The Fatimiya Sufi Order and Ayahuasca
The Fatimiya Sufi Order stands unique in its place as a Sufi order with Ayahuasca as a central sacrament. This may be the first Sufi order to utilize the medicine in its rituals, as well as the first mystery school that utilizes Ayhausca in accordance with Islamic and pre-Islamic religious metaphors. The order's founder plans on taking the medicine back to his homeland, Iran.
Originated by Iranian-born N. Wahid Azal in 2005, the Fatimiyas utilize Ayahuasca as their central sacrament, in a syncretic esoteric order that glorifies the archetypes of Islam, as the Santo Daime does Christianity. However, this is only the shell, says Azal. What is most important is the message inside (something I think Padrinho Sebastio may have agreed with). Or in Azal's words, “the exoteric aspect of Islam is merely a symbol to be contemplated rather than simply to be followed for its own sake, since for me behind this symbol there is a deeper esoteric truth that is necessarily beyond all creeds.”
Azal was initiated into Sufism in his twenties, after leaving the Bahai faith he was raised in. Azal professes to follow his own “personal gnostic religion of salvation” which he terms NUR, meaning “light.” I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
Prop: How did the Fatimiya Sufi Order come into being?
Wahid: The Fatimiya Sufi Order was born within an Ayahuasca experience I had in mid 2005. In this session La Madre -- whom in its Fatimiya context is referred to in its Iranian denotation as the Simorgh, the Fabulous Gryphon -- epiphanized for me as Fatima Zahra', Fatima the Radiant, namely, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. She gave me the directive within this session to begin the (capital 'W') Work of the Fatimiya. Most importantly it was in this session where She revealed in Arabic the Fatimiya formula of the shahada, translated as “testimony,” and made me utter it thirteen times, which is la ilaha illa allah fatima wajh allah, “there is no god but the Godhead, Fatima is the Face of the Godhead.”
Years before, however, and specifically on the night of my Sufi initiation, I had dreamed of Fatima who had likewise initiated me in the Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginal World. I dreamed I had entered the sacred precincts of the Ka'aba, in Mecca, on a Night of the Full Moon and there was no one there but me. The doors of the Ka'aba suddenly opened up and a female voice bade me to enter the inner sanctum of the Ka'aba. I entered the Ka'aba and there seated dressed in emerald green and wearing a white headdress, with the words Al-Hayy, translated as “the Living” written in Arabic on the headdress, was Fatima. She bade me to sit in front of Her and then commanded me to open my mouth. Laying next to Her was the double-edged sword of 'Ali, Zu'l-Fiqar. I opened my mouth and She grabbed my tongue and pierced it with Zu'l-Fiqar. Instead of pain, however, I felt ecstasy and was transported in the next scene of the dream to a dazzling desert landscape whose sands consisted of flakes of pure lustrous gold. I stood in this desert watching the Sun rise and as the Sun rose Fatima's face shone from within it fully unveiled. The higher this Imaginal Sun rose to its meridian, the more it formed itself into various shapes and forms, until it finally became the World Tree, the Tree of Life, or the Tree of Reality as I call it, whose roots reached into every expanse of Heaven and earth. I woke up! This was some 13 years or so before the Ayahuasca session just mentioned and it was such a vivid dream I can never forget it!
What role does Ayahuasca play in The Fatimiya Sufi Order?
The Tea is the sacrament forming the central experiential grounding of the Order's Work. Let me say this, though: we don't call the Fatimiya sacrament 'Ayahuasca'. We call it by its ancient Iranian-Mazdean name of 'Haoma'. This came about some two-and-a-half, nearly three years ago now on the insistence of the Ayahuasca itself during a session. During this session La Madre strongly advised that we stop using the Banisteriopsis Caapi Vine and instead opt from there on out to use the Peganum Harmala, or the Rue, instead. We do continue to use the Vine except only as an admixture now rather than as the base, and the Rue we do use comes directly from Iran. For Light, as I have mentioned elsewhere, we use the Peruvian and Hawaiian chacruna together as well as a local Australian acacia.
Note that the Rue has an old and central role in the Mazdean religion of ancient Iran and continues to do so to this very day amongst Iranian Shi'ites, be they Twelver, Isma'ili or Sufi. The Zoroastrians properly consider it to be the most sacred of their herbs, which they constantly burn in their prayer halls, and in Persian it is known as Esfand, also spelled 'Esphand'. Esfand is a shortened version of the Pahlavi form of the name Esfandmorz who is the Avestan Spendarmat or Spenta Armaiti, (trans. 'Holy' or 'Beneficient Devotion'), namely, the Zoroastrian Archangel of the Earth who is one of the six Amesha Spenta (trans. Bounteous Immortals) or archangelic hypostases of the Godhead Ahura Mazda/Ohrmazd. Spendarmat/Esfandomorz is the first amongst the three specifically feminine archangelic hypostases, or 'holy sparks,' of the Godhead, the other three being male, and in Mazdean cosmology She is considered to be the Earth-Mother with the plant itself as Her Theurgy.
The final national Iranian month of the year, Esfand (29 days between February-March), is named after Her in which month the Esfand plant itself is believed to be at its energetic peak. Our own angelology is somewhat different in its superficial external features from the traditional Mazdean one, but the inner intention is identical. For us likewise the final month of the thirteen-month NUR year is dedicated to the titular angelic-divinity of the Earth who with us is known as Hana'il.
Haoma, which is identical to the Vedic Soma, is of course the ancient Mazdean sacrament which, or 'who,' is simultaneously both the king of plants as well as an angel-divinity or titulary angel (Avestan 'yazata'), this time male. He appears mostly in the later Mazdean theology yet according to this later theology he plays a prominent role in the mission of the Prophet Zarathushtra himself in the initiation of the Mazdayasna ('the Good Religion', i.e. the proper Mazdean name for the Zoroastrian faith). The standing epithet of Haoma is "far from death" and he is known as the "lord of knowledge and power."
In terms of the sacrament itself, connections between it and the Esfand have been made in key texts on multiple occasions, leading one to connect the titulary angelic form of the sacrament as being, as it were, under the general patronage of Spendarmat Herself. Since the six Amesha Spenta (Bounteous Immortals) are really primary hypostases of the Singular Godhead, one can safely make the assertion connecting these titulary angelic-divinities (the 'yazatas') such as Haoma as representing further hypostases of the hypostasis. You will also find a similar sort of scheme in Suhrawardi where he speaks of the 'Mothers' (ummahat) (which are longitudinal or vertically situated archetypal-celestial realities) and the various 'Lords of the Species' (arbab al-naw') (i.e. their latitudinal or horizontally situated instantiations). This is for the basic traditional metaphysical symbolism.
Of course, it needs to be underscored here that the contemporary, mainstream Zoroastrian community no longer use the Haoma or conduct the ritual and liturgical-sacrificial ceremonies they once had around it in ancient times. This is so because, just as with the Vedic Soma, knowledge of it amongst their mainstream was lost a long, long time ago, before the Zend Avesta itself was finally codified in its present form. It is possible there are Zoroastrian mobads (priests) out there that still posses this knowledge. But if they do, it is secret knowledge and one not advertised even amongst the mainstream of the community who know nothing of it. Given this, it is quite a bold claim we are making here in asserting that our Tea represents the Haoma. Nevertheless that is what the consciousness behind it has identified itself as to us on multiple occasions now. In fact before La Madre made us change our base from the Vine to the Rue, She insisted for some years before that the Tea was indeed the Haoma/Soma and so therefore its return to my people specifically. We shall see what the Spirit ultimately intends with all this, but it is my goal to take the Fatimiya Haoma to Iran someday soon, Goddess willing, when the present Islamist regime is no longer there, and to hold ceremony atop holy Mount Damavand in the Alborz mountains overlooking Tehran.
On the practical working level, our 'time', if you would, revolves around the sacrament and the ceremony around it -- or Workings as we call them. We usually drink once every fourteen days, that is, twice every NUR month. Before the actual drinking a usual Working begins with a cycle of recitations involving magical invocations and angelic calls, sacred formulas and prayers (in Arabic, Avestan and Sanskrit), and -- just as with the Zoroastrians and many Sufis in Iran -- the use of the Esfand smoke to purify and sacralize our space. There is also a Fatimiya ritual of the pentagram I formulated some years ago which I always use at the very beginning of this process. It involves a sixfold permutation of a single divine name in Arabic whilst drawing the symbol of the pentagram. We use talismans and amulets, all derived from the Islamic Sufi ruhaniya (white magical) tradition, the three most important being the symbol of the Greatest Name (ism al-a'zam) which in Iran is also known as the Dignity of the Sun (sharaf-e-shams); the Khamsa or Hand of Fatima; and a Talisman which was revealed to me some years ago inside an entheogenic state known as the Solomonic-Ka'aba of Eternity. After these preliminary recitations, which depending on the mood or astrological situation can sometimes take over an hour or more to complete, we drink. When we have drunk we begin the first dhikr (mantra) which is usually 4000 recitations of the dhikr of Ya Allah. We build ourselves into a high ecstatic state with this dhikr and by the time it has completed the Simorgh (the Fabulous Gryphon, our denotation for La Madre) has arrived!
Within the Santo Daime there is systematic openness to the notion of channeling spirits, vis-a-vis the work of Allen Kardec. Does the Fatimiya Sufi Order work with similar belief systems of channeling and "possession?" If so, what ideological forms and archetypes are they ensconced within?
This is both a good question as well as a controversial one that would require more than just a few paragraphs to unpack. But to put it bluntly, we basically reject the Kardecian spiritist template and agree with the arguments offered by Rene Guenon in his The Spiritist Fallacy regarding it.
