Quick, Tell Me A Jewish Joke! (repost)

A Jewish woman says to her mother:

"I'm divorcing Sheldon. All he wants is anal sex and my asshole is now the size of a 50-cent piece when it used to be the size of a 5-cent piece."

The Jewish Mother says:

"You're married to a multi-millionaire businessman, you live in an 8-bedroom mansion, you drive a Ferrari, you get $2500 a week allowance, you take 6 vacations a year and you want to throw all that away for 45 cents?"

[First posted 10 April 2008] 

Are you a Grinch or a Griot? Or both? (repost)

What’s a Grinch? I believe it’s a word Dr Seuss made up – but what a perfect way to describe one who tends to be dour, sour, grim and dire in outlook; who sees the worst in others and believes you can’t turn your back on anyone, not even your own bed-partner and, least of all, your own kids. Only a Grinch could invent a concept as burdensome as “Original Sin” – and only a would-be Grinch would subscribe to or promote it.

Grinches generally end up in careers that involve keeping humans (indeed, all other lifeforms) on a short leash (the shorter the better), controlling their behavior with a deadly arsenal of rules, regulations, constraints and restraints.

Among the greatest Grinches
that ever lived

You’ll find generations of Grinches in professions like law and law enforcement, bureaucracy, academia, publishing, pharmaceuticals, medicine, psychiatry, banking, stockbroking, gambling, insurance, covert agencies, the armed forces, defence industries, politics, the judiciary, and especially religious institutions (paying lip service to or impersonating a punitive, wrathful, vengeful, warlike Male Deity).

And because they are such Control Freaks, most Grinches aspire to be born into powerful families – preferably of aristocratic or royal pedigree – so they can throw their weight around, pull rank, and make life as hard as possible for you and me with absolute impunity.

Grinches possess a perverse sense of humor in that they can only laugh at other people’s misfortunes, shortcomings and foibles – but never at their own. They also love dark secrets and secrecy, plotting and scheming behind closed doors, although they tend to think of it as protecting their own precious privacy – and of course their own vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

However, they would be the first to invade other people’s privacy in the name of national security or economic stability. Indeed, they would happily condone statesponsored surveillance of every citizen as a preventive measure against crimes and terrorist attacks, real or imaginary.

The irony is that most criminals and terrorists tend to be Grinches too – or else they serve rival Godfather Grinches as their henchmen and dirty tricks consultants.

I suspect the real problem with Grinches is that they seem to be fatally lacking in imagination, and so their actions usually become destructive and oppressive. They are experts at destroying other people’s sense of well-being and their capacity to experience spontaneous joy – and apparently hell-bent on destroying all that is beautiful and natural around them, especially the ecosystem (which they perceive as something to be exploited and harnessed to their own Control Freak agendas).

Nevertheless, Grinches can be quite cute - but only when they admit to being Grinches!

So what’s a Griot?

Not all Griots are as beautiful, brainy & sexy as Ms Ribena Berry aka Jo Kukathas

Griot (pronounced gree-yoh) is probably a French word for storyteller, clown, artist, medicine man or woman. The word is mainly used to describe community shamans in French-speaking African nations like the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Mali – but today the term applies to those with a playful imagination who choose to express themselves through poetry, storytelling, music, drama, dance, filmmaking, spiritual healing and the visual arts.

Jit Murad: a well-known
local Griot

What distinguishes Griots from other folks is that they somehow manage to keep alive their inner child even when they have arrived at a venerable age. As such, Griots find it easy to look at everything afresh, from a novel perspective, and so they continually question the way things are done and why people do what people do. Griots are generally compassionate and empathetic, but are prone to whatever mischief they can get away with – especially when having to deal with Grinches.

Youssou N'Dour, named by Time magazine as
one of the 100 most influential humans in 2007

Griots instinctively know that rules are made to be broken, and that the ultimate form of discipline is internal, invisible and quite unobtrusive altogether. Outwardly Griots may appear unkempt or disorderly – but deep within they know exactly what their own limitations are at any given time, and are constantly looking forward to stretching those limits. Some Griots seem to prefer to live unstructured lives, eating whenever and whatever they want; sleeping at any time they require rest, and waking up when they’re ready to poke their noses beyond their front doors.

