The "Other" religions thread

[alkemical]

The "Other" religions thread

[alkemical]

This is a long read if you wish to vest the time into it - but some good info for any questions you may have..... (lots more on the full article)

Four Core Elements towards a Wiccan Moral System


Creativity and poetic expression are important within Wicca, down to the way we behave morally in the world; so trying to pin down what Wiccan morality is has been difficult at best.

Graham Harvey (2000), a scholar of earth-centered religions, emphasizes the importance of understanding the life and philosophy of Neo-Paganism in addition to its ritual and poetry, but this is next to impossible if Wiccan thinkers do not fully contemplate the system of morals we live by, teach by, and believe in.

Some authors write about Wiccan morals, but neglect to thoroughly analyze the contents, or overlook connecting with other Wiccan moralist and traditional philosophers. The main purpose of this article is to lay the groundwork for dialogue about Wiccan morals by outlining four core concepts: will, love, harm, and reciprocity.

This article pieces together the different concepts posited by Wiccan moral philosophers. I concentrate on what I see as the major concepts. Within are discussions about the Wiccan rede and three-fold law, as well as comparisons to traditional ethical theories.

Wiccan Morality

Wiccan morality has seven core aspects: the universe’s interconnected-ness, the practitioner’s personal responsibility, love for everything and desire to help, the will, harm, reciprocity, and the Wiccan paradigm, which includes a concept of virtue. The seven aspects are interrelated, and all of them are essential to Wiccan morality. The seventh aspect, the Wiccan paradigm, is the least developed, and for brevity, I will not analyze it within this essay. Also, I skip over the foundational belief of interconnected-ness and personal responsibility so I can more completely discuss what I think is the more uniquely Wiccan aspects.

[alkemical]

The Ancient Order of Druids

The Romans chased the Celts and Druids across Europe, through England and Wales, into the sea and into what the Romans were satisfied to call oblivion. And what the conquering Romans started, the persecuting Christians believed they finished with their discovery of Ireland and the destruction of the last Druid.

They were, of course, both wrong. Modern Druids are making a long overdue reappearance and although temporarily stuck with the mystical image of magic and wizardry, have a better than average chance of making a real recovery.

The Druids may be a bit thin on the ground at the start of the second millennium but a few (two thousand) years ago when the gods lived in the earth, flew in the skies and western Europe was being busily overrun by the Romans, the Druids were a real force to be reckoned with.

Gaius Julius Caesar was undoubtedly one of the world's movers and shakers, he was an ambitious politician, a terrifying military commander and ruthless dictator. He was also a prolific author and although those entrusted with the great man's writings managed to lose almost all of them, there were a few literary and sociological thoughts that have been preserved. The Roman calendar (including a whole month, July, named after himself) and his writings on the Druids survive to the present day.

J.C. found much to occupy his time in those good old days. He had to conquer most of the known world, do his best to manipulate the political Roman Empire and persecute as many minority groups as he could find.

What with the constant round of parties and orgies, watching out for plotting upstarts and watching his own back, the conquering of Europe was his only acknowledged, but temporary, success. His run in with the Christians turned out, in spite of the slaughter, to be an own goal and his rise up the political ladder at home was curtailed by the most famous example of back-stabbing in history.

Caesar did however find time for at least one other activity. Rather surprising he was the one, with a little help from Posidonius, who recorded all that was known at the time about the Druids.

[If the Druids knew that Julius was 'writing the book' they might have asked for a short chapter on the 'plus side' of Druid life. As it was the Druids themselves felt no compulsion to ever record their activities, relying for power on a solid home base, word of mouth and a high profile.

But history was being written by the winners and so it is through the eyes and pen of Julius Caesar that the original ancient Druids are remembered].

The word Druid meant, in the language of the day, The Oak Tree which gave them both a name and a symbol of life everlasting. 'Finding the oak' - in a mystical sense - was a task that some devotees took a lifetime to achieve. Mistletoe, especially when found on oak trees, was also a part of religious ritual, and was cut from the trees with a golden knife.

Celtic gods were never far away from Druid life and ritual. The sun god Lugh put in an appearance most days, and the sea god Manannan was particularly well thought of as both the guardian and the way to the Celtic Otherworld which was a magical place of beautiful islands where a constant supply of young and beautiful people indulged in singing, dancing, consuming good food and having lots of fun things to do.

The goddesses Rhiannon and Morrigan were in charge of horses and crows respectively but not exclusively as they could easily turn their hands to other animals and birds. Morrigan has more to do with death and rebirth and is the link between the present and the future and the British Rhiannon is better known in Ireland as Macha but under both names she kept herself busy organising sex and fertility.

More Druid-like is Cernunnos, part man, part beast, and lord of the animals and the man they all look to when the time came to swap souls. [Cernunnos also features in the chapter on Witchcraft].

The Druids (almost) never looked for a fight preferring whenever possible to reason things out with words rather than sticks and stones. The priests took on the tasks of judges, religious leaders and teachers to the constant supply of enthusiastic strong young men willing to be taught what was, at the time, fairly advanced techniques in, healing, astronomy, the calculation of calendars and their own style of religion.

The high crime rate in the rest of the population gave the Druids a lot of judging to do in the days before Rome imposed their own form of law and order the fastidious Druids managed to maintain a remarkably high strike rate when it came to the guilty verdict.

Being found guilty was to become a criminal and there was only one thing criminals were good for - sacrifice.

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by claviculasolomonis

The Ancient Order of Druids


Gaius Julius Caesar was undoubtedly one of the world's movers and shakers, he was an ambitious politician, a terrifying military commander and ruthless dictator. He was also a prolific author and although those entrusted with the great man's writings managed to lose almost all of them, there were a few literary and sociological thoughts that have been preserved. The Roman calendar (including a whole month, July, named after himself) and his writings on the Druids survive to the present day.

J.C. found much to occupy his time in those good old days. He had to conquer most of the known world, do his best to manipulate the political Roman Empire and persecute as many minority groups as he could find.

What with the constant round of parties and orgies, watching out for plotting upstarts and watching his own back, the conquering of Europe was his only acknowledged, but temporary, success. His run in with the Christians turned out, in spite of the slaughter, to be an own goal and his rise up the political ladder at home was curtailed by the most famous example of back-stabbing in history.

WHAT? Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered on March 15, 44 BC.
How could he have a run in with the Christians 44 years before
Jesus of Nazareth was even born? Never mind the fact that
Christianity didn't become established enough for anyone to even
notice it existed until several years after Jesus of Nazareth was executed.

[alkemical]

That is correct. Now i did find a linage of Gaius Julius Caesar's (I,II,III,IV) - but i think that's not important

[alkemical]

No Xenus is good Xenus

It's always easier to read negative press on Scientology than positive. In my teens I read a collection of essays and articles chronicling William S. Burroughs' time in the group entitled Naked Scientology. When I did some further research I found there wasn't much positive information on the group outside official 'church' publications like Dianetics. Now, with the internet, the information coming from Scientology is more plentiful but no more in-depth. One would assume that anybody holding the answer to the salvation of humanity would want to share it openly. Not if you're making millions by carefully guarding the secret and releasing it slowly for a price though. As a result, most of the comprehensive information on Scientology comes from its detractors, and one could spend nearly a lifetime reading the information gathered by the organization's critics.

