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On the Dangerousness of the Zero

I_left_at_dawn_for_the_Eternal_City,_Head_with_Primordial_Sphere.jpg

Brian George Head with Primordial Sphere, 2002

1

The dawn banners of the Asvins

 

"Yes! I will place the earth here, or perhaps there. Have I not drunk Soma?...I am huge, huge! flying to the cloud. Have I not drunk Soma? I am going -- a well-stocked house, carrying the oblations to the gods. Have I not drunk Soma?" --From "The Soma Drinker Praises Himself," The Rig Veda

In her essay "Crop Circles; An Invitation," Amely Greeven describes and theorizes about her experience in Wiltshire, England, in the summer of 2009, where more than 70 complex crop circles appeared between April and the end of August -- an average rate of one circle every two days. Among these was a 600-foot "Portuguese-man-of-war" jellyfish. To me, the scale and flawless complexity of these circles argued for their "other-than-human" creation, at least insofar as the word "human" is currently understood.

Occam's Razor would reveal the simplest explanation; in this case, much evidence points to the very explanation that we are also the most reluctant to confront.

When the essay was posted on Reality Sandwich, I was amazed by the number of mechanical comments on the forum, and decided to play the role of "agent provocateur."

Many "skeptical reductionists" dismissed the phenomenon of the circles out of hand; they argued, as is the custom with such thinkers, that the most wildly implausible of explanations was -- of necessity -- the most "scientific"; so long as one's own habits were not called into doubt. True science should be subject to small tweaks, as well as open to the demands of a continuous revolution. Step by step, the laws of Nature can be modified, by word or paradigm-generating act, as they have been with each passing year. One universe is rolled off; another is rolled on. Sleight of hand rules, and by far the great majority of our views are not formed by "objective" means. The "conventional wisdom" is a law unto itself; it yearns for the classical solidity of a world that never did exist.

Most often, these flat-earth proponents would explain that the mystery of crop circles had been long ago cleared up. Reasons ran the gamut from A to D, and then back again to A:

A) They had a friend who knew a guy who had met one of the circle makers.

B) It had been reported by the 5 large media conglomerates that this or that group of circle-makers had "confessed."

C) The best reasoning by the biggest brains had been proven to be circular; nothing unreal can exist, and thus the phenomenon of the circles could not be other than a hoax.

D) All of scientific theory from the time of the Renaissance would be wrong if such a thing as inter-dimensional artwork could exist.

Or variations on the above. For example, "InOurbrain" wrote, "The first crop circles appeared in 1966 and the creators of the circles eventually admitted crafting the hoax after recent tales of UFOs. Now that digital space/flight imaging is more affordable and graphing software is widespread, it's amazing that these human and computer crafted pieces of art are thought of as anything more."

--In this comment, there is no trace of anything that might resemble a piece of evidence. Instead, the author imagines humans at their desks, chuckling to themselves as they perfect their ever-more incomprehensible Pythagorean brain teasers, and "wondering who will come up with the mythology to define them first." To have launched such a 43-year transcontinental project, these Neo-Pagan technocrats would have to have been busy bees indeed.

Roger Scott, a passionate science teacher with often highly idiosyncratic views -- and a thinker for whom I have a great deal of respect -- argued that we have so far not accumulated enough "facts," and that it was only a question of becoming more systematic in our approach. Science was not at all ill-equipped to interpret such a "mystery"; instead science had not yet deployed the full arsenal of its methods. I could grant his point, and yet still ask, "Why?" With a phenomenon of such complexity and duration, one has to wonder what mainstream science has been waiting for.

Based perhaps on her experience as a teacher of Vedanta, Amely argued for what I would call a "methodology of wonder." This is the orientation to which Keats referred as a state of "negative capability"; the capacity to wait -- to actively do nothing -- and by waiting to remain open to many contradictory views.

She writes, "Try too hard to decode, translate, and semiotically read the symbols and you risk losing the essence of what they're about. A child, frankly, can understand the symbolism of the crop circles, because they trigger an instant experience. For example, looking at a perfect geometrical image, which is what many of the formations are, will deliver an instant understanding of something profound. At some universal level of reality, even if it's far below your chaotic reality, you know that everything is balanced and in the right order. You don't have to understand 'how' geometry works. You don't have to know the significance of twelve arms of the mandala versus ten. Like hearing notes in a tuneful chord, you immediately experience the harmony as a felt experience inside yourself when you see it depicted visually."

There were few significant differences between Amely's views and my own, and yet I decided that a more confrontational attitude was in order. The resulting tone of voice was one that my wife described as "mean," as well as "self-important." Perhaps, but that is neither here nor there; for this was a voice that I recognized as one belonging to my "Double." It taunts me also, and probes the Body/Mind for flaws. As harsh as it is generous, it provokes me to confront the full extent of the unknown -- from which I have come. It mocks my ignorance of the preexistent records, of the bad faith of the gods, of the Archimedean Point from which the circles are projected; it challenges me to adapt to the technology of the vacuum.

In many of my forum comments, I had put on the mask of a 432,000 year-old Trickster; who, although his native language was "Paradox," was also fluent in the grammar of these geometric glyphs -- a sub-dialect, say some, of the Music of the Spheres.

The circles spoke clearly; it was we who had refused to listen or respond. We would far prefer to be tortured on the Procrustean bed of the Psyche. It was easier to ignore any and all such ultimatums from the beyond. Quite oddly, I did believe that we knew exactly what we were looking at; we simply chose to pretend that we did not.

The mystery of the crop circles is not a problem to be solved; it is a boundary between the existent and the non-existent orders; a test that we must pass.

At the table of the Transparent Ones a chair is waiting for us to sit in it. Again, the archaic smile will return. The Great Year tunes its instruments. Again, we have been invited to join hands with the 12. We may go here or go there, and subject ourselves to any method of dismemberment; yet in each case, we are here -- at the intersection of Hyperspace. From time out of mind, laws have dictated that we should see the world from only one direction. We must dare to remove to two hands from the clock. To see the world at once from all of 360 degrees would be to overthrow the atomic guardians of Duality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian George, Head of Cyclops on which Balances an Avian Hierarchy, 2002

 

2

Signs of the Unseen

"You did the deeds of heroes in that ocean that has no beginning, no support, no handhold, when you Asvins carried Bhujyu home after he had climbed on board your ship that has a hundred oars." --From "The Deeds of the Asvins," The Rig Veda

Taken mostly from Janet Ossebard, here is a partial list of crop circle puzzles and anomalies -- also known as "facts":

"When a crop circle appears in a young crop, its seeds germinate and grow up to five times as slow as usual. When a crop circle appears in a ripe crop however, its seeds germinate and grow up to five times as fast as usual." --J.O.

Snow melts immediately where a crop circle was months before, producing a "ghost" of the original design.

In the soil of many crop circles, up to 800 times the normal amount of magnetite can be found. The amount is no higher than normal just outside of the formations.

Crop circle plants are often "bundled" by their leaves, or twisted into complex basket-weave type patterns. This would not occur if the plants had been pressed down by a board.

"In some cases, the seed-heads of crop circle plants do not contain any seeds." --J.O.

Many plants show blackened edges, where the seed-heads have been scorched and shrunk by heat.

Many genuine crop circles contain elongated and blown nodes, which appear to be the result of a brief, intense burst of heat. These are never found in man-made circles.

Heat and spiral movement can sometimes bundle plant shafts into balls-like the nests of field-mice -- but with the bottom of the shafts still green and connected at the roots.

Nodes are sometimes bent into a horizontal curve, caused by cell manipulation along one side of the shafts. This cannot be reproduced by human hands; any attempt will cause the shafts to bend back or to break.

"Crop circle seeds show an extremely high secretion of free radicals." --J.O.

Mysterious white powders have appeared in the counter-clockwise circles. Electron Dispersion Spectroscopy has shown some batches of this powder to be a compound of soda-lime-silicate -- quite similar to ordinary glass -- but which has been subjected to temperatures in excess of 3000 degrees. Lab analysis has shown another batch to be a copolymer of styrene and butylacrylate. Again, it had been subjected to high temperatures. The shape of the copolymer was completely unknown to science.

Crop circles have appeared during nights of driving rain, with no footprints leading to or from them through the muddy fields.

Many crop circles appear almost instantly. For example, on July 7, 1996, a large number of eyewitnesses, among whom were professional pilots, reported that the "Julia Set" crop circle appeared in a matter of minutes in a field outside of Stonehenge. This was a complex fractal spiral, made up of hundreds of smaller circles. It was not there at 17:30, and then was there at 18:00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian George, Baby with Black Sun, Bindu, and Butterfly Over City, 2003 

 

3

With three quarters the Man rose upwards; one quarter remains here

"What was the original model, and what was the copy, and what was the connection between them?" --From "The Creation of the Sacrifice," The Rig Veda

Among other things, Roger Scott wrote:

"Someone's first-hand experience can be taken with a grain of salt as concerns their 'interpretation(s) (of hard inter-dimensional data).

"When I asked for 'references', it wasn't for some self-reference. I could do that. I can ask any reader to refer back to something I wrote before and so make circular nonsense appear to be 'referenced'...

"Do better. Present a crystal-clear delineation of bare-bone FACTS!

"Right. We'll get meat-of-fact from fictional characters or maybe someone who's got an 'e-meter'...

"Imposing world on dream or vice versa: gonna lead to some problems...

"And as enunciated above: internal, self-referenced or hermetic certainty is nothing to the world at large."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian George, Intersecting Vortices, 2002

 

4

Let Indra the killer of Vrtra drink Soma in Saryanavat

"He is the navel of all that moves and is firm, who with his mind stretches the thread of the poet." --From "The Hidden Agni," The Rig Veda

"They forced up the fountain with their power; they split open even the mountain on its solid base. Blowing their reed-pipe, the Maruts who give fine gifts performed joyous deeds in the ecstasy of drinking Soma." --From "The Maruts," The Rig Veda

In responding to Roger Scott, I did not attempt to counter his "rational" arguments with similar arguments of my own; instead I incorporated many of his points and phrases into a mythological narrative, before presenting a brief description of the method behind the madness.

