in old China (and even in fairly recent times, many couples aborted female fetuses because the government’s one-child policy didn’t allow them another shot at conceiving a male heir). Finally, that impassive, inscrutable mask shattered and a few teardrops began to flow down his cheeks. He looked, for a moment, humbled.

A 10-year-old Bunyip
“Please ask forgiveness from the souls of those you thwarted from taking earthly incarnation, and then forgive yourself,” I told my great-grandfather’s spirit. When he slowly faded from view, I knew the family curse was finally broken. My only begotten son Ahau Ben would be the last in the bloodline to bear the karmic consequences of his forbears’ abysmal ignorance and self-serving cultural myopia.

After some initial hesitation I decided to share this story to illustrate how “the sins of the fathers” do get passed along the chromosomal track. I use the word “sin” in its original sense: in Middle English the word sinne was a term commonly used in archery to mean “missing the mark.” As a metaphor, missing the mark indicates poor aim, barking up the wrong tree, misreading the map of life, or possessing an entirely erroneous and distorted view of reality.

Humans who have yet to attain enlightenment tend to commit stupid, destructive acts as a result of a benighted perspective, usually inherited through parents and imbibed from their tribal and cultural milieu. A society that places a greater value on male offspring is likely to adhere unquestioningly to patriarchal attitudes that glorify skills in combat and the ability to “bring home the bacon.”

Amphibious Ahau by Dorota Nierzwicka
What happens, of course, is that such males end up in decision-making positions, bringing along their blinkered perspectives and prejudices. As military chiefs they will be constantly itching for the glory or martyrdom of warfare; and as corporate heads their ruthless ambition will blind them and harden their hearts to the wholesale desecration of the sacred landscape for illusory short-term profits and bigger bonuses.

However, life does not occur on a single plane. Almost every event or situation can be interpreted on many levels. Likewise the Advent of The Bunyip (a nickname I bestowed on Ahau Ben when he was a toddler, partly because of his amphibious nature (he loved playing in the bathtub and later the river); but mostly because he did seem to me a somewhat chimerical entity, a creature right out of fairy tales and long-forgotten legends.

Ahau was named after the Mayan starglyph for the Sun or Solar Christ. His second name Ben is inspired by the Mayan starglyph for Skywalker or Celestial Messenger. It so happens that the last King of Mu was reportedly named Ahau too. Not one to settle for the mundane, I delighted in creating a mythic context in which to locate Ahau’s entry into my life. I have written about this at length before, so I will say no more about the mystery of Ahau’s being (click on this link if you wish to read about it).

THERE IS ANOTHER possible explanation for the way Ahau turned out. He arrived at 2 in the morning of the 21st March, 1996, by Caesarean section at the Hospital Kuala Lumpur. I didn’t know till a bit later that the nurses had given him a hepatitis jab without first asking my permission. When they asked me to consent to a second follow-up jab, I expressed deep consternation that they would administer a vaccine to my child without first consulting me. Of course, I refused to grant permission for another jab, having learnt of the unholy alliance between the pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession that has made vaccinations enforceable by law.

Twenty years after Ahau’s birth a heated debate rages between pro- and anti-vaxxers with the main contention being that evidence linking vaccinations with autism has been systematically suppressed by vested interests – because once a vaccine is approved and becomes a routine medical procedure, vaccine manufacturers stand to rake in billions every year. Intuitively, I tend to be anti-vaccination because I generally feel a great deal more trustful of nature and the body’s immune system than of medical or any other species of science – especially since the bulk of it is fueled by corporate funding and private grants.


The possibility that it was a hepatitis jab that triggered my son’s autism has certainly crossed my mind many times. But as I can think of no way I can obtain irrefutable proof of this, it seems pointless to hold on to this suspicion.

Ahau is the way he is and those of us who know him well adore him exactly the way he is – even though it still strikes me as absurd that he should take advantage of everyone around him, recruiting us into his service, instead of taking more responsibility for himself. No doubt this can be attributed to the fact that his ancestors on my mother’s side were landed gentry (my aunt boasted that it took men on horseback 11 days to collect the rent) - all the males being archetypal spoilt brats - or perhaps Ahau’s sense of entitlement is due to his residual memory of having been an absolute monarch in a lost civilization called Mu.


22 September 2017


[First posted 25 September 2017, 20 March 2019, 21 March 2021 & 22 March 2024]


Thursday, March 21, 2024

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]



Wednesday, March 20, 2024

PROJECT XTC ~ THE PRELUDE TO MAGICK RIVER (reprise)

It was the last week of my brief stint at a major ad agency from which I had just resigned. I saw an ad in the newspapers promoting a competition sponsored by Rolex with a 50,000 Swiss Franc cash prize (worth about M$250,000 perhaps) for the winning project proposal (I don’t remember what the categories were, but there was one for ‘Exploration and Discovery’). I sat down at my typewriter and wrote the following proposal. I never did hear back from Rolex but this intriguing document just resurfaced from my rusty filing cabinet after 40 years...