First Contact

"Can you tell me… what's your connection to Scientology?" The phone line crackled. I assumed I was being recorded. I leaned over and adjusted my recording levels to clearly capture the faint voice while I considered the question. He clarified, "You are not doing this or contacting me for Scientology or any representative of Scientology?"

Is this raging paranoia? I had originally been put in contact with ex-Scientologist Gerry Armstrong by Andreas Heldal-Lund, webmaster of the Operation Clambake site. Heldal-Lund's site recounts attempts by Scientology and its agents to paint him as a terrorist, sexual deviant and to contact his employers in an attempt to get him fired.

If these are, in fact, the tactics used against someone who was never even a member of Scientology, how much more aggressive must the actions be against someone who betrayed the church? That's what I called Gerry Armstrong, who spent twelve and a half years as a Scientologist, to find out.

From his current home in Chilliwack, British Columbia he gave me a history of his involvement in Scientology starting in the early seventies. "I was always a cerebral kind of kid," he relates, "I was 22 at the time and the promises it made to me solved the human condition."

Those promises included increased mental abilities and freedom from disease or even death. The legacy of the free-thinking sixties had created a great thirst for the apex of human potential. In L. Ron Hubbard, many thought they'd found a fellow seeker offering them a strong, logical system that they themselves could test. "You're told immediately, in these days, that it's a religion. That's different than when I got involved. They claimed that it was a science."

Once a member of the Church of Scientology, the bridge between science and religion was the cult of personality centred on a pulp science-fiction writer. "A key to it was L. Ron Hubbard himself." Somehow he was able to make people believe, "that he had cured himself of war wounds, that he was a military and naval hero, that he was a scientist and a physicist and a civil engineer, that he was twice pronounced dead and rose again."

(cont'd on site)

[alkemical]

The Magickal Pyramid

The most important "tools" that should be used in relation to magick are "to will", "to know", "to dare" and "to keep silent". These four "tools" are often referred to as the "Magickal Pyramid".

To Will: The Will of a correctly trained magickal practitioner should be capable of directing their life to their satisfaction and likewise for their higher benefit and that of evolution.

In its greater form, the Will should be capable, in rare circumstances, of directing the course of events beyond themselves, eg the environmental destruction (man-made) or in cases of threat, either personal or planetary. In all cases the energy raised is for defence rather than attack.

No magickal tool of a material nature can be charged without the power of the disciplined Will. No circle can be cast, neither can it defend the individual. No elements can be invoked and the Gods, most definitely, remain only the figment of myth.

This list is seemingly endless. Therefore, although initiation may be considered acceptable prior to the development within this work, it is your personal and imperative responsibility to attend to the discipline of your own Will an to consider it as foremost in your self-training.

To Know

Apart from the nature of things that interest you generally, it is important that you accumulate as much knowledge of the diverse nature concerning the occult path as you can, as there is power in knowledge for its own sake. All manner of related subjects can only assist you in your work - things of an anthropological, religious, philosophic nature, works by other occultists, material pertinent to affirm what you learn, ie astrology, numerology, tarot, herbalism and the healing arts in general, mythology, history, etc.

With all the information that you receive it is important that you take time to put the qualities of your own mind into action to enable you to ascertain the difference between what is purely hearsay on the part of the authors concerned. All things are to be analysed and should lead to a balanced viewpoint based on your own judgement.

No knowledge is ever wasted and it is necessary to know enough to trust your own findings. Ignorance is never bless, and all material viewed can only extend your capabilities of Mind. The material you employ that directly affects your magick is to be learnt so that natural flow occurs which allows other factors of a natural kind to enter into your work.

To Dare

Assuming you have done your work with self-training, and begun disciplining of the Will, you will now be in a position to experiment with what you have learned. You may find it beneficial to have all the information at your disposal before you take on the challenge of daring.

Having decided to take up a magickal path, you are now to centre your skills on the use of ritual and seek to serve by way of experimenting with the forces around you. Take heed to interfere in no ares that does not personally concern you and where all acts of spellcraft are concerned, do not exceed your own ability - to do so would doom your work to failure and waste power of an astral nature. Say nothing to anyone of your experiment, as that also would doom it to fail.

To Keep Silent

In all things this is a very important and necessary function. Unless you have absolute faith in the person with whom you wish to discuss your path, then say nothing. Personal experience has taught that unless your 'cup is full' you will only deplete what you wish to store by tossing it around, and always remember the world is full of scared, bigoted people.

You should treat your Book of Shadows sacred and not sharing the material with anyone unless they are prepared to follow the same path. After all you are working with the Gods and they will not be profaned.

Remember - never boast, never threaten. Acts of spellcraft are a thankless business due to the very fact that if you discuss them with others they do not come to pass as they are reduced to the boundaries of the mundane. If you tell of them after they have worked few will believe you in this sceptical world anyway. The times you will have acknowledgment of your undertaking will be if you come to find like-minded people but be careful and discerning as there are those who would suck you dry of all you have learned and then leave for the gratification of their own power. There are many who will seek power for the sake of power itself, and they are those who endanger the Goddess and the gifts she bestows.

Therefore, speak not of what you know at all until you become that which you seek to serve.

[Spider]

Religion of Spider ............ Kiss my big redneck áss

[alkemical]

Stories linger about hidden power of ‘the black book’

Even in modern-day Norway, skepticism and superstition still linger around “the black book.”

When Kathleen Stokker traveled to Norway to research folk medicine practices, she was surprised to learn the extent to which it persists in the national psyche.

The black book is “much more a part of Norwegian culture than most would admit,” she said.

What was the black book?

Part legend, part superstition and part melding of pre-Christian and Catholic beliefs and customs, the black book was a compilation of folk remedies, rituals, prayers and incantations.

“No single black book did exist — hundreds of them did,” Stokker writes in her recently published book, “Remedies and Rituals: Folk Medicine in Norway and the New Land.”

Most black books “were hand-written compilations of advice and magical cures, items people copied down as they came across them by word of mouth or in written form,” she writes.

One of these mystical remedies advised digging up a human bone from a graveyard and sewing it into one’s garments to prevent lice. According to another formula, giving two pieces of white lily root to a woman in difficult labor would help her through childbirth.

By the 16th century, the black book came to be viewed as diabolical.

“By using it, you were putting yourself in league with the devil,” Stokker said.

Attitudes were fueled by witch trials occurring elsewhere in Europe. Association with the black book became dangerous.

Between 1550 and 1700, some 1,750 Norwegians were accused of witchcraft, and about one-fifth of them were executed, Stokker writes. Many of them were women whose simple crime was using an incantation or remedy from the black book to try to heal someone.