Kardecian spiritism is popular in Brazil and has been part of its culture of spiritual discourse for over a century now. The Santo Daime as well as many of the other Ayahuasca churches over there have appropriated many of its key concepts and points of view. Not to take anything away from the Santo Daime per se or the other churches, but from any Hermetic (and I would argue any Traditional shamanic) conception of the universe there are grave problems with many of the perspectives offered by Kardecian spiritism as it is conceived. This is not to say that mediumship does not have its proper place in any genuine esoteric work. After all the role of the Oracle has been a central one in many traditional cultures and civilizations, and continues to be in many indigenous shamanic cultures even today. The bona fide shaman in my view is an Oracle. But there is a difference between the traditional Oracle and the modern channeler, and the breed of New Age channeler that Kardecian spiritism has spawned is not a traditional Oracle at all. In other words, these two, the New Age channeler and the traditional Oracle, are definitely not the same thing.
The function of the Oracle is fundamentally a prophetic one in the true sense of that word, and he or she is literally possessed by the spirit or divinity on whose behalf it speaks. This is, in my view, real possession by Spirit when the possession especially is coming from a higher plane, since such possession is really a hierophany, which then makes the recipient of such hierophany a hierophant.
You will also note, for example, that at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Ancient Greece the Oracle only prophesied once every seven days and not every day or at the whim of every terrestrial beckoning. Oracles in ancient times were also trained in their roles for long periods of time and were essentially initiated into it. They also exhibited certain unique traits and features different from most average mortals and were usually found quite young. In fact the life of an ancient temple Oracle was no different than that of many Tibetan Buddhist lamas, particularly in those schools of Tibetan Buddhism where a given lama incarnates (tulku) perpetually from body to body in each age.
To put it another way, the Oracle as hierophant and intercessor between Heaven and earth is a shaman-prophet(ess). Modern mediums and the urban cosmopolitan breed of New Age channelers are as far from that reality as one can possibly get, which is why, in my view, the contemporary scene seems to breed endless quackery and charlatanry in that regard. Also the question needs to be asked, what exactly are the contemporary Kardecian New Age channelers opening themselves up to? Personally I do not believe it to be the kind of Spirit (or spirits) that, for example, we meet speaking to Hermes Trismegistus in the tractate Poimandres of the Corpus Hermeticum.
For us, the question is not about 'channeling' this or that disincarnate entity at all, nor do we believe it is the goal of genuine spiritual work to be 'channeling' such beings. Our goal is to attain full realization of our Celestial-Angelic Double, the syzygy or Perfect Nature, what the Western esoteric tradition calls the Holy Guardian Angel. The consummation of this, to us, is what the Alchemical Tradition refers to as palingenesis (alchemical resurrection). To that end, the following Hymn to the Perfect Nature by Suhrawardi beautifully illustrates what our fundamental aims are in that regard:
O Thou, my Lord and Prince, most Holy Angel, my most precious and beloved spiritual being! Thou art my father and my mother, the Sun and the Moon, who gave birth to me in the world of the Pure Spirit, and Thou art my child and sibling in the world of my thought! With divine permission Thou art entirely dedicated to the government of my person! Thou art the one whose fervor intercedes for me before the Godhead, the God of all Gods, to make up for my deficiencies! O Thou who art clothed in the utmost radiance of the divine Lights! O Thou who resides at the summit of the degrees of perfection, I implore Thee, through the One who has overwhelmed Thee with such sublime nobility, who hath bestowed upon Thee such an immense effusion of grace! O precious one, may Thou manifest Thyself to me at the hour of the Supreme Epiphany! May Thou showest me Thy resplendent Face! May Thou be my mediator before the God of Gods in the effusion of the Siniatic Light of mystical Secrets! May Thou lift the veils of darkness from my heart! This I pray in the name of the One who hath claim over Thee and ranks over Thee! I call upon Thee, O Powers and sublime spiritual Angels, O Ye who art the wisdom of the sages, the sagacity of the seers and the knowledge of the wise! Hearken unto me and appear before me and bring me near to Thy magisterium! Guide me with Thy wisdom and protect me with Thy powers! Make me understand what I do not understand, realize what I do not realize and see what I do not see! Turn me away from the dangers that lurk in the ignorance, the forgetfulness and the hardness of my heart, in order to have me attain to the ranks of the ancient sages and inspired prophets, in whose hearts wisdom, insight, vigilance, discernment and comprehension made their permanent indwelling! May Thou also live forever in the innermost recesses of my heart, and never ever separate Thyself from me! Amen.
Can you please explain the role of Henry Corbin in the philosophy of your Sufi order? And what other scholars and holy men and women provide great insight to what you all are about?
The writings and visionary scholarship of Henry Corbin function as the theoretical framework and backdrop behind the Fatimiya's (for lack of a better word) basic 'doctrine'. By theory, however, I am speaking of theoria in the Greek sense of that word, i.e. contemplation. Corbin's spirited championing of the transformative power of the Active Imagination (not fantasy) as a divine faculty -- and, moreover, a faculty capable of a personal salvation within a secular world increasingly beset by totalitarianisms of all kinds -- is basically a gnostic intuition of the highest order and one needed to be more widely listened to. This is so because it is through the Active Imagination (capital 'I') whereby the soul as stranger to itself, and as prisoner within its own cosmic crypt of a materialized world, can ultimately find its unique individuated liberation and so its way back to Itself (i.e. to its heavenly Person or Twin, the Angel-of-its-being, its Daena, Perfect Nature, paredros or syzygy) and thus finally to the Celestial Pleroma of the All-Light.
Indigenous shamanisms the world over would whole heartedly agree here as well. Corbin's personal faith also rested on the trinity of "Earth, Angel and Woman." For us it is the other way around, "Woman, Angel and Earth," but the points of origin and departure remain fundamentally the same. Amongst the Fatimiyun I have often referred to Henry Corbin as a contemporary Magister Illuminatus, i.e. Master of Illumination, shaykh'ul-ishraq.
This is a title the 12th century martyr and Neo-Zoroastrian Hermeto-Platonic Sufi sage Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi is known by, and a rank which according to his Illuminationist theosophy always requires an occupant in the world. While Suhrawardi in his own time revived the Wisdom (hikmat/khirad/sophia) of the sages of Ancient Pre-Islamic Persia through a largely Neoplatonic and Sufi interpretative lense, Corbin revived Suhrawardi's Ishraqi (illuminationist) theosophy of Light, Shi'ite gnosis in all its various hues and the entire esoteric legacy of Iranian spirituality for the world beyond the confines of the Islamic east.
Within his career, spanning some five decades, he had made, as it were, the initiatic pilgrimage to the Orient of Light (mashriq al-nur) through a fruitful academic and literary career which saw his orientation move intellectually from Heidegger to Suhrawardi (microcosm) and geographically from Paris to Tehran (macrocosm). To us, his emphasis on an emanationist metaphysics tempered by ecstasy and the Active Imagination, while simultaneously informed by a sophisticated comparative Angelology that proclaims a path of spiritual individuation, is precisely what the doctor ordered beyond both the paradoxical conundrums of the exoteric monotheisms as well as those spiritual stultifications of secular (post-)modernity or the fluffery of the New Age. In short, Corbin is the Platonist's quintessential contemporary Platonist, and we Fatimiyun are unashamed Platonists!
Henry Corbin aside, amongst the holy figures of the greater Tradition the writings and legacy of the 19th century Prophet-Messiah of Shiraz, Siyyid 'Ali Muhammad Shirazi, the Essence of the Seven Letters, the Primal Point, the Bab, are very important to us. In one sense the Fatimiya is in the greater Islamicate scheme of things very much a Neo-Babi or Neo-Bayani movement.
Babism, or the Bayani gnostic faith, was the original movement or religion that the contemporary Baha'i faith eventually emerged out of in the 1860s as the chief schism. From one point of view, the Bab and Babism was a sort of esoteric Twelver Shi'ite melding with Isma'ilism and Sufism -- something that would have made Henry Corbin salivate had Babism been correctly represented to him. While the Fatimiya's point of departure goes well beyond many of Babism's, at least exoteric, assumptions, we are nevertheless attempting to revive some of its core notions in our own way, albeit expanded beyond its originary suppositions.
For example, in its novel and even radical reinterpretation of the symbolic narrative of Adam and Eve in Genesis, the Bab's early commentary on the Quranic Surah of the Cow (al-baqara) is particularly apropos to what we are about. In it the Bab basically re-narrates the symbolic narrative of the fall of Adam (turning the features of the story on its head in the process) and states that it wasn't due to any sin committed by Eve that the fall occured. Rather the fall occurs because Adam failed to approach his wife in ecstasy in order to recognize her transfiguration as Fatima (or, the Divine Feminine) within the celestial Tree of Reality. In other words, the sin of the fall was Adam's and not Eve's. Let me quote you one of its key passages,
“And a thing may not draw nigh to [anything] beyond its origin. So when Adam drew nigh to the Tree of Reality (shajarat’ul-haqîqa) shining forth from Fatima [i.e. the transfiguration of Eve] by means of the drawing nigh of existence, he disobeyed his Lord, because God commanded him not to approach it, except through ecstasy (al-wijdân). Because at the time of ecstasy the 'thing drawn nigh unto' is the Tree and nothing other than it.” (Trans. Todd Lawson, “The Authority of the Feminine and Fatima’s Place in an Early Work by the Bab,” 2001).
For a 19th century Twelver Shi'ite, even a heterodox one, that is quite a profound Tantric statement, not to mention a statement of narrative not too dissimilar in its features to the Nag Hammadi Gnostic text known as the Apocalypse of Adam. I earlier mentioned Tahirih Qurrat'ul-'Ayn. Together with the Bab, her corpus of remaining writings (mostly poetry with only one or two prose works) are important as are the writings of the Bab's successor Subh-i-Azal. Additionally the collection of the esoteric sayings and statements of the Shi'ite Imams (as well as their treatment by assorted authors such as Rajab Bursi and Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i) are continually reflected upon. Two of these are of special note here, these being the hadith kumayl or hadith al-haqiqa (the Tradition of Ultimate Reality) and the khutba tatanjiya (the Sermon Between the Two Gulfs).