I wrote:

Hi Roger,

Pretty harsh, and surprisingly incurious for someone who is rumored to be a serious student of the Vedas.

In pursuit of the 1-inch hyperobject, and, at will, moving up or down into the shadow known as "History," those yogic poets followed where their energy systems led. Speech was the technology that gave birth to each archetype. Their random moods prompted changes in the weather; their fears could easily be mistaken for an army, against whose numbers an "enemy" would be delegated to advance. They did not need eyes to see; their vision was omnidirectional. They would not have put their trust in the "good intentions" of the gods. They would have asked questions and demanded answers from them.

To them, seeing was not believing; for even a good memory played tricks. A day was 4,320,000 years long, and no act of conjuration was ever to be taken at face value. The 1 law: to breathe in and out. Nature was not other than the fossilized image of one's body -- that an alien presence had made somehow discontinuous. First-hand knowledge was of a world that one had made with one's own hands.

Snares had been set. In spite of the hermetic certainty of the magicians, and in spite of their explosive focus, the spell cast by the powers of devolution grew. Some strange trick of perspective had occurred.

The Satya Yuga and all of its wonderworks were now written off as a "hoax." Few remembered that to speak was to create.

The Vedic seers became as nothing to the world at large.

--But I digress. Possessed by the 1-inch hyberobject, my intoxication is such that I am ignorant of the year. You must educate me. Much thanks for drawing the 3-ring target on my head; for by striking it you will wound yourself. And so, my ritual counterpart, let us start again:

My goal in posting "The Invasion of the Bindu" -- which is based on a short piece posted in September of last year on the forum for Daniel Pinchbeck's "Absorbing Orbs," and which was revised over the weekend in response to issues raised on the "Crop Circles: An Invitation" forum -- was not to present a scientific argument or to provide you with any "proof" of the phenomena that I describe; it was rather to call attention to the "direct experience" component of empiricism, which has long since been supplanted by the component of "objective observation."

Let me say this very simply -- I don't believe that any amount of fact gathering is ever going to illuminate the mystery of crop circles, or open us to participation in the type of dialogue that is being offered. Without assistance from the lamp of intuition, and without the raw fuel of other-dimensional experience, the vehicle of abstract theory is not going to go anywhere at all. This is like the classic story of putting 10,000 monkeys in front of a row of typewriters, and waiting to see how long it will take them to come up with a version of "Hamlet" by banging on the keys at random. It is just not going to happen; or would, if possible at all, take longer than the amount of time left in the universe.

My objective in this, as in much of my work, is to speak directly to the deeper levels of the mind, to disorient and to provoke, and to challenge the reader to reconfigure the very structure of his/her thought. This, I believe, is also the objective of the actual makers of the circles, who are neither human hoaxers nor benevolent and/or evil aliens from a "different" part of the Milky Way -- but rather something almost unimaginable from the "inside" of our present state of amnesia.

Once, an alien technology had coiled Soma in a cloud-mass; the life-force did not flow. Some regard this as the origin of the digestive system, or of the convolutions of the neo-cortex. We are what we ate. We are trapped within the factory to which we had herded other species. We must act, and yet even the most omniscient of our actions lead to death. As if planning for a war, the problems that we face are practical: by what means can we liberate our vision from the cloud-mass, and thus reconnect with the energy of the Zero?

Questions and answers go hand in hand. One leads the other, and the questions that we ask determine the answers that we get. We keep on asking questions -- ad infinitum -- for love means never having to say that you are sorry.

It is for this reason that we do not "see" or "hear" -- or at least not like we used to; when, as resonant space, we gave birth to the gods.

Then we questioned the reliability of our omnidirectional senses, but, once having sorted through each atom of the evidence, we were just as happy to throw caution to the wind. We listened with wide-open ears. We did not hesitate to act upon our vision. Now, our eyes and ears have shrunk. One thought no longer fills immensity; false messengers stuff our heads with information. The more space we fill the fewer gigabites of memory are available. We do not always recognize that an answer is an answer.

Like a lightning bolt aimed at the dark bellies of the cloud-mass, a glyph can blast apart our conceptual obstructions. It must come from the "outside." Through 8 overlapping worlds, flashing "in" and "down" from the circumference to the center, it will there imprint the map of its descent.

Quite suddenly, the "world" has stopped.

The world that is in front of you has stopped. Worlds continue to explode out of the back side of the mirror.

Do not attempt to adjust the settings on your television set.

For we control the Vertical. We control the Horizontal. But perhaps we faceless manipulators are not who or what we seem.

We may or may not have played both sides off against the middle. In the end, our "both/and" logic will prevail. What I have just said is true in a "manner of speaking"; it is one way to frame a fairly complex issue. Other tricksters may say otherwise.

Let us look once more at the following critique of my approach, which through the centuries has appeared in a long series of variations. The inventor of the Snare, once known as Vrtra, wrote: "I can ask any reader to refer back to something I wrote before and so make circular nonsense appear to be 'referenced.'" My reasoning may well seem circular, it is true; since the circles pose a non-linear challenge to the Psyche--one "gets them" or one does not; with all relevant details to be filled in later by some more transpersonal version of the Self.

In "Allogenes," a manuscript from the Nag Hammadi Library, the author describes a kind of protean figure that can be understood only through his contradictions. Anonymous writes:

"He is superior to the Universals in his privation and unknowability. For he is not perfect but he is another thing that is superior...He is not corporeal. He is not incorporeal. He is not a number. He is not a creature. Nor is he something that exists...And he is much higher in beauty than all those that are good, and he is thus unknowable to all of them in every respect. And through them all he is in them all, not only as the occult knowledge that is proper to him. And he is united with the ignorance that sees him."

It is not a question of raising one's I.Q., or of meeting the most famous thinkers of one's period at a seminar, or of finding the key to some lost theorem of Pythagoras, or of betting on the biggest dog.

For Darwin is dead, thus proving the Theory of Evolution wrong; he was unfit to survive. You will argue that I am not "playing fair." Yet "I," as well as "We," am here; we have never ceased to live. We have put our shoulders to the wheel of Time; by stealth our energy has assassinated both Darwin and his opponents. Space does not need to be "created" by a god; it is the vacuum from whose geometry the past and future are projected.

We are going nowhere fast; even as we are not going anywhere at all. It is not a question of figuring out this or that; we must instead let go of our every preconception. The New Human will then improvise a new set of laws for Supernature, which every cosmonaut will be free to follow or to disregard, as he/ she chooses. This new/ old world will be almost infinite in its simplicity, and tactile; touch will be used to translate the most convoluted of archaic texts.

If there is any "end" that is imminent -- and I do not dabble in linear speculations of this type -- then I believe that this has to do with the completion of one particular stage in our growth, and with the breaking apart of the shell that has -- for this period of 5200 or 12,000 or 26,000 years -- protected us; even as it has blocked us from full access to our origins. 

2) There is an excellent translation of the Rig Veda by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. In the introduction she has a comment on the peculiar style of the Vedas that I immediately saw also as a description of my work. She writes:

"The hymns are meant to puzzle, to surprise, to trouble the mind; they are often just as puzzling in Sanskrit as they are in English. When the reader finds himself at a point where the sense is unclear (as long as the language is clear) let him use his head, as the Indian commentators used theirs; the gods love riddles, as the ancient sages knew, and those who would converse with the gods must learn to live with and thrive upon paradox and enigma.

"The riddles in the Rig Veda are particularly maddening because many of them are Looking Glass riddles (Why is a raven like a writing desk?): they do not have, nor are they meant to have, answers. They are not merely rhetorical, but are designed to present one half of a Socratic dialogue through which the reader becomes aware of the inadequacy of his certain knowledge.

"This deliberate obfuscation of issues that are in any case intrinsically unfathomable seems to add insult to injury; one feels that the hymns themselves are mischievous translations into a 'foreign' language. Like the Englishman who announced that he preferred English to all other languages because it was the only language in which one said the words in the order that one thought of them, one feels that the Rig Veda poets are not saying the words in the order that they thought of them, let alone the order that we would think of them."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian George, Arrow, House, Tree, Eye, and Spiral, 2002

 

5

The theft of Occam's Razor

"Those who move neither near nor far, who are not real Brahmins nor pressers of Soma; using speech in a bad way, they weave on a weft of rags, without understanding..." --From "The Origin of Sacred Speech", the Rig Veda

On December 9th, 2009 -- one day before President Obama was scheduled to give his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo -- a rotating white spiral appeared in the pre-dawn sky over Norway; it was seen by thousands of people, and was visible for several hundred miles. The bright "pinwheel" at the center was surrounded by a series of harmoniously spaced rings. A blue cone could also be perceived to emanate from the center, or else to originate from a point on the horizon from which the spiral was projected. As the spiral pulsed and expanded, it looked at times like a Yin/Yang symbol and at other times like a nautilus shell. After 15 or so minutes, it collapsed into what many have described as a "black hole."

Hi Stace (Tussel),

You wrote, "Of course, 'official' explanations are beginning to filter out into the media, including what I expect to eventually be the popular explanation: that the spiral was comprised of fuel debris from a failed Russian rocket launch -- a launch which Russian officials have denied. What motive would exist to deny the rocket launch, especially when the evidence was hanging there in the air for 10 to 20 minutes, at least?"

You would think that it might be difficult to come to terms with such an event -- you would think. Perhaps one should take a few moments to allow it to sink in -- or out and down -- and to filter through the archeological strata of the mind? But even before its afterimage faded, small armies of "debunkers" had set fire to their keyboards. Indeed, we are living in strange days. It is rare for each government press release to be taken at face value; to be many times repeated, almost word for word, by those who should know better.