Just as you can’t see the skeletons that keep the form and shape of all things, the codes by which Griots conduct themselves are also concealed from sight.

Mirth-provoking Griot,
the late great George Carlin

While Grinches are obsessed with telling others what to do and what not, Griots delight in seeing others free themselves from mental shackles – and dedicate their lives to appreciating beauty and truth, and to celebrating the joys of freedom..

Grinches are easily offended. They expect others to walk on eggshells around them. One indiscreet remark, one inappropriate adjective, one imaginary insult is all it takes to get Grinches fired up with self-righteous indignation – and that’s when they get inspired to dream up new laws and statutes to regulate what people are allowed to think and say and what is absolutely taboo. Grinches grudgingly acknowledge that people tend to be more productive and healthier when they are happy. However, it won’t do for them to be too happy. Limits must be imposed!

Griot Extraordinaire, the late great Frank Zappa

Griots laugh at totems and taboos, even though they understand that some folks need visible symbols to reinforce their faith in the benevolence of the worlds and beings beyond our senses. Without making a big fuss out of it, every Griot already knows that he or she is actually an individualized and unique expression of universal truth; of forces and principles that govern the motion of atoms, planets, stars, constellations, and galaxies.

Are there only two types of humans?

Brilliant Griot-Grinch hybrid R. Buckminster Fuller

Some folks are hybrids – a cross between Grinch and Griot. A good example would be architects whose work requires a combination of creative imagination and rigorous adherence to specific laws – whether of physics or municipal councils. Great inventors and captains of industry also tend to be Grinch-Griot hybrids.

Many begin life as Griots, only to turn into Grinches after they reach adulthood – taking on the role of spouses, parents, schoolteachers, policemen, generals, judges, ministers, respectable pillars of society. Some are fortunate to realize, before it’s too late, that nature smiles upon the Griots, guardians of the child within and defenders of innocence - and somehow succeed in integrating both polarities, thereby attaining a special status as Masters of their own destinies.

16 July 2013 (first posted 18 July 2013, reposted 24 August 2016)

Saying Goodbye to a Sibling

The siblings in 2015: (L-R) Mike, Mae, Me & Lanny

In 2008 I participated in a Systemic Family Constellation group session facilitated by Barrie Musgrave and I hugely benefited from the experience. 

Family Constellation is a dynamic, interactive emotional therapy (developed in the 1990s by Bert Hellinger) based on the principle that every soul enters into physical embodiment via a soul cluster, never in isolation. Hence any attempt to release emotional trauma has to be approached in the context of the family into which we are inserted at birth. All I can say about Family Constellation is that in just one session, I found myself at peace and at ease with my blood family and acknowledged them all as cherished components of my extended being.

As the youngest of four siblings who arrived 8 years after my next brother Michael was born, I grew up feeling like an only child because of the age gap. My other siblings were sent off to boarding schools in their teens and by the time I reached puberty, they only featured in my world during term breaks, when I suddenly found myself sharing the house with a sister and two brothers. 

Michael M.F. Lee @ 18

During the Family Constellation session I found myself standing in a nuclear family circle with a huge space between Michael and myself. The facilitator asked if there had been other siblings that were aborted or stillborn and I remembered my mother telling me she had conceived twins before I came along much later. She told me the twins were stillborn (but later my sister insisted that the twins had been aborted). 

When two other participants (one of them my biological daughter Belle) volunteered to stand in for the etheric twins, the family circle finally felt complete. We acknowledged and welcomed the twins into the family and there was a palpable sense of joy and fulfillment in the atmosphere. Then we blessed and thanked the twins and released them back into the spirit realms.