Many other figures of the greater Tradition can be mentioned here, but the Hermes Trismegistus of the Corpus Hermeticum (particularly of the Poimandres) is germane as are all the pagan Neoplatonists from Plotinus to Proclus. The 12th/13th century Andalusian Sufi master Muhiyiddin Ibn 'Arabi is also one of our poles (aqtab), not to mention the earlier Persian Sufis such as Husayn ibn Mansour al-Hallaj, Ahmad Ghazzali and Ruzbehan Baqli. In magic and our practice of the Craft, the writings of Shaykh Ahmad al-Buni stand in a league of their own. Within the Indo-Aryan spectrum of things, the Prophet Zarathushtra is considered to be a holy figure by our Order and the Avesta is taken as scripture alongside the Qur'an and other Abrahamic Holy Books, not to mention Shakta Tantra texts such as the Devi Mahatmyam and the Mahanirvana Tantra.
Amongst contemporary Western figures, the writings of the Italian Julius Evola are core to our Work as are those of the Frenchman Rene Guenon. While we take the Neo-Traditionalist perspective represented by Evola and Guenon seriously, I should mention here as well that we are stricly speaking not Neo-Traditionalists and have some of our own philosophical disagreements and beefs with a few salient features of their overall point of view.
What does the future hold for The Fatimya Sufi Order?
Our future is literaly in the hands of the Great Mother, Fatima, the Simorgh. We do however wish to diffuse this Work more widely amongst those cross-sections of the Iranian community open to it, since it is very much needed there, and as mentioned earlier, the dream is one day to hold ceremony atop holy Mount Damavand in a free Iran. We do also envision a continuity to the Work of the Fatimiya after our present generation and to that end I should mention that in many ways what the Fatimiya is attempting to do is to return the sacredotal function of the hierophant back to woman as the holy initiatrix. In other words, within that specific cultural matrix, the role of the High Priest or shaykh has in our view expended itself and so must henceforth give way to that of the High Priestess or shaykha as penultimate intercessor between Heaven and earth. As such, in practical terms, we envision the future leadership of the Fatimiya Sufi Order to be in the hands of women who will take this Work to its higher levels of actualization, the Godhead willing!
Ya NUR
- 1-25-11
- Propaganda Anonymous's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
Comments
Nice exposure to shamanic practices in a world not well reported
Powerful inspirations !
Thanks
So glad to hear that
So glad to hear that ceremonial medicine is finding it's way in to, and back in to!, the religious faiths of the world.
Some very interesting research and information coming up lately about the historical and etymological origins of Haoma in Chris Bennet's new book "The Soma Solution". I heard him speak at last year's Evolver Psychedelics Spore... fanatastic!
http://www.forbiddenfruitpublishing.com/Soma/Book
From the above page:
"Cannabis would accompany such Indo European groups for millennia, like the later Scythians, known as the Haoma-Varga (Haoma gatherers), who with their horses and the first wagons spread the use and mythology of cannabis throughout Western Europe, Greece and Rome, Persia and the Middle East, India, and even into China, leaving an imprint of their cultural traditions regarding hemp as they travelled.
Recently discovered archaeological evidence from the Yanghai Tombs in China have revealed an Indo-European culture, the Gushi, populated the region from about 1800-200 BCE, and considerable amounts of cultivated female cannabis have been found accompanying the mummified remains of Gushi Shaman. The homeland of the Gushi culture in mainland China marked a trading post for a vast trade network that spanned much of the ancient world, and it was likely with this group, that the Indo-European sacred plant kanna (hemp) first picked up the Chinese name Hu-Ma, (fire hemp), which would become Haoma in the Bactria Afghanistan region populated by the pre-Zoroastrian Mazdean partakers of the sacred beverage who traded with the Gushi, eventually becoming Soma as this primordial cultic tradition reached into India. "
Perhaps, like the Daime, the Sufis will have a place for a joint after 2nd glass as well * * *
Haoma & Cannabis
Exciting
"knowledge of tryptamine containing plants are known by some circles in Iran and are in fact regularly utilized."
Would you care to elaborate on these plants?
Great Stuff
Propaganda Anonymous
PEACE to everyone who commented.
Thank You again, Wahid for doing the interview.
I share the same amount of enthusiasm
for the prospects of The Fatimiya's movements.
Prop!
Two Iranian tryptamine plants
Iranian tryptamine containing plants
"There are others whose Latin/English names I am trying to establish."
I would very much like to know the native names of these plants, if you'd be so kind as to share them.
SUFI TETRAGRAMMATON An
Thanx
Calendar & Practices
Balance
sufism teaching
-
Morgan, the context of the
Morgan, the context of the specific dispute you are referring to has to do with a profoundly disappointing personal issue in which a sincere and honest friendship was betrayed in a very public way by someone who should have known much better, peripherally influenced as it has also been in the past by certain related personal agendas and political disputes about the validity of the Vine vs Syrian Rue/Esphand. What is being denounced here is the type of moral corruption and spinelessness (that would allow seemingly genuine, real-time friends to behave in such a way when they claim such strong alliances with higher-spiritual consciousnesses), the extension of which may also be perceived as itself eating away at the traditional native culture (which we do revere) in the form of unscrupulous outside forces, as well as contributing to the conditions under which certain counter-initiatic, 'new-age' paradigms and interests may use the ayahuasca as a moral crutch for the implied rectification of their own personal shortcomings and matters of individual integrity. See the point being made?
As an aside to this issue, it is worth looking at an academic monograph by Flattery and Schwartz that identifies a direct link between Haoma and "Yage":
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=INtzYGQOlFoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=...
Context
You are quoting a message of mine from the Ayahuasca forums mid-stream, selectively and without context. That message was directed at an individual who on a whim of pure spite and uncontrollable malice denounced myself and our friendship for no apparent reason. I stand by that statement for the following reasons: the Peruvian Ayahuasca scene is fast being corrupted and seems to be producing both locals and visitors of little to no demonstrable moral rectitude. If individuals back-stab and denounce once loyal, committed friends for purposes of largely ideologically driven power-tripping and group-think, then it stands to reason that such individuals have acquired little to no moral scruples or rectitude in the modality in which they have worked with the sacrament, and if they are attempting to use Peruvian Ayahuasca shamanism as their ideological crutch to beat others over the head with, then both the individual and the context that produces such individuals must be unequivocally and without any compunction roundly denounced. In the world of bona fide initiation such traits such as lack of moral rectitude are traits that Rene Guenon coined by the neologisms "counter-initiation" and "spiritual inversion." That statement was made in that context and it is a statement that needs to be taken on board. In the Fatimiya our Work with the sacrament does not automatically absolve anyone from the Work of acquiring moral virtues nor does it offer or entitle anyone the opportunity to disregard it on a whim. Unfortunately both the discourse of the New Age and the mainstream Western Ayahuasca sub-culture seems to be under the mistaken impression that merely allying with the sacrament means they have automatic license to do just about anything and thereby cast all ethical and moral standards to the four winds. The Work is still a core responsibility of the individual initiate beyond the sacrament and the acquisition of virtue (Greek 'arete') is still a fundamental calling of this Work. Without rock solid, unshakable virtue there is no Work, let alone its culmination. Period! As for the comment about the entheogenic renaissance in Iran and the Mid East, I find the comment somewhat myopically ethnocentric and stereotypical of a Western notion of Iran and the Islamic world. The entheogenic stream (rather than renaissance) is already in full swing in Iran amongst certain Orders of Left-Hand Path (Qalandar) dervishes such as the Khaksar. It has been there for many centuries as part of the inner initiatic culture of Higher Persian Sufism as this emerged in continuity from out of the earlier Zoroastrian template. South America or the Western discovery of Ayahuasca in the latter part of the last century does not mean that Iran or other parts of the world have been bereft of entheogenesis within aspects of their lifeworld and that now the West is going to offer enlightenment to the backward east by what it has discovered in the south. What we represent is merely the re-emergence of the entheogenesis that has already been there for millenia located within secrecy.
Ya NUR
-
However, the sense, the feeling; the malice, directed back, in your words, is there.
In any case, I bring it forth here, simply as a means to offer constructive criticism.
Because yes, there is the opportunity, there is indeed the space, for a "true, honest and healthy entheogenic renaissance" such as you propose, such as you are engaged with, such as you are called to.
And for that I wish you only the healthiest path.