As if their very survival were at stake, and the Earth might decide to collapse into a hole -- leaving only a smudge where a hieroglyph used to be. As if disinfomation were a breastplate against death.                                                                           

Occam wrote, "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem," which translates as, "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." What else is this "Russian missile" if not an unnecessary "entity" that has been conjured out of the small amount of evidence at hand? As if this weren't enough, there are two "official" Russian versions of the cover story -- that the "failed missile launch" did not exist, and then, later, that it did. Such "entities" would indeed appear to have "multiplied" beyond necessity.

People are always putting words in poor Occam's mouth, as well as claiming to have inherited his razor! But which side in the debate about the Norway Spiral would Occam actually be on? It always amazes me that supposedly "hard-headed" observers can somehow fail to take into account their own ontological fears; if the evidence does not add up in one's favor, then one has only to throw out bits and pieces until it does.

The "simplest explanation" is that we do not know what we are looking at, and that it falls outside of our current framework of "reality." To say as much, however, would be to justify the ways of the "big mind" to the "little mind"; it would be for the Ego to capitulate to Terror. It is we who are the innocent balloons! To defend against the pin invasion any sleight of hand is justified.

Fate "took from our eyes the day of our return" -- and thus no such day can be permitted to exist.

False analogies are productive; because they both involve "spirals," the Norway Spiral is "like" a failed missile launch. This is like saying that there is no difference between a sheet of notebook paper and an interstate highway, because they are both more or less "2-dimensional." One's opponents are by definition "flakey." If all else fails, one can always appeal to the God of the Hermetically Sealed Observer -- which, in its role as both a "participant" and a "judge," is uniquely suited to place its thumb upon the scales.

Perhaps the Norway Spiral is a kind of "sky-art," an atmospheric version of a "crop circle," in which plasma is a substitute for wheat? No; no way; not a chance; don't even think about it! As you listen to my voice, you are getting very sleepy...Such things cannot "exist" because we know that such things are not "real." Because -- well -- Occam said so!

I am not at all convinced, however, that Occam would jump to dismiss the Norway Spiral as an "out of control rocket." Too often, these days, it is the conventional scientific explanations that fly in the face of common sense, and that are actually the screwiest and most implausible. My own sense is that certain "skeptical reductionist" elements have hijacked the once flexible concept of "Science" -- keeping only the shell of the methodology of "Empiricism"; to which lip-service must be paid, after the manner of all orthodox religions. A true "Enlightenment" position would be one that argues in favor of open-ended inquiry; it would put Curiosity always at the forefront of its virtues.

We should not regard an explanation as the "simplest" simply because it corresponds to our existing system of beliefs. Conversely, we should not regard an explanation as "far-fetched" simply because it calls attention to the limits of our knowledge, and thus forces us to question everything that we believe ourselves to "know."

In New Age circles, almost everyone feels free to heap abuse upon the 18th century; as if a group of long dead explorers were responsible for our own outdated habits of perception, and for our failure to respond with focused intuition to the challenges that confront us. But Newton -- who spent 40 years in the study of Alchemy and Kabbalah -- was not as far from Blake as we imagine, or as Blake imagined then; stealth concealed the extent of his revolutionary impulse. Even now, perhaps, he continues to experiment with "spooky action at a distance," as his followers attempt to imitate the blank perfection of his marble bust.

Newton did what he was able, as must we. Fixed laws must be once more set in motion. "Here is the Tropic of Cancer," we will say, "and here is the Tropic of Capricorn -- but how does the 3rd dimension intersect with the 8th?" Daring ourselves to conceptualize and to test a new 10D version of "longitude," we must set forth on the sea of the 64 cube tetrahedron.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian George, Living Ship, 2003

 

6

Here today; gone tomorrow

"Soma has climbed up in us, expanding. We have come to the place where they stretch out life-spans."-From "We Have Drunk the Soma," --The Rig Veda

"Newton even devised an anagram of his name as a pseudonym (Isaacus Neuutonus' becoming ‘Jeova sanctus unus'), which allowed him to exchange manuscripts with his correspondents while remaining anonymous, despite widespread speculation." --Alain Bauer, from "Isaac Newton's Freemasonry; The Alchemy of Science and Mysticism"

Hi bcasey11,

You wrote, "Belief in aliens, god, or anything esoteric is stupid. Why don't you guys just drop this stupid crap -- so unimportant. You guys are just crazy. Haven't you even heard Bill Nye the Science Guy's view on this stuff? He says it's all baloney."

I would grant, yes, that Science has taken a few baby steps towards "objectivity," but the problem is that scientists may be still not objective enough. Civility prevents them from deploying their big guns. Many a theory of impure origin has gained access to the Institute.

Thus "objective methodology" should compel us to discard the last 50 years of genetic research, since Crick was high on LSD when he first "discovered" the double-helix structure of DNA. Kekule dreamed of a Uroboros -- a snake eating its own tail-which prompted him to arrange the 6 atoms of Benzene into a ring. No more of that! Such Jungian molecules can no longer be allowed.

Newton's decades-long infatuation with Alchemy and Kabbalah should give us pause, and force us to question the legitimacy of the "Principia." While we're at it, we should probably throw out the Pythagorean Theorem, since Pythagoras was a believer in transmigration -- there were 4 past versions of Pythagoras, plus the 5th -- and he quite unreasonably subjected his followers to a taboo against eating beans.

We must strengthen our collective will to expunge the dangerousness of the "Zero" -- that so called "number"; without which there would be no differential calculus, or so the 18th century has led us to believe. We must once again learn how to get along without it. For the Zero is, as Alain Bauer argues, "a strange and terrifying concept," and one "rejected by (almost) all the thinkers of the ancient world."

For -- as we know beyond the shadow of a doubt -- a number cannot be "nothing" and simultaneously "infinite."

If we allow for the introduction of such revolutionary concepts, then there is no telling where the "laws" of Physics will end up, or if any laws will be left. It is possible, of course, that we have already fought this battle--in a universe that is long ago and far away.

Crick, is that you banging around, and could you pass a message to Watson for me? Always "finding" things that he does not return, Tesla seems to have made off with my E-Meter.

 

Brian George, The Enumeration of the Zero, 2002

 

 Acknowledgements

1) Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, The Rig Veda, Penguin Books, London, England, 1981-All translations from The Rig Veda by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. Quotation in section 4 taken from pages 15-16 of the Introduction.

2) James M. Robinson and The Coptic Library Project, The Nag Hammadi Library, Harper, San Francisco, USA, 1978-Translation in section 4 adapted from "Allogenes," page 498.

3) Janet Ossebard, circularsite.com.

4) BLT Research, bltresearch.com.

5) Colin Andrews, Eye Witness to the Formation of a Crop Circle Near Stonehenge, colinandrews.net. 10/5/2009.

6) Alain Bauer, Isaac Newton's Freemasonry;  The Alchemy of Science and Mysticism. Ariel Godwin translator, Inner Traditions, 2007.

 

Teaser image Brian George, Head with Primordial Sphere, 2002

Comments

On the Dangerousness of the Zero

Brian George is becoming a fixture on RS- it's about time, I've been enjoying his stuff for years. This one has many, many layers. It's like reading a different piece each time. That painting looks like a turtle or bird sans beak. He looks full of wonder...we all need to remember that place.

The blank face of the Argonaut

Hi Gilberto,

In speaking of the bird or turtle, I take it that you are referring to the first illustration for the essay. I can see the turtle now that you have pointed it out, but I was not previously aware of his existence!

The concept of “Birds,” however—in a metaphysical sense—is never far from my mind. On some deep, archetypal level, I find that I have a tendency to divide other-dimensional races into “Snakes” and “Birds.” This is an opposition found in the “Mahabharata,” and one that I believe stretches far into prehistory. Quetzalcoatl—the “Plumed Serpent”—was, of course, intended as a synthesis of these temporarily opposed tendencies.

So, the head depicted in this drawing does have a certain bird-like aspect, but I tend to see it more as the head of a “manikin.” As you may know, I have for a long time been obsessed with the image of the “manikin”; partly through my interest in the painter Giorgio de Chirico, and partly though my encounters with a race of what I often refer to as “acupuncture manikins”—tall, translucent beings, in which all of the acupuncture points and energy currents are visible.

The manikin in question here is perhaps one who has not yet descended into History. His mouth is sealed with gold. He is perfect, but has not yet been subject to the rigors of “individuation.” Or perhaps it is a depiction of my own head, as I read myself back to this ancestral level of experience.

2) Here is a brief excerpt from section 7 of “Maps of the Metaphysical Double; In the Footprints of de Chirico”:

“Already, the keys to every childhood had been lost. Memory was a layer of ashes on the skin. The warmth of home faded, like a world that never was, like the love song of an architect. The music of the spheres became no louder than the surf. 

“On the coast crematoria glowed. Fate moved the heroes like the clockwork of a mechanism. Each had been charged with the expression of 1 sign, and with the transformation of its corresponding power. For our purposes the 12 do not need faces. There was a figure 8 on the brow of every manikin. Sunset. An autumnal sail departed from the gyroscope at Carthage. It curved around the point. Chaos.  

“From beneath those astronauts the floor flew. In each hollow chest the heart froze. Their instruments were scarred with salt.”

gratitude

thank you thank you thank you for this.

“There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground”—Rumi

“Don’t worry about saving these songs! And if one of our instruments breaks, it doesn’t matter. We have fallen into the place where everything is music.”—Rumi

Hi Thinkrubies,

It is I who should thank you, for your wonderfully open and unguarded comment.

I also attempt to focus a great deal upon “gratitude”—although this sometimes goes against my normal tendencies as a “temperamental artist,” who would like to impose his own vision on the world. If there is any “key to happiness,” then gratitude is perhaps that key.