As the youngest child I had an easy time growing up. By the time I arrived my parents were no longer overly enthusiastic about acting out the role of parents, which means they left me pretty much to my own devices. My sister Mae, being the firstborn and the only female, saw me as some kind of cuddly toy when she was in her late teens. while my elder brother Lanny enjoyed playing benevolent big brother whenever he was home from boarding school. 

The younger brother Michael (or Mickey, as everyone called him in his early youth, after a recently introduced Walt Disney character) had arrived on June 15th, 1942, at the height of the Japanese invasion of Malaya. My mother told me she could hear bombing raids from planes flying overhead and the sound of intermittent gunfire during the birth of her third child. Consequently, Mickey turned out to be the most timid sibling, and mirrored our mother's negative mental habits (she was generally inclined towards anxiety and worried a great deal about her health). She was also predisposed to putting her faith in the pharmaceutical prescriptions of allopathic (Western) medicine rather than traditional remedies that had survived thousands of years. By the time she hit 60 my mother was taking prescription drugs for at least 6 different conditions, including heart palpitations, high blood pressure, anemia and diabetes. I remember the alarming array of pills she kept in a basket by her bedside.

Mike, Mae & Me in 2013

What prompted this verbal nod to my siblings was finding a missed call at 5:35am from my niece Rebecca. She had wanted to inform me that my brother Mike had passed away peacefully around 4:45am on 24 May at the Johor Specialist Hospital (the same hospital where our father died on 14 October 2004). I had spoken to Mike on the phone less than a week ago and he had sounded really excited, talking non-stop at maximum velocity. I tried to get him to slow down, breathe deeply, stop talking for a few seconds so that I could give him an energy transfusion down the line. But there was no way he could slow down or be quiet even for a couple of seconds! He asked if I had sent him the tasty porridge and I told him it was from my daughter Belle who had been ordering food for her Uncle Mike when she learnt that it was getting harder for him to drive around and go shopping.

My brother Lanny had decided to hop on a plane and get to Singapore the moment he heard that Mike had been admitted to hospital. He arrived on the night of the 23rd, a few hours before Mike checked out. But he was able to accompany Mae and my elder daughter Moonlake when they went to the hospital to sort out the paperwork and arrange for Mike to be cremated and his ashes taken to Singapore where our parents' ashes are stored in a columbarium. 

Getting an eye test in January 2019

Mike had been hankering to be discharged so he could return to his comfort zone and the quiet routine of an urban hermit. The doctors had diagnosed that his cardiac functions were only at 27% and that he stood a high risk of heart failure at any moment.

According to reports, Mike had shown an extremely hearty appetite for everything he was served. He guzzled with enthusiasm not only the hospital food but even enjoyed the industrial sandwiches Moon had bought at a gas station. I suppose he didn't want to leave on an empty stomach.

My brother Mike was indeed the proverbial Stranger in a Strange Land. His story certainly deserves to be told. But perhaps not today.

11:11pm, 24 May 2023

Universal Declaration of Peace & Harmony (reprise)

On this auspicious day,

let there be a coming together of all Star Lineages

that have contributed their diverse strands of experience and genetic heritage

unto informing the Rainbow Tribes of Earth Humanity,

and the entire spectrum of discrete lifeforms within the Biosphere,

that we collectively call

The Dance of Life.

Many of us continue to bear the residual pain of wounds and scars

sustained in the course of countless battles on all the planes,

inner and outer,

against those Fragmented Aspects of Our Greater Selves

that would not recognize and acknowledge

the Freedom and Integrity of our Sovereign Beings,

as Beloved Offspring of the Primordial Mother and Father -

indeed Prime Creator Source itself -

through all the stages of Cosmic Evolution,

conscious and otherwise,

voluntary or involuntary.