Thank you/On initiatic integrity
I should actually thank you for bringing this up here because it gives me the opportunity to address something very key about what we're about lest there be any misconceptions by anybody about where we stand on certain things. First, the true measure and strength of a man of the Path is in the solidity of his integrity and the degree to which he will stand fearlessly and steadfastly in it without wavering even if the whole world were to turn against him. That means that a true initiate and adept will not hesitate to champion unpopular causes and issues, speaking the unalloyed Truth (warts and all) to power and the herd even if it be the acme of blasphemous heresy! We are not out to win anyone's popularity contest. We are not interested in cultivating or sugar-coating over the amoral inversions of the New Age that unscruplously commodifies and turns Truth and Wisdom into mere shelves of fetishes to be sold and bartered for paltry prices. Valor, chivalry, loyalty and unswerving commitment to Truth and Righteousness are extremely serious things to us. The contemporary spiritual sub-cultures of the modern West increasingly have shelved these virtues, in many cases even outright scorning them. One of the biggest conceptual fallacies of this sub-culture is the insatiable lust for "healing" for its own sake. Healing rather than Truth, Righteousness or Awakening (all qualities that Indigenous and Traditional civilizations have placed great stock in) has become the overriding concern of many Western spiritual dabblers of the entheogenic renaissance, especially in its tourist ethos, and this is one of the most insidious forms of spiritual inversion imaginable. In Traditional cultures of initiation sickness and wounds actually represent gifts from Heaven specifically designed to 'orient' the subject beyond the material, quantitative plane. Shamanic sickness, for example, is the full-blown stages of initiatic transmission and the awakening of the Shaman to his/her Craft. Stories of prophets, saints, holy men and masters in the Abrahamic Tradition are replete with instances of Heaven meeting these men and women with sickness either to test or to gift (and often these two can be the same thing). Without understanding the real causality of sickness, the dualism of the contemporary Western New Age teleology of the world scorns and retreats from the underlying spiritual benefit of the inner meaning of sickness and so on one level is casting Heaven's gift back in it's face in total ingratitude - so people should not ask why things are not getting better. The trophies of the Chivalrous Knight and Warrior of the Path are his/her wounds. These wounds are meant to be alchemically transmuted - because the Poison is the Gift - and not healed qua erasure. That the Western New Age ontology of healing is backwards, largely fallacious and inverted - whereby it neither understands the true nature of the Dark nor of the Light - is one of the underlying causalities wherein the local Ayahuasca culture of places such as Peru is fast being corrupted at break-neck speed as a result of Westerners inserting such inverted paradigms of fallacy like the form of the brujeria/black magic that it is into the lifeworld of those places. This needs to be taken on board by well-meaning folks and addressed if they truly mean what they say. You don't dilly-dally with such things. You take the bull by the horns. Anyway, I trust now that it should be obvious to many what we are about. Once again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to begin the task of addressing all this.
Ya NUR
-
"Valor, chivalry, loyalty and unswerving commitment to Truth and Righteousness are extremely serious things to us"
I hope, that one day, Humility also becomes important, and serious, to you.
Peace.
Ditto
But without the foregoing attributes humility is not even possible. Besides true humility is only possible towards the Pure Spirit. Towards anything else and it is either false humility (= conceit) or *idolatry*. Unfortunately, and as Nietzsche correctly pointed out, the Western European Catholic-Protestant cultural ethos has misunderstood many things and confused things such as pretense and conceit with humility. For Christians, I would suggest looking at the deeper ethos of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and the writings of such modern luminaries as Fr. Seraphim Rose to understand the real meaning of humility in its more balanced (and less woolly) Christian dimension.
Ya NUR
the spiritual worth of mediumship
In(de)cisive
Dear Wahid the Wickedest ;-)
Firstly I want to say that I really enjoyed the interview.
Secondly that I'm in agreement with your proclamation that much of what constitutes the New Age scene & Ayahuasca scene in general is a kind of 'spiritual inversion' that tends to get glosseyed over - although personally I find most forms of certainty not in my nature and would thus paint the whole thing in shades of grey more than the fine black&white stroikes you so confidently wield... The Awed work in mysterious ways, and sometimes you have to go thru the bullshit to get to the sacred cow...
I also want to say that it is indeed valiant to stand against the whole world unwaveringly if it should turn against you. But it's probably a mistake to do so without a healthy pinch of self-reflection and with such blinding vehemence, as it might be trying to tell you something you need to hear. There are lessons for all here, myelfs included. I don't think the whole situation is as clear cut as either 'side' makes out, and if you want to believe it is then I feel like you're sealing yourself off in a box of your own making - even tho I'm sure you'll find many who'll enjoy it in there...
But then what the feck do I know?
I'm just a psilly boy
trying to speak sense
into the wwwibbly
webZzz.
A proud fool!
x
Psilly Boy
Psychologizing issues and turning tables and blaming victims is a trait of New Age double-speak and group-think. Someone said the following to me in private email about that whole debacle on the Aya forums, and I think you need to heed it here:
"My honest opinion which isn't based on much knowledge of the background of it all, is that it seemed like it came out of nowhere. But throughout that black magick thread (I forgot the exact term for it), some of the moderators began intimating that they had been thinking about axing the Fatimiya forum for a while, and then it became explicit in the Fatimiya forum itself when one of them affirmed that point blank, citing that your Order uses Esphand "instead" of Ayahuasca. I don't know about it being a huge conspiracy, but it does seem like some of the moderators wanted that thread to go a certain way, and then justify the expulsion of the forum on the grounds that the Fatimiya don't "respect" the Forum. But the sudden apperance of that "Aurora Baha" guy did seem quite fishy. There is a real danger of hurting innocent people by using a plant like Ayahuasca, because you can get inside their mind and soul and pretty much do whatever you want to them. I listened to DJ Zart's interview with Peter Gorman, and he said that periodically the "spirits" or entities will want to use his body to experience something tangible, and he will have to allow them to do it because receiving blessings and abilities from Ayahuasca is not a "free gift", but somewhat of a trade off. So, if you are a sorcerer and know this, you can probably control those spirits, and tell them to go to work on the student you just gave Ayahuasca to and then that person is basically done-for, unless they can get help from a good Shaykh, Shaman, etc. I didn't read through all of the thread, but I noticed a lot of people expressing "New Age" type of thoughts; "everything is about Love", "be positive", etc. Those are beautiful and extremely harmonious emotions, but not everything in life is about being passive and non-resistant. All of the Prophets loved mankind, and were "positive." But they also fought battles, engaged in polemics with their enemies, etc. This is also part of life."
Recall that quote from Ecclesiastes 3 I put up, "For everything there is a season under heaven." The Western mainstream Ayahuasca sub-culture and its hang-outs need a lot of stirring, no to mention soul searching, for reasons of complacency and otherwise, which is what we've done in this case. I'm sure when the Prophet Elijah called on the Spirit's wrath upon the corrupt Canaanite priests of Baal/Hubal on Mt Carmel, there was even more vehemence involved! Given circumstances, should he have engaged in fluffery as well? What about David facing the Philistine armies just before he fired his sling-shot at Goliath? Maybe Joshua should have ordered the shofars to be blown a little more quietly before the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. One of the commandments of the Fatimiya is to "speak the truth even if it be the acme of blasphemous heresy." We walk our talk without sugar-coats. There is more of that needed all around, and the New Age culture can definitely use more of it. Now that's something to look at by all parties, especially on the Aya forums!
I have been mentioning Rene Guenon's THE REIGN OF QUANTITY AND THE SIGN OF THE TIMES for some time. Get it, good friend, and read it cover to cover:
http://www.amazon.com/Reign-Quantity-Rene-Guenon/dp/0140035370
Besides other things, this might explain a few more details about the current malaise of our times.
Ya NUR
UR hIghness
Mate, I'm not trying to turn tables on you, I just strive for some kind of balance, which seems to be a faintly ridiculous thing to do in these situations, but shit - I'm still learning - so I'm getting out of this mess after this, and if I check in at all it'll be to enjoy its absurdity...
To clarify, by saying we might all have lessons here, (and I'm afraid I have to get specific here, and not beat around the bush, just the way you like it!) I'm particularly referring to the fact that you started the whole mess by taking a vision very literally and making accusations against specific people (not the scene in general as you're doing now) who you didn't even give the opportunity to defend themselves because you were only revealing their names in private/behind-their-backs. And then accusing people who came in to defend them, or just offer their point of view, as being people they were not, as being instrumental figures in some ongoing persecution-conspiracy-ordeal from which you've been suffering. And then using peoples real names and threatening legal action and other generally twatish behaviour, whether you justify it all with your left-hand laugh or snot. You seem to have completely ignored the fact you might've been a little too literal about things, and messed up a bit, because it all supports your general pot-stirring agenda and brings some issues to the fore that you think need more exposure... those are the facts of the matter. You can talk about not sugar-coating stuff and being above all the new-age sewage all you like, but if you don't acknowledge your mistakes your gonna end up just as out of touch as the fluffbunnies you count yourself off to sleep with!
Also: thanks for the book recommendation, and you're right about the Rue thing always being a sore point with some of the mods - I personally believe that even the simple fact of their chemical similarities gives a good enough reason for exploring Rue on the Ayahuasca forum, and actually this fact is recognised and discussion of all related (& unrelated) plants is often done in the Plant Spirits subforum. Unfortunately there manifests what sometimes appears as a sort of "Ayahuasca facism" which at its core is actually just a pragmatic decision about clear discernment regarding the remit of the forum, sometimes the lines get blurred and the rules get bent and people think "Wow, this is great, look at these Persian brothers reinvigorating their roots and exploring their native medicine and manifesting this wonderfully-energetic syncreticism - let's give them a voice here, this is what Ayahuasca is all about!" but in times of crisis (people thinking: "Woops, this guy might be a little bit much, should we be giving him a voice here, is it the best thing for the representation of Ayahuasca?") things will always revert to "this is an Ayahuasca forum, and that fundamentally means the tea made from the caapi vine" (they would probably even prohibit talk of the admixtures if it became problematic!) There is obviously inter-personal shit and lots of mess in that thread and different people have different agenda's and backgrounds and inclinations - the whole thing stinks of humans..! but the bare bones of the reasoning is as I've laid it out for you.
This is how I see it bro, and I'm trying to lay it out as clearly and as honestly as possible. Honestly: take it or leave it.
opinions are like ourSoulZzz
btw, I don't think anyone here, mice elf included, has anything more than a partial grasp on all the intricacies of this thing... so I don't want to be too self-righteous... I honestly think this whole mess is for the best... perhaps you guys could issue a more general (less personally attacking) communique of the situation-as-you-see-it "over there" - and publish it here & at aya.com (and I would be happy to publish it at jaguarnaut.org too) in the name of furthering the discussion/spreading alternative views..?
It's good to remember, after all, that opinions are like our souls... everybodies got one ;-)
And Iran seems to be stirring!