Given the incredible abundance that we have been blessed with, you would think that gratitude would be always at the forefront of our thoughts, but, too often, this is not the case. As in the focus on the breath in Vipassana meditation, one has—almost continuously—to stop, and then gently redirect one’s attention.

At what other time in history has all the knowledge of the ages been so readily available?; when—at least in the last 12,000 years—could one so easily locate and connect with like-minded people on the other side of the globe? Things happen as they happen, sometimes quite traumatically; and it is up to us to find a way to turn these obstacles into gold.

Orez ...

In many versions of philosophical ideology and or spirituality, there are the concepts of nothingness, formlesssness, desirelessness etc ..

Like the vacuum/void in physics ... however the Quantum understanding of "Zero Point Field State" is actually the very opposite of "nothing".

"Too much of everything to be anything" ... rather than "not enough of anything to be something. {the obligue bindhu} 

Astro Physicist Adam Trombley has said that there is more energy in a Zero Point Field State the size of a nickel, than in million and million tons of Uranium.

The potential virtuality or viability is lost to the degree there is more and more time and space manifestation.

At night, when sleeping, after all the dreaming has subsided, we reach a zero point field state of dreamless sleep. This is why when we wake we feel as if "anew." 

It wasn't void of dream or wakefulness {nothingness} but the absolutely full potential state of all manifest possibility that we find rest in.

In Sanskrit there is the term "yoga nidra" ... sleep actually links all of our partial manifest "awakenings" to their original undifferentiated potential.

Rest is therefore a state of waithing for everything to become each and anything ... rather than waiting for something to come out of nothing. 

The eye of the hurricane is not a vaccum of no wind ... but the potential for all wind.

This is the secret of the "starving artist" ... or "the pen is mightier than the sword" .. the idea mightier than the pen ... the spirit knowing mightier than the idea.

In the Vedic "Cit" or eternal knowability ... well the more we know "about" manifestation the less we inherently or potentially know.

Our modern information crazed world the very eptitome

So the danger of the zero is only, cent per cent, to the degree of seriousness of the empirical observation.

So there is this principle of "Quantum Compression" ... pre gravitational or inertial force ... pre time and space dilution ... to where the fusion of matter becomes the equasion of spirit.

Whereas the fission of matter {reductionism} becomes the very loss of spirit ... {the zero poiint field state of potential manifestation} 

The more caught up in time and space manipulation, the greater the inertia ... the maya/illusion.

Hence meditation, contemplation ... returning to where ones inherent knowability is not being dliuted by reason and/or rationale.

  Consciousness left to itself to potentiate the loss of sensual observation/stmulation/manipulation  

The last survivor. Radiance. 1 body standing.

Hi Pippalayana,

It has been 20 years now since my first encounters with what I would refer to as “Zero Point Energy”—the energy of the void. As I stared into space—with the wide eyes of an alien—the primal energy of the nonexistent would begin to flash, and then explode, in a cascade of apocalyptic flowers. Lightning would flash here and there; responding to questions that I had not even asked, it would bring back whatever information might be needed. How could energy ever be in short supply?

Laughing to myself, I would think, “This is too much information!” There was no way to hold on to more than a tiny percentage of the flood, and, for the most part, I did not attempt to do so.

Two different lines of development intersected.

First, there was the violent and yet somehow harmonious opening that occurred after an initiation in Kundalini yoga—“Shaktipat”—that I received from Anandi Ma in 1990. Within several weeks of the initiation, I had a sense that the solid covering of “space” had been ripped away—that space had become “transparent” from one end to the other. The “Self”, in its preexistent form, was neither a brain nor a body nor a spirit or a soul; it was, instead, a fully energized continuum—which stretched from the existent to the non-existent realms.  

Second, there was my study of Kaballah with Martin Farrin, which began about a year later. This approach to the Infinite was altogether more abstract and mathematical—and yet was fueled by direct access to the “Zero Point,” by means of movement along the vertical axis between worlds. “Keter”—the crown of creation—was preceded by and arouse out of 3 prior stages of nothingness; these were “Ayin”—absolute nothingness; “Ayin Soph”—the knowledge inherent in nothingness; and “Ayin Soph Aur”—the knowledge inherent in nothingness as projected into the form of visible light. 

“Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” One’s image and location were not other than a matter of convenience. 

Very often, I would feel that some other part of me—the more important part—was looking back from the edge of the manifest universe towards Earth. This is perhaps what the “Book of Revelation” refers to when it says that “the sky will be rolled up like a scroll.” I was haunted by an image of space collapsing into a box; of its being folded up like a sheet.  

A 1-inch vehicle—in Tantric tradition, the span of the top joint of the thumb—was more than adequate to contain each alternate version of the Infinite—somehow bound within a single volume.

Great soul of the future present. Encoder of the present past.

Hi Pippalayana,

In my book “To Akasha/ Part 2,” the invocation at the beginning of the book is one of the few sections that has not been radically revised. It was written in 1991, and begins as follows: 

“Triune power called Akasha. Sphere of light’s circumference. Voice of many waters. Square constructed out of oceans. Blackened branch. Green shoot . Wheel of burning cities. Fierce dawn light over Carthage. Great urn of suns. Fixation of nigredo. Trans-aeonic vessel. Althanor of 1st light. Velocity of void. Seed of constellations. Triune power of the atom. Great sphere without circumference. Shulamite—root and measure of the sky.

“You who couple with the corpse of god. Lyre of living filaments. Skeleton of quasars. Embodied book of splendors. Sheath of fractal chaos. Pythagorean harp. Harmonic code of chaos. Soul scavenger. You who drag dead oceans with a net.

It continues, about half-way through: 

Inverted Shekkinah. Stone granary. Orion’s conch. Vast violence without victim. White moth of Hiroshima. Sub-quantum void of serpents. White noise over poles. Guardian of the 1st seed sounds. Spouse of Machar Seth. Love beyond all knowledge. Full conquest without victor. Controller of Aroziel. Great slayer of the gang of 4.

“You who with harmonic overtones have cracked the 2 chains of man’s DNA. Expiation of the 7 and the 12. Arcturian coadjutant. The laughing martyr’s muse. Of human history the sole survivor. You who with a lightning bolt have danced forth from the 8. From the twice 5. From the triad squared.

“Skeletal dawn orgiast out of the skull troughs at Treblinka. Virgin with no clothes. Support of shattered worlds.

And it ends: 

Incarnate language of the lightning void. Of 10 thousand suns the spontaneous combustion. Cocoon to amnesiac UFOs. You whose name is memory of space. Of light through space the curvature. Decimation of the half-god’s body. Space around all sound. To the remnant the last resort—Akasha!

“Zigzags crack Earth’s rim. Wheels have opened out of wheels. You stare straight as you place your foot before you. You have stepped forth blowing on a thighbone trumpet out of the helix of 1 globe of light.”

Reply

Interesting stuff, Brian.  I definetly view it all as an ongoing continuum ad infinitum.

Radical Novelty

One of the most lucid posts in this site...thanks!

There appears to be a general incomprehension, for this work belongs to a realm that isn’t yet ready to be explained or manifested in words. In fact, insofar as it’s truly new, it is incomprehensible. What I am talking about doesn’t correspond to an experience the reader can relate to in his or her life. I see the little action that would be necessary to turn this into a prophetic revelation! Precisely because this experience isn’t mental, it would take just a slight inversion in the mind for it to become accessible, and then prophetic. But then it would lose its truth.

The Mother

from "Notebook on Evolution"

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Aurobindo/Agenda.html

 

"The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..."
Gregory Bateson

 

It's deja vous all over again

Hi Zorro,

What a wonderful selection! It's been more than 20 years since I last read Shri Aurobindo, when much of his exploration struck me as somewhat abstract speculation.

I would soon realize that he was simply transcribing his and the Mother's day to day experience, but by that time I had moved on to other writers.

Perhaps I wanted to maintain my breathing space--to keep a certain amount of distance from those thinkers whose process corresponded in some important way to my own. Since my goal was to see with revolutionary eyes; with my own eyes, not someone else's.

In any case, I had forgotten how good he is, and will have to look him up again.

Duality

Lately, I have been seeing Occam's Razor mentioned alot which is playing with my synchronicity because it is also one of my favorite songs. So I felt the need to say a couple of things. To embrace the paradox... When thinking about it, it seems quite impossible, but the human brain is divided into two parts so embracing duality might not be as hard as it seems initially. It does take a whole new way of thinking though. Like the article said, one must change the very processes of the thought patterns in order to understand this. I have a poster of a ying-yang on my wall to remind me everyday that I must embrace the other side, whichever side that is. Even if it means accepting the existence of something which I might stand against at that moment, yet I live in an environment which is flowing and ever-changing. My walls crumble fairly easily. For all I know, duality doesn't exist, and I have been confusing and fighting with myself for all of eternity. The Norway Spiral has baffled me to say the least. I just can't imagine how a falling rocket can look so beautiful and structured at the same time. It looked like a perfect spiral. The spiral itself, I feel is the symbol for a kind of chaos. Maybe the Norway Spiral isn't supposed to be decoded and explained, maybe it is supposed to be understood by the subconscious mind, just like crop circles. I feel like crop circles resonate with me on some kind of primordial level. Actually, I am quite fascinated and in reality probably more like obsessed with geometric and psychedelic formations. It is like staring into yourself, I can't quite explain it.

The whole ocean has become an exercise in yoga

The human vessel must be redesigned for travel—through the center of the sun.—BG

Hi Scrubbycritter,

When I speak about “non-duality,” so often people seem to think that I am speaking about Monotheism—of which I am not a fan! As one attempts to communicate with a group of sympathetic listeners, the act of speaking in one way and not another about “non-duality” can divide the group into an “Us” and a “Them,” only one of whom can be right.