We have witnessed the grievous animosity and antagonism,

carried over within the molecular memory banks,

of warring factions across the Aeons:

between the Reptilians and the Primates;

between those of Sirian tutelage and those of the Pleiadian;

the Children of the One and the Sons of Belial;

Elohim and Nefilim;

Dark Lords and Jedi Knights;

Arcturian Emissaries and Emanations of the Orion Light Council;

Aldebaranian and Betelgeusian; Procyonian and Fomalhautian;

Rigelian and Aetherian; Martian and Venusian; Jupiterian and Saturnian;

Galactic Federation and Intergalactic Guardian Alliance;

Jews and Gentiles; Christians and Moslems; Hindus and Buddhists;

Palestinian and Israeli; Catholic and Protestant; Cowboys and Indians;

humanoid and insectoid; cuboid and spheroid;

Dreamtimers and Machinetimers;

Leftists and Rightists; Centrists and Dentists and Mentists and Adventists;

Wheelers and Dealers and Healers and Feelers;

and we hereby declare that

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

I refer specifically to the powerful imprint of the Tragedy of Avalon,

wherein the New Ways supplanted the Old through Force of Arms,

indeed, at swordpoint and on pain of excruciating death,

and wherein the Ancient Magick was driven from the Blessed Isles

by Slayers of Dragons bearing the Cross of Oppression,

instigated by the Elohim in the name of the Tetragrammaton, IHVH.

And all who had dedicated their lives in service to the ancient Pendragon bloodline

were reduced in status and cast out to perish in obscurity,

wandering the face of the Earth in disguise,

hiding their Druidic wisdom in riddles and childish rhymes.

It is time now to let these old wounds heal:

to remember the rôles we each played out, the dire oaths we swore -

that cruel injustice be avenged, the high and mighty brought low,

and the forgotten and forsaken once again be hailed as heroes and heroines,

and exalted.

Do you remember the stories of glory and of sacrifice,

the defeats and victories, the love triangles and tragic romances,

the secret alliances and desperate betrayals,

we have each played out in the Holographic Hell

that is even now fading away like a nightmare

upon our Awakening?

REMEMBER...

and be restored, now and forever, unto Wholeness and Harmony,

that we may all sing and dance and laugh and love one another

in innocence and purity, without armor or masks,

in the Rose Garden that the

Glorious House of Love

built.

REMEMBER...

the UNITY in COMMUNITY, the ALL-ONE-ness in ALONE,

The ONE in H-ONE-STY,

indeed,

let us honor even the PIG within us that dwells in the STY of Hone-STY...

so that the EARTH-HEART we call H.O.M.E.

will once again reveal her True Beauty as the Lady Melina -

and our Beloved Planet shall once more flow

with sweet HONE-st-Y and the MILK of Human Kindness.

Let there be no farther or "Father" di-VISION

in the EYE or "I" that is SINGLE -

or div-IS-ion in our molecular IS-ness! 

