Sunday, August 27, 2006

Things That Have Been Occupying My Mind Lately...

For the past couple of months, I've been thinking a lot about David Icke. David Icke is a man with a lot of really unusual ideas. He was originally an English soccer player, then became a sportscaster, then was a spokesman for the British Green Party. In 1991 the Party dumped him after he revealed to the world that he was the Son of God and a "channel for the Christ spirit" on national television. The consensus around Great Britain was that he'd lost his marbles.

I started watching this series of films taken from a talk he gave about the Illuminati. Mind-bogglingly weird stuff but very entertaining and informative, especially the details about history and occult symbolism. But the aspect about it that really struck me the most was what was talked about at the beginning of this film clip. There is a lot of other stuff on these films that really stretches the bounds of believabilty, such as the reptilian bloodlines story, but the beginning deals in a very interesting way with the issues of fear and control.

The idea of how you can use fear to control people's minds. If there are fewer of "you" than there are of "them", how do you get "them" to conduct themselves the way you want them to? The answer would be: get them to make each other do it!

The whole world seems to be ruled by "that's not the way we do things around here!" and Icke talks very convincingly of the idea of people being ruled by the fear of what other people think.

So I've been thinking about these things, and it seems to go together with some other things that I've been looking at on teh interwebs about how leaders of some groups use fear and control to separate you from yourself in a sense. This woman, if you look at her website, has a rather bizarre tale to tell, almost beyond belief, but if you google the name Kay Griggs, or do a search for it on YouTube, there are some startling parallels (and I also don't have a problem with the idea that an asshole like Reagan could make himself beholden to an American Nazi cell group.)

Now she tells some very far-fetched tales about people being forced to drink urine, but if we think about it, certain organizations sometimes try to get you to "drink the kool-aid", in a manner of speaking, and doing this can be almost as degrading, since it separates you from yourself, in a way.

Things can happen in our lives, either through abuse or trauma of some kind, that can destroy our ability to access our natural compassion, as in the case of Richard Ramirez, who as a child had an older cousin that was a mentor figure, a Vietnam vet, the cousin was also a sexual sadist and showed Richard pictures of how he had raped and murdered a Vietnamese woman. The cousin later murdered his wife in front of Richard, and committed suicide.

One of the things that amazes us about people who commit the type of crimes Richard Ramirez is guilty of, is the fact that they are able to do so without the least bit of feeling for the suffering of their victims. This is because they have been separated from their natural compassion, a process that is sometimes referred to by psychiatric workers as a "cognitave split" or, "switching". Essentially, there is something inside that is being shut down.

Compassion, if you look at Merriam-Webster Online, is defined one way as " the capacity for feeling for another's unhappiness or misfortune -- see HEART."
And heart is a very good word to apply here, because the Heart is the very seat of our compassion.

Some will understand that I speak of the Heart Chakra, that which may be termed, the Lover of Our Soul. It is here that we access our self-love, also, through meditation and other such work I believe it is where we can actually meet our Holy Guardian Angel on our own.

Certain organizations will try to tell you that only they have the means to help one get in touch with their HGA, but in the words of the woman at the Reflections in the Night website, "You are of no use to the cult if you love yourself." It is this bloggers opinion that even far-fetched Xian propaganda-style stories of urine drinking and figurative kool-aid drinking can draw some paralells.

I don't quite know how I got from talking about David Icke to Richard Ramirez, but I think this was just an exploration of the contents of my brain that wanted to get written the way it was written.





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Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Getting back into the swing of things

I just put a brand new 512 MB of RAM into my machine, (with my own two hands!) and I'm raring to go. Been really busy lately, housesitting and stuff, so haven't been posting lately. I really want to try to get more substantive and concentrate on having worthwhile things to say. Things that have to do with my studies and writings.

To that end, then, I offer my opinion on something I came across while surfing on Amazon last night, a recommendation list by a "tarot expert".

Right off the bat I smell an agenda here--you can pretty much tell this was one of those situations where someone was doing a favor for another author/person with something to pimp, with the idea that when the time came, the one having their back scratched would reciprocate. I take a look at this woman's rather charming website, and discover that (sucking in breath) ooooh! She's got several tarot and divination decks slated to be published in the next four years! Coincidence? You be the judge.

Shameless self promotion not really being a problem, I press on. I find it really hard to believe that she, a "tarot professional", is often asked the difference between a pro and an expert. Joseph Martin, one of the professionals she name-checks here, once said the two main things people ask about when getting a reading are "getting laid and getting paid". Unless someone else was interested in becoming a professional reader, I don't see how this would come up, I see this as her way of setting up her argument to assure that she would be perceived as an Authority.

She is very adamant that: "A Tarot Professional is definitely not just anyone who can:
1. Write/publish Tarot books.
2. Create Tarot decks.
3. Take a Tarot class or course.
4. Write Tarot articles.
5. Write reviews of Tarot decks or books.
6. Get their work published in a magazine, ezine, newspaper, etc."

and that: "the truth is anyone can write books and publish them, create decks, take a class or course, write articles, review books or decks, or manage to have their work published without having any prior qualifications."

Anyone can also read cards in the park, or on one of those psychic telephone lines, or put out a shingle in front of a nice office, manage to make enough to live on for a year, and consider themselves a professional. I have nothing against those tarot certifications and degrees that are out there, but the fact is, the coursework that they are based on is comprised of the very things listed by Ms. Fox-Heins.

An author is plugged, who is "recognized as a historical and philosophical Tarot Expert." Recognized by whom? I have been studying the cards off and on for over twenty years, and I've never read any of his books, which all came out in the past five years.

You have to remember, before the occult revival of the turn of the twentieth century, for hundreds of years divination was the domain of little old ladies reading cards and tea leaves in their kitchens. And no, I don't have any documentation to back that up.

Having said that, I have no disrespect whatsoever for folks that actually do read professionally--I'd like to have a turn at it myself someday. What I have an objection to is fundamentalism and overcomplication for its own sake. Again, nothing against the licences and certifications people can get if they feel so led, but there is not now, nor will there ever be, the equivalent of "passing a bar exam" for the tarot.

At least not if people like me have anything to do with it.


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Saturday, August 12, 2006

Cake or Death? Or, You're Lucky I'm a Church of E Pagan!

Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve. There is none that shall be cast down or lifted up: all is ever as it was. Yet there are masked ones my servants: it may be that yonder beggar is a King. A King may choose his garment as he will: there is no certain test: but a beggar cannot hide his poverty.

Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed! Say you so? Fool! If he be a King, thou canst not hurt him.

Therefore strike hard & low, and to hell with them, master!
Now, if you know where that comes from, good for you, you earn a few cool points.

The poet's name will not be mentioned here, nor will certain words or topics be talked about any further in this journal, at least not in the *obvious* ways that such things get talked about.

Not that I no longer value the things I learned about this paradigm, but I feel a sea change coming on.

Things I've been checking out as spiritual options are seeming a lot less attractive to me these days. There will be a change in direction soon. This video hints at that a little bit: