"Psychology is probably the most important factor in the market – and one that is least understood."
David Dreman
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
One of Several General Cause of Kidney Stones
Defects in the general metabolism
The formation of stones in the kidneys is the result of defects in the general metabolism.They usually occur when the urine becomes highly concentrated due to heavy perspiration or insufficient intake of fluids. They are aggravated by a sedentary life-style.
The formation of stones in the kidneys is the result of defects in the general metabolism.They usually occur when the urine becomes highly concentrated due to heavy perspiration or insufficient intake of fluids. They are aggravated by a sedentary life-style.
Kidney Stone Pain
The pain that kidney stones cause is compared to getting stabbed in the back with a sharp knife, and then twisting it for a few seconds... then repeating it a few times without warning every so often.
The reason they cause so much pain is due to the razor-sharp, jagged edges that most stones have. When the stones try to pass through the kidney's ureter, they cause extreme pain, and can damage the organ.
The reason they cause so much pain is due to the razor-sharp, jagged edges that most stones have. When the stones try to pass through the kidney's ureter, they cause extreme pain, and can damage the organ.
Kideny Stones Related to Calcium Loss in Bone
One of the many serious disorders that can be detected by the CBC/Chemistry Profile is calcium overload. This condition is caused when too much calcium is removed from the bone and deposited into the vascular system. Unless discovered by a blood test, people often don't find out about calcium imbalance until after they suffer a crippling bone fracture, a painful kidney stone (renal calculi), or heart valve failure (due to excess valvular calcification). These diseases often manifest years after the calcium imbalance first begins, yet a low-cost CBC/Chemistry Profile can detect this problem early and enable the person to take relatively simple nutritional steps to correct the calcium imbalance before it causes a disease state.
lef.org
http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=516&query=kidney%20stone&hiword=KIDNEYS%20STONED%20STONER%20STONES%20STONEY%20STONY%20kidney%20stone
lef.org
http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=516&query=kidney%20stone&hiword=KIDNEYS%20STONED%20STONER%20STONES%20STONEY%20STONY%20kidney%20stone
Our Home-Grown Melamine Problem
News
Our Home-Grown Melamine Problem
By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
Austin, Tex.
Article from NY Times
CHINA’S food supply appears to be awash in the industrial chemical melamine. Dangerous levels have been detected not only in milk and eggs, but also in chicken feed and wheat gluten, meaning that melamine is almost impossible to avoid in processed foods. Melamine in baby formula has killed at least four infants in China and sickened tens of thousands more.
In response, the United States has blasted lax Chinese regulations, while the Food and Drug Administration, in a rare move, announced last week that Chinese food products containing milk would be detained at the border until they were proved safe.
For all the outrage about Chinese melamine, what American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is how much melamine has pervaded our own food system. In casting stones, we’ve forgotten that our own house has more than its share of exposed glass.
To be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits. Makers of baby formula, for example, watered down their product, lowering the amount of protein and nutrients, then added melamine, which is cheap and fools tests measuring protein levels.
But melamine is also integral to the material life of any industrialized society. It’s a common ingredient in cleaning products, waterproof plywood, plastic compounds, cement, ink and fire-retardant paint. Chemical plants throughout the United States produce millions of pounds of melamine a year.
Given the pervasiveness of melamine, it’s always possible that trace elements will end up in food. The F.D.A. thus sets the legal limit for melamine in food at 2.5 parts per million. This amount is indeed minuscule, a couple of sand grains in an expanse of desert that pose no real threat to public health. Moreover, the 2.5 p.p.m. figure is calculated for a person weighing 132 pounds — a cautious benchmark given that the average adult weighs 150 to 180 pounds.
But these figures obscure more than they reveal. First, while adults eat about one-fortieth of their weight every day, toddlers consume closer to one-tenth. Although scientists haven’t measured the differential impact of melamine on infants versus adults, it’s likely that this intensified ratio would at least double (if not quadruple) the impact of legal levels of melamine on toddlers.
This doubled exposure might not land a child in the hospital, but it could certainly contribute to the long-term kidney and liver problems that we know are caused by chronic exposure to melamine.
On a more concrete note, melamine not only has widespread industrial applications, but is also used to buttress the foundation of American agriculture.
Fertilizer companies commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck. But the government doesn’t regulate how much melamine is applied to the soil. This melamine accumulates as salt crystals in the ground, tainting the soil through which American food sucks up American nutrients.
A related area of agricultural concern is animal feed. Chinese eggs seized last month in Hong Kong, for instance, contained elevated levels of melamine because of the melamine-laden wheat gluten used in the feed for the chickens that produced the eggs.
To think American consumers are immune to this unscrupulous behavior is to ignore the Byzantine reality of the global gluten trade. Tracking the flow of wheat gluten around the world, much less evaluating its quality, is like trying to contain a drop of dye in a churning whirlpool.
More ominous, the United States imports most of its wheat gluten. Last year, for instance, the F.D.A. reported that millions of Americans had eaten chicken fattened on feed with melamine-tainted gluten imported from China. Around the same time, Tyson Foods slaughtered and processed hogs that had eaten melamine-contaminated feed. The government decided not to recall the meat.
Only a week earlier, however, the F.D.A. had announced that thousands of cats and dogs had died from melamine-laden pet food. This high-profile pet scandal did not prove to be a spur to reform so much as a red herring. Our attention was diverted to Fido and away from the animals we happen to kill and eat rather than spoil.
Frightening as this all sounds, the concerned consumer is not completely helpless. We can seek out organic foods, which are grown with fertilizer without melamine — unless that fertilizer was composted with manure from animals fed melamine-laden feed (always possible, as the Tyson example suggests).
We could further protect ourselves by choosing meat from grass-fed or truly free-range animals, assuming the grass was not fertilized with a conventional product (something that’s also very hard to know).
But as all the caveats above indicate, these precautions will only go so far. Melamine, after all, points to the much larger relationship between industrial waste and American food production. Regulations might be lax when it comes to animal feed and fertilizer in China, but take a closer look at similar regulations in the United States and it becomes clear that they’re vague enough to allow industries to “recycle” much of their waste into fertilizer and other products that form the basis of our domestic food supply.
As a result, toxic chemicals routinely enter our agricultural system through the back channels of this under-explored but insidious relationship.
So, sure, let’s keep the heat on China. And, yes, let’s take with a big dose of skepticism the Chinese government’s assurances that they’re improving the food supply.
At the same time, though, instead of delivering righteous condemnation, the United States should seize upon the melamine scandal as an opportunity to pass federal fertilizer standards backed by consistent testing for this compound, which could very well be hidden in plain sight.
James E. McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University at San Marcos, is the author of “American Pests: The Losing War on Insects From Colonial Times to DDT.”