With All-Encompassing & Deep-Healing Love,

Antares Maitreya

~~~~^@^~~~~

xxx+xxx

Two Faces of Our One Face

[First posted 7 September 2012, reposted 3 December 2015, 2 November 2016 

& 24 January 2021

ProGnosis (a timely reprise)

We started out with a discussion on "Evil" - its definition and possible origins. Now it seems we are attempting to summarize EVERYTHING we think we know about EXISTENCE and post it via email to Edward Kemp, investigative anthropologist residing in Quebec, who will then pass it around a few others on his mailing list - who, no doubt, will have lots more to add to this virtual conference, which in theory could go on indefinitely like a verbal marathon, till one by one the participants drop away through boredom, fatigue, or irritation.

WHY are we doing this? WHY am I writing what I'm writing now? Knowing full well I really don't have to - even if I did promise Ed I'd sum up the situation the best I can, if only to clear the cobwebs in my brain. Clearly, there is pleasure in hearing the sound of our own voices, especially if we believe someone is actually listening. Sweet nights under the starry desert sky, passing a hookah around while waiting for the coffee to brew, in the company of savant mystics, each with 1001 anecdotes to relate, and a dozen theories to propound. That's the image I get out of this exercise.

At this moment my mind is a blank slate. Many, many moments ago I was omniscient, knew just about everything, or thought I did. But it now feels as if I have passed through an etheric membrane, like bursting through an amniotic sac, and I am like a newborn babe in a world completely unfamiliar and incomprehensible. Yet I do have a genetic archive where memories are haphazardly filed away (some day I'll get around to sorting out the mess, some day!)

Arcane knowledge, esoterica, the occult, Mystery Schools, the Gnosis... ahhh, the long road we have traveled around and around the zodiac. All this juxtaposed with massacres, blood sacrifice, witch-hunts, secret police, bioweapons, reptilian-Anunnaki Illuminati cabals, MK-ULTRA, ACIO, Men In Black, Zeta-Drako agents in cahoots with the military top brass, mind control, ELF, The Frequency Fence, Priory of Sion...

Where's the Cartoon Universe? Lemme outa here!

The Mystery is My Story. It's as simple as That. And my story is told in spiralling fractals of prismatic LIGHT, moving as information through neurons and synapses in billions of Other Aspects, occasionally recognizable as fragments of my Original Core Self. From the Unnameable issues all names, from the One comes the Many, from Nothing Everything emerges. From My Story is born All Stories - and stories are all we have to go by. Some stories make you cry, some make you laugh, some make you go Aha! And some just put you to sleep.

The ones that put you to sleep are told by Dark Sorcerers who steal power from you by putting you under their hypnotic spell. The Eater of Souls is one whose stories are deadly dull and cluttered with meaningless facts and figures - try reading an Environmental Impact Assessment report for a World Bank funded dam project!

EVIL is LIVE in reverse, just as EROS is SORE!

Is EVIL really VILE or just a VEIL for the Sacred Bride? A ROSE for My Lady! I arose for my lady but she was still sore at me so Eros has to wait. Words, wordplay, in the beginning was the Word. The Logos. Is Logic our friend? Do I sound Antisemantic?

In 1976 Julian Jaynes wrote The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, in which he postulated that auditory commands registered in the right hemisphere of the brain are rendered into language by the left and interpreted as Orders from Above. The book almost put me to sleep so it's obvious where he's coming from! Are my thoughts influenced by Archetypal imprints transmitted via photons? Are the Ascended Masters and the Archangels and Pleiadian Councils guiding the way I evolve as a hybrid humanoid with an unknown number of lineages seeded over countless aeons by legions of ultra-, meta- and extraterrestrials? Are the Sun and the planets and myriads of stars talking to Me? I am a Descended Master - and a family man - and you have my email address!

God Immanent and Transcendent: Within and Without! As an occasional Solipsist, I revert to being God in the privacy of my own Mind - but in public my divinity is externalized and God becomes my cosmic Father/Mother. The Undotted I from Whom i originated. Great Spirit! Does God know humility? Why so many Names? Mind Games...

If Linear Time is an illusion, what does that make "history"? His story, her story, Whose Story? Who Else? Virtual Reality hologram movies made by Whom? ME? Did I invent the Suns of the One and the Paradise Sons? Did the shadows they cast as they acquired density become the Sons of Belial? My Shadow Selves are legion. Do shadows have Free Will? A life of their own? The Pinocchio Effect: does it apply to shadows, who take on a life of their own as our Evil Twins, our Doppelgängers, our Ids? Pleasure to meet you, Mr Hyde, would you like some tea?