“The Lutheran clergy’s condemnation of Catholic practices and demonization of Catholic healing prayers in the witch trials forever changed the way people regarded folk healers and their incantations,” Stokker writes in her book. “Subsequently associated with the devil, these formulas came to be known collectively as the black book.”

About 150 individual black books, mostly compiled in the late 1700s and early 1800s, are known to exist today. They can be found in museums, libraries and private collections.

There was a belief that if someone died with the black book in his or her possession, their soul would go to hell, Stokker said.

For this reason, very few black books ever crossed the Atlantic among the baggage of Norwegian immigrants, she said. “They did not take that chance.”

In the course of her research, however, Stokker managed to trace the story of Ole Toftelien, who settled in Hanska in southern Minnesota in the 1860s and was reputed to own a black book.

It was previously thought that few Norwegian Americans were familiar with or used the black book, Stokker said. “That was the surprising thing — to find out one or two of them did that we know about.”

Toftelien inherited a hand-lettered black book from his father in the early 1800s. When Stokker traveled to Norway in search of more details about his life, she discovered that stories persisted about his reputation as a magical healer.

In one of these tales, Toftelien cured a neighbor’s sick cow simply by pacing back and forth. In another story, he used the power of the black book to stop a pair of thieves in his turnip patch.

Toftelien sold his black book before emigrating from Norway. At some point after arriving in Minnesota, he acquired another one that’s now owned by the Norwegian-American Historical Association of Northfield.

He also apparently passed on some of his lore to his daughter, Marit, who was regarded as both a healer and a witch in turn-of-the-century Hanska.

In Hanska, Stokker uncovered a story from a woman who was 13 years old when she was sent to Marit Toftelien’s house to obtain medicine for her brother.

“She remembered all kinds of stories about people who had gone to her,” Stokker said. “Suddenly this story became a real big part of the book.”

Marit Toftelien’s black book, which has since disappeared, was sold after her death in 1934. When the pastor who bought it subsequently drowned in a cistern, many people saw it as the fulfillment of a curse.

“Without question, the black book with its magical formulas occupied a more significant place in the minds of Norwegian and Norwegian Americans than has been publicly acknowledged,” Stokker writes. “Despite a terrifying reputation, it provides unparalleled insights into Norway’s traditional remedies and rituals, while its associated lore helps illuminate a way of life distant from our own.”

[alkemical]

Wiccan Ethics And The Wiccan Rede

[alkemical]

The dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda


The godfather of the New Age led a secretive group of devoted followers in the last decade of his life. His closest "witches" remain missing, and former insiders, offering new details, believe the women took their own lives.


4 page read.....

[alkemical]

Open Sesame


Conspiracy buffs tour the lavish Washington, D.C. temple of the Freemasons, one of the world's most mysterious fraternities
By David A. Taylor
Mammoth sphinxes guard the House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite, a formidable neo-Classical building in the heart of Washington, D.C. Inside, Egyptian hieroglyphics adorn a soaring atrium. The building's nine-foot-thick walls hold human remains. Bronze coiling snakes flank a large wooden throne, canopied in purple velvet, in a second-floor inner sanctum called the Temple Room, where men from around the world gather behind closed doors every two years. Over the centuries the select membership has included signers of the Declaration of Independence; George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and 13 other presidents; Senators Charles Schumer and Robert Dole; Chief Justice Earl Warren and other Supreme Court justices. Formally they are known as Freemasons, but most people know them simply as Masons. And this artfully forbidding edifice, a mile from the White House, is their southern headquarters.

Long viewed by outsiders as a mysterious society and one of the world's most powerful fraternities, Masons have recently become the object of even more curiosity as filmmakers and novelists mine Masonic legends and symbols for the stuff of conspiracy. In the 2004 thriller National Treasure, Nicolas Cage followed Masonic clues and invisible writing on the Declaration of Independence in search of a hidden cache of gold. Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, has said his next novel would involve Masonic architecture in Washington, D.C. His Web site challenges readers to find Masonic clues on the dust jacket of The Da Vinci Code. Perhaps because of such intrigue, the number of visitors to the temple has tripled over the past two years to 12,000.

Which shows that Masons have nothing to hide, says retired Maj. Gen. Armen Garabedian, a Mason for 49 years. "This secret thing stems from way back," he says. "If we were a secret organization, tours would not be offered." The temple has always been open to the public.

Masons, who number 1.3 million in the United States (down from the 1959 peak of 4 million), maintain that their organization is dedicated to philanthropy. The organization donates more than two million dollars a day to healthcare, education and other causes, according to its spokesperson. Still, even Masons acknowledge that the group's origins are murky, though the fraternity probably emerged from a 15th-century medieval guild of master cathedral builders in Europe and evolved into an elite gentlemen's club. Freemasonry arrived in the United States in the early 18th century. Originally an all-male, white organization, today's Masons are ethnically diverse and some chapters include women.

By the early 1800s, actual tools of masonry, such as the compass and surveyor's square, had come to symbolize building one's own spiritual temple through virtue and discipline. The House of the Temple abounds in

ancient, if not always interpretable, symbols, from the 17-ton sphinxes flanking the entrance to nine-point stars, two-headed eagles and images of the Greek god Hermes. A stained-glass window bears the ancient Egyptian "all-seeing eye," which, theorists of Freemason conspiracies like to note, also appears on the Great Seal of the United States, designed in 1782, and the dollar bill, which acquired the ocular icon in 1935, thanks to FDR, a Mason.

Completed in 1915, the House of the Temple was designed by James Russell Pope, architect of other notable Washington buildings, including the National Gallery of Art (1941) and the Jefferson Memorial (1943). "The temple launched Pope's career in Washington," says Paul Dolinsky, head of the Historic American Buildings Survey. "It became one of the most respected classical designs in the world at the time." Dolinsky says the Temple Room's gilded serpents and velvet drapings remind him of the set of the 1934 epic Cleopatra. "Cecil B. DeMille meets Freemasonry," he says. "It's really a larger-than-life Hollywood set."

Modeled on a Greek-style temple, the building contains no metal girders—just stone, as the ancients would have constructed it. The massive limestone facade is ringed with 33 Ionic columns. The number 33 proliferates in Masonic ritual, but the group's historians say they don't know what it symbolized originally. The dark green marble floors of the atrium lead to a grand staircase and a bust of Scottish Rite leader Albert Pike, a former Confederate general who spent 32 years developing Masonic rituals. Pike remains a controversial figure, with detractors alleging that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a Satanist. In 1944 the Masons, by an act of Congress, gained permission to dig up Pike's remains from a local cemetery and bury them in the temple.

Among the artifacts on display is a Masonic membership certificate signed by Paul Revere. The silversmith reportedly recruited some brethren for the Boston Tea Party, in 1773. A large painting of George Washington laying the cornerstone for the Capitol and wearing a Masonic apron hangs in the banquet hall. Scores of portraits line a curving mahogany corridor in a sort of I-didn't-know-he-was-a-Mason gallery: Sam Ervin, John Glenn, Harry Truman, Arnold Palmer, John Wayne and Will Rogers among them. On the first floor is the reconstructed office of FBI director and Mason J. Edgar Hoover.