In “Revenge is a dish best tasted cold,” I wrote, “I would argue, too, that a “Monotheist” is the greatest enemy of the One. They have named “G-d”, though in a somewhat generic form. To make an idol, they have shrunk the haunted oceans of the Void. They have cut down the Tree of Life. Omphalos is now horizontal. They have literalized the interdependent meanings of the Ur-Text.”

As to what “non-duality” actually is—as opposed to what the intellect would make of it, or the use to which we would put it—I would far prefer to listen than to speak; actively, I would wait for the crack in the “world egg” to grow wider, as I learn how to read the 2 faces of the sign.

Appearances to the contrary, there is really no emergency; both this world and the other have long since passed out of existence. I will figure out the implications of the “non-dual” as I go.

Rationalist Skeptical Empirical Reductionist Atheist Materialist

Uh, yeah -- And yet, it was a failed Russian missile rocket, and the crop circles are made by people on the ground.

Dance however you like, and call it the channeling of angels if you must; It may even be good dancing.

But the truth about mundane events, it will not be.  You people cover up your eyes and call it sight, because you remember a metaphor about Tiresias, but it's all just fakery, cargo cult wishing, no matter how sincerely believed.

Sir

And how sincerely do you believe in your beliefs?  :)  You speak here like you know the absolute truth.  Don't be so ignorant and closed minded to come on this website and tell everyone here what reality really is (and what the norway spiral really was).  You have the right to think whatever you want, but please dont make a bigger ass of yourself and post more of your facts on here.

Speak your Truth

Hey, I'm going to speak my truth here, and I don't see any good reason to pull any punches.  I'm going to call it as I see it.

Speaking can have a purpose of persuading, but speaking can also have a purpose of representing:  It is important for people in a community to be seen and to be heard.  I don't expect to persuade anyone with my thoughts here;  My purpose, rather, is to show that there is a dissenting thought here, and some of the nature of that dissent.

If you think my words are unfairly harsh, you're not paying attention to how people of my own thinking are spoken about here.

Perhaps Western Civilization is also a kind of cargo cult

Hi Lion,

I was interested in your reference to “cargo cults.” The implications of the idea have always fascinated me. Here is an excerpt from “Life Returns to the Uroboros; Space Does Not Go Anywhere” that explores the idea of the “cargo cult.”

Section 20:

In Working Notes, Merleau-Ponty writes, “Meaning is invisible, but the invisible is not contradictory of the visible: the visible itself has an invisible framework, and the in-visible is the secret counterpart of the visible.”

__

There is a disconnect between the software and the hardware of the human consciousness project. The creative will has withdrawn to a dimension of its own. We cannot motivate the inanimate god to dance.

It would be hard to understand a Beethoven symphony by taking apart the radio through which it had been broadcast. The music has no one meaning; they are many. Communication follows on the self's attunement. Love helps also—to a degree.

As detached observers we have inadvertently become members of a cargo cult. Ceremonies of innocence ensue. Dreams explode with promises of apocalyptic contact. Drums imitate the oceanic movement of the symphony.

Like the eye of god, a great propeller turns at the center of the airplane altar. Oil burns in the tin-can lamps that adorn the blackened fuselage.

In awe, and with decontaminated hands, we lay out the components of the radio on the beach. There is no climax. A wave of melancholy washes the high spirits from the cult. Contact with the alien relic brings no illumination.

The Cargo Cult: Scientism, Homo-Economism

Brian, you know that I love you, (the person, the gestalt,) even as I vigorously assert against what I take for dangerous insanity -- (and to be clearer:) strong reactive belief that crop circles come from anything other than human beings, that the norway spiral was not a missile, etc., etc.,.  Let there be no doubts on this one.

Make no mistake:  I strongly agree with criticism of scientism, and it's twin "homo-economism," and all the social spirits that govern "the real world," by which I mean the world of people and cars and jobs and household chores and what a man or woman can and cannot do.

And to elaborate:  It is clear that one of the imaginaries set himself out to be king tyrant of all, and in order to do so, trapped mother imagination and the rest of her children within a picture frame, between the covers of a book, and bound her to the surface of a stage, even to the silver screen -- so that he could rule the world and call himself "reality, king."  All of this is clear to me.

And clearly, to transform the world, we need to free mother imagination from the magical confines of picture frames, book covers, and stage surfaces, and silver screens, so that we can live in harmony with the imaginaries and set the world aright again.

Here's the thing:  Freeing the imagi-real does not require that we disband the mater-real.  Atoms and molecules have just as much a stake in the freeing of the imagination as anybody else.

Indeed:  It would be a tragic step <i>backwards</i> if we should disband knowledge and understanding and learning, for the sake of imagination:  This is not a zero-sum game that we are playing;  Imagination is beloved of knowledge, and knowledge is beloved of imagination.

If we were to skewer knowledge for the sake of freeing imagination, at the end of the day, our task would then be to reclaim knowledge.

Most people think that the New Age values imagination, but I doubt this:  Why, then, is the New Age constantly so adament in its insistance that whatever it imagines is actually mater-real?  Why do they keep trying to brush away real quantum physics, in order to replace it with their own imagined quantum physics?  Why do they take offense if you say, "This is imaginary?"  Why do I hear no arguments, defences for the imagi-real?  Rather, even the New Ager feels compelled to argue in terms of physical reality, because anything else is deemed to be "not real" and thus not worthy of consideration -- in other words: imaginary.

My answer to "cargo cult" scientism, and to mater-real denying New Age culture, is the society of divine imagination.  In this society, the people know, trust, and love scientists and scientific learning.  They know that the people evolved over time, and the people know that the norway spiral came from a missile.  But the people also know that evolution is guided not only by niche and relocation and competition and cooperation, but also by the imagination, hopes, dreams, visions, forces within the psyche, the psyche of atoms and molecules.  The society of the imagination sees into the spirit, and is uplifted by the caring and proud councils in the future that are looking back to us in the present.  They perceive the heart link between themselves and the salmon, the water and the trees, and they know that they can construct psychic beams and structures, the blueprints of which come from the imaginal realms, in order to participate in the loving central column of blue light that is giving life to all things.

This is where I am coming from.

Who knew? (And when did he know it?)

Hi Lion,

You wrote, "Uh, yeah--And yet, it was a failed Russian missile rocket, and the crop circles are made by people on the ground. Dance however you like, and call it the channeling of angels if you must; it may even be good dancing. But the truth about mundane events, it will not be."

Occam aside, it had not occurred to me that things could really be quite so simple. One has only to flatly state one’s position, and then repeat as many times as necessary. Perhaps we should continue to take even the most complex subjects at face value after all. Much thanks for filling me in.

As a matter of aesthetics, however, I find that I have no desire to repeat myself; I have spent many months—since the posting of Amely Greeven’s “Crop Circles; An Invitation”—wresting with the subject matter in question, and this is only the tail end of a much longer process of engagement. Whatever insights I might have to offer—however accurate or off the mark they may be—are already there in the essay.

If someone has a desire to comment on my arguments, he should probably, first, attempt to figure out what they are. After his he should set aside some period of time to live with them—to test them out and try them on for size; during this period they should be allowed to resonate through the body as well as the intellect.

Only then would I feel that I had begun to come to terms with an author’s way of moving, and that I had passed the first test posed by my a-priori concepts. But that's just me.

Showing Up and Being Present.

Like I said, Brian -- My purpose is not to convince, nor to "repeat";  Rather:  To be present in community, authentically.

As for your requirements for posting -- I think you're being rather selective:  Do you really require this of each of your commentators, or are you perhaps singling me out?  Don't respond, Brian -- until you've meditated for 5 years on the question and come to see my way of movement.

As for occams razor, epistemology, I've written up my thoughts in a post to Evolver.

The slow circling of the figure 8

Hi Lion,

You wrote, Don't respond, Brian—until you've meditated for 5 years on the question and come to see my way of movement.”

Sounds like a plan!

I suggested this method—that of imitating an author’s “way of moving”—not in order to be difficult, but rather because it is the method that I almost invariably employ. It works for me, and is really the only way I know of approaching and then coming to terms with a complex subject, particularly when the author has also presented it in a challenging style.

With any other approach you merely end up where you started—with your attitudes confirmed, but none the wiser for your efforts.

In posting “On the Dangerousness of the Zero” my goal was to present a synthesis of some of my own explorations and experiences and discoveries and reflections; I have no interest at the moment in engaging in a general debate about the “New Age”—a somewhat catch-all category of which I do not consider myself a part—or of arguing over the subtleties of quantum physics—a subject on which I do not regard myself as an expert.

In short, I have no intention of engaging in the type of “Does so!” Does not!” exchange that can so often turn a forum into a pointless war of attrition.

As each participant listens less and less, the other then feels the need to speak more and more loudly. Well, not in this schoolyard; my old man can take your old man, with one supernatural armament tied behind his back! Palm out and up, he is daring you to snatch from it the stone of the philosophers. See, it is green.

 

Agreeing to Disagree

Hey Brian, like I've said so many times before --

My purpose is not to argue or convince here;  My purpose is to be present and voice my perspective.

So, if you're arguing against a "Is too, is not" type of thing -- cheers;  We're in agreement.

Agreeing to Disagree doesn't mean "and now we'll be silent on this forever and ever."

your purpose has been

your purpose has been achieved. super!

The gods gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason

Hi Groove In The Heart,

You seem to have just removed the post that I had written a response to. It was a very good one. Perhaps you could re-post it?