Blessings,x
The HGA vs Spiritist channeling
A person who has attained their Perfect Nature, what the Western Hermetic tradition calls conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel, can engage or disengage with lower level astral spirits at will. In fact a person who has attained this realization has a core responsibility to the entire stream of universal being/consciousness to help the denizens of hell itself. The dangers of engaging in modern spiritist mediumship (as Guenon pointed out in THE SPIRITIST FALLACY) is that it makes an undeveloped soul working out its process completely vulnerable to just about anything and will more than likely sabotage its process. Spiritism as Alen Kardec and his followers have worked it out also suffers from not having the kind of protective safeguards that comes with real initiation and transmission backing it up. We don't discount mediumship completely eo ipse, nor did Guenon. But there are core differences between the Oracle-medium of a proper initiatic transmission versus the Kardecian spiritist medium. This is not a biased judgement. It is an important distinction of a serious nature. As you well know, the Astralia can become a ferociously dangerous jungle - even more so sometimes than the physical one.
Ya NUR
-
Wahid: "The Western mainstream Ayahuasca sub-culture and its hang-outs need a lot of stirring, no to mention soul searching, for reasons of complacency and otherwise, which is what we've done in this case."
The "Western Culture" (there isn't much of a Western/Eastern division as there may have once been) - the Planetary Culture, however webbed & fractal - whatever you want to call it - that is meeting with the Ayahuasca is in fact being stirred, by forces older, wiser and stronger than yourself.
That is why I suggest, in my (softly) consctructive criticism of your work, you consider humility - and not some complicated Nietzschean triple-bypass real-hardcore-found-in-books sense of humilty - I mean a simple, soft, general, tend to the land, grow a flower, smile easy, help an old lady cross the road, don't take it personally type of humilty.
Because, this is vital when building relationships with these Sacred Plants, and using them to light your path.
Once you begin thinking that you're the medicine, balance is easily lost, falling comes quickly.
Steve Beyer recently voiced a few things:
"Sometimes the spirits open a door, and sometimes ego. When you enter a door that ego has opened, the spirits are there, but with a two-by-four."
"I think what the spirits love most is humility and gratitude. And tobacco. Humility is the hard part. Tobacco will only get you so far."
"Sometimes the spirits hide our keys, put things in our way to trip over, make us fart at a formal dinner. Why? So we can learn to laugh at ourselves, and stop taking ourselves so damn seriously."
Wahid: "We walk our talk without sugar-coats"
Mary Poppins:
[Spoken]
In ev'ry job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job's a game
[Sung]
And ev'ry task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree! It's very clear to see that
A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way
A robin feathering his nest
Has very little time to rest
While gathering his bits of twine and twig
Though quite intent in his pursuit
He has a merry tune to toot
He knows a song will move the job along - for
A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way
[Interlude]
The honey bee that fetch the nectar
From the flowers to the comb
Never tire of ever buzzing to and fro
Because they take a little nip
From ev'ry flower that they sip
And hence (And hence),
They find (They find)
Their task is not a grind.
Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h ah!
A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way
Ya think?
The "Western Culture" (there isn't much of a Western/Eastern division as there may have once been)
Au contraire. Globalistan and its capitalist initiatives are very much a Western (particularly upper middle class and Yuppy) socio-cultural phenomenon. To the bona fide lifeworlds of indigenous Natives much of what you folks are up to over there is culturally foreign and conspicuously Western from top to bottom. In other words, the Western (specifically the Anglo-American) investment in the Aya industry can very much be formulated and construed as an insidious form of cultural colonization and hence neo-colonialism.
the Planetary Culture, however webbed & fractal - whatever you want to call it - that is meeting with the Ayahuasca is in fact being stirred,
This whole cycle of the Kali Yuga is about stirring, and it is a lot older than the Western discovery of Ayahuasca or the current Western capitalist industry of cultural exploitation that has been imported to places like Peru and elsewhere from places like North America and Western Europe.
by forces older, wiser and stronger than yourself.
And I suppose by those older forces you are talking about folks like Maurice Strong, Agenda 21, United Religion Intiative (URI) and what is really old (but not omnipotent) behind that? Perhaps we are part of the real alliance of older forces finally come out into the open to call ya'll out :)
Because, this is vital when building relationships with these Sacred Plants, and using them to light your path.
Pray tell, who is making that explicit suggestion here? Obviously your good self. But as the saying goes in Persian, if you are a true physician yourself first prescribe the Medicine for yourself (kal agar tabib budi bar sare khod dava nemudi). Obviously our comments here and on the Aya board have done their requisite stirring! I will say it explicitly again: what is currently happening with the Ayahuasca Tourism Industry in South America (esp. Peru), and many of those who are involved in it, is an explicit form of capitalist cultural colonialism and hence many of those engaged in it for purposes of remuneration of one sort or another are cultural colonists.
Ya NUR
-
Um, no.
I'm talking about the Plants. Those wise beings, those intense forces who've been here long before us, and will continue to emerge and grow long after us.
:-)
I'm talking about the Plants. Those wise beings, those intense forces who've been here long before us, and will continue to emerge and grow long after us.
The plants are material Theurgies. The Wisdom emerges from what is behind it, and That is even older than the plants. Indigenous Wisdom understands this truth innately. Yet the quantitative and quantificating consciousness of contemporary "globalized" Western man fetishizes the plant itself and still insists on its own materialist point of view even when it feigns otherwise. This is a very insidious form of cultural colonialism and it is very much what animates New Age thinking in many of its facets.
Ya NUR
-
Plants & Spirits - easily interchangeable words.
I'm not talking about Stamens and Petals...
It is not New Age, nor materialistic, nor "Western", nor invasive to speak of Plants in such a way; or deeper; as People, as Beings, as Spirits, as Friends.
Yes, the wisdom is behind them (surrounds us all), the Plants have learned it, and in some cases the plants have grown and nutured such wisdom of their own accord, their own whims. and some (humans) have learned to speak, or have been gifted the opportunity to speak, with the Plants, with their Spirits, with their wisdom.
But I get the feeling you're missing the forest for the trees.
Because you can apply labels to anything, anyone. anywhere. The labels you chose to utilize - the glasses you choose to wear over your eyes - affects the outcome of your own vision.
And anyway I thought New Age went out with the 80's...
;)
Morgan
First, koombaya ;-) New Age is a moniker that encompasses a wide range and spectrum of contemporary alternative spiritualities in the West and specifically the fluid syncretic ideologies, not to mention industries, that go with it.
Brother, we see the forest and the Trees at the same time. I know you have both a professional and personal investment here in your point of view and defending the interests that you do. But you might want to open your eyes just a little more (if you are fair) to see that maybe, perhaps maybe, what you're involved in ain't all that great after all. I know there are quite a lot of Indigenous Amazonians and Mestizo who would agree with me on this one wholeheartedly!
Part of the Madre's reasoning to us in changing our base from the Vine to the Rue was precisely because of this. We are re-allying with the plant spirits of our own land, and our own narratives, and not appropriating that of someone elses. Autochthony (look up this term and get a book by Rod Blackhirst entitled PRIMORDIAL TRADITIONS which delineates it) has been the Madre's message to us from the beginning.
Now the proof is in the pudding and the pudding is in the eating. That Aya-Tourism industry in SA has been going south for a long time now and has as of now become a complete Gringo-Circus/Carnival. We all know this to be so, so don't hide behind fluffy platitudes and empty euphemisms attempting thereby to shoot the messenger as a way to skirt around the message. It is time to either clean this mess up or expose it. In any case, the pot is now stirred on this issue.
On another note: I'll leave you with this tidbit from one of the Mazdean myths of human origins: in the beginning the first man and first woman (who were joined as a single androgynous being in illo tempore until the counter-powers of darkness separated them initiating thereby the quantitative cycle of time) emerged from a single plant!
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity for this robust debate long time needed.
Ya NUR
-
Come, hop in my multi-color VW bug for a momento.
;)
Even though I've written for RS and am a contributing editor for Ayahuasca.com and so forth, does not mean I have "interests to defend".
I don't have a horse in anyone's race.
I just have my own garden to tend to, and yes, the Plants are my friends - so they inform me, nuthin I can do about that now...
Anyway, I try not to get discouraged by "tourism" - because sure, the first time I went to Peru it was for the Shamanism Conference and the "intrigue" and "a call..." - call it what you want
I didn't feel like a tourist then, but I guess someone could have painted me as one, if they so desired.
Now, I had drank ayahuasca on my own, in semi-isolation, for three years before I first went to Peru. That vine didn't even come from South America. But I was called, I suppose, to Peru, to learn more. To have a little meeting, on the home turf.
Since that time many things have occured - not least of which is my growing involvment in local foods, wild foods, local medicines, forest gardening, permaculture, ecological herbalism, so forth and so on.
So, yeah - with the right kind of eyes you would have seen a tourist. But, peering deeper, it was someone who needed some direction, acquired some learning, and is now bringing forth that learning, engaging learning, and sharing it.
I've been exploring myriad local plants. (Though I still feel Ayahuasca Vine to be the greatest, wisest, strongest teacher there is, that's my personal feeling anyway)
BUT, this summer I went back to Peru. Why?
Because my father had severe, I mean severe arthritis, not to mention all sorts of other stuff, so we both went down and wow! Long story short his arthritis is gone and he looks and feels 20 years younger and stronger and lighter.
Call that a touristic experience if you want - but ... my father can use his hands now. He can walk without wincing and limping.
And, my dad, well, he's about as far away from New Age as they come.
So you can "expose" stuff all you want. Dig up dirt and get all muddy in the mud-wrestling competition...
Or, shine light on, and nurture, the good things.
Morgan
If you deeply inquire-introspect and dispassionately interrogate both the facts and contemporary narratives around "healing" (the assumed necessity thereof, both perceived and unperceived) you will be extremely surprised where the rabbit hole finally leads you. Note my earlier comment about initiatic wounds and the alchemical importance thereof. Anyway, if you are inclined, look at some of the material I have cited here.