Our Home-Grown Melamine Problem
By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS
Austin, Tex.
Article from NY Times
CHINA’S food supply appears to be awash in the industrial chemical melamine. Dangerous levels have been detected not only in milk and eggs, but also in chicken feed and wheat gluten, meaning that melamine is almost impossible to avoid in processed foods. Melamine in baby formula has killed at least four infants in China and sickened tens of thousands more.
In response, the United States has blasted lax Chinese regulations, while the Food and Drug Administration, in a rare move, announced last week that Chinese food products containing milk would be detained at the border until they were proved safe.
For all the outrage about Chinese melamine, what American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is how much melamine has pervaded our own food system. In casting stones, we’ve forgotten that our own house has more than its share of exposed glass.
To be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits. Makers of baby formula, for example, watered down their product, lowering the amount of protein and nutrients, then added melamine, which is cheap and fools tests measuring protein levels.
But melamine is also integral to the material life of any industrialized society. It’s a common ingredient in cleaning products, waterproof plywood, plastic compounds, cement, ink and fire-retardant paint. Chemical plants throughout the United States produce millions of pounds of melamine a year.
Given the pervasiveness of melamine, it’s always possible that trace elements will end up in food. The F.D.A. thus sets the legal limit for melamine in food at 2.5 parts per million. This amount is indeed minuscule, a couple of sand grains in an expanse of desert that pose no real threat to public health. Moreover, the 2.5 p.p.m. figure is calculated for a person weighing 132 pounds — a cautious benchmark given that the average adult weighs 150 to 180 pounds.
But these figures obscure more than they reveal. First, while adults eat about one-fortieth of their weight every day, toddlers consume closer to one-tenth. Although scientists haven’t measured the differential impact of melamine on infants versus adults, it’s likely that this intensified ratio would at least double (if not quadruple) the impact of legal levels of melamine on toddlers.
This doubled exposure might not land a child in the hospital, but it could certainly contribute to the long-term kidney and liver problems that we know are caused by chronic exposure to melamine.
On a more concrete note, melamine not only has widespread industrial applications, but is also used to buttress the foundation of American agriculture.
Fertilizer companies commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck. But the government doesn’t regulate how much melamine is applied to the soil. This melamine accumulates as salt crystals in the ground, tainting the soil through which American food sucks up American nutrients.
A related area of agricultural concern is animal feed. Chinese eggs seized last month in Hong Kong, for instance, contained elevated levels of melamine because of the melamine-laden wheat gluten used in the feed for the chickens that produced the eggs.
To think American consumers are immune to this unscrupulous behavior is to ignore the Byzantine reality of the global gluten trade. Tracking the flow of wheat gluten around the world, much less evaluating its quality, is like trying to contain a drop of dye in a churning whirlpool.
More ominous, the United States imports most of its wheat gluten. Last year, for instance, the F.D.A. reported that millions of Americans had eaten chicken fattened on feed with melamine-tainted gluten imported from China. Around the same time, Tyson Foods slaughtered and processed hogs that had eaten melamine-contaminated feed. The government decided not to recall the meat.
Only a week earlier, however, the F.D.A. had announced that thousands of cats and dogs had died from melamine-laden pet food. This high-profile pet scandal did not prove to be a spur to reform so much as a red herring. Our attention was diverted to Fido and away from the animals we happen to kill and eat rather than spoil.
Frightening as this all sounds, the concerned consumer is not completely helpless. We can seek out organic foods, which are grown with fertilizer without melamine — unless that fertilizer was composted with manure from animals fed melamine-laden feed (always possible, as the Tyson example suggests).
We could further protect ourselves by choosing meat from grass-fed or truly free-range animals, assuming the grass was not fertilized with a conventional product (something that’s also very hard to know).
But as all the caveats above indicate, these precautions will only go so far. Melamine, after all, points to the much larger relationship between industrial waste and American food production. Regulations might be lax when it comes to animal feed and fertilizer in China, but take a closer look at similar regulations in the United States and it becomes clear that they’re vague enough to allow industries to “recycle” much of their waste into fertilizer and other products that form the basis of our domestic food supply.
As a result, toxic chemicals routinely enter our agricultural system through the back channels of this under-explored but insidious relationship.
So, sure, let’s keep the heat on China. And, yes, let’s take with a big dose of skepticism the Chinese government’s assurances that they’re improving the food supply.
At the same time, though, instead of delivering righteous condemnation, the United States should seize upon the melamine scandal as an opportunity to pass federal fertilizer standards backed by consistent testing for this compound, which could very well be hidden in plain sight.
James E. McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University at San Marcos, is the author of “American Pests: The Losing War on Insects From Colonial Times to DDT.”
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The Emeral Tablet
The Emerald Tablet furnishes the origin of the allegorical history of King Hiram (rather Chiram). The Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Hebrews in what concerns Chiram have taken their knowledge from one and the same fountain; Homerus, who relates this history in a different manner, followed that original, and Virgil followed Homerus, as Hesiodus took the subject for his Theogony likewise from thence, which Ovidius took afterwards for a pattern for his Metamorphosis. The knowledge of Nature's secret operations constitutes the principal sense of all these ancient writings, but ignorance framed out of it that external or veiled mythology and the lower class of people turned it into idolatry.
M.P.H.
M.P.H.
Jacob Boehme
An Introduction to Jacob Boehme
"THE TEUTONIC THEOSOPHER"
Jacob Boehme, "chosen servant of God," was born in Alt Seidenburg, Germany, in 1575.
John Wesley, in his day, required all of his preachers to study the writings of Jacob Boehme; and the learned theologian, Willam Law, said of him: "Jacob Boehme was not a messenger of anything new in religion, but the mystery of all that was old and true in religion and nature, was opened up to him," — "the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God."
Born of poor, but pious, Lutheran parents, from childhood, Jacob Boehme was concerned about "the salvation of his soul." Although daily occupied, first as a shepherd, and afteward as a shoemaker, he was always an earnest student of the Holy Scriptures; but he could not understand "the ways of God," and he became "perplexed, even to melancholy, — pressed out of measure." He said: "I knew the Bible from beginning to end, but could find no consolation in Holy Writ; and my spirit, as if moving in a great storm, arose in God, carrying with it my whole heart, mind and will and wrestled with the love and mercy of God, that his blessing might descend upon me, that my mind might be illumined with his Holy Spirit, that I might understand his will and get rid of my sorrow . . .
"I had always thought much of how I might inherit the kingdom of heaven; but finding in myself a powerful opposition, in the desires that belong to the flesh and blood, I began a battle against my corrupted nature; and with the aid of God, I made up my mind to overcome the inherited evil will, . . . break it, and enter wholly into the love of God in Christ Jesus . . . I sought the heart of Jesus Christ, the center of all truth; and I resolved to regard myself as dead in my inherited form, until the Spirit of God would take form in me, so that in and through him, I might conduct my life.
"I stood in this resolution, fighting a battle with myself, until the light of the Spirit, a light entirely foreign to my unruly nature, began to break through the clouds. Then, after some farther hard fights with the powers of darkness, my spirit broke through the doors of hell, and penetrated even unto the innermost essence of its newly born divinity where it was received with great love, as a bridegroom welcomes his beloved bride.
"No word can express the great joy and triumph I experienced, as of a life out of death, as of a resurrection from the dead! . . . While in this state, as I was walking through a field of flowers, in fifteen minutes, I saw through the mystery of creation, the original of this world and of all creatures. . . . Then for seven days I was in a continual state of ecstasy, surrounded by the light of the Spirit, which immersed me in contemplation and happiness. I learned what God is, and what is his will. . . . I knew not how this happened to me, but my heart admired and praised the Lord for it!"
At the age of twenty-five, Boehme was given another great illumination, in which the Lord let him see farther into "the heart of things, . . . the true nature of God and man, and the relationship existing between them." Ten years later "the divine order of nature" was opened up to him, and he was inspired to write what the Lord had revealed to him.
From 1612 to 1624, he wrote thirty books, "My books are written" Boehme said "only for those who desire to be sanctified and united to God, from whom they came . . . Not through my understanding, but in my resignation in Christ . . from him have I received knowledge of his mysteries. God dwells in that which will resign itself up, with all its reason and skill, unto him . . . I have prayed strongly that I might not write except for the glory of God and the instruction and benefit of my brethren."
Jacob Boehme’s persecutions and suffering began with the publication of his first book, "Aurora," at the age of thirty-five. then not withstanding five years of enforced silence, banishment from his home town, and an ecclesiastical trial for heresy, his "interior wisdom" began to be recognized by the nobility of Germany; but at this time, at the age of forty-nine, Boehme died, "happy," as he said, "in the midst of the heavenly music of the paradise of God," in Silesia in 1624.
Link
"THE TEUTONIC THEOSOPHER"
Jacob Boehme, "chosen servant of God," was born in Alt Seidenburg, Germany, in 1575.
John Wesley, in his day, required all of his preachers to study the writings of Jacob Boehme; and the learned theologian, Willam Law, said of him: "Jacob Boehme was not a messenger of anything new in religion, but the mystery of all that was old and true in religion and nature, was opened up to him," — "the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God."
Born of poor, but pious, Lutheran parents, from childhood, Jacob Boehme was concerned about "the salvation of his soul." Although daily occupied, first as a shepherd, and afteward as a shoemaker, he was always an earnest student of the Holy Scriptures; but he could not understand "the ways of God," and he became "perplexed, even to melancholy, — pressed out of measure." He said: "I knew the Bible from beginning to end, but could find no consolation in Holy Writ; and my spirit, as if moving in a great storm, arose in God, carrying with it my whole heart, mind and will and wrestled with the love and mercy of God, that his blessing might descend upon me, that my mind might be illumined with his Holy Spirit, that I might understand his will and get rid of my sorrow . . .
"I had always thought much of how I might inherit the kingdom of heaven; but finding in myself a powerful opposition, in the desires that belong to the flesh and blood, I began a battle against my corrupted nature; and with the aid of God, I made up my mind to overcome the inherited evil will, . . . break it, and enter wholly into the love of God in Christ Jesus . . . I sought the heart of Jesus Christ, the center of all truth; and I resolved to regard myself as dead in my inherited form, until the Spirit of God would take form in me, so that in and through him, I might conduct my life.
"I stood in this resolution, fighting a battle with myself, until the light of the Spirit, a light entirely foreign to my unruly nature, began to break through the clouds. Then, after some farther hard fights with the powers of darkness, my spirit broke through the doors of hell, and penetrated even unto the innermost essence of its newly born divinity where it was received with great love, as a bridegroom welcomes his beloved bride.
"No word can express the great joy and triumph I experienced, as of a life out of death, as of a resurrection from the dead! . . . While in this state, as I was walking through a field of flowers, in fifteen minutes, I saw through the mystery of creation, the original of this world and of all creatures. . . . Then for seven days I was in a continual state of ecstasy, surrounded by the light of the Spirit, which immersed me in contemplation and happiness. I learned what God is, and what is his will. . . . I knew not how this happened to me, but my heart admired and praised the Lord for it!"
At the age of twenty-five, Boehme was given another great illumination, in which the Lord let him see farther into "the heart of things, . . . the true nature of God and man, and the relationship existing between them." Ten years later "the divine order of nature" was opened up to him, and he was inspired to write what the Lord had revealed to him.
From 1612 to 1624, he wrote thirty books, "My books are written" Boehme said "only for those who desire to be sanctified and united to God, from whom they came . . . Not through my understanding, but in my resignation in Christ . . from him have I received knowledge of his mysteries. God dwells in that which will resign itself up, with all its reason and skill, unto him . . . I have prayed strongly that I might not write except for the glory of God and the instruction and benefit of my brethren."
Jacob Boehme’s persecutions and suffering began with the publication of his first book, "Aurora," at the age of thirty-five. then not withstanding five years of enforced silence, banishment from his home town, and an ecclesiastical trial for heresy, his "interior wisdom" began to be recognized by the nobility of Germany; but at this time, at the age of forty-nine, Boehme died, "happy," as he said, "in the midst of the heavenly music of the paradise of God," in Silesia in 1624.
Link
As Above, So Below
These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing"[42].
In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.
Wikipedia
In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.
Wikipedia
Monday, November 24, 2008
Jim Rohn, Personal Developer
Things I like that Jim Rohn says:
"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job."
"Success is not something you pursue, but something you attract by the person you become."
"All we're asked to do in life is make measurable progress in reasonable time."
"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job."
"Success is not something you pursue, but something you attract by the person you become."
"All we're asked to do in life is make measurable progress in reasonable time."
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Aristotle
Aristotle
A friend to all is a friend to none.
Aristotle
A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
Aristotle
A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.
Aristotle
A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end.
Aristotle
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Aristotle
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Aristotle
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
Aristotle
All men by nature desire knowledge.
Aristotle
All men by nature desire to know.
Aristotle
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Aristotle
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Aristotle
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
Aristotle
Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.
Aristotle
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Aristotle
Bad men are full of repentance.
Aristotle
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
Aristotle
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Aristotle
Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
Aristotle
Change in all things is sweet.
Aristotle
Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.
Aristotle
Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.
Aristotle
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Aristotle
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Aristotle
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Aristotle
Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
Aristotle
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
Aristotle
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Aristotle
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Aristotle
Education is the best provision for old age.
Aristotle
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Aristotle
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
Aristotle
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.
Aristotle
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
Aristotle
For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.