With its roster of power brokers, Masons have long been accused of political chicanery and undue influence, says Lynn Dumenil, history professor at Occidental College and author of Freemasonry and American Culture, 1880-1930. "Today, it's all pomp and circumstance. There are no deep dark secrets in the Scottish Rite building."

Yet visitors to the Washington temple pepper tour guides with skeptical questions. Were Masons involved in the Salem witch trials? Is there a secret tunnel connecting the building to the White House? During one recent tour, a guide pressed on a smudged spot on a stone wall just outside the sumptuous Temple Room. The wall gave way, revealing a spiral stairway that snaked up into darkness. A few visitors cautiously stepped forward. Surely, this is a secret passageway to some treasure! Indeed, the stairs lead to the loft for the great pipe organ.

David A. Taylor is a freelance writer and author of Ginseng, the Divine Root.

Click here to comment on this article in SoundOff, Smithsonian.com's reader forum

[REB]

http://www.rael.org/rael_content/index.php

The Message
HUMAN SCIENTISTS FROM ANOTHER PLANET CREATED ALL LIFE ON EARTH USING DNA.

Traces of this epic masterpiece of creation can be found in all religious writings and traditions. It is to them that Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed referred. It is now time to welcome them.


WHAT HAPPENED?

On the 13th of December 1973, French journalist Rael was contacted by a visitor from another planet, and asked to establish an Embassy to welcome these people back to Earth.

The extra-terrestrial human being was a little over four feet tall, had long dark hair, almond shaped eyes, olive skin, and exuded harmony and humor. Rael recently described him by saying quite simply, "If he were to walk down a street in Japan, he would not even be noticed." In other words, they look like us, and we look like them. In fact, we were created "in their image" as explained in the Bible.

He told Rael that:

"We were the ones who designed all life on earth"
"You mistook us for gods"
"We were at the origin of your main religions"
"Now that you are mature enough to understand this,we would like to enter official contact through an embassy"

THE MESSAGES

The messages dictated to Rael explain that life on Earth is not the result of random evolution, nor the work of a supernatural 'God'. It is a deliberate creation, using DNA, by a scientifically advanced people who made human beings literally "in their image" -- what one can call "scientific creationism." References to these scientists and their work, as well as to their symbol of infinity, can be found in the ancient texts of many cultures. For example, in Genesis, the Biblical account of Creation, the word "Elohim" has been mistranslated as the singular word "God", but it is actually a plural word which means "those who came from the sky", and the singular is "Eloha" (also known as "Allah"). Indigenous cultures all over the world remember these "gods" who came from the sky, including natives of Africa (Dogon, Twa, etc.), America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Leaving our humanity to progress by itself, the Elohim nevertheless maintained contact with us via prophets including Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, etc., all specially chosen and educated by them. The role of the prophets was to progressively educate humanity through the Messages they taught, each adapted to the culture and level of understanding at the time. They were also to leave traces of the Elohim so that we would be able to recognize them as our Creators and fellow human beings when we had advanced enough scientifically to understand them. Jesus, whose father was an Eloha, was given the task of spreading these messages throughout the world in preparation for this crucial time in which we are now privileged to live: the predicted Age Of Revelation.

And most important of all, read the book, "Intelligent Design - Message from the Designers" the book which will revolutionize your thinking, transform your life and which is already changing the world.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE E-BOOK!

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by claviculasolomonis

Wiccan Ethics And The Wiccan Rede

U.S. Says Wiccan Symbol Can Appear on Veterans’ Headstones.

WASHINGTON, April 23 — To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced today by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. The Veterans Affairs Department confirmed the settlement.

Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that worships the divine as mother and father and reveres nature and its cycles.

Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort to win approval for the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to ignorance of Wicca t as a religion, or the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil-worshippers

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/us...an.html?ref=us

[alkemical]

Originally Posted by REB

http://www.rael.org/rael_content/index.php

The Message
HUMAN SCIENTISTS FROM ANOTHER PLANET CREATED ALL LIFE ON EARTH USING DNA.

Traces of this epic masterpiece of creation can be found in all religious writings and traditions. It is to them that Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed referred. It is now time to welcome them.


WHAT HAPPENED?

On the 13th of December 1973, French journalist Rael was contacted by a visitor from another planet, and asked to establish an Embassy to welcome these people back to Earth.

The extra-terrestrial human being was a little over four feet tall, had long dark hair, almond shaped eyes, olive skin, and exuded harmony and humor. Rael recently described him by saying quite simply, "If he were to walk down a street in Japan, he would not even be noticed." In other words, they look like us, and we look like them. In fact, we were created "in their image" as explained in the Bible.

He told Rael that:

"We were the ones who designed all life on earth"
"You mistook us for gods"
"We were at the origin of your main religions"
"Now that you are mature enough to understand this,we would like to enter official contact through an embassy"

THE MESSAGES

The messages dictated to Rael explain that life on Earth is not the result of random evolution, nor the work of a supernatural 'God'. It is a deliberate creation, using DNA, by a scientifically advanced people who made human beings literally "in their image" -- what one can call "scientific creationism." References to these scientists and their work, as well as to their symbol of infinity, can be found in the ancient texts of many cultures. For example, in Genesis, the Biblical account of Creation, the word "Elohim" has been mistranslated as the singular word "God", but it is actually a plural word which means "those who came from the sky", and the singular is "Eloha" (also known as "Allah"). Indigenous cultures all over the world remember these "gods" who came from the sky, including natives of Africa (Dogon, Twa, etc.), America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

Leaving our humanity to progress by itself, the Elohim nevertheless maintained contact with us via prophets including Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, etc., all specially chosen and educated by them. The role of the prophets was to progressively educate humanity through the Messages they taught, each adapted to the culture and level of understanding at the time. They were also to leave traces of the Elohim so that we would be able to recognize them as our Creators and fellow human beings when we had advanced enough scientifically to understand them. Jesus, whose father was an Eloha, was given the task of spreading these messages throughout the world in preparation for this crucial time in which we are now privileged to live: the predicted Age Of Revelation.

And most important of all, read the book, "Intelligent Design - Message from the Designers" the book which will revolutionize your thinking, transform your life and which is already changing the world.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE E-BOOK!

Z. Stitchen did a whole series of books on us being created. It interests me - just because i don't know....

[alkemical]

Originally Posted by Bronco Bob

U.S. Says Wiccan Symbol Can Appear on Veterans’ Headstones.

WASHINGTON, April 23 — To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced today by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case. The Veterans Affairs Department confirmed the settlement.

Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that worships the divine as mother and father and reveres nature and its cycles.

Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort to win approval for the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to ignorance of Wicca t as a religion, or the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil-worshippers

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/23/us...an.html?ref=us

Very cool

[alkemical]

A Study of Curanderismo

The notion that the practices of curanderos and curanderas might be based primarily in the practices of Native Americans is actually a myth.

Although Native American cultures have made important contributions to these arts, the fact remains that the bulk of these traditions come from Spain, where these practices survive even up to today, and that which is practiced there, and throughout the Spanish speaking world, is not that much different from what is practiced in Mexico.

It was not hard, actually, during the development phase of curanderismo, when Old World practices were blending with those of the New World, for them to find common ground, due to the simple fact that they had many common roots. Here are some examples:

1. In "Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids", by Peter Tompkins, the author makes what I consider to be a very good case for the influence of the Phoenicians in the development of mesoamerican civilization, and these people had their roots in Canaan, as did other Semitic peoples whose roots are the same, and who developed, not only the Bible, but more importantly, sets of occult bodies of knowledge that later formed the basis for the type of magic practiced throughout the Mediterranean during the last two millennia, such that when the Spanish reached Mexico, they found a civilization rooted, ultimately, in many ways, in the same foundations as that of their own, particularly when it came to topic of the occult. It should be pointed out that runes and other hieroglyphic writings have not only been found throughout the Americas, they have been translated, and dated, even.

2. The "Black Legend of Malinche" and other such tales were actually invented by political writers in the first decades of the 19th century, with a view to propagating a myth that vilified everything Spanish and mystified such people as Cuauhtemoc, for instance, who, as we know, insisted that the Mexica fight to the death, but then tried to escape with a load of treasure and save his own hide. These myths were ostensibly promulgated by persons who were allied with the Jacobin cause, but it has been shown that they were actually members of Masonic lodges. Their motives were simple: they were attempting (and they were successful in this) to generate a political climate that would lead to the expropriation of Spanish and Church goods, including most of the mines and plantations - the major sources of income in the country - so that these goods would then go up for auction, where they were almost all snapped up by banking houses in Boston and New York for pennies on the dollar. It turns out that the sponsors of the Masonic lodges where the Mexicans who participated in these scams (Hidalgo, Morelos, Iturbide and others) were members, were the lodges in Boston and New York, where the grand masters were the same heads of the banking houses that benefited from this scam. Besides being left with looted economies and the ensuing misery (no more schools or hospitals, for instance), the Mexicans also have the baggage of these improbable myths, which people continue to take on as a cause celebre down to the present, which practice steers investigations into Mexico's past into all sorts of fallacies and blind alleys. I would suggest, just as a start, that people read "La Malinche in Mexican Literature: From History to Myth" (Texas Pan American Series) by Sandra M. Cypress, which you can find here.

3. I was talking with a producer at the Galavision TV network, because I am probably going to do some consulting for them for a piece they are doing about curanderismo, and we discussed a lot of the items that I just mentioned. This woman is from Honduras, and it is generally believed in Mexico that brujos and brujas from Honduras are the most powerful, and that is why narcotraficantes who use brujeria as part of their "work" employ them so often. This producer agrees with me that curanderismo is pretty much the same throughout the Spanish speaking world - with the exception of places where other arts, such as Cuban Santeria, clearly have their roots in West Africa - and that most of the practices involve Catholic Saints, and the curanderos consider themselves to be orthodox Roman Catholics in every sense, and that their roots are in classic Catholic traditions. In addition, she agrees that the place to look for a link between the roots that lie all the way back in ancient Egypt, Canaan, Syria, and Mesopotamia, is Andalucian Spain, which was a remarkably tolerant society that lasted for over five centuries, until it was finally overrun by the armies of Isabela the Catholic; and its inhabitants - Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox Catholics, and practitioners of Magic, were all forcibly converted to Latin Catholicism, and their practices driven into secrecy. However, just as it is known that there is a rich tradition in Mexico of the "crypto-Jews" - people who practice Judaic rituals in secret and have done so since the time of forcible conversions of their ancestors from 1492 on - there are also other practices that were brought surreptitiously under the aegis of Catholicism, and curanderismo and brujeria (white magic, and the other three colors of magic as defined in the "Tesoro del Hechicero"), being counted among these.

4. Other than the practices kept alive in Andalucia and then surviving on a surreptitious basis afterwards, there were also certain practices that survived in Latin territory at the same time, and this was mainly through the existence of all manner of secret societies, some of which operated inside monasteries, and others within various groups which survived unmolested for periods of time and may have suffered repression later - such as the Cathars and the Knights Templars, for instance. A very important example in this vein is the cult of San Cipriano and his book, the "Tesoro del Hechicero" (the Treasure of the Sorcerer), which was released into the publication by a monk, Jonas Sufurino, around the year 1000, and then was actually printed in 1510. San Cipriano is enjoying a tremendous revival today, as curanderos and curanderas around the world begin to recognize him as their true patron saint. His cult was displaced in a blatantly political move by the successors of Isabela the Catholic and their cabal, with that of San Ignacio, who can hardly be considered to have been a saint. He was more like the forerunner on Benito Mussolini, in fact, and so were some of the other so-called saints, like Santo Domingo, who was an officer of the Spanish Inquisition, and burned a lot of people at the stake at the "autos de fé".

San Cipriano is now reclaiming his place in the pantheon of true curandero saints. He was, in fact, one of the most powerful magicians who ever lived, and he had in his possession occult wisdom that was passed down from certain other powerful magicians who had preceded him in that part of the world - namely, Moses and Solomon.

5. Like most occult knowledge from Mexico, these items are not readily available to Americans, but rather, it takes a lot of dedicated research to access these facts and put them into perspective. It is my practice to cross-reference material of this type with the curanderos and curanderas that I know when I interview them, or just when I am talking with them, and as time goes on, I become more and more affirmed in my beliefs.

Copyright: About.com

[alkemical]

The Roebuck Tradition

The Roebuck tradition, as practiced by the Ancient Keltic Church, is a religious organization dedicated to the rediscovery and revival of the Pagan mystery faith of the ancient Celtic peoples, and the incorporation of this ancient faith into modern 20th century America.

It was founded in 1976 by Ann and David Finnin as an experimental group called The Roebuck, which was made up of members of many different magical systems devoted to the exploration of a British mystery tradition made public in Britain during the 1950's and introduced into the United States during the years 1964-1966 through the writings of Robert Cochrane.

Cochrane died in 1966.

However, with the aid of the Cochrane writings and material contributed by other British traditionalists, the members of the Roebuck attempted to recreate this tradition and, through trial and error, forged a mystery school designed to teach its students the various methods of personal magical development.

In 1982, William G. Gray, a friend of Robert Cochrane, put us in touch with Evan John Jones, another member of the Clan of Tubal Cain—the British hereditary tradition of which Cochrane was the leader. After an apprenticeship which lasted nearly two years, Ann and David were adopted into the Clan by Jones and empowered to carry the tradition back to the States. Thus, a link between the old tradition and the new was formally established. In 1989, The Roebuck incorporated and became the Ancient Keltic Church, with all the rights and responsibilities pertaining to our legal status. Since then, we have worked to establish the Ancient Keltic Church as a modern day Celtic mystery school of the sort that might have come down to us from ancient times had nearly 2,000 years of Christianity not intervened.