Ya NUR
Morgan
"That is why I suggest, in my (softly) consctructive criticism of your work, you consider humility - and not some complicated Nietzschean triple-bypass real-hardcore-found-in-books sense of humilty - I mean a simple, soft, general, tend to the land, grow a flower, smile easy, help an old lady cross the road, don't take it personally type of humilty. Because, this is vital when building relationships with these Sacred Plants, and using them to light your path."
Morgan, seriously, don't patronise us here, by means of that indeed "soft", but in many ways pejorative implication that we don't tend the land, smile, grow flowers or help old ladies across the street. Are you an old lady that needs helping across the street ? When we meet these old ladies, we'll do the gentlemanly thing, ok? :) But right now, we're also talking about the kind of gardening that needs a peasant's flail (ie, a pair of nunchucks), a pitch-fork (ie, a trident halberd), a spade (of the crescent moon variety carried by monks) as much as it needs a tender hand. Historically, these two have very much been inseparable anyway, so why should the gardener and the warrior be any different in the metaphorical (or literal) universe we're conversationally treading now?
If we're going to talk in gardening and organic metaphors though, which believe me, I personally am more than happy to, how about we talk about The Tree of Reality? How about we talk about the initiate that, by the very definition of their role, traverses the mud and the branches alike?
"So you can "expose" stuff all you want. Dig up dirt and get all muddy in the mud-wrestling competition..."
Ah, well, if that's what needs to happen (and I think it does), how about we turn the soil, take at good hard look at the composting grounds of the Tree of Reality (which ultimately serves to fertilise the entire Tree anyway), and see what we can come up with? Let me give you a hypothetical situation.
A non-indigenous person wishes to set up an ayahuasca centre in the Amazon. They have been in some way touched by the medicine. They want to share their experience, and perhaps even benefit themselves from this process. Hypothetically, fair enough. They go about procuring their facilities, materially and otherwise, and in the process of doing so, perhaps procure land that is in some way not meant for them. If you will permit us to work from an entirely, and unashamedly, magical paradigm here, the question arises as to the kinds of internal friction that may result in a community as a result. Practitioners need money. Fair enough. They use it to support their community. But other practitioners working within a traditional cultural matrix may have problems created (on a magical level) that were perhaps not problems that existed previously. Foreign elements are drawn into, and in some senses also create, a situation where the traditional way of operating is compromised, perhaps also in a way that the traditional practitioners themselves may not wish. Unwanted magical friction, operating in a paradigm most Westerners are barely able to grasp even when they have had the medicine, perhaps emerges.
As for your father's situation (Light be upon him), there is absolutely no denying the validity of seeking medicinal aid in the form that traditional methods provide, and I am very pleased that he benefited so tremendously from the experience. We are, however, talking about broader cultural narratives that emerge from a far more complicated engagement with medicines such as ayahuasca, and the paradigms of sickness and healing that Westerners bring with them. This is not a simple issue, but as you can probably understand, we are in no way trying to simplify its complexities.
BTW, though I feel your Mary Poppins example is, frankly, pretty floppy in the light of this conversation (here I go, repressing my "inner child"again, eh? :), I will therefore add that at one point in the past, the Haoma sung this very refrain,
"A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down The medicine go down-wown The medicine go down Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down In a most delightful way"
in teaching me how to produce an element of a post-drink admixture that with our medicine cuts nausea and deepens the purge (and no, it wasn't sugar).
Ya NUR
-
Wahid: the "rabbit hole" you speak of is entirely "New Age" speak, so to speak. So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Especially since you are (proudly) talking about it on Reality Sandwich, a place that is described, by some, as being "New Age".
hurqalya: By the same token; you talk of gardening, helping old ladies across the street and so forth - yet behind your back you carry nunchucks and other weapons.
These are dissonances that I don't particularly find helpful in this world, or any other world.
Rather, it sounds to me like the stereotyped portrait of the "Average American" who works quietly at the grocery store, but carries a Glock, you now ...just in case.
hurqalya: "This is not a simple issue, but as you can probably understand, we are in no way trying to simplify its complexities"
Oh, of course, it is very complex.
For example, how do you explain the complexity of -- and please forgive me if I am mistaken or only close to the mark here -- two men of Iranian-Australian origin who are attempting to speak on behalf of Amazonian Indigenous or Mestizo People? And then proposing you have the power(?) right(?) Autochthonic obligation(?) to go and clean up a mess perpetrated by "Westerners" (are you not "Westerners", too?).
What is worse? A "gringo circus carnival" or a weaponized war on said carnival by two foreigners?
As I mentioned earlier; I wish you only the best.
However, at this stage, as it has been publicized by yourselves - I find little to no evidence that you have accomplished any of the duties you proclaim you're engaged in. You have not brought medicine to Iran, you have not "cleaned up" any mess, and two men of Iranian-Australian origin should not be involved in "cleaning up" a place in the Peruvian Amazon. That's colonialism, that is clear. That is precisely the thing you're rallying against. And that is precisely the kind of cloudy vision that "stirring things up" often brings.
I am not trying to patronize you in any way. Nor degrade you in any way.
Not a all.
I've described my criticism as soft, because I simply haven't the time to go into an academic-literary-references-and-footnotes type of criticism at the moment. Where you find the time to do so, I've no idea.
My criticism here is the same as I would consider for an artwork; does it add up? do the theories and/or themes hold water? is the artist digging deep, or lashing out? does the work show clarity of thought, a steady hand? or is it muddy and thrown together? when confronted or questioned, does the artist make a good case for their work, or simply become defensive and obtuse?
You can take it - all of it, a tiny bit of it - or leave it entitely to rot. Matters little to me, except perhaps outside the realm of art.
And, perhaps you are on a mission from a higher source...
Perhaps it is the Art of the Warrior...
However I am personally, sincerely, simply, not convinced of your "bigger picture".
But hey, that's just me, and who am I, and what do I know?
Peace.
Sincerely.
Morgan
Especially since you are (proudly) talking about it on Reality Sandwich, a place that is described, by some, as being "New Age".
Unless you all (the fluff-bunny ensemble) like the sound of your own voices, what better place to critique the New Age and its imbalances other than a place like this?
These are dissonances that I don't particularly find helpful in this world, or any other world.
How consummately white man and New Age arrogant of you! May I suggest you read a book entitled Orientalism by Edward Sa'id. First of all, they are your dissonances (namely, a white Anglo-Saxon post-industrial New Age entity and product of your culture and environment) and surely not the dissonances of those who have come before you. Second, unless you are advancing a spiritual claim to highest rank, i.e. claiming to be some Jivan-Mukhti or Buddha, who are you to be saying what applies in this world or any other? Third, you brought up the gardening metaphors not us. Hello?
For example, how do you explain the complexity of -- and please forgive me if I am mistaken or only close to the mark here -- two men of Iranian-Australian origin who are attempting to speak on behalf of Amazonian Indigenous or Mestizo People?
Who says we are speaking? But as Iranian-Australians physically removed from the scene with no immediate stake or investment over there (but with a cultural experience of the modes and manners of Anglo-European colonialist exploitation), and especially since we are not directly engaged in the exploitative neo-colonialist enterprise you are involved with, we are most qualified to be pointing the finger at the exploiters and cultural colonizers of a Traditional Indigenous culture. Like it or not, we have stepped up to the plate to speak on behalf Traditional and Indigenous peoples who are wantonly being ridden rough shod by arrogant white capitalist men who, even while they pretend to be sympathetic, still act and enact as if they are superior to these people whilst destroying their cultures and ways of life by dishonestly appropriating aspects of said culture while sanitizing, generally dumbing down and so corrupting it -- which is precisely what the cycle of corruption in the Aya-Tourism industry is all about!
What is worse? A "gringo circus carnival" or a weaponized war on said carnival by two foreigners?
What weapons? Speech and discursive critique is a weapon to you? How consummately Orwellian of you to point out our thought-crime in underscoring the fact that the Industrial Emperor of that Aya-Tourism industry may in fact be walking around stark naked in his birthday suit! And, last checked, you are as much a foreigner as we are! But now you're not so subtely engaging in a blatantly racist cultural stereotype of people from the Middle East and Islamic world, and since you are readily engaging in this type of ethnocentric slur with us, Lord knows what lurks with the various modus operandi you and your associates employ and are engaged with in Peru and elsewhere in SA. Once again, you prove our point about this industry being a thinly veiled mask for neo-colonialist endeavours and enterprises by other more crafty means.
However, at this stage, as it has been publicized by yourselves - I find little to no evidence that you have accomplished any of the duties you proclaim you're engaged in.
And you know this because you have consulted your crystal ball or have you channeled Ramtha or some other unbeknownst "Ascended master" who has told you this? And what, pray tell, exactly are our 'duties' according to you? Obviously you haven't read the article here from start to finish because a great deal of it appears to have gone right over your head with an ignorant, snide comment like that.
I am not trying to patronize you in any way.
Yes, you are, and in an explicitly arrogant and ignorant ethnocentric way to boot. You might want to take a look at that because it has cultural bigotry written all over it!
I've described my criticism as soft
Your criticism (which is not even a worthwhile criticism) is a misinformed and reactive emotive attack, or ad hominem, not a criticism. It has been misinformed from start to finish and has revealed pure ethnocentric (even racist) pride!
do the theories and/or themes hold water? is the artist digging deep, or lashing out? does the work show clarity of thought, a steady hand? or is it muddy and thrown together?
So far you haven't offered a single consistent or intelligent critique of anything we have said. You have emotively reacted with platitudes and empty euphemisms quoting Mary Poppins. How can you even be taken seriously by us? If you have something of substance to say, which you so far haven't said, we will respond to you in the same manner and reason accordingly. But sugar-coated platitudes and empty euphemisms masking ad hominems are not arguments. In logic they are fallacies of reasoning, non sequitors. So get off your high New Age horse, get your hands dirty a little and show us the beef! You sound upset because we have offered a valid and consistent criticism of an industry we know is corrupt to its foundation and that you happen to be directly involved with, and which you have no valid or coherent comeback to explain anything regarding given your status in it. You are an interested party. As such your words and your attack against us here means nothing, diddly.