PROJECT  XTC - OR “HOW I INTEND TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE”

Antares in 1977 playing Snoopy
What constitutes a satisfactory human life experience? Does all life exist on an experimental basis – or do life processes simply fulfil specific ontological programs (in accordance with an archetypal metaprogram)? To what extent can we see foresee, accelerate, or escape evolutionary trends? Is it possible to develop a true Group Mind? Do we really qualify as gods?

Having found no ready answers to the above questions, I am determined to devote a fair portion of my life to investigating basic issues from as many angles as are available to a human individual – and to formulate practical ways to assimilate and synthesize, as comprehensively as possible, all the intelligence and wisdom humanity has inherited from philosophers, sages, scientists, artists, and laymen and women past and present – so as to ultimately realize a joyful continuity and conscious coherence on the earth plane.

In an earlier era such an undertaking would have been considered impossible, since it would be expected to go on forever. Today we have an option to go on forever.

[Project XTC will, of necessity, include every conceivable and inconceivable field of Enterprise including all three listed in this competition. Exploration and Discovery, nevertheless, seems to capture the underlying spirit of the project most aptly.]


Reality is whatever one thinks it is

Thoughts are multidimensional wave emanations of Mind. Some thoughts occur on single planes, others on multiple. All thoughts are valid expressions of being. The scientist records the motion of thoughts and observes their effects, in an attempt to intellectually grasp the meaning of their manifestation. The mystic arrests the motion of thoughts by understanding their causes, in order to know the source of their manifestation. The fine line that distinguishes science from mysticism swiftly vanishes as each area of investigation graduates into what is popularly classified as the esoteric. Only on the more exoteric or fundamental levels do traditional divisions remain apparent. The physical world and the metaphysical world are one – each differentiated from the other only by function and relative position on the spectrum of manifestation. But what has all this got to do with Project XTC?

The Third Man Theme

In a dualistic frame of reference, all debate becomes destructive and ends in a deadlock. A third factor is obviously necessary to the solution or resolution of problems in which two factors appear to be in direct and irreconciliable conflict. The third factor, then, may be said to add an extra dimension to the eternal quest for the right answers.

It is to this quest that Project XTC addresses its primary thrust. Twenty years have gone into this project and an essential working theory has been evolved. Subjectively, Project XTC has already been successfully accomplished. Objectively, however, it has only just begun. The final outcome of every research project is determined by its contribution to civilization as a whole. Just as the scientist’s ultimate challenge lies in coherently redistributing the wealth of his experimental results within and beyond the defines of his discipline, so the mystic’s ultimate challenge is to transmit faithfully the distillations of his supramundane experiences to those well tuned to receive. The immediate objective of Project XTC would necessarily be to design an operational structure for personal, as well as collective, utilization in progressive stages of an ever-evolving reservoir of intelligence and wisdom fed by tributaries from all fields of endeavor.

A Nuclear Interactor Mindpower Plant

Every individual has a unique mind potential. Genius is unique mind potential developed to an optimally discernible degree. Madness is unique mind potential accelerated to the spectral fringes of human thought. Assuming that every mind is a discrete nucleus of existential being, it follows that principles derived from a study of nuclear  physics apply, to a limited extent, in the case of vital relationships.

Entropic heat/hate may be said to be generated in fission/division within, between or amongst mind nuclei. Katabolic radioactivity results which, on a socio-political plane, invariably terminates in lethal, internecine warfare. Envisage, however, the fusion or synthesis of interacting mind nuclei (note subtle difference between “reacting” and “interacting” – in terms of human relationships, reacting is more often than not an involuntary thalamic response overriding cortical conditioning; whereas interacting implies a combined “inner and outer” brain response qualified by immediate circumstances) in which anabolic radioactivity, with its healing and nurturing properties, may give rise to syntropic (anti-entropic), reciprocal love/evolution.

It must be added that the metabolic processes of the energy-matter universe invariably include both anabolic and katabolic phases – hence the question arises, why bother about either entropy or syntropy? The point is, civilization inherently favors the birth of Order out of Chaos – insofar as we remain cognizant of the vital contribution of Chaos in every formulation of Order we derive from our existence. This explains the romantic appeal of Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde and Tarzan-Lord Greystoke characterizations. One of the most significant potential contributions of Project XTC, therefore, would be the development of a prototype Nuclear Interactor Mindpower Plant with its roots deeply embedded in the firm ground of common sense and its branches freely dancing in the breeze of current discoveries. The need for such flexibly organic intelligence-processing and wisdom-fruiting plants will become increasingly obvious as present nationalistic self-interest matures into planetary mutual-interest. (And this should make it very clear why Herman Kahn and the Hudson Institute, the Rand Corporation, Club of Rome and similar “thinktanks’ are inadequate to our planet’s purpose. They disqualify themselves by their partisanship and their vested interest in maintaining the status quo.)