Philosophy

We carry on a tradition that practices magic and taps into ancient and primal sources for the power to do so. We invoke the aid of unseen forces and use natural materials like stones, herbs, animals, etc. to channel our will in order to make things happen. But we are, above all, a Pagan religion with a complex theology and strict code of behavior. We believe that spiritual development comes first and that magic is secondary, coming once a certain level of attainment has been achieved. 'Our belief,' as Cochrane wrote in 1966, 'is concerned with wisdom; our true name, then, is the Wise people and wisdom is our aim.'

One of the ways in which this is accomplished is through contact with the inner plane guardians of the circle. These guardians, called gods and goddesses or "shining ones" are described in Irish, Welsh and Gaelic folklore and are associated with the four elements of fire, earth, air and water. These guardians, along with a Father God and Mother Goddess, make up the pantheon of deities that are called upon to aid in any magical work that is done by the group to which a member is introduced, first through guided meditations and then through personal contacts. They are:

Gentle Bride, who speaks to poets and healers;
Shining Lugh, master of all crafts;
Beautiful Niahm, who inspires desire and creativity;
Laughing Cernnunos, the lord of the woodlands;
Wise Cerridwen, stirring her cauldron of inspiration;
Sad Nodens, leaning heavily upon his staff;
Dour Tautes, guarding ancient knowledge and lore;
Fierce Morrigan, with her hounds and ravens.
Goda, mother of gods and mortals, lady of light and darkness,
Father Tubal Cain, the coal black smith who tempers us in his forge until we are as shining steel.
And the Nameless, Faceless One we call the Black Goddess.
Personal development and magical power comes primarily through understanding all these natural forces, dark as well as light, and transforming that understanding into control over their aspects in the individual psyche. However, once achieved, this personal development must then be laid upon the altar of service, for power is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. As tribal healers, seers and shamans of old knew well, the final result of the attainment of personal magical power is to go forth and serve the people of the tribe. By running rituals, teaching classes and ministering to the needs of the people by providing healing, counseling, and rites of passage for them and their children, we hope to continue this tradition of service and commitment to our community.

[alkemical]

The season of the witch

With Easter a recent memory, it’s befitting to ask where this holiday and others holding equal or similar reverence truly originated and why.

Placing the first shot across the bow, Easter has its roots as a pagan fertility ritual going back hundreds of centuries before the birth of Jesus and Christianity. This ancient rite of spring was a feast of the Phrygian god Attis, celebrated at the vernal equinox.

As all Judeo-Christian celebrations, it was usurped from pagan ritual, renamed and assigned fashionable symbols of the time. In Rome, this feast celebrating the lengthening of daylight and the beginning of the growing season took root precisely at the very places where the death of Christ is worshiped.

In the history of civilization, religions evolved on the backs of former religions and all were riding the coattails of the agrarian-based rituals of peasants and nature-based spirituality. That history continues to evolve in the present day, and that nature-based spirituality continues to permeate modern and local culture.

“Wicca is an amalgamation of pre-Christian religions that was reinvigorated during the counter culture of the 1960s and is flourishing across America and Western Europe, ” says Melanie Rose, Dianic Wiccan and high priestess of the national organization “Covenant of the Goddess.” Rose lives and practices here in Durango. “We’ve kept a low profile all these years – centuries, really – because proselytizing religions have persecuted this ancient spirituality as having a pact with the Devil, which cannot be further from the truth, since the Devil is a Christian construct, and we are not Christians,” she continues.

Wiccans symbolize their beliefs in what’s called a “pentacle,” a five-pointed star within a circle, aggrandizing the spirit and the four basic forces of nature – wind, fire, water, air – enclosed within the wheel of life. “Satanism co-opted the pentacle, turning it upside down to symbolize the goat’s head and a specious association to evilness. We have nothing evil in our religion, just as nature has nothing inherently evil,” explains Rose as she illustrates the pentacle and its misrepresentation. “We are all connected to the ‘source,’ the underlying energy that is spirit, and are only seeking answers in the world around us, which of course is where the answers to life have always been, long before people put human faces on their gods.”

The goddess is the foundation of Wicca, as the woman is the foundation of Judaism and other matriarchal societies, according to Rose. “It only makes sense,” she exclaims. “Life is borne by the

female, so why would we abandon the female and look to the male for succor? The natural world is often intuited as female: Mother Earth, Mother Nature, The Cosmos.”

Modern Wiccan practice can be traced almost entirely through Celtic and Norse tradition, with roots clearly from the early Greek and Asia Minor cultures. Goddesses symbolizing this polytheistic religion are legion, having evolved over centuries from agrarian rituals. Rose’s favorite goddess, the one she turns to for energy and purpose, is Aphrodite, the goddess of the moon and harbinger of love as the moon affects women’s fertility cycles. But each of the eight holidays celebrated by Wiccans throughout the year has its own symbolic goddess, an egalitarian precept that forestalls competition and monopoly.

There are four major agricultural and pastoral festivals and four minor solar festivals of the solstices and equinoxes celebrated in pagan ritual,

most beginning at sundown in conformance with the end of the day’s work: Samhain (Oct. 31),Yule (Dec. 21), Imbolc (Feb. 1), Ostara (March 21), Beltaine (May 1), Litha (June 21), Lughnasadh (Aug. 1), and Mabon (Sept. 21).

Wiccans call themselves, rather defiantly, witches and practice witchcraft even more defiantly. Witchcraft is explained by Wiccans as a pagan folk-religion of “personal experience rather than transmitted revelation,” and a Witch keeps a “Book of Shadows,” chronicling spiritual enlightenment and progress.

Witches can cast spells, called “Spellcraft,” but do it with care and never to inflict harm except to repel harm, according to Rose. A spell is a formula, or series of steps, to direct the will to a desired end. Energy, in a spell, is drawn from the earth, concentrated, and sent out into the world to effect change or to get something desired. “Everything you send out comes back threefold,” says Rose. “It’s like praying, like prayer with props, and involves symbolism, candles and herbs – all drawn from the earth. It’s a conscious direction of will to accomplish a goal.”

The mythic witch on a broom comes from rural Europe, where females rode astride a broom through the fields of grain in ceremonies to coax the plant to grow. They would jump over the brooms to show the grain how high they will it to grow. Brooms, of course, are rudimentary tools made from the stalks thrusting the grain to the life force of the sun.

Witches practice in covens, mostly outdoors in contact with the earth, where participants – usually numbering no more than 13 – form a circle scribed by a ritual knife called an “athame,” which they believe is charged with the energy of its owner and conducts the owner’s will to the power of nature. Witches do magic, which Rose describes as simply tuning in to the connections between ourselves, the sacred and all of nature. “It is an act of co-creation,” she says, “like prayer acted out in ritual drama. The difference between a Wiccan ritual and going to church – we don’t have a minister preaching a lesson; we have a sacred theatre where members participate.”