If I didn't do all this.... WHO did? Greg? Ed Kemp? Mr Baggy? Queen Kate? Maisoon? John Kaminski? Pancho Villa? The Man of La Mancha? Onaxis? Atmanu Ram Anu? Prime Creator Source? Are Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld really part of me? Retch. Puke. Vomit. Poison in the bloodstream. Stupid White Men in their Dark Suits and Blood-Red Ties. Their insane arrogance and incurable halitosis. Do I HATE them? Sometimes, yes!

I hate bits of myself sometimes. My receding chin, puffy eye bags (legacy of my mother's dragon bloodline, degenerate nobility, mercenary magicians). Reptilian DNA. Reptilian implants. (Some good news here: the Great-Great-Granddaddy of them Rebel Reptiles that invaded and colonized the Earth 225 million years ago has recently been vaporized by Prime Creator Source and the hypothalamic reptile brain is rapidly losing its deadly stranglehold on the angelic humans!) But I have no bone to pick with the Great Reptile Families. Only a handful are mean-minded and totally mad. They think they can hijack Creation and make it their very own Miscreation.

What about all those scary entities you hear about? Choronzon, Ialdabaoth, Samael, Nosferatu, Kahotep, Aleister Crowley, Lafayette Ron Hubbard, Anton La Vey, Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Jeffrey Dahmer, Armin Meweis, George Herbert Walker Bush, Philip of Macedonia... Tales from the Crypt! The Undead. Shudder... Enochian magicians are such Woeful Wankers!

Which parts of me are they? Denizens of my Unconscious, terrorizing the Collective Psyche into sheeplike submission through their dominance of the Airwaves and the Microwaves and the Ultrawaves, killing off Cetaceans so we will be bereft of our Memories of the Deep from Antediluvian Days. 

Who are all these Zeta-Drako-Human clones in the Office of Naval Research and who now occupy the penthouse floors of the Pentagon? Who do THEY worship? What Secret Chiefs? Marduk? Lucifer? What Nameless Ones do they sacrifice young children to? In the robes of Aztec priests or Dark Druids, with their hideous addiction to solemn ritual, they are the inner core of a Kosmik Ku Klux Klan. Always looking for Niggers to lynch, are they the Great White Brotherhood?

The Sirius Lodge and the Orion Light Council... Galactic Federation... Ashtar Command... Pleiadian Agenda... Guardian Alliance... Melchizedek Cloisters... United Intruder Resistance... Stargate Keepers... Multidimensional Vortex Merkabas. Seems I'm getting so complicated I'll never understand Myself completely! Jesus H. Christ may be a curse on some people's lips - but he's a good friend of mine. Long live Christos Power!

The Wars of Gods and Men are giving me a monster bellyache! 'Scuse me, folks.... gotta go make a Leviathan Poop! Maybe I'll start an organic fertilizer business. See you in a bit! 😎

Antares
10 December 2003

[First posted 3 December 2006, reposted 17 April 2020]

CONDITION CRITICAL BUT NOT SIRIUS ~ Cosmic Fact and Fiction by ANTARES

I can't believe this cosmic joke
I tried to break the news, 
It broke... (from ‘Mary Malone of Moscow' by Dr Strangely Strange)


If I didn't find it all so hideously funny, I'd die of exasperation and grief. What am I talking about? That four letter word, LIFE? Correct.

I'll tell you another joke. A funny thing happened to me on the way to Eternity. I got caught up in Time.

Entangled in History. Of course, in retrospect, I could honestly declare I did it deliberately, in full consciousness, of my own volition. Well, it sounded like an amusing digression at the time. The whole universe was abuzz with gossip about this bright bluegreen watery world called Gaia, Tellus, or Earth: third planet from Sol, a small star orbiting Sirius in the remote reaches of Galaxy 13, locally called the Milky Way. The food and sex were unutterably addictive - that's what all the guidebooks said.

Having been on assignment here for nearly 260,000 spins around the Sun, or 10 Galactic Years, I can confirm that. Now, 10 Galactic Years doesn't sound that long. But bear in mind it took only 5 Cosmic Days to get Earth's ecosystem tooled up and ready to receive the Zoo Program. And only in the last 11 minutes of the 6th Cosmic Day was the part simian creature called Homo saps released from the undersea labs and distributed over the land masses. Don't ask me how many Earth Years one Cosmic Day represents, I'm running low on zeroes.