In any case, here is my response to that now nonexistent post:

Many thanks. At last, a reader who understands! It is very difficult in these forums to keep everybody happy. A Trickster though I may sometimes be, at the moment I have no taste for confrontation.

certainly, but i didn't save

certainly, but i didn't save it so it's not word for word

 

I've noticed a trend on RS where a commentor will respond to an author's post with a 'shot from the hip' response that will contradict the thoughts or ideas of the author, for whatever reason. Invariably the following plays out:

-since the ideas contradict his/her core ideas, the author responds kindly to elaborate and explain their interpretation of the thought or idea the commentor mentioned

 -the commentor responds again, defensively & even more polarized in opinion instead of more insightful on the topic after the author's response...and since all ideas are up for debate on this site, there's no need to be defensive of one's belief. we're all uncertain to an extent! I'd mention how 'ego' fits into this situation, but it seems 'ego' is something of a dirty word among us 'evolvers'! hehe

-at this point the author either doesn't respond, and the commentor takes this as a validation of his claims; or the author does respond either kindly or more defensively as a reaction, and so becomes involved in something of an ego-battle.

-and the replies could continue after this point, but i've stopped reading as they have ceased to be insightful any more ;)

 

ultimately, the two 'agree to disagree' (or something of the sort), which carries the tone of "i'll let you think you're right, but i get to keep thinking i'm right too", which is fine, really! but it should be understood that it's always fine to think what you want! the authors are here to present ideas, not "FACTS".

while I encourage open debate, it seems that if one is being contradictory 'for the sake of argument' but without taking the time to keep an open mind to the author's ideas originally... the 'debate' that person starts is largely fruitless to the parties involved & the rest of us readers. it's just a little 'ME' thing. and, like I mentioned, the afformentioned situation seems to be a growing recurring theme in the comment section of RS posts.

 

also, since this was posted as a reply, it is rather important to mention that I am not adressing this concern to any specific person.

Knowing Our Differences

If anyone wants to talk about this offline, my email address is LionKimbro at gmail, and my phone number is 206.427.2545.  It is always okay to call me.  You could also start a conversation on Evolver and invite me to it.

My commitment to the Reality Sandwich and Evolver communities online and offline is high.  I'm passionate about the movement, though I disagree with many of its thoughts.  I'm not open minded about everything, especially the matereality of ETs, UFOs, ESP, conspiracy theories, and the like -- but you'll find that there is a lot that I am open minded to, including ideas about how we can talk here with voice for each person, and creative adventures in thinking together, whether in harmony or conflict.

I do not agree or disagree "with no purpose," and I challenge your careless suggestion here. My life is made of nothing but purposes. Accuse me of too much passion, but do not accuse me of confrontation without purpose;  It's just gross.

At evolver gatherings, I introduce myself as a materialist rationalist reductionist atheist physicalist, and we get along just fine, knowing our differences.  If you want a discussion without deeply skeptical positions voiced, just say, "Don't post to this if you don't think it's real, or aren't open minded about it being real."  I can respect something like that:  Put your biases up front.

"I'm passionate about the

"I'm passionate about the movement, though I disagree with many of its thoughts" ::: see that you refered to RS as an individual thing that thinks a certain way. It is true instead that RS is a quilt of many different thinkers (of which you are one) & isn't a 'corporate identity' in and of itself.

I don't even know if the phenomenon I mentioned is something that needs to be discussed LionKimbro. I only felt compelled to acknowledge it's existence & I think that is enough for now. I am glad, however, that someone feels strongly enough about this phenomenon to spearhead a discussion! You're very brave putting your phone number in a public forum.

Physicalism

How do you rationalize the mind/body relationship? Does physicalism not assume that the mind and awareness "come from" the body? How is this plausible, and how could it ever be proven (if it was proven, I know it won't lol)? I'm not looking for the Truth, just want to know how you reason through it.

When I think about it, we are looking in our brains for who? the very "thing" that is thinking and looking for himself in his brains... see how I could go on like that forever?

 

Reece H

Physicalism

Oh, -- the thing about physicalism is more like a joke.  I'm surprised anyone caught that, actually, since that conversation is rather obscure.

Technically, I'm a reluctant "liberal naturalist," a term Gregg Rosenberg outlined in his book "A Place for Consciousness."  Basically, that means I am for the most part a naturalist (yes science, no ESP, no UFOs, etc., etc.,) but I recognize that consciousness is unpictured and requires some sort of monist or interactionist aspect to it-- otherwise, how are we talking about it?

When I introduce myself as a materialist rationalist reductionist scientistic scientific... (yadda yadda yadda) ...physicalist, it's mainly to clearly indicate that there's a big, huge, fat, gaping distance between our perspectives, and I'm not about to let it be peppered over with false "agreements," declarations of trivial similarity and alignment, and so on -- to make clear that I am "way over here," and that you (the reader, the listener) are "way over there," and that I don't think that is an unimportant thing.

Head with Primordial Sphere, 2002

I mentioned one of the (all are outstanding) paintings yesterday but did not specify. The Head with Primordial Sphere was the one I thought looks like a turtle or bird. The paintings all tie into the piece in a way I can't articulate but it's definitely there. A bridge of sorts, perhaps.

into the 12th dimension..and beyond

brilliant and beautifully written....thank you for taking us into your personal unconscious...and a beautiful world of symbolism.

The EROS of ZERO

Sub Rosa

 

The zero arose
From the eros of rose
The mouth of desire
Love's teeth enclosed
Bated breath blood
Source of all hope
Airy mirage
Fool on a rope
Zero, the amateur
Obliterates scope

Golden egg goose
Clutching straw lover
Trump card strumpet
Infinity's mother
Become and be done with
This naughty unknotter
Stalking horse thunder
Hoarse talking plotter
You thrive on a fat chance
Then return to the water

Sophistical zero
Pneumatic new soul
Freshen my flesh
In the boreal cold
Spherical zephyr
Ariel cipher
Reveal wisdom's code
Loose-lipped augur
Betrayed by a whisper
Untell what you told

The fragrant rose ambrosia of the mock heroic zero liquefies the sorrow of the serio-comic hero

 

Written by © Dark Nerve

 

Infinitude

 

In subterranean caverns of radiant light
Memories cluster, numbers take flight
Emerging instincts quiver and gleam
Coiling amorphous in the particle stream

Primordial echoes of voices and names
Vibrating cells, multiple strains
The communal hum of primitive tongues
Auguring the gossip of worlds to come

Thoughts eternal in the vast sensorium
Time without end in a moment of freedom
The inscrutable wisdom of an undying law
God speaking in riddles on the nature of awe

Beyond measure, there's no correlation
Impossible pleasures, transcending elation
So close and intimate, the likeness destroyed
There is no distance in the limitless void

 

Written by © Dark Nerve

Out Of Nowhere

 

The invisible made visible
Miracles align
With dormant and impossible
Undeveloped minds

Their arrival, an infringement
On the mortal and divine
Wayward and recalcitrant
With an iridescent shine

They vanish and reappear
Divulging strange designs
Their meaning changing through the years
Like tales retold in time

With an interior vernacular
Unspoken in the West
The random and oracular
Truly stand the test

What humans can't explain
The gods alone reveal
Spurring heart and human brain
To reimagine what is real

 

Written by © Dark Nerve

Complimentary "Poem" {Philoetry}

 

Wormhole Unwinding

 

To - fro ... ‘afar ... what - which ... ‘any - each

    ‘gone-a-wry great ... within imprisoning reach

Apple of Adam ... ‘swallow of Eve

    ‘in and out of all mercy ... knot-binding weave ... {karma}

 

Incentive applied ... ‘affordable sly

    ‘peaceful for-warning ... eventual sigh

Seeking ‘nor sought ... ‘say’ eth  spirit of “oh” ...

    ‘moving through stillness ... the  “presence” that  go

 

‘Teach-only lesson … of freedom now fraught

    introspect wise ... ‘thou student of ought

Down below reason ... ‘up above test ... 

     the noise of all language ... ‘silently blest

 

Consultation fore-told ... ‘of rebounding flux

    ‘stifling meddle ... at moment of crux

Contemplate while ... ‘of unwinding mellow

    ‘whip-snapper wild ... the hype of each fellow

 

Instigate rhyme ... with musings of “feel”

    ‘sell out all glory ... for righteousness kneel

Cash in all credit ... ‘call in all loans

     ‘life ever free ... the conspiracy moans

 

Desirous beast ... of satisfied spell

    ‘complacency horror ... of hum-drum rung bell

Each moment of measure ... ‘competes not with time

    sensation sore ... ‘one more bleeding chime

 

Paying only worship ... ‘sacrificing only pain

     ‘crying only tears ... of fears of being vain

Saintly suggestion ... ‘from devilish Lord

     ‘a God in love with mercy ... more than He can afford

 

 That’s why were here ... to imagine such debt

    ‘proving our worth ... to the extent were inept

A sense of thyself ... ‘each I, you & we

    ‘another hero of help ... who needs only thee

 

Competence floored ... by such soaring spree

     ‘unknowing love ...  no clue for to see

Fidgeting tense ... ‘public of spies

    ‘wormhole unwinding ... of only disguise ... {negative entropic serpentine coil … Kundalini}

 

Simplified study ... ‘no data stored

    ‘no witness hired ... no jury to hoard

At the truth of all matter … ‘the nescience of choice

    ‘ongoing drama ... draining-thought voice

 

‘Sanctioning meaning ... of sun-rain … 'wet-dry

    ‘complicate essence ... with each-every try

The limbo of learning ... ‘the Baptizing “burnt” … 

   the penance and prayer ... ‘that within Eden “weren’t”

 

Chosen for calling ... preaching of fall

    ‘predator message ... of scriptural stall

Enjoyment of comfort ... ‘annoyance of sin

    ‘bearing each others ... soul-burdened skin ... {forever each others karma}

 

                       Pippalayana

 

 

"Horizon hung from zero. Spontaneous grain. Cracked code."

Hi Dark Nerve,

Here is a section from "To Akasha/ Part 2" that you might enjoy. It is based on a Tantic hymn, and is addressed to "Akasha"--"space"--in its aspect as a goddess.