However I am personally, sincerely, simply, not convinced of your "bigger picture".
We don't care what you are or are not convinced by where we are concerned. We aren't here trying to recruit you personally either. But we will speak our piece/peace where folks like you are concerned. But since you must know, this whole article came about at the direct suggestion of the author Propaganda Anonymous. We didn't lobby this site or ask it to publish anything about us. We have thanked the site for publishing it, but beyond this we have no further interest. And perhaps this article and the fact of our presence on it right now is a sort of wake up call to a certain sub-culture and industry that perhaps it is time for it to take its head out for a change!
But hey, that's just me, and who am I, and what do I know?
You have got one rude and out of control, conceited base ego on you, man. It appears La Madre is going to have to take a sledge hammer to it in your case from now on.
Now do you actually have anything of substance to say? Substance not fluff or rants.
Ya NUR
A comment on my facebook
Germane to this discussion and the overall critique of New Age fluff-bunnyhood, I put the following update as the status of my facebook today: Combat and warfare, both on the plane of symbolism as well as material actuality, has been part and parcel of countless spiritual paths. Yet in the modern world we are led to believe that this is anti-spiritual. Comments?
Here is a response by one individual that in my opinion ought to be engraved in golden letters. To wit,
the traumatized proto-modern world removed it's point of battle focus and energy away from any praxis of Remembering what is Above. And traded it in for a mental 'doubt' of the primordial essence, which is nothing but a lethargy setting in ...and supported by that blindness that sets in: not unlike the way un-exercised muscles turn to flab. The zoorkhaneh (house of strength) mentioned earlier... even among our brightest 'scholars' of religion, there is no concept of 'Unseen Warfare'. It is the surest paradigm of forgetting the 'path' of Unveiling what is most recondite (The Kingdom of Heaven is Within) to decorate it's outskirts with finest tapestries of fluff, and lay the path out as an 'eschatological' progression towards some point on the plane of 'the future. Not only fluff, but needless death and destruction in pursuit of a 'glorious future', a point so well illustrated by the idealisms of the 20th Century. To replace that central compass point, that Qutb of orientation, with a future in which the modern world must not only wholeheartedly BELIEVE, but must also absolutely desperately DEPEND ON 'bringing into being' as a desperate measure of 'saving itself'...
this is why the fantasy of 'no war' comes to the fore.
It is almost like a blatant admission of the ignobility of the cause of 'progress' that led humanity to this terminal cancer. It is an acceptance of DEATH in the face of its metastasis.
To my mind, that's due to the traumas inflicted by the disasters of pursuing this program to begin with (massive revolutions in heavy weaponry from the middle ages on, huge mobilizations and attempted exterminations of entire populations from the 1700's on, impending integral environmental catastrophe as a direct result of progress and the historical narratives that attend it). The lost connection with the 'unchanging' point of the compass has reduced 'religion' to checking off points on a moral compass. This is how the idea of 'war' has been dispensed with effectively and even poignantly by the pseudo-spirituals who just want to fast-forward to 'peace' and 'nirvana' etc, and why they constantly imagine that if they just 'manifest' such a state (since it is an attractive idea until you have to work for it) that is 'good enough'. That the 'good intentions' will carry them from one place to the next. Instead of waging BATTLE against all shadows working against a sense of RECEPTIVE orientation to the actually existing primordial compass (which unites things like, say, scattered Sufi brotherhoods across centuries, or monastic orders across millenia, ie rigorous connection with the "unchanging", which is a fight against passions as well as against those forces that enflame them away from that compass point) the idea has been to throw confrontation itself away... its easier to take refuge in inaction and "hope" for a "better world", and assume God will hand you the keys to the Kingdom just because you hit 'like' on the word 'peace' on facebook over and over again... :)
-
Ya NUR
PEACE
Propaganda Anonymous
PEACE PEACE my Good People
I felt like I should just step in for a quick minute since the great interview was brought in under my name.
I will keep it brief. Personally, Everything that has been brought up in this thread is extremely relevant. And that is on ALL sides.
Honestly, I think everyone reading this thread and involved in this thread can learn a lot from each others posts. I understand that passions are stirred right now because of everything that happened on the Ayahuasca.com forums. I do not care to comment on any of that. That's between yall.
What I will speak on is that I am very happy that this debate is being had. But really though, Family be cool with each other. So many great debates turn into shit throwing contests and it becomes painful to read after a while. Please don't even respond to that statement, just let it breathe.
Secondly, I personally feel that Realitysandwich really needs to widen its perspectives when it comes to approaching the subjects it has explored. I have been involved with this site since it's inception.
What I have noticed happen over these past few years is a certain narrowing of cultural views. Which doesn't really surprise me much since, in America and Europe, at least "The Psychedelic Revolution" has been mostly a privileged white thing. I don't think this is 100% because it is a private club that only college educated white people were allowed to join. But for reasons that have already existed in our modern world. Institutional Racism being stacked on top of years and years of economic oppression, rooted in the Atlantic Slave Trade. (That is the grossly brief description)
Bottomline gang, I'm BORED with the psychedelic "community" these days! I went to the really nice and pleasant book release party for Mr. Goldsmith's new book. And really there were like 3 "black" people in the crowd. (That's not counting the "entertainment") And maybe like 4 Asians. (That's not including the dude working the elevator) The event was in Downtown Manhattan.
I hope that I am not misunderstood. There is much work to be done in communities of color when it comes to an openness to entheogens. But dang man, When the great Rick Doblin, and I am really a big fan of MAPS, was talking about created Psychedelic Hospices, I was wondering "Well are you gonna bring that to the hood?!"
So this is my mission here at RS, and it has been from day one. And my boy Daniel Pinchbeck gets it. So props to Daniel.
Family, we need to open this up more.
We NEED to include a critical race theory into the mix
We NEED to get a firm grasp of Class Analysis
Not too long ago I posted a short news feed for the course I am leading at Maybe Logic Academy about Hip-Hop Culture and Shamanic Cultures. It received only one comment, and it was a very snide one at that. Demonstrating that their are some readers on this site that, in my opinion, just don't get the mission.
Family, Ayahuasca says to Heal Mother Earth right? Well, How do you expect to heal the earth, if you do not heal the wounds that have been done to the have-nots for hundreds, if not, thousands of years! So on that note I commend you Wahid for diggin in on that subject. It is a sorely needed perspective here at RS.
But I will say this to you Wahid. You weren't a completely disinterested party in this interview thing my dude. You did get very excited about the interview being published on this site. So don't start feeling yourself too much on that note. Haha :)
See I know Morgan though. And I'll tell you this. Morgan is GOOD people. Morgan has contributed many great things to this site. And I also agree with you on some issues you raise here as well man.
OK, that's my 2 cents on this. I think what the Fatimiya Sufi Order presents is pretty damn great!
And I am very happy this debate is happening And I only hope you guys keep it cool with each other because you are doing some great stuff.
That and Realitysandwich needs more HIP-HOP ;)
"hurqalya: By the same
"hurqalya: By the same token; you talk of gardening, helping old ladies across the street and so forth - yet behind your back you carry nunchucks and other weapons. These are dissonances that I don't particularly find helpful in this world, or any other world. Rather, it sounds to me like the stereotyped portrait of the "Average American" who works quietly at the grocery store, but carries a Glock, you now ...just in case."
You're talking about paranoid notions of self-protection, which have nothing to do with an implied intrinsic link between a traditional martial path, a social and cultural relationship with the land and its 'tending', and the development of spiritual awareness.
"I've described my criticism as soft, because I simply haven't the time to go into an academic-literary-references-and-footnotes type of criticism at the moment. Where you find the time to do so, I've no idea."
When it's essentially your job to be acquainted in a scholarly way with relevant textual sources, as well as their practical dimensions, and be well enough acquainted with them that you have their relevant aspects at your fingertips, then finding the time is not an issue. It's not as if one aspect of The Work from our perspective exists outside of, or separate from, the other. This is one precisely one of the problems though with a type of quasi-anti-intellectual stance taken by seemingly large number of people within the 'spiritual' community, particularly those who have become acculturated to discourses arising from poorly and loosely articulated derivative traditional metaphysical concepts, via what a friend in a recent conversation on this matter pointed out had been beautifully termed in a Christian context by Bp Chislett as 'Bookworld Theology'.
Indeed, in numerous other contexts in which Wahid and myself have endeavoured to venture into complex discourses in the sphere of traditional metaphysics, we have encountered many variations on the "don't intellectualise the Spirit" critique. What is so dangerous about this view, and contributes to a kind of cognitive and perceptual imbalance is that the Intellect (with a capital "I") must be recognised for what it is; ie, an essential aspect of the Spirit itself, and an integral means of its very revelation upon the template of human consciousness. As modes of Knowing, all aspects must support each other, as they have done traditionally, wether in textual/symbolic form, or in the equally (and in some senses, more sophisticated) transmission of a corpus of ancestral/community/cultural knowledge through memorised narrations and encoded epistemological formulas. The occult science of memory as it is understood in an initiatic sense, is indeed a time consuming process.
This said, however, the arguments made by the esoteric thinkers and occultists upon whose writings we draw, identify a critical caveat regarding the way intellectualism (with a small "i") increasingly manifests in the modern world. Though neither Wahid or myself would identify ourselves as strict "Traditionalists" in precisely the same vein as Rene Guenon et al, we do however consider the critiques of these thinkers as essential to understanding the paradigm of the disintegration of modern philosophical and metaphysical discourse (particularly in the Western model) that has itself lead to a schism between sophisticated metaphysical and ontological discourse, and the kind of crap churned out by the New-Age book industry. As philosophical discourse in the west disintegrates into a post-modern, relatavist language game, so too does the perceived necessity of the scholarly aspects of spiritual practice degenerate.