Before I carry on (as I'm wont to do), let me explain a few important developments that have made this true life account possible. My dear friend Drunvalo Melchizedek recently arrived from the 13th Dimension with some really Mind Blowing Info (if you have access to the internet, key in "Drunvalo Melchizedek" for a summary of the exciting news from Headquarters). He revealed that our planet was digitized and frequency enhanced back in 1972, and that the experiment worked beyond everyone's wildest expectations. And so, in 1987, it was possible to announce the Harmonic Convergence, and the beginning of a new era of glasnost and perestroika (da, da, Gorby is part of the mission, even if he won't publicly admit it). After which it was no holds barred on previously classified information. You mean you didn't know there was an embargo on any intelligence that might cause the inhabitants of Earth to question the status quo?

Indeed there was, but the lid has been lifted at last. Who laid on this embargo, you might ask?

Your wicked stepfather did. Hold it a second, you say. You don't have a wicked stepfather, your mum and dad are alive and well and still happily married and living in Setapak. Listen, we're speaking metaphorically here. I personally know a few stepfathers who happen to be real sweeties. So let's not get too literal. That doesn't help when we're discussing really BIG issues.

Your real father, if the truth be known, was an Angel. More than that: he was an Archangel, one of the Elohim (that's Hebrew for "Sons of God"). These days we'd call him a Sirian (not Assyrian, mind you, but remember there are interesting clues to be found therein). A real wizard with gene splicing, your Father contributed his DNA to a long and tedious experiment involving a particularly receptive female specimen of modified primate, with whom he felt a passionate bond beyond the bounds of scientific duty. This superseded earlier humanoid breeding experiments conducted by the ruling council of Elohim, collectively called Yahweh. The results of these earlier attempts didn't survive very long because they lacked a sense of humor, which only comes from compassion.

Anyway, it gets rather technical, and I shall leave the sordid details to other storytellers. Suffice to say, it was a tricky and unauthorized experiment in hybridization that led to your Father's vilification for simply granting humanity the precious gift of Fire – Intellect, and its dangerous by products, Language, Reason, Self Awareness, Poetry, Humor, Free Will. Your mythologies have recorded this momentous event as the Promethean Revolt, the Eating of the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, the Expulsion from the Garden, and the Departure of the Gods. If you were brought up on christian dogma, you may recall that the blame was put entirely on the Serpent and the overly adventurous feminine spirit of Eve, the Temptress, Mother of Evolution.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ring, we have Darwin's Evolutionists. Having split open the atom and found virtually nothing inside apart from some Strange and Fascinating Qualities, a few Quirks and Quarks, but no bearded patriarch icon, no uncanny likeness of Ayatollah Khomeini, John Paul II, or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh aka Osho or even Sun Myung Moon... they had to assume that all previous theories were based entirely on superstition - and therefore classifiable as Mystical Hogwash fit only for the backyard bonfire. Our unknown Father was renamed Hap Hazard, or Pure Chance, or Mr Random Factor.

It was very convenient to have a dad named Random Factor: his mad brother Max managed to make a killing in the cosmetics industry - making up for (or covering up) the fact that humanity was just an illegitimate Child of Fortune after all, a regular Ugly Duckling.

So what became of our real Father? What kind of Daddy was he? Nobody knows for sure, because he has yet to complete his memoirs and get them published. However, speculation is rife that the Elohim are by and large a quiet, contemplative breed - quite unaccustomed to the gooey melodrama of a hydrocarbon protein existence. It's possible that our Father might have regarded the experience of being immersed in a flesh and blood scenario as somewhat odious, and would thus have been inclined to remain aloof from it all, content to take a peek into the nursery from time to time. And if the situation warranted, he might occasionally expend some energy rearranging the furniture, so as to prevent the infant humanity from banging its head on sharp objects (like flaming tektites).

In any case the child didn’t seem too badly off in the day-to-day care of the hired help, those hardy hide-bound hench-humanoids from the planet Nibiru. Which, alas, led to the first instance of child molestation – but we won’t venture into this psychic quagmire just yet. A remarkably racy race, us humans.

You see, the idea of sexual reproduction was perfectly fine for zoomorphs – but for a highly intelligent and geometrically precise species to be so intimately involved in the messy viviparous process was altogether a different kettle of fish.