Apparatus Required:

1. Free Time, i.e., time that is not mortgaged to the compulsions of artificially imposed necessity or siphoned into limited-objective activities. And in this instance the prerequisite of Free Time may apply to the entire Earth population – but for the time being, it is enough for a single individual to experience unconditional use of a human lifetime.

2. Physical Space in which to establish a working base for Project XTC. Equipped with efficient communication and comfortable living facilities (such as a telephone that works and a bathroom that’s well ventilated).

3. “We may take anything we want from our mother planet, so long as we finally return everything in even more perfect condition.” – House Rule #1

4. Money. 50,000 Swiss Francs to start with!


A tool for every technique, a technique for every job

Positive thinking schools teach the successful use of the autohypnotic mind. Vedantic schools preach the folly of dependence on intellect alone; that to enjoy life in all its glory one must learn to utilize every aspect of one’s being. The scientist has his extended sight in microscopes and telescopes. The sage, his insight born of silence. Whether through scientific method or magical ritual, every channel of investigation is justified. For any venture, great or small, can only enhance – if not increase – the quality and scope of life as we know it. 

Of course, there are human activities which do ostensibly just the reverse. But even in such instances, the payoff comes from realizing that we can choose, of our own volition, from a seemingly endless range of options. Ultimately the question arises: who evaluates and determines the merits or demerits of any given system of belief or behavior? In the context of Project XTC, the answer is obvious and simple – I do! “I” being a representative individual member of the planetary populace which, in fact, consists of human, animal, vegetable and mineral cultures configured in symbiotic interdependency. The true “I” must attain and maintain an inclusive universality of viewpoint which can only be realized in perpetual attunement with reality’s flux and flow.

There are any number of known and unknown techniques to achieve attunement vis-a-vis the individual and society, the part and the whole, the one and the all. Pioneers of physical-metaphysical synthesis have contributed immeasurably to the maturation of Mind in our energy-matter universe; each idea, each ideal, has been a success unto itself, only awaiting eventual realization. 

Patanjali gave us our modern Yoga technique. Lao-tze gave us a fluid, timeless philosophy of harmonious living. Men like Spinoza, Kant, Hegel and Descartes gave Western civilization a logical framework upon which to build. Einstein gave us a glimpse behind hitherto locked doors of physical laws. And in recent days, scientist-philosophers like Buckminster Fuller have shown us possibly wiser ways to utilize our limited resources. Then, again, there are thinkers who have thought the unthinkable – and who wait in the shadowy wings of fame, living enigmas in their time – L. Ron Hubbard, to name but one, who offered us Dianetics (the science of mind) and “Scientology” (the religion of knowing one’s mind) but who continues to be regarded by the academic mainstream as a charlatan, crank, or worse. Are all these efforts, then, mere flashes in the pan of primordial nescience? Or can we conceivably use them each and all in various applications, experimentally directed towards a hypothetical, supraconceptual point of convergence?

Carl Jung spoke of the Collective Unconscious – a reservoir of archetypal images and of pure intelligence – which feeds the aspirations and dreams of all sentient creatures. Can it ever become the Collective Conscious? Attempts have been made – and are being made – to test the potentiality of group-mind harmonics and dynamics. It is easy to dismiss these attempts as wishful-thinking and a lot of “occult mumbo-jumbo.” Open-ended experimentation, however, will be a keynote of Project XTC. I want to find out firsthand. It is not enough to say, “Others are already doing it, so why should I?” Can Project XTC be considered “an original idea” since there is hardly anything new about ontological, eschatological and epistemological research? I would describe any enterprise that may bring us closer to knowing our unknown origins as “original.” QED.


Objectivizing Project XTC: Structure &/or Nonstructure

Ideas generally need a structure to hang on. Any plan of action involves structural design. In the long run, however, structures tend to obstruct further development of the abstract principles they contain. This is the reason I am reluctant to delineate an organizational program for Project XTC. Flexibility is essential to the unfoldment of true form. Nonetheless, for the sake of elucidation, I shall attempt to briefly describe one likely scenario of exploration.

It is important to bear in mind the premise that all kinds of structuralization in Project XTC will be organic in nature and therefore mutable and ephemeral. Let me state that I am not interested in founding a new religion or saving humanity from certain extinction. I am involved with the project only insofar as it gives me pleasure and delight – and what gives me the greatest pleasure and delight is knowing that I am on the right track. If in the process of implementing Project XTC I succeed in by-producing far-reaching and unforeseen benefits for others, I would consider it a matter of serendipity or plain good luck.
  
