A series of scientific experiments ...the greatest religious discovery of the 20th century.
Topic: Physics and Metaphysics

"A series of scientific experiments in the early 1980s changed forever our understanding of the nature of matter. It is likely that it will also prove to have been the greatest religious discovery of the 20th century.

"Physicists call it entanglement, and it describes the state of two or more particles once they have interacted with one another. From then on, irrespective of time and space, a correlation will always exist between them. What happens to one will affect the other - even if they are now at opposite ends of the universe.

"The word entanglement is really a misnomer. Some scientists use "non-separability" to describe the same condition. And the difference is significant. For if matter emerged from energy in the singularity of the big bang, it would seem to follow that all the particles of which it consists are in that state of correlation. They have not become entangled, but at the fundamental level they have never been - and can never be - separated.

"Although it is now more than 20 years since non-separability was proved experimentally, its significance has yet to enter the public psyche. It seems to be too immense a concept, too remote from our everyday lives - until we view it from the spiritual perspective."


Guardian (UK) article: here.

St. John of the Apocalypse.
Topic: by Lenny


St. John of the Apocalypse.


      Human beings are social creatures. Isolate one from fellow humans, for even a short time, and strange things start to happen. Bio-survival terror kicks in, psychological imprints become suspended. Hallucinations and paranoia occur.


      John is alone - very alone - on a small chunk of lava floating somewhere in the Mediterranean. He has been here before, perhaps not on this very island but in this predicament. Following his muse, his God, he does things no other artist would ever do. These impossible gestures are the refiner's fire, his life an alchemical experiment. As his final hour arrives, he is more determined than ever to be more like God. To this end, the aging preacher has come to this rock, first to search his soul, and then to die.


In The Beginning...


      ...was the word.


      The word is a divine creation existing only among humans and the Gods. It is an abstraction, a painting, a poem, a ritual. One not only writes as a reflection of reality, one writes in order that they might create a reality. The first words were not words at all, magcal cave paintings with which man altered reality.


      The mystical experience (perception of reality) is one of self-transcendence: transpersonal identification, self-forgetfulness, and openness to things not literally provable. Revelation has a subjective quality: What you are experiencing is real because you know it is real.


      Words do not just describe reality, they are reality. Figures, abstractions, characters, letters and numbers endlessly recombine to spell out past, present and future: Thy Will be done.


Poison visions of a beast from the sea.


      Nearing death, John retires to the island to be moved. He writes furiously, stream-of-consciousness, hopped up on Wormwood, looking for something in the words, writing on current events, his hallucinations and his faith, as if it all were real, for it is real in the sense that William Blake, Finnegans Wake, the montage and the cut-up are all real. Real because you know it is real. More real than real.


      He understands inherently what students of the mysteries will codify in years to come: as above, so below. A talisman on the wall of the cave will find success in the hunt.


      His head is spinning. He takes the world around him, the politics, its Gods and Demons, breaks it down to its fundamental components. The mad man views recent history through a symbolic lens. As a rule these symbols must speak of what is to come, for what is to come has already happened.

George W. Bush: An Autopsy
Topic: the President
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

      -- H. L. Mencken

Will Smith finds his balls, makes sense.
Topic: police state
from New York Daily News:

"No. Absolutely not," Smith replied when reporter Johanna Adorjan asked if the events of 9/11 had personally changed him. "When you grow up black in America you have a completely different view of the world than white Americans. We blacks live with a constant feeling of unease.

"And whether you are wounded in an attack by a racist cop or in a terrorist attack, I'm sorry, it makes no difference."

...In the interview, in which Smith accused President Bush of lying to justify war in Iraq, the actor went on:

"In the '60s, blacks were continuously the victims of terrorist attacks. It was civil terrorism, but terrorism nonetheless. We are used to being attacked. That constant state of vigilance - a sort of defensive state - that hasn't changed at all. For me, nothing has changed at all."

Smith's PR rep, Stan Rosenfield, didn't respond to repeated phone calls and a detailed E-mail yesterday.

Lowdown was unable to reach interviewer Adorjan to verify the accuracy of the quotes. But I'm told by a mutual friend that Adorjan is a solid journalist who speaks fluent English.

"...unlocking the vast unused power of the human brain."
Topic: Evolution
"The Japanese macaques raised in Atsushi Iriki's lab are not particularly gifted. But intriguingly, he expects them soon to be communicating with him vocally, using simple linguistic rules. This isn't just an elegant Dr Dolittle curiosity: it holds the real possibility of understanding autism in humans and unlocking the vast unused power of the human brain.

"Iriki, head of the laboratory for symbolic cognitive development at the Riken Brain Science Institute, says his experiment will tap into neural systems monkeys always had, but have never been activated. He hopes to learn something about monkey thought, but more dramatically, about how language emerged in humans -and what happens when it breaks down in autistic children, for example."

Guardian (UK) article here.

RE: reinventing capitalism
Topic: by Lenny
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Malec [mailto:root@scottmalec.info]
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 2:51 PM
To: Lenny
Subject: RE: reinventing capitalism

> Good point, Brother. So what you are speaking
> about here is a Synthesis between Bloom and
> Crowley (and Marx)?