Aristotle
For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
Aristotle
For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.
Aristotle
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle
Friendship is essentially a partnership.
Aristotle
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
Aristotle
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle
He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.
Aristotle
He who hath many friends hath none.
Aristotle
He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
Aristotle
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
Aristotle
Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
Aristotle
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
Aristotle
Hope is a waking dream.
Aristotle
Hope is the dream of a waking man.
Aristotle
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
Aristotle
I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
Aristotle
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
Aristotle
If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.
Aristotle
In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
Aristotle
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
Aristotle
In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.
Aristotle
In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
Aristotle
In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
Aristotle
Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.
Aristotle
It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.
Aristotle
It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.
Aristotle
It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
Aristotle
It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought.
Aristotle
It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.
Aristotle
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Aristotle
Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.
Aristotle
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Aristotle
Man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle
Man is naturally a political animal.
Aristotle
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.
Aristotle
Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.
Aristotle
Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.
Aristotle
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
Aristotle
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Aristotle
Most people would rather give than get affection.
Aristotle
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
Aristotle
My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Aristotle
Nature does nothing in vain.
Aristotle
Nature does nothing uselessly.
Aristotle
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.
Aristotle
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
Aristotle
No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Aristotle
No one loves the man whom he fears.
Aristotle
No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.
Aristotle
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.
Aristotle
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.
Aristotle
Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.
Aristotle
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
Aristotle
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
Aristotle
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Aristotle
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Aristotle
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
Aristotle
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotle
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
Aristotle
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
Aristotle
Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
Aristotle
Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.
Aristotle
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
Aristotle
The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
Aristotle
The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.
Aristotle
The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
Aristotle
The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.
Aristotle
The end of labor is to gain leisure.
Aristotle
The energy of the mind is the essence of life.
Aristotle
The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
Aristotle
The gods too are fond of a joke.
Aristotle
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
Aristotle
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
Aristotle
The law is reason, free from passion.
Aristotle
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
Aristotle
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.
Aristotle
The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.
Aristotle
The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.
Aristotle
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Aristotle
The secret to humor is surprise.
Aristotle
The soul never thinks without a picture.
Aristotle
The state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.
Aristotle
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
Aristotle
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Aristotle
The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life - knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.
Aristotle
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
Aristotle
The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.
Aristotle
There is no great genius without a mixture of madness.
Aristotle
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aristotle
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
Aristotle
This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.
Aristotle
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
Aristotle
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.
Aristotle
Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.
Aristotle
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
Aristotle
To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
Aristotle
We make war that we may live in peace.
Aristotle
We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.
Aristotle
We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.
Aristotle
Well begun is half done.
Aristotle
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
Aristotle
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
Aristotle
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
Aristotle
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
Aristotle
Wit is educated insolence.
Aristotle
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Aristotle
You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
Aristotle
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
Aristotle
Anodea Judith
Anodea Judith explains the purpose of chakra work (Wheels of Life):
"... to work with the chakras is to heal ourselves of old, constricting patterns lodged in the body or the mind, or habitual behavior." pp. 17
"... to work on our chakras [is] to clean up any outdated, dysfunctional, or negative programming that may be getting in our way." pp. 34
"... to work with the chakras is to heal ourselves of old, constricting patterns lodged in the body or the mind, or habitual behavior." pp. 17
"... to work on our chakras [is] to clean up any outdated, dysfunctional, or negative programming that may be getting in our way." pp. 34
Saturday, November 22, 2008
R.N. Elliot
No truth meets more general acceptance than that the universe is ruled by law. Without law it is self-evident there would be chaos, and where chaos is, nothing is. Navigation, chemistry, aeronautics, architecture, radio transmission, surgery , music -- the gamut, indeed, of art and science -- all work, in dealing with things animate and things inanimate, under law because nature herself works in this way. Since the very character of law is order, or constancy, it follows that all that happens will repeat and can be predicted if we know the law.
R.N. Elliot
R.N. Elliot
Jim Rohn on Affirmations
I do believe in affirmations. They are valuable -- as long as you affirm the truth, because it says in ancient scripture, "The truth will set you free." Free to do what? Amend your errors and pick up your discipline. That's what the truth is for, to help us amend our errors and pick up the disciplines for life change. That's what the truth is for. So, I do believe in affirming the truth. So, if your broke the best thing to say is "I am broke." Put that up on your refrigerator where you can see it everyday. If you need a little additional affirmation you just put up there, "I'm 40 and broke." That's enough to turn your life around. It says "Hey, something is wrong. Somewhere I have messed up." If you'll start with that, it's called the process of life-change -- and it doesn't matter how small the process is to start, one discipline starts it, and one discipline feeds another and another and the next thing you know you've got in this whole cycle in an upward positive motion. It's called life change, income change, health change, relationship with your family change, equities unprecedented that you can have in numbers that would stagger the imagination -- if you do not curse what's available and start amending what's possible to get the results that you want. I don't think I could put it in any better way.
Jim Rohn
Jim Rohn
Friday, November 21, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Thucydides
“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.”
Thucydides quotes"I do not blame those who yearn for power, but those who are willing to submit to them."
— Thucydides, The Histories, D 61
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bastiat, The Law
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
Monday, November 17, 2008
MPH, Secret Teachings of All Ages
The obstacles which confront present-day scientific research are largely the result of prejudicial limitations imposed by those who are unwilling to accept that which transcends the concrete perceptions of the five primary human senses.
MPH, Secret Teachings of All Ages
MPH, Secret Teachings of All Ages
Rosicricianism: University of the Soul
In an early unpublished manuscript, an unknown philosopher declares alchemy, Qabbalism, astrology, and magic to have been divine sciences originally, but that through perversion they had become false doctrines, leading seekers after wisdom even farther from their goal. The same author gives a valuable key to esoteric Rosicrucianism by dividing the path of spiritual attainment into three steps, or schools, which he calls mountains. The first and lowest of these mountains is Mount Sophia; the second, Mount Qabbalah; and the third, Mount Magia. These three mountains are sequential stages of spiritual growth. The unknown author states:
By philosophy is to be understood the knowledge of the workings of Nature, by which knowledge man learns to climb to those higher mountains above the limitations of sense. By Qabbalism is to be understood the language of the angelic or celestial beings, and he who masters it is able to converse with the messengers of God. On the highest of the mountains is the School of Magia (Divine Magic, which is the language of God) wherein man is taught the true nature of all things by God Himself."
MPH, Secret Teachings of All Ages
By philosophy is to be understood the knowledge of the workings of Nature, by which knowledge man learns to climb to those higher mountains above the limitations of sense. By Qabbalism is to be understood the language of the angelic or celestial beings, and he who masters it is able to converse with the messengers of God. On the highest of the mountains is the School of Magia (Divine Magic, which is the language of God) wherein man is taught the true nature of all things by God Himself."