Section 9: 

You are the “I” that is “that.” Blue luster. Void one. Whose conch sounds fearfully. Of a preexistent race the incognito explosion. Resolute. Muse to the egg Hiranyagarbha- last survivor of the flood. Body conjured from the numbers 1 through 10. Brahma’s logarithmic spiral. Pitcher of the curve ball in the game of world destruction. Atomic skeleton. Shiva’sjuggernaut. 

Beyond movement the circumference. You who execute the art of dance. Great solar chariot— Shakti. Purusha’s pyre. Ark of dawn. Eurika!—without amnesia. The Siddhas’ V8 wishing well. Nurse to tribes the Burning Ground aborts.  

Horizon hung from zero. Spontaneous grain. Cracked code. Space created language. Self-entrainment. Resonant wave. Joy void made of void joy. Decimation’s octave maw. Geometer to the x y chromosome. Austere 1. Form of letters. Ananda. Sat. Chit. Sleep erected. The 1 standing. Rigor of unconscious law. Millions. Knowledge. Defect. Waking state. The 4th state. Of the egg born. Shape of serpent. You who cast the net. Maya. Coiled sun. Unknowable. Clandestine 

Up rooter. Power of action. Without thought. Diamond hacked in battle. Primordial 1. Bondage. Abode.  Who have chained the ocean Ten Ten. Varuna’s snare. To the antipode— arch enemy. Deconstruction’s builder without bounds. Ahangkara in the form of Chit. Youthful. Who hold the Pinaka Bow. The bent low victim of Orion’s tusk. Of Doomsday—the word. Curtains to the Cow Cave. Vishnu’s tantric intercourse partner.  

Star hub. World half maker. Vajra backward. The only 1—love of violence. You who have shattered Vala. Seed of the Assembly Beyond Space. Of Aryaman and Bhaga the reunion. Who have brought from Earth a crop of fragrant wood. You whose ark is measured 3 x 4. To UFOs- the fuel.

Surya—of great age. Muse to asteroidal iron. D day at the gates to the beyond. Transducer of sequential music to the spheres. Erupting bank. Gong struck by a revolution. Auspicious sign. Bridal gown—constellated. You who hold the atomic trident. Of the lotus foot. Made for Krishna. Breaker of the law that separates the vertical from the horizontal. O sandal made of wood. Biology transported.  

When the sun is in Agha they kill the cattle. When in Arjuni your remnants are shipped glowing back towards home. 

Awakened Kundalini. Milk maid power. The Bharata’s final solution. Refractive wave of salt. Body thrice wound—soma. It burns. It bites and migrates. More dangerous than poison.  

It has been made to eat. Asvins only may contain that measure- by the mouth of Mitra known. Magnet to Matruka—the future’s tractor beam. You who move beyond the speed of light.

Inverted radiance. Of no land. Without fear. Self-knowledge gone to ground. Triadic zigzag. Agent of anathema- constructor of the A-ankara bolt. Harvester of corpses. Retracted seed of Gaia. Soul maker. Holder of 10 thousand weapons. Root of law. Sunyata’s shadow. Giver of strength. To Agneya the acceleration. Sound. Unstruck. Nada. Void. That can not be moved.

__ 

O Durgashatanamastotra—you have danced forth thumping on a man hide drum out of the helix of 1 globe of light.    

 

P.S.

Hi Dark Nerve,

I just wanted to mention that I have finished putting together and revising "I Left at Dawn for the Eternal City; It Seems That I Have Misplaced Several Days." This is an essay that grew out of the forum for "Transparency is the Only Shield Against Disaster," in which you played an active role. Drop me a note through the RS contact system if you would like to get a copy of the essay.

I was present at the crafting of the Antikythera mechanism

Hi Pippalayana,

This piece of "philopoetry" somehow snuck into an essay that I was working on called "Anthony and the Dinosaur," which tells the story of how I came to write a book for a kindergarten student. It began as a fairly straitforward narrative--with several detours into self-analysis--but then took off into metaphysical realms.

This is section 1:

A Prelude 

To the oldest had been assigned the most complex of responsibilities.  

However obscure the protocol, much depended on one’s attention to the smallest of details.  

It was we who had removed the seaweed from the statues that resembled us—inside of which were our “geniuses”; we then reinstalled the snails that they had used as ear-plugs, and placed fresh coins on the eyes. 6 houses of the Zodiac would rise and fall before we once again recognized the perfect language that we spoke. It was we who had once plotted to assassinate the “gods”—our ignorant children—who had tampered with our DNA. With all their arts, they are less experienced than we are.  

We are not, perhaps, quite as tiny or as limited as we appear. Our rigor is martial. Death has camouflaged our capacity for stealth. 

They have hooked rings through our noses—the better to assist in the “improvement” of their stock. Again and again, they have told us what we want to hear, or rather what our doubts have led us to imagine. They have always been pretenders. 

Let us nonetheless give thanks to these catalytic agents. For they have dared us to externalize the back side of the mirror. 

There are those who believe that the ocean was not once as red as blood—or “wine dark,” as the poet would prefer. A wave had once shattered every symbol on the coast, taking with it, as it withdrew, the occult history of our race. In our hearts was a catastrophe; we have poured them out. We drunken sailors have had little choice but to gather up wealth from the 4 corners of the world, and we have had to do this in all 3 of the overlapping worlds, with their ever changing weather.  

Again, we have begun to see. It is we who had built a faster-than-light vehicle out of space.  

It was we whose emptiness had given birth to the 64 cube tetrahedron.  

For the infinite has a form; in the discord that it generates the one sphere is economical. See, we will meet in Ithaca at the end of the Great Year, where even now the Translucent Ones are replaying every action and each turning point in the Ur-Text, as they choose up sides for the games.

 

1 + (-1) = 0!

all these words are a dance, all the philosophy is poetry and I embrace the zero- I have moved around a lot, my parents were missionaries and everytime I moved to a new school and met new friends I was zero again and had to start over, new country, new conditions... it's good for you! - that's reality... everything is flux! Science to me is like Modern Day Christianity... a Fundamentalist Frankenstein run amuck- plucking flowers with the little girl one moment and becoming offended and throwing her in the well the next (and who is the little girl? Maybe Holy Sophia?) don't hang on to your beliefs, they are traps... like old AC said (I am not sure of the exact quote) but basically all these arguments of ontology are like creating a fancy slikpnot out of a string with no ends... which is simply going to unravel again in the face of NEW INFORMATION... 1 + (-1) = 0! I really liked this article though, I like the way the author does dance around, he is a King Dancer!

“If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise”

“What shape does the eye have? Zero. Who sees with and through it? 1.”—BG, from “The Preexistent Race Descends” 

Hi Thingypsythief,

It sounds as though your rootless upbringing has created a natural understanding of some of the central tenets of Buddhism; that things change; that all life is suffering; that attachment to beliefs or expectations is the cause of suffering; and that the way out of suffering lies in one’s connection to the Zero—an ancient gate, or “Tor,” which leads to both the “nothing” and the “all.”

A few months ago, Pagan Moir asked me to expand upon a comment that I posted in the forum for “Birds of a Feather and the Playthings of the 12.” It read:

Since the early 1990s, my work has been premised on a simple but almost incomprehensible idea: that Space does not exist, and that therefore it is unnecessary to travel from one place to another. The human Body/ Mind is the one preexistent vessel; all worlds revolve around and flow through the intersection at the center of the 10D Torus.” 

Since then, I have expended quite a bit of energy in rising to this challenge. So many of my experiences in this direction have taken place in silence—although a silence activated by the “music of the spheres”—and at the very edges of my intuition. On whose authority does one dare to give form to the formless, to excavate the ocean, and to describe how the nonexistent gives birth to the existent?

Bit by bit, I have felt my way along. As Blake said, “If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."

It surprises and delights me to discover that this concept of the Zero has such resonance for others. But why should that surprise me? It is not like I have had to import it from some distant corner of the galaxy. 1 Zero is big enough for the 8 billion of us to share, with plenty left to go around for all other imaginable species.

0= The Fool and the Wind blows whither it will...

And Blake also said: "I must create my own system or be enslaved by another man's."

I think I have an inkling of what you mean "all worlds revolving around and flowing through the intersection." each of us has a constant center which never changes or goes anywhere, we each share this center... if you can get in the right mindset it does seem as if your motion is actually revolving space to come into contact with yourself or center. I don't know, I am not the most erudite dude but I am glad you replied!  Another writer who expresses similar ideas "though his writing is quite inscrutable" is Austin Osman Spare.

from Hopi Proverb: "not knowing what to do the people stopped paddling (erecting mental constructs) and opened the door's on top of their heads and let themselves be guided."

 

The Invisibility of Zos

Hi Thingypsythief, 

Thanks for introducing me to Austin Osman Spare. I had never heard of him before, and am puzzled as to how I missed him. He seems to have produced a formidable body of work, reminiscent, from the bit of it that I have read online, of the Crowley of “The Book of the Law” and the Nietzsche of “Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

It is always reassuring, too, to come across another creator who has managed to move back and forth effectively between visual and verbal modes of understanding. I look forward to investigating him further. 

The Hopi quote is indeed quite wonderful. It can be a good thing to be pushed into an impasse—with no way to choose between turning left or turning right—as this can force us to reestablish contact with a more ancient method of guidance. It is not that this guidance has ever been absent from our lives, but rather that we have been deaf, amnesiac, and blind—and thus the Double has had little choice but to present itself as a threat.  

Events in the external world can seem to be aimed at us like weapons. The Double is “out to get us,” yes—but as the “wound that heals”; as the illness that will open up and lead us through the Gates to the Beyond. 

Gee whiz

Gosh George, I don't know whether to feel honored or picked on here for a discussion I participated in at least over 6 months ago. And I haven't even been on this site for at least that long.