I think if you reread bloom's stuff you'll see that marx has nothing to do with anything.

He (Bloom) is talking about humanity as an organism, capitalism as being the way to harness all of man's innate predisposition towards competition, violence, territoriality, etc. etc. and consciously channeling it for everybody's benefit. Making people "at the top" realise that they will make more money and be happier if what they do benefits the ENTIRE organism -- down to every last cell (worker), in a very real way.

This shift will require people to have the kind of shrewd insight into themselves and each other that is verboten with organized religion, etc etc.

But can capitalism be "fixed" or is he reaching for something else entirely and calling it "capitalism" so as to not scare the corporations?

What about the school of thought that says capitalism, socialism, etc is all BS -- that it is information and technology that determines the living conditions of a people?

> I'm with ya, brother!
> How do we do it? Beyond mind and matter ...

don't ask me! If Jesus couldn't do it how the hell should I know?

Eight Fundamental Questions
Topic: Philosophy
The philosopher's role is to ignite wonder, raise the burning issues, inspire the pursuit of answers. It is science that produces the ever-changing, improving answers to the haunting questions that religious wonder poses. There are eight questions that any fair survey of our philosophic history would agree are most fundamental to our existential condition.

Category (type of questions): Examples.

1. Origins (Genesis): How, when, where did life come from? How did it evolve?

2. Politics (Security): Why do humans fight and compete destructively? What are the territorial laws that explain human conflict? How can humans live in relative peace and harmony? How, when, where and why do humans differ (among each other and from other mammalian species) in aggression, control, cooperation, affiliation?

3. Epistemology (Truth, fact, knowledge, language, communications, manufacture of objects, artifacts and symbol systems): How, when, where and why does the mind emerge (in the individual and species)? And how, when, where and why do humans differ in their ability to process information, learn, communicate, think, plan and manufacture?

4. Ethics (Good and evil, right and wrong): How, when, where and why do humans differ in their moral beliefs and rituals? Who decides what is good and right?

5. Esthetics (Beauty, pleasure, luxury, sensory reward): How, when, where and why do humans devote their energies to decoration, hedonism, art, music, entertainment? And how, when, where and why do they differ in modes of pleasure?

6. Ontology (Reality and it's/their definition): How, when, where and why do humans differ in the realities they construct and inhabit? How are realities formed and changed?

7. Teleology (Evolution and de-evolution of life): What are the stages and mechanisms of evolution? How, when, where and why has evolution occurred? Chance? Natural selection? Natural election? Creation? Is life created and evolution blueprinted, who did it? Where is life going?

8. Cosmology (Galactic evolution, of ultimate and basic structure): How, when, where and why was matter-energy formed? What are the basic units and patterns of matter/energy? What are the basic forces, energies and plans that hold the universe together (or don't) and determined evolution? Where are we going?

from Timothy Leary, Changing My Mind Among Others.

The Relatives Of Man
Topic: Philosophy
The last one hundred years has brought us the theory of relativity - ironically interpreted and used as an absolute... [Einstein's theory is invoked] as a defense for their most stupid and ignorant theories and mis-representations of facts. Their logic... goes something like this. "I invoke the theory of relativity, by the authority of Einstein, to prove that my authority, (and ideas) are as equally valid as anyone else's." Most of them never heard of testing their ideas in the lab... All opinions are not equal. All tunnel realities are not equal, for equality would obviate the necessity for our diversity.

Christopher Hyatt, Ph.D., from Undoing Yourself, 9th ed.

Of course, we are speaking in generalities here.
Topic: by Lenny
-----------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Malec [mailto:root@scottmalec.info]
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 2:28 PM
To: Lenny
Subject: Re: reinventing capitalism

Yes, yes to the moon, then to the stars. Ra ra. Horay, horay. Sounds like more crapitalist, social darwinist propaganda to me. Passion, but no compassion.

In short, I am the butt of this thinking, on the verge of extinction. I am aware of it of the boot coming down upon me, so cannot and will not praise my oppressor, the Man.

--------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Lenny [mailto:lennyflatley@thefantastics.net]
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 2:37 PM
To: 'root@scottmalec.info'
Subject: RE: reinventing capitalism

Bloom has an important POV -- he sees things (inc. human culture, humanity itself, the world) systemically. I wonder how he feels about PEOPLE.

Regardie, Buddha, Occultists and mystics understand human consciousness (and the flawed nature of being a humanimal) and how to personally transcend it but offer no answers as to the real world dilemma (so, you've become Jesus H. Christ... then what about the rest of us, buddy?)

What is needed is a synthesis.

Of course, I am speaking in generalities here.

Ireland: Shannon Banchees Invade Airport & Make Shrine for US/Coalition & Iraqi Dead
Topic: war in Iraq
          

10,000+ US Soldiers travel through Shannon Airport
to Iraq every month - a majority of US Dead probably
traveled through Shannon, in violation of the Irish
Constitution and will of the Irish people

audio: MP3 at 26.2 mebibytes

read the Indymedia Ireland feature at http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67254

more info about the Dublin Catholic Worker at http://geocities.com/dublincatholicworker

also see http://PloughsharesIreland.org