MPH, Secret Teachings of All Ages
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Conquer the Crash
"Conventional economists excuse and praise this system under the erroneous belief that expanding money and credit promotes economic growth, which is terribly false. It appears to do so for a while, but in the long run, the swollen mass of debt collapses of its own weight, which results in deflation, and destroys the economy. Only the Austrian school understands this fact. A devastated economy, moreover, encourages radical politics, which is even worse."
Bob Prechter - page 105 Conquer the Crash
"Choose your location well and remain watchful of world affairs, because wars often break out during or shortly after depressions."
Bob Prechter - page 262 Conquer the Crash
Bob Prechter - page 105 Conquer the Crash
"Choose your location well and remain watchful of world affairs, because wars often break out during or shortly after depressions."
Bob Prechter - page 262 Conquer the Crash
Osama bin Laden is Dead
Osama on dialysis
I'm pleased to see Barak Obama hit the ground running after his election on the 4th. The US needs change.
I'd like to see him announce the death of Osama bin Laden as one of his first official duties. Bin Laden often better known as bin Forgotten died in December of 2001. There is nothing I am saying that is news to anyone who has actually spent any time thinking.
Osama bin Laden had serous kidney disease that required him to have dialysis treatment twice a week. There aren't any dialysis machines floating around in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A few months back a reporter finally asked the question that should have been asked years ago at a White House press conference.
How is it that a guy who was seriously ill seven years ago is getting treatment for end-stage renal disease in some cave in Afghanistan? The woman conducting the press conference panicked at the thought of answering that most basic question and immediately canceled the rest of the briefing.
The United States does not need a boogieman living in a cave in Asia. Osama bin Laden is dead. Barak Obama should be honest enough with the American people to declare him dead.
Here are the facts.
1. The last intelligence intercept of Osama bin Laden was on December 14 of 2001. He has not been heard from since.
2. President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld hinted in late December of 2001 that they knew Osama bin Laden was dead.
3. President Musharraf of Pakistan announced in January of 2002 that Osama bin Laden was probably dead of kidney disease.
4. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was quoted in October of 2002 as saying, "The more we don't hear of him, and the more time passes, there is the likelihood that he probably is either dead or seriously wounded somewhere."
5. But the actions of the US Military are the most telling. There isn't a single soldier, sailor or Marine tasked with chasing down Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. Because we know exactly where he is. He's dead. So the US military is either totally or absolutely incompetent or Osama bin Laden died years ago and we've been fighting the boogieman.
6. As early as July of 2002, even the FBI's counterterrorism chief was quoted as saying; Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead.
The US does not need a boogieman; we have real challenges ahead of us. We need a President who will not lie to us on a constant basis.
While you are at it Mr President Elect, you may want to mention that Iran never threatened to wipe Israel off the map and 16 US Intelligence agencies all agree [pdf] Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. But you knew that, didn't you? Iran is neither the enemy of the United States nor Israel.
http://matrixnewsnetwork.com/articles/786-osama-bin-laden-is-dead.html
Thursday, November 13, 2008
On Debasement
Coinage is imprinted gold or silver, by which the prices of things bought and sold are reckoned. It is therefore a measure of values. A measure, however, must always preserve a fixed and constant standard. Otherwise public order is necessarily disturbed with buyers and sellers being cheated in many ways, just as if the yard, bushel, or pound did not maintain an invariable magnitude.
Nicholas Copernicus, Treatise on Debasement
The Individualistic Capitalism of today, precisely because it entrusts saving to the individual investor and production to the individual employer, presumes a stable measuring rod of value, and cannot be efficient -- perhaps cannot survive -- without one.
John Maynard Keynes, Social Consequences of Changes in the Value of Money
Nicholas Copernicus, Treatise on Debasement
The Individualistic Capitalism of today, precisely because it entrusts saving to the individual investor and production to the individual employer, presumes a stable measuring rod of value, and cannot be efficient -- perhaps cannot survive -- without one.
John Maynard Keynes, Social Consequences of Changes in the Value of Money
Why Our First Month is Called "January"
The old Romans were wise enough to know that things change and fluctuate. They therefore recognized that the best way to know what would probably happen in the future was to study how changes took place in the past. To symbolize this, their two headed Janus was their chief deity with one head confidently looking to the future as the other head had studied the past.
Alan H. Andrews
Alan H. Andrews
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Negative Entities
The Reality Of Negative Energy & Negative Entities
The "New Age" movement has once again made it fashionable to be involved in occult practices. There have been other periods in recent history when this has been the case, most notably *fin de siecle* Europe (IE the 1890's) and more recently the late Sixties "Age of Aquarius" which faded into the "Me" decade and its plethora of self-help, "Human Potential" organizations. This era did not truly die. The "Me" decade became the age of the Yuppie, and the "New Age" emerged from the human potential movement and handed everyone out a crystal.
The main problem with the neo-Aquarian movement is that the whole concept of evil is so blithely scoffed at. "There's no such thing as evil," says the New Ager, "there is only imbalance." This is a refrain you hear all the time, not just from the practitioners, but from so-called channeled entities. In this essay, I wish to show you that there is something very dangerous in channeling, something which has been ignored to the peril of not only the channelers, but those who consult them.
In the 1890s, when mediumship was quite a fad, somebody estimated that only 25% of the mediums were actually contacting spirits. Fully 75% were charlatans, who used elaborate and not-so-elaborate means to fake contacts with spirits at seances. The famous magician Harry Houdini drew large crowds to seminars he conducted to show people just how the flim-flam artists conducted their phony seances.
There is evidence that much of the people who are self-described channels are doing the same thing. "Ramtha", the famous "channeled being of light", was shown to be a fake on national television when 60 Minutes did an expose on the former housewife in Oregon who "channels" him at $300.00 a session.
This, however, leaves 25% of authentic channelers, if you use the old figures, which I suspect to be pretty true now as it was in the Turn of the Century. And just as Dion Fortune, one of the foremost occultists to come out of the Order of the Golden Dawn, had warned about the mediums of her day, I must sound anew a very important warning:
CHANNELING IS DANGEROUS, not only to the channel, but to those who consult them as well. Most channelled entities come from a facet of reality that is woven, warp and woof, into the reality our physical senses can penetrate. This realm is known to the Native American as well as the Ancient Norse as the Middle World. (Mitgard) These entities from here are people who once had bodies but have died and for some reason have become lost on their way to the "West".(the realm of the dead) They crave the sensations of embodiment, and so they roam, trying to find a living person they can possess for this purpose.