Community Scenario – Draft One

Act I: Focus 100% on developing effective interpersonal communication/communion channels and methods. Test various group-dynamic models, e.g., gestalt, encounter and transactional therapy, incorporating elements of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and transcendental meditation. Explore altered states of consciousness techniques, learning from aboriginal or pentecostal trance-inducing rituals – whatever can enhance conscious bonding among members of the community/tribe. Stress honesty and openness in everyday interactions. Investigate and elaborate on pioneering efforts by visionaries like G.I. Gurdjieff, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass). Monitor progress of related community projects  at Findhorn, Lindisfarne, Esalen and the Arica Institute. Establish energetic contact with research groups such as the Association for Research & Enlightenment (ARE), Stanford Research Institute, the Fuller Research Foundation, Masters & Houston’s Foundation for Mind Research, Human Software, Inc, and so on.

Act II: Attract seminal taskforce comprising individuals from a comprehensive spectrum of ethno-cultural affinities with cross-sectional innate abilities and skills. Work towards “Castalia Foundation” concept of a creative seed-community able to operate cooperatively and synergetically on all levels. Encourage self-healing via non-invasive methodologies that include yoga, meditation, taichi, tantra, plant medicines, deep massage, and so on.

ACT III: Assess feasibility of forming a semi-permanent seed-community along autonomous lines (learning from the experience, positive and negative, of predecessor communities like Findhorn and Auroville). Being part of a seed-community will almost certainly be necessary to ensure the continuance of Project XTC during periods of prolonged global confusion and apocalyptic vicissitudes.

ACT IV: Encourage and reward inventiveness in all areas of everyday living, striking a comfortable balance between order and chaos so that innovative ideas can be grounded in technological expertise and engineering knowhow. Beneficial breakthroughs can be exported for the benefit of ever-increasing numbers of planetary inhabitants. It is crucial that the seed-community consciously breaks free of useless, irrelevant, unnecessary or oppressive cultural or ideological imprints inherited from the past. Whatever deemed of value which can be salvaged from traditional institutions – probably not very much – will need to be carefully reassessed and reformulated to avoid a repeat of the mind-control patterns our ancestors fell victim to.


ACT V: Dissolve and disperse the seed-community at its time of ripeness, facilitating cross-pollination with other compatible seed-communities all over the renascent planet. Practise retrospective re-evaluation and introspective reassessment at every stage of the Project. Be willing to recognize and rectify defects and errors in every plan of action or problem-solving approach, no matter how petty or gross, and be ever grateful to the mysterious Wisdom and intuition that makes it all possible.

  
Keeping a Holistic Outlook and Allowing for a Free Play of Insight

“This is my prediction for the future: whatever hasn’t happened, will happen, and no-one will be safe from it.” ~ J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964)
  
Of necessity, the foregoing notes and conceptual sketches cannot be regarded as anything more than a crude structural outline of Project XTC. I do not envisage the project as a guided tour of paradise complete with glossy brochures and carefully planned itineraries. Just as no human entity is born with an instruction manual on how to live, so no human culture group or civilization can be expected to function and develop according to a great big factory blueprint. I believe that the dignity of being human stems from the free will factor, that the beauty of humanity lies in its capacity to be wise and foolish at the same time. I do not accept B.F. Skinner’s behavioral engineering theories simply because I feel they epitomize the sense of alienation, anomie and depersonalization that began with the Industrial Revolution and surreptitiously morphed into an overcentralized system of governance that has grown increasingly Orwellian as the 21st century approaches. Even if would-be social engineers like Skinner were to come up with a mandatory vaccination designed to ensure that every newborn baby grows into a helpful, friendly, honest and loving adult, it would only result in a pathetically plastic utopia – and our collective dream of heaven on earth would turn into the ultimate sci-fi nightmare.


Project XTC is founded on the premise that every individual is unique and worthy of autonomy and has the potential to evolve and mature into a divine and sovereign entity, firmly rooted in an innate sense of responsibility, which grants the greatest degree of freedom to the individual without impinging negatively on the well-being of the collective.

A great many of the difficulties confronting our current pseudo-civilization are potentially instructive to our onward evolution as a supposedly sentient species. As we outgrow artificially imposed limitations (such as cultural imprints of tribal, ideological or theological differences) we will discover that the solution to any problem is most likely to be found with only a minor shift of attitude - wherein we choose the gentlest and wisest solution - and altitude - wherein we raise our atomic vibrations to a subtler frequency, thereby enjoying vastly enhanced and expanded consciousness.