And responding to the sacrifices that have dogged Witchcraft into disrepute, Rose notes, “All early religions sacrificed animals and even humans to their gods, even ancient pagans. But how many Witches were sacrificed in the name of Christianity? Isn’t that the same thing? But no religion performs ritual sacrifices anymore; Wiccans celebrate life as fundamental to nature.”

Wiccans have a code of ethics called “The Wiccan Rede.” Among a litany of permissible behavior, the Rede demands “And harm none, do what thy will,” which Rose explains is similar to the Golden Rule, with “will” meaning one’s true will as opposed to want. It expressly rejects the concept of sin outside of harm to oneself or to another; celebrates sexuality; encourages the natural state of nudity, called “skyclad;” and is generally hedonistic when it comes to living life to its joyous potential.

If witchcraft were not freighted with so much fabricated historical nonsense, it would sound remarkably enlightened in today’s conflicted world, where the major religions are still killing devotees heretical to their brand. Who can live in the mountains with its abundant life and dramatic forces, sail the vast sea with its humbling power, see a baby emerge from another fully-sustaining world and not be humbled by nature? That humility is the basis of pagan spirituality.

Copyright: The Durango Telegraph

[alkemical]

Touring the Spirit World

April 29, 2007
Touring the Spirit World
By ETHAN TODRAS-WHITEHILL
NO sound was heard in the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid as a tall, slender woman lay down in the pharaoh’s pitted granite sarcophagus, her flowing silver hair spreading beneath her. Her dozen or so companions in the dank room lifted their arms, palms upward, eyes closed in meditation.

As was prescribed in the training of priests in pharaonic Egypt, the woman had said, each member of the group had taken a turn in the sarcophagus; now she, their spiritual leader, occupied the space. Suddenly, her lips quivered, and a guttural moan escaped them, bouncing off the smooth stone walls and ceiling like an angry pinball. She climbed out of the sarcophagus, her face creased with determination, and formed the group into a circle, sitting cross-legged. In a deep voice, she read from the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, which she believes were translated from the ancient tongue of Atlantis.

The leader’s name is Shari Billger, and her home is near Colorado Springs. But on this January day, she was leading a group of Americans and Japanese who had come to the pyramids to connect with the unique spiritual energy that many Western visitors to Egypt believe they will find there.

Earlier, Ms. Billger had explained the group’s mission this way: When the advanced civilization of Atlantis fell more than 30,000 years ago, the accumulated knowledge of the ancients — sort of a spiritual Library of Congress — was placed on the site of the Great Pyramid. These modern travelers were there to make that wisdom accessible to all mankind. But to harness the energies required for this task, their spirits would temporarily have to leave their bodies.

Ms. Billger had everyone lie down. “When ye have released the self from the body, rise to the outermost bounds of your earth-plane,” she intoned, “and speak ye the word Dor-E-Lil-La.”

“Dor-E-Lil-La,” the bodies replied.

This was not a cult; the participants had met only two days before. They were in Egypt on a package tour.

New Age-style sacred travel, or metaphysical touring, is a growing branch of tourism, particularly in countries like Egypt with strong ancient-civilization pedigrees. Tourists with an adventuresome spiritual focus — predominantly middle-aged, upper middle class and female — come together to improve themselves and the world, as Ms. Billger’s group intended. Their ideas are best understood as an extreme on the continuum that includes yoga, tarot and astrology, and the rituals they perform at sites deemed sacred can vary widely.

“Other groups will be in there with bells and candles, jumping up and down like somebody’s going through their bodies,” Wael Khattab, this group’s Egyptian guide, commented as he observed their ritual from close by. “This is actually quite tame.”

More than a mere sales gimmick, spirituality tours are taken very seriously by their participants, who are commonly pantheistic, choosing to believe in truths of every religion rather than just one. They also invoke the whole panoply of New Age beliefs, finding power in crystals, aromatherapy and, of course, pyramids. They are home inspectors, copywriters and managers, but also mediums, psychics and shamans. Ms. Billger, who is 62, worked in sales for companies like Xerox and Honeywell before becoming a spiritual teacher and healer.

In Egypt, metaphysical tours are a thriving business, bringing in about 5,000 visitors a year, according to Mohammed Fayed, whose company, Guardian Travel, organized Ms. Billger’s tour. The price, usually a few thousand dollars per person, includes the expense of securing private time at the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx — sometimes thousands of dollars a group for an hour. Mr. Fayed’s business grew 45 percent from 2005 to 2006, and he expects another double-digit increase this year.

Even as Ms. Billger’s group had climbed the stairs to enter the Great Pyramid for their ceremony, the most important of their tour, they had passed two women not of their group standing at the base, eyes closed in meditation.

Other popular destinations also tend to be places of mystery. Sites built by ancient civilizations whose construction techniques are not settled fact — like Stonehenge and the perfectly fitting but mortarless walls of the Inca at Machu Picchu, as well as the pyramids — are embraced as evidence that those civilizations had mystical powers. Places with a Christian focus but an overlay of competing spiritual and religious claims — like the sites of the so-called Black Madonnas of France and Italy or the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, which took on mystical meaning in “The Da Vinci Code” — are also attractive to spiritual tourists.

[alkemical]

Meditation Sharpens the Mind

Meditation Sharpens the Mind
By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience

posted: 07 May 2007 11:39 pm ET

Three months of intense training in a form of meditation known as "insight" in Sanskrit can sharpen a person's brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss.

These new findings add to a growing body of research showing that millennia-old mental disciplines can help control and improve the mind, possibly to help treat conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"Certain mental characteristics that were previously regarded as relatively fixed can actually be changed by mental training," University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson said. "People know physical exercise can improve the body, but our research and that of others holds out the prospects that mental exercise can improve minds."

Paying attention to facts requires time and effort, and since everyone only has a limited amount of brainpower to go around, details can get overlooked. For instance, when two pictures are flashed on a video screen a half-second apart, people often miss the second image.

"Your attention gets stuck on the first target, then you miss the second one," Davidson said. This is called "attentional blink," an effect akin to how you might overlook something when you blink your eyes.

Still, the fact that people can occasionally catch the second picture suggests it's possible to sharpen one's attention with training, which is just what the new meditation study found.

Brain plasticity

"Meditation is a family of methods designed to facilitate regulation of emotion and attention," said Davidson, who headed up the study.

In recent years, scientists have found meditation affects brain functions. For instance, research into Tibetan monks trained in focusing their attention on a single object or thought revealed they could concentrate on one image significantly longer than normal when shown two different images at each eye. Another study of people who on average meditated 40 minutes daily found that areas of their brains linked with attention and sensory processing became thicker.

"One of the fundamental mysteries that is now becoming better understood as we go along but which is still a breakthrough area of research is neuroplasticity, the idea that we can literally change our brains through mental training," Davidson told LiveScience. "Certain kinds of mental characteristics such as attention or certain emotions such as happiness can best be regarded as skills that can be trained."