Channels "invite" these entities into themselves in their quest for knowledge. And these entities are more than willing to give them whatever "knowledge" they sense within the conscious and subconscious dreams and hopes of their living host, and create whatever personality they sense
their host would like, be it the personality of a starship captain from Planet Zed, or an cranky ancient Egyptian priest. These "earthbounds" are only as dangerous as their embodied personalities were. Unfortunately, those humans that wind up "earthbound" were usually mentally disturbed in life, and this mental disharmony can cause mental damage to even the most adjusted person who opens themselves up to them.
Even more dangerous is the fact that entities who never HAVE had bodies and can truly be called "evil spirits" also make themselves available to the potential channel. These entities have been known since time immemorial as "demons," "devils," "pretas,"(Sanskrit: Hungry Ones), "kwaidan," (Japanese: Unquiet Spirits) "asuras," (Indo-persian: Not-gods) "djinni" (Arabic: Demon) and "gan'n"(Teneh Athapascan: Evil Spirit(of the mountains). In all cultures that have practiced magic(k), these spirits were actively guarded against. It is a relatively recent occurence that some magicians and Wiccans have abandoned the warding practices that have been used for millenia for protection against them. The magick circle, unlike what Gerald Gardner has claimed, is to keep these negative entities OUT, not to keep the good magick in until it is cast, which although a nice thought, is totally erroneous.
The "New Age" movement has once again made it fashionable to be involved in occult practices. There have been other periods in recent history when this has been the case, most notably *fin de siecle* Europe (IE the 1890's) and more recently the late Sixties "Age of Aquarius" which faded into the "Me" decade and its plethora of self-help, "Human Potential" organizations. This era did not truly die. The "Me" decade became the age of the Yuppie, and the "New Age" emerged from the human potential movement and handed everyone out a crystal.
The main problem with the neo-Aquarian movement is that the whole concept of evil is so blithely scoffed at. "There's no such thing as evil," says the New Ager, "there is only imbalance." This is a refrain you hear all the time, not just from the practitioners, but from so-called channeled entities. In this essay, I wish to show you that there is something very dangerous in channeling, something which has been ignored to the peril of not only the channelers, but those who consult them.
In the 1890s, when mediumship was quite a fad, somebody estimated that only 25% of the mediums were actually contacting spirits. Fully 75% were charlatans, who used elaborate and not-so-elaborate means to fake contacts with spirits at seances. The famous magician Harry Houdini drew large crowds to seminars he conducted to show people just how the flim-flam artists conducted their phony seances.
There is evidence that much of the people who are self-described channels are doing the same thing. "Ramtha", the famous "channeled being of light", was shown to be a fake on national television when 60 Minutes did an expose on the former housewife in Oregon who "channels" him at $300.00 a session.
This, however, leaves 25% of authentic channelers, if you use the old figures, which I suspect to be pretty true now as it was in the Turn of the Century. And just as Dion Fortune, one of the foremost occultists to come out of the Order of the Golden Dawn, had warned about the mediums of her day, I must sound anew a very important warning:
CHANNELING IS DANGEROUS, not only to the channel, but to those who consult them as well. Most channelled entities come from a facet of reality that is woven, warp and woof, into the reality our physical senses can penetrate. This realm is known to the Native American as well as the Ancient Norse as the Middle World. (Mitgard) These entities from here are people who once had bodies but have died and for some reason have become lost on their way to the "West".(the realm of the dead) They crave the sensations of embodiment, and so they roam, trying to find a living person they can possess for this purpose.
Channels "invite" these entities into themselves in their quest for knowledge. And these entities are more than willing to give them whatever "knowledge" they sense within the conscious and subconscious dreams and hopes of their living host, and create whatever personality they sense
their host would like, be it the personality of a starship captain from Planet Zed, or an cranky ancient Egyptian priest. These "earthbounds" are only as dangerous as their embodied personalities were. Unfortunately, those humans that wind up "earthbound" were usually mentally disturbed in life, and this mental disharmony can cause mental damage to even the most adjusted person who opens themselves up to them.
Even more dangerous is the fact that entities who never HAVE had bodies and can truly be called "evil spirits" also make themselves available to the potential channel. These entities have been known since time immemorial as "demons," "devils," "pretas,"(Sanskrit: Hungry Ones), "kwaidan," (Japanese: Unquiet Spirits) "asuras," (Indo-persian: Not-gods) "djinni" (Arabic: Demon) and "gan'n"(Teneh Athapascan: Evil Spirit(of the mountains). In all cultures that have practiced magic(k), these spirits were actively guarded against. It is a relatively recent occurence that some magicians and Wiccans have abandoned the warding practices that have been used for millenia for protection against them. The magick circle, unlike what Gerald Gardner has claimed, is to keep these negative entities OUT, not to keep the good magick in until it is cast, which although a nice thought, is totally erroneous.
Protection From Negative Energy & Negative Entities
The most basic protection is the magick circle. Those magicians or Wiccans who work without a circle are worse off than an aerialist who does his trapeze act without a net. If you fall down, you bite the dust REAL HARD. The circle is a line drawn in the dust of matter that says to beings of evil to stay clear under pain of intervention by the forces of Good.
If you cannot draw a circle in the earth or with chalk or with a line of corn meal or (better) cattail pollen (called Hod'nt'n by the Teneh), you should smudge the area where a ceremonial or a healing will take place, or use one of the good banishing rituals at www.spiritual.com.au, or if all else fails or if you cannot do anything else without drawing too much attention (like in a public place) visualize yourself encased in a shimmering globe of white or violet light, or wrapped in white or violet smoke or fog. Under no circumstances should you feel or show fear. Fear is a way these entities can get to you. Affirmations against fear are a good way to combat these feelings. I like the "litany against fear" from the Frank Herbert S-F classic "Dune." The book is a work of fiction, but the actual litany sounds like it was taken from an old Wiccan Book of Shadows.
"I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total annihilation. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and when it is gone I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
If you must invoke a spirit, even if it's identified as an angel, DO NOT invoke it without being well situated in a GREATER THEURGIC CIRCLE. This is well documented in books on high magick, and I will not detail it here. Invocations are truly risky business, not the province of dabblers. This kind of working is something I encourage you not to attempt, and do not do myself, even though I have been active in the occult for years. Unless you are especially adept and power-FULL, this is something extremely prone to backfiring on you. I also believe that the practice of automatic writing and ouija is far too risky to be fooled with, as well as direct consultation of spirits for divination.
Symbolic divination like Tarot and casting runes should be done after protecting yourself as I have detailed above. And most importantly, stay well away from the rituals that allow discarnates to possess a person who desires to become a channel. You will quite possibly put your mental health and even your soul in grave peril if you do this. It is my belief that Aleister Crowley, who was a giant in occult philosophy up to the point where he seemingly went crazy and dissipated himself in debauchery and drug abuse, was pushed over the edge by his contact with Aiwass, a discarnate entity whom he allowed to possess him. It may not have been the only thing that did it, but it was certainly one of the major elements in his fall.