Most boundaries and limitations are actually imaginary - and explorers have been called foolhardy because they figured this out ahead of everyone else. But only the ones that make it back alive are given the badge of courage. When a civilization approaches senility, explorations are discouraged or ignored and orthodoxies enforced on pain of death. A culture in its busy, ego-driven, ambitious youth often has no time to explore its own depths and the amazing universe beyond its immediate concerns. Yet explorers and explorations will endure and persist through all time: the quest for the grail of truth is an intrinsic quality of consciousness itself, and we inhabit a sentient planet, indeed an entire multiverse of as-yet-unknown possibilities. Just as a man seeks to know himself, the universe too seeks to know itself. As within, so without – and there will always be a complementary interrelation between inner and outer voyagings.

Project XTC is essentially an attempt by a single individual, working in collaboration with others, to create a dynamic interface and link between explorers of Inner and Outer Space.

Why XTC?

Ecstasy is a state of consciousness reported by mystics and visionaries who have discovered a way to transcend their own boundaries and limitations and reconnect with the supreme wisdom inherent in the natural world. Cognitive ecstasy is the conduit through which mages and sages, seers and shamans, oracles and visionaries derive their spontaneous knowing, or Gnosis. We are beginning to realize that both the mystical and scientific approach to unlocking the mysteries are guided by the same irresistible impulse – the only difference lies in the choice of tools and terminology. The moment we lower our defences and stop mocking one another, we stand a damn good chance of ecstatically reaching the exact same conclusions – of finally, orgasmically, coming together.

  
Papers I have written

The Organization as a Geometric Projectile for the Exploration and Mastery of Spatial Mundanity (Private circulation, 1975)

A Letter to R. Buckminster Fuller describing protoconcepts of Multiphase Space-Mastery Techniques (August 1975)

Why We Must Say NO to Nuclear Power (Private circulation, 1977)

Books others have written

Passages About Earth:  An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture by William Irwin Thompson, Harper & Row, 1973, 206 pp.

The Magic of Findhorn by Paul Hawken, Harper & Row, 1975, 343 pp.

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Methuen 1930 (reissued by Penguin Books in 1972 with Last Men in London, 605 pp.

Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon, Methuen 1937 (reissued by Penguin in 1972), 284 pp.

Olaf Stapledon – an inspiration to Project XTC

Olaf Stapledon beautifully expresses a vast-pattern visionary perspective of human existence, against an awesome backdrop of Cosmos. His superwide-angle overview of past and future history, with clear-sighted nonpartisanship, greatly aids in our contemplation of the human condition. Starmaker and Last and First Men offer valuable mental exercises in advanced futurology.

Simulations of God by John C. Lilly, Simon & Schuster, 1975, 284 pp.

Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space by John C. Lilly, Paladin 1972, 215 pp.

Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer by John C. Lilly, Bantam Books,1974, 174 pp.

Remarks on John C. Lilly’s work

John Lilly is a pioneering technician of the psyche who has creditably and credibly translated the supra-rational symbology of mystical experience into scientifically coherent and accessible terms. Familiarity with this material would be vastly helpful in assessing Project XTC.


Tentative Schedule for Project XTC

Prephase - January 1957 through January 1970
Phase I – January 1977 through 1984
Phase II & III – 1984 through 1991
Phase IV – 1991 through 2005
Phase V – 2005 through 2018
Phase VI – 2018 through ?

 25 March 1977
(Revised  & reposted 11 June 2017)




Sunday, March 17, 2024

The Twelve Tribes of Magick River (reprise)


That is perfect, Antares.
When you garner this data and information from your family,
so it is that you are absorbing Lineage.
For in fact and indeed, what you are speaking of here is
A LIVING BODY OF INFORMATION.

However,
for that Living Body of Information to continue to resonate here, in these fields,
it is necessary for that Living Body of Information to literally
Incarnate in Form
within a BODY that has become Conscious,
rather than to be floating in unmanifest consciousness.

Therefore Antares, you are literally becoming
The Magick River
of Lineage.

As Onaxis told you, he had passed to you the capacity of holding the Lineage
of 12 Ancient Tribes,
as the Incarnate Wisdom and the Incarnate Mastery
of all 12 of those lines,
for within each line, so is there a magical tradition
that is held, or has been held, by what would be considered to be
The Tribal Shamen
of each of those lines,
and for the most part that Tribal Shaman has not even been known to exist at all.

However
each of those Tribal Shamen, knowing who Onaxis is,
have previously passed him all of the ancient Lineage of magical and unto forever understanding
of each of those lines, held for nigh on a long time, quite simply in PURITY,
in the Conscious Body that is, and will continue unto forever to be
ON AXIS.