When Davidson first met His Holiness the Dalai Lama nearly a decade ago, the exiled leader of Tibet encouraged Davidson to conduct scientific research into meditation, "and I recognized it was a very appropriate time to begin such research, because the methods we have available now to study the brain have improved dramatically and the scientific community is significantly more receptive to such ideas."

Ten to 12 hours daily

Davidson and his colleagues investigated the impacts of Vipassana, a roughly 2,500-year-old discipline that is the oldest form of Buddhist meditation and focuses on reducing mental distraction and improving sensory awareness. Davidson has practiced Vipassana and other forms of Buddhist meditation for more than 30 years.

"This is not the only form of meditation we're interested in, but it is a widely practiced form of instruction that can easily be replicated elsewhere in the country," Davidson said.

The researchers investigated 17 volunteers before and after they completed three months of rigorous training in Vipassana. T hey meditated for 10 to 12 hours a day. The researchers also studied 23 novices who received a one-hour meditation class and then meditated for 20 minutes daily for a week.

The scientists asked volunteers to look for numbers flashed on a video screen amongst a series of distracting letters. Their brain activity was monitored using electrodes placed on their scalps.

Davidson and his colleagues found the brains of volunteers who received the intense mental training apparently needed less time to spot details than before. The training also improved their ability to detect the second number within the half-second attentional blink time window. In comparison, the novices did not appear to experience such improvements to a significant degree, findings detailed online May 8 in the journal PLoS Biology.

ADHD treatment potential

"This attentional blink finding shows a little wedge of what might be a much larger dimension of experience that could be opened up by meditation techniques," said neuroscientist Clifford Saron at the University of California-Davis Center for Mind and Brain. "You can imagine that life is a series of attentional blinks, and we might be missing an awful lot of what's going on."

Applications of this work include treatment of attention-related conditions, Davidson explained.

"There is an absolute explosion of prescriptions for kids who are diagnosed with ADHD. I'm not against the judicious use of medication, but there probably is vast over-prescription for this disorder, and strategies like meditation could be an acceptable complement or substitute for medication for certain kids," Davidson said. "There still needs to be rigorous research to establish that, but our work is provocative enough to warrant more systematic follow-up."

In the next five years, Davidson expects a dramatically increased level of research into meditation "because it is beginning to be recognized as something that takes advantage of the plasticity of the brain, has relatively few if any side-effects and has potentially very beneficial effects, the impact of which can be documented using the most rigorous scientific methods."

Other avenues of research Davidson and his colleagues are currently pursuing include the impacts of meditation on pain, inflammation regulation, and emotions and the brain circuits that handle feelings.

[alkemical]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/eur...disillusioned/

Novel new religions find followers among Russia's disillusioned
Thousands flock to esoteric faiths

ABODE OF DAWN, Russia -- Six miles from the nearest road, in the vast Siberian wilderness, a bearded man in flowing white linen robes sat at his kitchen table and talked about his crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate 2,000 years ago.

In a voice barely louder than the rain falling on the mountaintop home his followers have built for him, Sergei Torop said it was painful to remember the end of his last life, in which he says he walked the earth as Jesus Christ.

Torop, 46, is a former Siberian traffic cop who is now spiritual leader of at least 5,000 devoted followers. They have abandoned lives as artists, engineers, and professionals in other fields to move to this corner of Siberia, 2,000 miles from Moscow.

In empty woodlands, they are building from scratch an entire new town, where they pass their lives near the man they call Vissarion, "he who gives new life."

Russian government officials and religion analysts call his Church of the Last Testament one of the largest new religious groups in Russia, which has become an incubator of novel faiths since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

In Russia, millions of people returned to the Orthodox Church after seven decades of state suppression of religion, but hundreds of thousands of others sought new faiths for new times.

Custom-made religions spring up nearly weekly across the world, some attracting a handful of adherents and others many thousands. And whatever their god, gospel, or guru, like-minded searchers are finding one another faster and easier than ever through the connecting powers of the Internet.

"It is a massive phenomenon," said Christopher Partridge, author of the Encyclopedia of New Religions. The theology of the new groups ranges from esoteric revisionist interpretations of Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism to belief God will arrive on a UFO.

"A misconception is that these people are all the mad and the gullible and the stupid," Partridge said. "Often they are very well educated. It's usually people who had thought a great deal about themselves, their place in the world, and their life in the world to come. They are looking for something."

Periodically, Torop comes down from his mountaintop home to meet his followers, who bow down and worship him. On Sundays, he receives them at his house.

Critics variously dismiss him as a delusional or perhaps dangerous cult leader. But people who have flocked here declare themselves certain of his divinity.

Despite harsh winters when temperatures can dip to 50 below, more than 250 people live in the growing village. They have named it the Abode of Dawn. Between 4,000 and 5,000 more followers live in about 40 other villages scattered along old logging roads within a few hours' drive.

By Torop's order, alcohol, drugs, and smoking are discouraged, and everyone maintains a strict vegetarian diet. The villagers try to eat only what they grow, supplemented by big sacks of basics such as sugar, grain, salt, flour -- and the occasional box of Earl Grey tea.

The emphasis on environmental awareness is part of Torop's teachings, contained in a nine-volume "Last Testament" and 61 commandments. He preaches kindness to all, nonaggression, and peace. His commandments include "Be pure in your thoughts," "Do good deeds beyond all measure," and "Destroy nothing without reason."

Alexander Dvorkin, a Moscow academic and one of Russia's leading specialists on new religions, called Torop a cult leader who is exploiting vulnerable followers. "To have this kind of control over people is bad," Dvorkin said. He estimated that as many as 800,000 Russians are members of religious sects.

Many followers interviewed said they were happy to give their money to a community they found so rewarding, but Dvorkin said it amounts to Torop fleecing them. Assets turned over by followers are the main income of the group; it also earns money from sales of handicrafts, such as woodcarvings, knitting, pottery, and oil pressed from cedar nuts.

[RkyMtnThunder]

Interesting stuff

I would also be interested in your take on various mystery schools...Golden Dawn, Rosicrucian, Ordo Templi Orientis, etc

[alkemical]

What would you like to know?

I've studied under Regardie's teachings.

[alkemical]

Maya Shamanism and 2012: A Psychedelic Cosmology


Shamans understand that the human brain “is modeled after the celestial vault and the human mind functions according to the stars, which are the ventricles and sensoria of the cosmic brain ... there exists a close relationship between astronomical observations, cosmological speculations, and drug-induced trance states.”

—Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff (1982:176)

Part 1. Shamanism and Astronomy at Izapa

Observe Stela 6 from an early Maya site in southern Mexico called Izapa. This is a classic depiction of the shamanic journey into the underworld, into the raging maw of unknown dimensions of time and space, within the deep psyche yet buoyed on the undulating waves of the celestial seas.