Any path that teaches you to disengage your rational mind is extremely dangerous. Logic and rationality are very important, and are a gift from Usen'. Anything that shortcircuits the faculties of intellect and critical thought is very dangerous. "Turn off your mind/Relax and float downstream..."* is a tempting proposition, but also a dangerous one. This not only opens you up for possible possession, but also to domination from fellow human beings too.
The alpha state, which can be extremely perilous when used in mind control, is also the state that the shaman uses in their travels through Non-Ordinary Reality. The difference is that shamanic training teaches an individual how to enter the Shamanic State of Consciousness in an aware manner, and to maintain total control of yourself within it. One practice that is useful in cultivating this ability is lucid (aware) dreaming. Brett Hallett, a student of the Cherokee Medicine Path, gave me this method to retain awareness in the Dreamtime:
Look at your hands or your feet while you are in the dream. If you can, looking at your reflection in a shiny surface like water, or a mirror, or highly polished stone is even better. It takes exertion of Will to do this but it does work very well.
Another helpful thing to use when learning lucid dreaming techniques is affirmations. One good one is this. "I will remain aware and in control in the Dreamtime. When I wake up, I will remember all that I see. So shall it be." Go to sleep with this either on your mind or on your lips. Another practice that cultivates awareness in the Alpha state are the Harner shamanic exercises. The book "The Way Of The Shaman" details a few of Dr. Harner's methods.
In summation, there are some very important things to remember regarding any sort of occult practice and the reality of negative energy & entities.
1.) Do NOT open yourself to entities other than your Power Animal, which is your "lower" self, which doesn't necessarily mean inferior but just more instinctual and a source of the primal power that makes a shaman do things; and your Inner Shaman (Inner Teacher, Inner Wizard) which is also known as the Guardian Angel, which is the personification of your "higher" or spiritual self. One can have several Power Animals (the more you get, the higher the level of shamanic power) but only ONE Inner Shaman. The Inner Shaman must be gotten through the journey to the Upper World, and no other way. A Power Animal can be dreamt about, or seen in glimpses of the Non-Ordinary Reality one sometimes gets after some training, but unless you take the Upper World journey and meet your Inner Shaman there, there is a good chance this entity identifying itself as your Teacher is in truth an earthbound or worse.
2.)Any spiritual discipline which teaches you to reject rational thought and/or refers to logical, critical thought as "maya" or illusion is dangerous, especially when it is also taught that one must give allegiance to a "spiritual master" or a group.
3.) Do NOT try channeling even in a dabbling sort of way, or even consult a channel. The information a fake channeler will give you is entirely useless, and your'e throwing money
away on a fraud anyway. The information an authentic channeled entitiy may give you will be untrustworthy, and possibly even HARMFUL.
4.) Learn a way of warding yourself from attack or possession by earthbounds or gan'n. Do NOT show fear or even THINK fearful thoughts when confronted by malevolent entities.
5.) Practice lucid dreaming and travel in the Upper and Lower Worlds.
6.) Do NOT allow yourself under any circumstances to be hypnotized.
I hope this series has been thought-provoking and helpful, and perhaps even sanity-saving for you. Books with further information that I recommend are Psychic Self-Defense, by Dion Fortune, and The Way Of The Shaman, by Michael Harner.
Michelle Chihacou Klein-Hass
Saturday, November 08, 2008
33
A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually.
wikipedia.org
wikipedia.org
Friday, November 07, 2008
The Practical Kabala
"The practical kabala treats of ceremonial magic, and includes the making of magic circles, wands, swords and pentacles, and the use of inscriptions and symbols for performing wonders. It deals with necromancy, sorcery, exorcisms, sigils, enchantments and communications with angels and devils.
Accessible books treating of this subject are: The Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses, The Greater Keys of Solomon the King, and The Lesser Keys of Solomon. Needless to say, as set forth in detail in Chapter 3 of Course 18, Imponderable Forces, these books and all such practices are highly dangerous, and innocence is no protection to those who dabble in such matters."
The Brotherhood of the Light, The Sacred Tarot
Accessible books treating of this subject are: The Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses, The Greater Keys of Solomon the King, and The Lesser Keys of Solomon. Needless to say, as set forth in detail in Chapter 3 of Course 18, Imponderable Forces, these books and all such practices are highly dangerous, and innocence is no protection to those who dabble in such matters."
The Brotherhood of the Light, The Sacred Tarot
Daily Activities
Today is two weeks since I began looking into the financial markets pretty much non-stop. Things started to slow down yesterday because yesterday was the second full day of my current fast. I don't have any energy to work on my financial market 'analyses' today, I'm totally drained. Yesterday was bad too. It's hard for me to explain what I've learned because I can't focus at the moment -- suffice it to say that I've been lead into the field of "music theory" and "Fourier transforms" that are a form of "trigonometric interpolation" and the mathematical language of wave theory. Basically Fourier analysis is a mathematical prism that separates data that contains cyclicality into several different waves, each with a precise amplitude and frequency. The analogy of a prism is a correct one, Fourier analysis does to a time series of data what a prism does to white light -- that's why Fourier analysis is often called "spectral analysis."
I've learned more about how to properly use moving averages to predict price movements -- mainly the duration of the moving average is very important, and the 50% displacement of the moving average is also key. Before starting to eat again, I really don't see how I can get back on track with my work. But also I've learned that moving averages are, obviously, smoothers of price movement (which can be quite erratic), and have the effect of hiding the periodic movements in price that take place both at and below the duration of the average, and, in contrast they tend to reveal the periodic movements of price that takes place beyond the duration of the moving average. The true grasp of using the moving average to predict price, I haven't grasped yet, but seeing as its such a fundamental technical indicator in the financial markets, I think it warrants depth of study.
I have also bought, in the past two weeks, all the books from TradingFives.com, and the collected works of RN Elliot. I'm still waiting for the latter in the mail, I don't think it has shipped yet.
Yesterday I spent some time listening to Bob Prechter and Jim Rogers, both of whom I admire greatly, though I don't really understand everything they say. I wish I knew where and how Bob gets all his data, he has many interesting charts.
Last night I took a broader approach to the markets rather than just analyzing price movements. I want to understand the markets as a whole as well. So, I learned last night that the financial markets are a mechanism or series of mechanism that permit the transfer of funds from those who have an excess (i.e. savings or "capital" -- which is where the word capitalism comes from) to those who have a lack. The first of three divisions consists in the capital markets which is the stock and bond market where companies and governments sell the promise of future earnings in order to raise money for their endeavors. The second is derivatives market which was designed to allow businesspeople and investors to mitigate risk by binding one party of a contract to buy or sell a given asset at a specified price in the future. The third is the the foreign exchange market which provides the mechanism for international trade.