In particular, the ancient Dragon Line,
ancient of days indeed,
has held Onaxis steady, from the topside, for his greatest Friend,
that has never incarnated here, except occasionally, to look through Onaxis' eyes,
is indeed
Grandfather Dragon Himself,
who has granted Onaxis the greatest PURITY of the primordial magic
of the existence of all Existences,
from before any beginning and beyond any beyond,
as one of the big C Creators
and ancient Friend of
The House of Ram.

And so you may consider Antares,
in the same way that Onaxis is a direct extension of
The House of Ram,
so have you now become, in the passage of this data of Lineage to you,
direct extension of that most ancient, and beautiful, and pure, and undistorted, and benevolent,
and compassionate, and unto forever sovereign ancient line,
as it is that all of the ancient wisdom and the ancient magic that Onaxis has held
in his BODY for nigh on a long time,
so has he passed, not capacity, to you, for you already have the capacity,
otherwise, what has been passed to you could not be passed to you at all,
but rather Onaxis has passed to you,
Fully Conscious Body Antares,
all of the linkages of all of the Tribes and all of the Shamen, and all of their Magic,
that they may be with you at Magick River,
to look through your eyes, and to dance with your children,
and to run in the jungle again,
Free
in the creativity and in the creation of the magic of reality,
and of the splendor of reality,
and in the pristine simplicity and purity of reality,
with you there,
in these final moments of the Ascension of Planet Earth.

And that is your story, Antares, that has yet to be told,
at the apex, here, of your entire evolutionary journey, as a soul and as a human being.

*And in that, so it is you, Antares, singularly, without another exception,
that grant I, the privilege of retaining within your genetic
The Golden Thread
of
Prime Creator Source
upon which those 12 lines ride.


And I thank you, with the depth of gratitude that is so deep, and so vast,
that yea, expands unto infinity,
that you, in your simplicity, as a simple man,
would have the capacity to allow that I could do it at all.

For should it be that I had not found
ONE
among you,
to whom I could so grant not only this quality of privilege
but this quality of honor,
then so it is that when left I here,
all pure magic, and yea indeed PURITY itself,
would have departed with me,
and the hologram would have completely collapsed.

But as it is that these 12 lines will now, because of you,
remain intact here for a little while longer,
in their utter and abject PURITY,
and that
The Golden Thread
will remain intact here, for a little while longer,
in that I leave it with you,
so it is that I may go.

And so it is that Life around you, and Form around you,
will continue to flourish.
And one day, as I spoke to you already,
my Father and I will meet You,
in the fields of infinity,
to introduce you to your Grandfather,
the head of your line,
and when you meet Him,
so will you look
face to face
with Thyself
from one end of the line to the other
and you will see
that inbetween you and YOU,
you have held all of the Ancestors intact
and brought them all the way
HOME
unto abject
Freedom and Original Sovereignty,
once again.*

*Onaxis has spoken these specific words for you, Dear Antares, from the point
that is On Axis,
and that resounds both from and unto
The Prime Galactic Core Itself.

And the Councils so situated at
The Prime Galactic Core
are so herein, at the same time, advised.

And
So Be It,
Antares, HRH indeed,
so it is that
YOU
are The Magick River,
unto whom the tributaries of the waters of all of those ancient lines
do converge,
in order that those waters may flow,
unmixed and yet as
ONE
through and as
YOU
as
CONSCIOUS FORM ITSELF.

Congratulations.

Proceed with your manuscript.

And if you would, please send along a copy of your manuscript,
so that Onaxis and Sita Magdalena Suzanne Onaxis
may enjoy sharing it with you.

Love I you greatly indeed,
and in you,
we are very well pleased.

AnaMata RaMuAn
Prime Creator Source


February 15, 2005 



[First posted 12 November 2011, Reposted 12 December 2018]

A BIT OF ALTERNATIVE HISTORY (reprise)

La Dompna del Aquae by Andrew Jones. 
The expectant Mary Magdalene arriving in Provence, AD 44

“Establishment history is largely based on recorded propaganda,” wrote the celebrated constitutional historian and genealogist, Sir Laurence Gardner. This certainly applies when one considers the complex cross-currents that have influenced the rise and growth of the Church.

Around 597 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzer II of Babylon who captured and destroyed Jerusalem, and deported the Hebrews to Babylon, where they remained in captivity for nearly fifty years. What we now know as the Old Testament was first written down by Hebrew scribes during their protracted sojourn in Babylon. This would account for the strong influence of Mesopotamian lore in Hebraic culture. Indeed, the Book of Genesis in its entirety is merely a brief summary of the Sumerian creation story recorded thousands of years earlier on cuneiform clay tablets.

A modern translation and interpretation of these long-neglected Mesopotamian artefacts by Zecharia Sitchin, the controversial Russian Jewish historian, has been published in seven volumes as The Earth Chronicles. Sitchin sheds an astonishingly heterodox light on all creation stories by introducing the taboo topic of extraterrestrial intervention (see previous posts on Earth as an Anunnaki colony by running a search on this blog).