I'm not sure whether we're required to use our own html coding to space these paragraphs, so, if it looks strange . . . 's'been a while.

Number one: I'm not a 'science teacher'.

I'm just another writer browsing what's out there and putting in my own two cents.

I don't know why you should choose to parse my statements in such a way as to put my over-all views into a kind of 'skeptical enquirer' pastiche. If anyone wants, they can search my user name and find out the scope and general character of my views and feelings about stuff. So I'm a little put off by your kind of cornering me into some kind of 'nemesis' to your own special kind of dogmatism.

It is, isn't it? possible to look at all things both with awe and wonder and yet have a certain apetite or hunger for understanding and 'getting it' or being able to come to some comfort with our perhaps interminable uncertainty about it.

If I over-use the term 'scientific method' for your tastes, then maybe I should just use the term 'first hand experience-ism'?

And I am not a "Hinduist". If you have read anything of my contributions herein in the past, you will at least recognize I am a critic of Yogi-ism and the dogmatism of what has come to be called Far Easter Mysticism. There are many components of scientific method that can be retrieved from a study of these ancient texts and that there was at least the beginnings of some attempt to develop a vocabulary that broached common elements of DIRECT EXPERIENCE shared between mutually interested parties WITHOUT at the same time showing any attempt to merge such into a system of belief that included such anthropomorphism as Saivism, Vaisnavism and that rarest thing Brahma worship (There is, as far as I know, only one temple in all of India devoted to Brahma, which is interesting in and of itself).

You seem to want to capsulize everything into RECEIVED structures of language and belief systems I am simply not interested in at the moment. Not now, nor then. And I think I told you several times before: it is pointless to try and engage me in such archaic and, to me: useless layered and questionable terms whose provenance alone would require some special devotee to unravel. NOT ME!

So I'm like, you know, a respector of science and scientific method. So what? I like being free from that old jargon and being free to see things just all naked and everything and not in the dusty old terms of Albertus Magnus or Trismegistus or whomever all you seem to exult in.

Hell, I don't give a shit about any yogi whomever they may have been or are today. They're all full of shit until I can see, touch, measure, know from first-hand experience they aren't full of shit. I still won't necessarily buy their explanation of how or why they can do what they do. Maybe they don't know and attribute their tricks and poofy stuff to the wrong operative principle. So they pollute the stream of KNOWLEDGE. That is what SCIENCE is supposed to be. Not theory, not supposition, not some system of beliefs.

It is a scientific fact some of these yogis are way old; some very weird stuff happens in crops. I got all that. I'm not buying your 'explanation' or your philosophy.

I'm not into apologetics, not trying to save religion or any metaphysics. You ought to know by now: I'm an iconoclast. Whatever it is you or anyone pushes on me to believe on testamony alone: I'm against it.

No offense.

---------

"The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it."
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking the Truth in the Sciences

--------------------------------------

Hexagonal craters, again and again

Hi Roger,

My apologies if you are not a “science teacher””—I had heard that you were. In any event, for the RS community you do seem to function in this capacity, as you confront readers with perspectives that are both rigorous and original.

As to your being a “serious student of the Vedas”—this is quite different from saying that you are a “Hinduist,”—whatever that may be; my judgment that you were a “serious student” was in response to a number of your previous comments about yoga and early Vedic tradition. I stand by that assessment.

If you see anything that I have written here as “dogmatic”—either in terms of direct statement or by implication—then I suggest that you take another look, since such an interpretation would be completely off the mark. If the diet of many spiritual explorers is “irony deficient," then there is probably too much in mine; you often seem to think that I am saying the exact opposite of what I have said.

For the most part, we disagree about far less than you think, and your particular way of moving has had an influence on this current essay.

“On the Dangerousness of the Zero” is one of two essays that grew out of the forum for Amely Greeven’s “Crop Circles; An Invitation—the other being “2 Big Birds Open the 1 Preexistent Sphere,” which I will post on RS at some point in the future. I had little choice but to excerpt the particular comments of yours that I quoted; to present them in context would have taken as much space as the essay. And of course—given the open-endedness of your methodology—anything said about you “here” would have to be contradicted “elsewhere.”

Section 4 is a much expanded and revised version of my response to a set of arguments presented in one or two of your comments; it is not, in any way, intended as a summation of your views.

Please allow me to offer thanks for the stimulus that you have provided.

Here are several paragraphs from one of your other comments on the forum:

“Orientation and some sense of self-security are not just issues for mariners. With the ability to take logs and with saws and chisels, fat and pitch to join them water-tight; discovering the compass and mistakenly thinking it was pointing to Polaris and so 'knowing' which way was was which extended the powers of exploration. Then with the chronometer and finding references more exactly sailing became filled with greater confidence and speed.

“Not that such imposed the idea of a globular earth, as that existed in the thought of sailors long before that. With water that seeks its own level consistantly, some explanation had to be forthcoming as to why a flat and calm sea should ever limit vision.

“Thus, the idea of curvature of this 'flat' and thence, by extension an arc that wound-round upon itself with: voila: globe.”

—I was very impressed with your writing here; this and other such paragraphs were at the back of my mind when I wrote the following:

“A true "Enlightenment" position would be one that argues in favor of open-ended inquiry; it would put Curiosity always at the forefront of its virtues.

“We should not regard an explanation as the 'simplest' simply because it corresponds to our existing system of beliefs. Conversely, we should not regard an explanation as 'far-fetched' simply because it calls attention to the limits of our knowledge, and thus forces us to question everything that we believe ourselves to ‘know.’

“In New Age circles, almost everyone feels free to heap abuse upon the 18th century; as if a group of long dead explorers were responsible for our own outdated habits of perception, and for our failure to respond with focused intuition to the challenges that confront us….

“Daring ourselves to conceptualize and to test a new 10D version of "longitude," we must set forth on the sea of the 64 cube tetrahedron.”

Ah

I see. Alright then.

---------

Whatever I said: maybe the opposite! Or the opposite of the latter. You decide!

decode

im a little confused at to how this very abstract and philosophical article attracted such rigirous scrutiny from people who are abviously very scientific. you guys enjoy raining on other peoples parades? i really liked the poetic way in which the article was written, i mean there is a ton of layers of meaning in it. and deciphering it is fun indeed.

"Philisophical and Abstract"

Well look, the article says things like:

"Many "skeptical reductionists" dismissed the phenomenon of the circles out of hand; they argued, as is the custom with such thinkers, that the most wildly implausible of explanations was -- of necessity -- the most "scientific"; so long as one's own habits were not called into doubt."

Yes yes, very poetic;  Profoundly deep.

Gaul is divided into 3 parts

Hi Lion,

You wrote, Yes yes, very poetic;  profoundly deep.”

The tone of this reveals your motivations, as well as your indifference to figuring out how the elements of the essay fit together. I cannot do this for you. As I mentioned, to me this involves some attempt to come to terms with an author’s “way of moving.”

For the past several hundred years, the reading of an essay has been first and foremost an internal process. Authors were seldom available to respond to any questions. The internet is upon us, but perhaps “new” does not always mean “improved.”

It is difficult to comment on what one has not actually read, and then thought about, and then tested against the complexities of one’s own experience. “Reacting”—“off the cuff” or “from the hip”—to individual statements is not at all the same thing.

Let’s move along now! Nothing to see here! There are plenty of other “targets of opportunity” on RS—at whom you can aim your spitball shooting device.

the Higher Ground

Yeah, Brian -- let's end our argument, but not without making our parting shots at each other.  Hmph!

What is divine escapes men’s notice because of their incredulity

“What is divine escapes men’s notice because of their incredulity”—Heraclitus"

"Human beings are carried away by every new theory."—Heraclitus

“If we do not expect the unexpected we will not discover it, since it is not to be searched out and is difficult to apprehend.”—Heraclitus

Hi Lion,

I very much appreciate the great energy and enthusiasm that you bring to all of your involvements. Some of the subjects that you put forth, however—the naivety of New Age thought and the abuse of quantum physics—seemed disconnected from the main thrust of my arguments, however much they may have overlapped at the edges. Also, an essay is not just a collection of abstract subjects; it is also a living form, in which thoughts and memories and emotions and intuitions and experiences are “embodied” in a particular medium by the author.

Too often, I have seen that a forum can veer wildly out of control, even over minor points on which the participants mainly agree; meanwhile, the original insights of the author fall by the wayside, there to be abandoned. For this reason, I have wanted to keep the forum for “On the Dangerousness of the Zero” pretty tightly focused; to avoid pissing contests, as well as cosmic wars, and only to clarify this or that detail of what I was thinking when I wrote the essay, which took several months and many revisions to produce.

Finally, I believe that the personal and transpersonal voices in the piece have come into alignment; any statement that I might make here is probably present in a better version there.

Fair.

This is fair, and I appreciate both you and your work.

Close but no cigaro

Hmmm, it appears you have your opposite in forum tricksters, and ol bubblefish may disagree with your assessment about the zero. That fella even took on an entire community of skeptical materialists on the James Randi forum and had them spinning around his finger for months. http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=73672 They wern't integrating the zero, and neither are you :) According to OS 0 1 2, you have it half right for some unknown reason. The zero is not the problem mi amigo, the zero is the SOLUTION. http://www.highintelligence.com stay logical and rational, just bump it up to ternary from bivalency. In a ternary system you will find it's all about the 0.

“The ocean takes care of each wave until it gets to shore”—Rumi

Hi Vee Har O,

Intriguing post. I am not at all sure, however, who it is addressed to, or whether you have interpreted my views on the Zero as being the opposite of what they are. If you have a chance, would it be possible to elaborate just a bit?

Here is an excerpt from Rumi that you might enjoy:

“Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street. I took it as a sign to start singing, falling up into the bowl of the sky. The bowl breaks. Everything is falling everywhere. Nothing else to do.”