-
“I Honestly, I think everyone reading this thread and involved in this thread can learn a lot from each others posts. I understand that passions are stirred right now because of everything that happened on the Ayahuasca.com forums. I do not care to comment on any of that. That's between yall.”
After logging on at Aya.com to see what all the fuss was about, I would now have to question Mr Mahers’ intent in bringing the energy of that thread into RS. The Aya.com thread, called ‘Brujeria & Aya-Tourism Shamans,’ started January 24, 2011, has over 27 pages of dialog and is still ongoing. No where in those 28 pages did I see any posts by Mr Maher addressing his concerns ‘in house’ (unless of course I’m not familiar with his username name). So why air out the ‘dirty laundry’ on RS?
Correct if If I’m wrong but wasn’t Mr Maher involved with a similar ‘no personal agenda’ criticism concerning the RS article “Changa: The Evolution of Ayahuasca,” by Chen Cho Dorge, another controversial topic of discussion at Aya.com.
-
I come with Love.
For Wahid, for Hurqalya, for PropAnon, for all.
Jagube, thankyou.
-
One thing Ayahuasca and the Plants have taught me is this: "I take no offense, in order to have none to give."
As I mentioned in my initial post here, I am intrigued by what Wahid is doing, and what is being presented.
I am interested.
I fully agree with PropAnon's descriptions and wishes for a more diverse "Psychedelic Community" - as in; "Well are you gonna bring that to the hood?!" ... and so forth.
We are on these websites, we are on this small planet; we are connected, we are communicating - and yes, we are co-creating.
Honestly, I have deep respect and great interest in both Wahid's and Chen Cho Dorge's work.
I am all for diversity. No question.
I truly wish to see it happen.
So I offer critique. Constructively, calmly.
My feeling, my criticism, my offering here, is simply that anger lessens the chance for these endeavors to fully flourish.
One does not plant a seed by smashing it into the ground with a hammer.
But the hammer, and anger, are potent.
Better then they be transformed, composted, into something even more useful, more potent, regenerative.
You know, that is in fact an essential ingredient in the rise of Hip-Hop culture. The gang members evolved thier anger and conflicts - and their messages - into song, dance and graffiti. And it grew, and has covered the world.
This to can happen with the "Psychedelic Community" (or whatever label one wishes to use),
It can also be applied (in a similar sense) to "Ayahuasca Tourism".
We need to be aware that we are co-creating. Not conflicting.
I have no "personal-agenda".
In both Wahid's and Chen Cho Dorge's work, (less so in Wahid's work) what I've questioned, and both situations bear various similarities, is the using of the name Ayahuasca for a different concoction - even if they are very influenced by Ayahuasca.
To me that's a bit like presenting the benefits of a strawberry, while holding a rasberry.
Both are wonderful.
However, both are individuals. And I only see opportunity for greater diversity.
Or maybe it's just aesthetics...
But that's a whole other story.
Bringing Hip-Hop back in for a beat here- in the early days, and in pockets now, there's been The Battles. Healthy battles; B-Boy battles & Style Wars, that served, and still serve, to push the envelope.
So again, we can learn from this.
We need not resort to anger or even brujeria.
And even though weapons like nunchucks and the trident halberd have been mentioned, really, it is when words become weapons that things fall apart.
We can still battle, still push the envelope, if we do so creatively.
-
My intention has not been to bring any negative energy from the Ayahuasca forums over here. I am a contributing editor for Ayahuasca.com, participant in the forum and a long-time participant and writer on Reality Sandwich.
First and foremost, I am simply an individual.
I just brought my own damn self over here.
Primarily because I wanted to engage in conversation & critique with Wahid on this topic - away from the hustle & bustle of that particular thread on the Ayahuasca forum.
But the energy is all around.
We are co-creating in cyberspace - a liminal-shamanic-nether-region - and bringing our communications outdoors, to the real world, or whatver you wish to call it.
So let's talk, let's build. Let's reach.
-
Lastly, a quick note regarding racism. I certainly carry no such intention. Yes, I know PropAnon - I've great respect for him, if it weren't for him I probably would never have written for RS. Indeed, Prop and I met while working & creating with the Buckminster Fuller Institute and the United Nations - exploring Fuller's methodolgy for "How to make the world work for 100% of humanity through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone"
That's where I'm coming from.
Peace.
Morgan
Morgan
Open invitation to friend and naysayer alike: why don't you come and sit with us in a circle and drink with us? Bring whoever you want with you. Come and see what we do and are on about up close. Daniel Pinchbeck, this invitation extends to you as well. Come and hang out with us ya'll.
Ya NUR
"A New Age Misconception" by James Gilliland
Many new agers have chastised us for addressing events which; are not all love and light. I have also been asked to address this issue. To be enlightened ...is to be in knowledge of the whole enchilada, both sides of the coin. Any master will tell you this. To be in denial is not being enlightened. There are certain false beliefs that have been inserted into new age philosophy. These be lie fs are part of a plan to create complacency, fashionable denial, and make it okay to turn a blind eye to despicable acts against humanity and nature. This gives the degenerate or negative factions full-unchecked reign to do as they please and they have.
Look at your economy, the bailouts, foreclosures, extreme uneven dispersal of wealth with no concern whatsoever for you, your families, society in general. There is plenty of money to give to the banksters, bonuses, extravagant vacations. There is plenty of money for unjust wars again which are not all love and light for those experiencing them. There is plenty of money for deadly vaccines, poisoning the water with a plethora of toxic chemicals, creating food additives; which are also deadly and addictive. There is plenty of money for a global chemtrail aerosol spraying programs using aluminum, barium, strontium, "ALL TOXIC METALS HAVING TERMINAL EFFETS ON BOTH HUMANS AND NATURE."
They are passing laws to make it illegal to grow your own gardens. The constitution is in the trash, they are installing billions of dollars for anti terror equipment and groping your wives and children yet this is all okay. Where do you think the terrorists come from? Why do they hate us? Are there financial gains and a power gains in terrorism? If we focus on this we are unspiritual, un-evolved and are creating it. "NOT!" There are those on this planet that do not share your truth. They do not care about you, your family, your be lie fs, and weather or not you love them and send them light. All they care about is wealth, power and control. The Pollyanna approach is over.
It is time to wake up and smell the coffee, they created the new age fallacy of if you see it, it is within you so don't look at it or address it because you are creating it. Did Jesus wake up one morning and say today is a good day to get crucified? I think I will make sure the local hardware store has some good strong nails and beams for a cross? Was there an already existing evil? What did he do to make them all so angry? Did he and the other prophets, saints and sages address the injustices to man and nature? Look at what happens to those who truly care and try to do something to expose and stop the tyranny and complete disregard for human life and nature. Messiahs die young on this planet and when they do they are branded conspiracy nuts, enemies of the state, boat rockers and unspiritual.
Is it spiritual to do nothing while innocent families and children are being blown apart in unjust wars for profit, jabbed with deadly vaccines by the disease profiteers then coming down with autism, cancers, or other serious disorders. Is it spiritual to watch your neighbor loose their houses, their jobs, go without food shelter? Those who be lie ve the secret is to manifest more money, a giant home, a new car and totally deny their neighbors suffering you have been duped. This is not just local it is global. We are one planet, one people, there are no divisions in the unified field what ever name you give it. The Creator, God, Spirit is omnipresent in all Creation. These maniacal megalomaniacs, chosen ones, those who be lie ve they are separate from humanity and nature as well as beyond karma are going to have their day. The powers that be are not the true powers that be and the real powers that be are pressing hard upon this planet, this solar system and this entire universe. The days of tyranny are coming to a close. Are you going to be a part of this process or walk in complete denial. Are you going to find the courage to stand in your truth, refuse to participate in any actions; which are unjust or harmful to humanity and the Earth? Are you going to ride the beast all the way down to its eventual demise? It cannot be sustained.
Are you going to continue to allow the war and disease profiteers to run your lives through fear and terror until it escalates to the point of knocking on your door? Are you going to take the smug spiritual approach and act as if you are above all this? Are you going to choose to live a half-truth, spread the half-truth message lulling everyone into a false sense of security? Spreading the feel good message and telling people what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear is very profitable, a good career move yet lacking in any real power and character.
These are questions we are all going to have to ask ourselves in the days to come. There is a frequency and a force that will put a stop to the injustices and actions against humanity and the Earth. Call it what you want yet it is real and it will reset the planet on its original course; which was to be an Eden. There is no room for the beast, tyranny, unbridled greed or those who serve the beast in the days to come. Those who are willing participants that serve the beast will also have their day of reckoning. When they pass this plane they will have their light review and believe me when standing in the presence of a magnificent being of light nothing is hidden. You will face and feel all the pain, suffering including your denials concerning others. That is the way it is and the way it will always be. No one is given a get out of light review free card. There are those who be lie ve love and light is all there is and there will come a day, quite soon when they will say, how did this planet become so unloving and dark. They are going to wonder where their freedom went, where their abundance went, where the fresh wholesome food went, what happened to the water, and where did all the animals go? They will puff and strain, say their mantras, try to undo everything that was done and realize it is to no avail. Their brains will have been reduced to mindless zombies void of emotion; which is in the vaccinations; which will be enforced, it is already in place if nothing is done about it. We will become a society Hitler would be proud of, the Orwellian nightmare of which we were warned. Unless we wake up and find the courage to do something.
The revolution is coming, it is unavoidable. Will it be peaceful, violent, will the madness just stop and flow into the higher plan. I believe it all depends on the level of denial, the level of courage and integrity, how you participate concerning your fellow man and nature. We are hear to live in harmony with each other and nature. All else is in error.
Be well James Gilliland
From the ECETI Newsletter. To join newsletter list please go to
http://www.eceti.org/Eceti.Newsletter.html