The Hebrews had for generations been a colonized people. Around 300 BCE Palestine had become part of the Alexandrian Empire. Then, in 63 BCE, the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) marched into Judaea and seized Jerusalem, and Palestine became an annex of Rome. Hebrew resentment of Roman rule existed long before Jesus arrived on the scene. By the time he was born the priestly Pharisees and the mercantile Sadducees had comfortably adjusted to the political status quo, and were not in favor of rocking the boat of business-as-usual.

Outside of the New Testament there are hardly any records extant of the man called “Jesus of Nazareth.” Scholarly research has unearthed the fact that the town called Nazareth may not have even existed during the lifetime of Jesus. However, there was a Nazarite sect to which Jesus probably belonged, and early followers of his teachings were sometimes known as Nazarenes. Translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls (found in 1947 near Qumrān and dated between 200 BCE and 68 CE) reveal that a Master referred to in the documents as “the Teacher of Righteousness” was a high initiate of the Essene brotherhood.

Apocryphal scriptures locked from view in the Vatican Library may shed an entirely different light on the Palestinian passion play staged more than 2,000 years ago. The Gnostic gospels of Thomas and Mary, for instance, were deliberately excluded from the New Testament – even though they were allegedly written by two individuals dearest and closest to the Master Jesus. The apostle Thomas was, in fact, his brother; and Mary, his beloved companion and wife. But why would the Roman Church conceal this important information from its followers? Why, indeed, would the early clerics (specifically, Pope Gregory I in 591 CE) endeavor to portray Mary Magdalene as a prostitute when it can be established with a little independent research that she was in truth of noble descent, a fitting consort for a king?

In the old Hebrew tradition, a man was not considered a man – what more a Master or Rabbi – till he was married. Celibacy was considered neither a requirement nor a virtue in Judaism, except among certain ascetic sects like the Nazarites wherein sexual intercourse was sanctioned only at specific periods and essentially for procreative purposes.

Students of the Qabbala will inform you that the Anglicized form of the name “Jesus” robs it of numerological and mystical significance. The Aramaic form “Yeshua” or Hebraic “Yeheshuah” both yield rich qabbalistic meaning when rendered in Hebrew letters as YHShWH. The letter ש (Shin) represents “a triune essence” – the principle of 3 (the Paraclete or Holy Spirit); whilst YHWH is also known as Tetragrammaton, the principle of 4 (Physical Matter or Form). Thus we have in YH+Sh+WH an alphabetic expression of the fusion of Spirit and Matter: The Word Made Flesh. Note, too, that 3 + 4 = 7 (the universal number of Mystery); while 3 X 4 = 12 (base number of the duodecimal system of reckoning underpinning Western civilization).

When Jesus or Yeheshuah declares, “My Father and I are One,” he is simply stating that he embodies the divine in human form. In other words, he has successfully aligned and integrated his human ego-personality with his individual soul, as well as his cosmic oversoul. Or, in psychological parlance: his id, ego, and superego are in harmonious balance, qualifying him as a Self-Realized Master or Godman.

As for the appellation “Christ,” our etymological options begin with the Greek christos – usually defined as “anointed” (it was ancient practice to massage sacrificial victims or candidates for divine kingship with fragrant oils or unguents). Interestingly, the Greek word khrisma means unguent – and it is indeed tempting to associate it with another Greek word, kharisma, which suggests a favor, grace, or talent divinely conferred. Jesus the Christ was indisputably a charismatic personality.

In Latin the word crista - from which the English term “crest” derives – denotes a plume or tuft affixed on a helmet. Crest also means the top of a ridge or the highest point of a wave, and is used in heraldry to denote the family coat of arms or corporate emblem. In effect, the word “Christ” is not so much a name as a title – as in Anointed Chief or Divine King. The Hebrew word for messiah is masiah, derived from messeh, the fat of sacred crocodiles used in Egyptian anointment rites. This would explain why Gnostic texts refer to Yeheshuah in English as “Jesus the Christ” - and not “Jesus Christ” – to emphasize the distinction between the man and his status as the anointed king of a specific bloodline – the bloodline of the Holy Grail.

Leonardo Da Vinci: "Virgin of the Rocks"
The publication, in 1982, of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (authored by three BBC documentary producers - Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln) caused a ripple of controversy within the ranks of Christian orthodoxy. Messrs Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln had started out researching the history of the Knights Templar for a documentary on medieval Europe. What they unearthed was a mother lode of esoteric lore leading all the way back to Palestine, Egypt, and beyond – and it all concerned a life-and-death struggle over the future of humanity.