Also, I thought of an asset in a different way last night when I read in one of my textbooks that "Individuals own real assets in order to produce income and wealth." So an asset is something that produces wealth. I never thought about it like that before. If whatever you have is not producing wealth, then it's not an asset. Then the question becomes, what is wealth? Certainly things like the Sun, the soil, water, air, are definite assets that produce pretty much all the wealth we can attain.
I've learned more about how to properly use moving averages to predict price movements -- mainly the duration of the moving average is very important, and the 50% displacement of the moving average is also key. Before starting to eat again, I really don't see how I can get back on track with my work. But also I've learned that moving averages are, obviously, smoothers of price movement (which can be quite erratic), and have the effect of hiding the periodic movements in price that take place both at and below the duration of the average, and, in contrast they tend to reveal the periodic movements of price that takes place beyond the duration of the moving average. The true grasp of using the moving average to predict price, I haven't grasped yet, but seeing as its such a fundamental technical indicator in the financial markets, I think it warrants depth of study.
I have also bought, in the past two weeks, all the books from TradingFives.com, and the collected works of RN Elliot. I'm still waiting for the latter in the mail, I don't think it has shipped yet.
Yesterday I spent some time listening to Bob Prechter and Jim Rogers, both of whom I admire greatly, though I don't really understand everything they say. I wish I knew where and how Bob gets all his data, he has many interesting charts.
Last night I took a broader approach to the markets rather than just analyzing price movements. I want to understand the markets as a whole as well. So, I learned last night that the financial markets are a mechanism or series of mechanism that permit the transfer of funds from those who have an excess (i.e. savings or "capital" -- which is where the word capitalism comes from) to those who have a lack. The first of three divisions consists in the capital markets which is the stock and bond market where companies and governments sell the promise of future earnings in order to raise money for their endeavors. The second is derivatives market which was designed to allow businesspeople and investors to mitigate risk by binding one party of a contract to buy or sell a given asset at a specified price in the future. The third is the the foreign exchange market which provides the mechanism for international trade.
Also, I thought of an asset in a different way last night when I read in one of my textbooks that "Individuals own real assets in order to produce income and wealth." So an asset is something that produces wealth. I never thought about it like that before. If whatever you have is not producing wealth, then it's not an asset. Then the question becomes, what is wealth? Certainly things like the Sun, the soil, water, air, are definite assets that produce pretty much all the wealth we can attain.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Books I Need In Order To Understand the Economy
The Law - this little book by Frederic Bastiat (from the 1800s) is the most lucid and enjoyable read - and will forever change the way you look at governments and their interference in public and economic life. A gem! In fact, this book tells you everything you need to know about economics - in a way that you will thoroughly understand.
Economics in One Lesson - this book, by Henry Hazlitt, is very similar to "The Law" in that it presents economic ideas in a way that makes them eminently sensible and easy to understand. A must-have if you want to consider yourself economically literate.
Bionomics - a fascinating book by Michael Rothschild, which shows how capitalism and the free market are like "ecology" - a completely self-balancing system that is as "natural" as a rain forest. And when you consider that "orthodoxy" thinks of the economy as a "machine" - that politicians can forever tinker with - then Rosthschild's analysis is quite revolutionary.
from David Macgregor, SovereignLife.com
Lowest Voice in the World?
According the person who posted this video on youtube, the low voice heard hits "Ab1" which is a semitone below the A1 -- the lowest note on the piano keyboard.
Jackson, President 7
I'm not sure what a hero Andrew Jackson was, but I greatly admire him for his comments towards a group of investment "banksters" in 1828 who were trying to get him to renew their charter,
"You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning."
Of course, following the coup of 1907, a completely fabricated bank failure that lead to the creation of the (Non-)Federal (No-)Reserve(s), we find Andrew Jackson's mug on the face of the US 20$ "bill" (yes, every dollar is loaned into existence, not by the government but by private interest, and therefore represents a debt, or a "bill" to be paid by the next generation) -- just a way the banksters have of saying "Gotcha!"
We also have a quote from FDR to EM House (the real mastermind behind the fraudulent financial system we've had for the past 100 years) saying, and I'm paraphrasing, that Andrew Jackson was the last ethical president of the US (FDR was almost certainly the least!).
In any case, today I found another quote from Jackson that I admire.
"Believe in nothing, without examination. But where reason and evidence will warrant the conclusion, believe everything and let prejudice be unknown. Search for truth on all occasions, and espouse it in opposition to the world."
Musical Terms
Chord Progressions - A series of chords (sometimes referred to as the 'chord changes') that constitutes a verse, chorus, or even a complete song. A chord progression can be as short as a 2 bar pattern that repeats throughout a song. More commonly, you will find a 4 bar, 8 bar, 16 bar, or a 12 bar pattern that repeats or is placed together with other progressions to make up a complete song. Most blues follows a standard 12 bar chord progression, but you can run into an 8 or 16 bar blues from time to time. Most songs outside of the blues format will tend be made up of either 8 or 16 bar patterns.
Chromatic Scale- "Chromatic" refers to all 12 different notes which are found in Western culture music. If you start on any key of a piano and play every note, including all white and black keys, you are playing a chromatic scale.
Diatonic Scale- A diatonic scale has exactly 7 different notes in it. The last note of a diatonic scale is a repetition of the first note and doesn't count as one of the seven notes. The major scale is the most common example of a diatonic scale. Other types of diatonic scales include: the harmonic minor scale, the natural minor scale, and the melodic minor scale.
http://www.harmonicalessons.com/terms.html
Chromatic Scale- "Chromatic" refers to all 12 different notes which are found in Western culture music. If you start on any key of a piano and play every note, including all white and black keys, you are playing a chromatic scale.
Diatonic Scale- A diatonic scale has exactly 7 different notes in it. The last note of a diatonic scale is a repetition of the first note and doesn't count as one of the seven notes. The major scale is the most common example of a diatonic scale. Other types of diatonic scales include: the harmonic minor scale, the natural minor scale, and the melodic minor scale.
http://www.harmonicalessons.com/terms.html
"The Music of the Spheres"
"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st but in his motion like an angel sings."
Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice
"Pythagoras conceived the universe to be an immense monochord, with its single string connected at its upper end to absolute spirit and at its lower end to absolute matter -- in other words, a cord stretched between heaven and earth."
Manly P. Hall
Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice
"Pythagoras conceived the universe to be an immense monochord, with its single string connected at its upper end to absolute spirit and at its lower end to absolute matter -- in other words, a cord stretched between heaven and earth."
Manly P. Hall
Adze (folklore)
Adze (folklore)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The adze of folklore is a vampiric being described in tales of the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo. It has the form of a firefly, though will transform into human shape if captured. It feeds on coconut water, palm oil and blood. It hunts children.
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