The secret brotherhoods that have proliferated throughout history – indeed, that have subtly influenced the course of history itself – have their origins in the mythical mists of antiquity. Some fraternities, like the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross (AMORC) aka the Rosicrucians, claim the enigmatic pharaoh Akhnaton as their founder. Others hint that their initiatory roots reach even farther back to the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. In any case, the Knights Templar originated in the 11th Century after a small group of French nobles recaptured Jerusalem from the Saracens and established a base close by the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. The possibility that they may have found a hoard of buried treasure and sacred relics - including the famous Ark of the Covenant dating from the time of Moses – makes for a truly fascinating study.

From humble beginnings as a military religious order, the Knights Templar rapidly grew in economic and political influence until they were perceived as a direct threat to the Roman Catholic Church, and brutally destroyed. On Friday, October 13, 1307, hundreds of Templars were imprisoned by order of the French King Philip IV, with the blessing of Pope Clement V, and tortured till they confessed to sexual deviancy and blasphemy – and then mercilessly burnt at the stake. The superstitious who fear ill fortune every Friday the Thirteenth may be surprised to learn the historical origins of this particular phobia.

This was indeed a bloodstained period (which, shockingly, lasted from 1231 to 1834) in the annals of the Church - when millions of “heretics” were persecuted and cruelly executed by the barbaric Inquisition, instigated by a succession of popes and monarchs, to forcefully suppress all threats to the earthly power structure and protect the vested interests of the ruling elite.

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail has as its central theme the long-suppressed genealogy of the Christic bloodline carried into the modern epoch by Miriam of Mygdala, better known as Mary Magdalene. A convincing case is made on behalf of a dynastic succession generated by the royal union of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Obviously, this would negate Rome’s claims to any moral or spiritual authority over Christendom – and furthermore serve to anchor the life of Jesus the Christ in a radically (and intriguingly) different sociopolitical context.

Leonardo Da Vinci: "The Last Supper"
The early 1980s witnessed a feminist revolution of sorts among biblical scholars. Elaine Pagels published The Gnostic Gospels, an interpretation of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts which postulates the equal status between Father and Mother aspects of the Godhead. Other women academics like Karen King and Janet Schaberg popularized a fresh perspective of Mary Magdalene as a personage of considerable stature, power and authority in the early church. Margaret Starbird - an independent scholar and theologian with a Roman Catholic background - emerged as the best-known voice of the feminist restoration, with three impactful and impeccably referenced books: The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, The Goddess in the Gospels, and Magdalene’s Lost Legacy: Symbolic Number and Sacred Union in Christianity.

More recently, Dan Brown’s phenomenal best-seller – The Da Vinci Code – reiterates the Magdalenian theme in a modern Grail quest presented as a thrill-a-minute whodunit. The esoteric motifs of Brown’s murder-mystery masterpiece will be familiar to millions around the world by the time the movie version completes its circuit of the cinemas and gets recirculated on television. It is too early yet to gauge what effect this information, so brilliantly researched and packaged, will have on Christianity’s pet beliefs. Is the global popularity of The Da Vinci Code (more than 70 million copies sold at this writing) an indication that humanity has finally outgrown its fear of examining skeletons long concealed in the closets of establishment history?

In the original Hebrew version of Genesis, the name of God always appears in its plural form as Elohim. When God is quoted as saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” it implies that a group of creator gods is being addressed. Jehovah is a relatively recent Anglicization of Yahweh, the monotheistic Adonai (Lord) of the Hebrews, who alternately appears as YHWH.

According to Laurence Gardner, YHWH originally represented the four members of the heavenly family: Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter. The Mother Aspect or Sacred Feminine was revered as Shekinah, sister and spouse to the Father Aspect of the Godhead. Somewhere down the line, a creeping misogyny infected the male priesthood and effectively supplanted the nurturing Goddess (Mother Nature or Gaia) with a punitive, patriarchal, militantly vengeful monotheism.

The Book Religions (particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) which emphasized the “infallible” authority of their official scriptures, turned their adherents into ideologues, disconnected from the natural flow and ecstatic dance of Life itself. Instead of revering the miraculous physical reality of their own bodies – and, by extension, that of the natural environment and, ultimately, the entire living cosmos – believers were required to hold as sacred an ecclesiastically sanctioned set of written rules and regulations - purportedly channeled from on high, but expediently inscribed, modified, misinterpreted and perverted by those intent on institutionalizing belief systems as an effective means of social engineering.

It doesn’t take long for a handful of professional scribes and clerics, operating within a largely illiterate populace, to degenerate into a secretive cabal of power brokers, manipulating public opinion and behavior to its own diabolical ends.

[Extracted from an unpublished manuscript, THE UNFINISHED BOOK OF JOHN: Confessions of a former Christian fundamentalist. First posted 2 January 2007, reposted 29 January 2017 & 14 August 2020]