Eons ago, the Elohim weren’t at all an individualized race. They were a group intelligence emanating from the pineal gland of the Great One like rays of pure focused will. They knew no gender and lived only in Light – and therefore were unfamiliar with tactile sensations, sensuality, sexuality – and all their attendant pains and pleasures. Their encounter and entanglement with Earth’s carnal karma was for the most part a bewildering but immensely educational process, which is still unfolding just beyond the threshold of our perception. Little wonder, then, that over the eons, watching our microbic human cosmodrama unfold has become a favorite pastime of the Elohim, who have indeed grown pretty protective of their dense-bodied runt, the human being, formerly called the Adama (“clay-formed entity”).

Where does the wicked stepfather come in? Ah... this is how official history begins. With a systematic fudging of the books, a laborious tampering with the records, conducted by grim-souled clerics working under the orders of a new CEO – some whizkid flown in from Rigel Kent, Orion, who seemed to have an instinctive grasp of primate politics.

Some say there was protracted debate in the High Council of the Intergalactic Confederation as to the wisdom of allowing such an unpredictable turn of events to manifest. Others aver that the whole episode was unforeseen and unpreventable: an invasion from Deep Space, no less. Ships suddenly appearing over the horizon of Business-as-Usual, flying the Jolly Roger. Will we ever get a full account? Whoever organized the cover-up did a damn good job. Crystal data banks deactivated, cellular memory files erased, deleted, or grossly distorted. Collective amnesia. Total News Blackout in the War Zone. Direct all enquiries to the Information Retrieval Department. Fill in forms XYZ/123/Q/ABC. In triplicate, please.

This is the Martian Inquisition. Identification papers will be issued to all new arrivals. Gene encodement procedures to be strictly observed. Put it down in black and white. Now, let’s ignore the Grey areas. Reticulate and gridify all internodes. Seal the portals. Sign and deliver on command. By Order.

With the altering of our DNA circuitry, it was relatively easy for the new “owners” of Planet Earth to claim exclusive sovereignty and exercise parochial jurisdiction over the proliferating tribes of humans.

And so the Dark Lords – to employ an archaic term – declared themselves our legal Guardians and Trustees to our Further Evolution. They set up monolithic Institutions, established Priesthoods, introduced the Guild System, spurred the invention of Barbed Wire. Crime was identified and duly Punished. Judgement was passed and Decrees proclaimed. Statutes and statuary lined the public walkways.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t entirely a “bad’” thing, this sinister twist in the plot. It gave us the dynamic flux of Duality.  We became obsessed with concepts of Good and Evil, entered into the not-so-merry-go-round of vicious and virtuous circles. And, of course, it was invariably THEM that were Evil. WE were always the Goody-Two-Shoes.

Perhaps it’s time to stop calling our stepfather “wicked.” The fact that he has never learned to trust his children is his problem.

Perhaps the horror of history was our collective crucifixion on the cross of Materialism. The dense and claustrophobic spacetime continuum in which our immediate past has been lived is now at the point of revealing itself as a mandala of kaleidoscopic meaning and metamorphic beauty.

Our stepfather wasn’t really all that wicked. He was merely terrified of losing control.

Now, you may be wondering, where is the humor in all this?

Sit back for a moment and contemplate your perspective of reality. What are you doing “for a living”? Are you succeeding at your chic “lifestyle”? How often do you feel confused, helpless, caught in a permanent double-bind? Are you perpetually looking back over your shoulders, fearful that any moment you may be struck down by disaster, disease and/or death? Is that why you succumbed and bought “life insurance” last year? Is the Inland Revenue Department or your bank manager sending you messages in red ink? Are you worried about your performance at work, at play, and in bed? Have the trees in your garden been felled for a new access road?

Surely, surely these are matters of grave consequence. Why waste precious time time tuning into weird stations when you can keep that dial set at 99.3 FM? Time (reverb FX) Highway (reverb FX) Radio (digital delay)!

Hey, the laugh is on you. Everything is perfectly okay. Stay tuned, folks. We’ll be right back after this commercial break, with an exclusive interview, transmitted live from Andromeda, with....

The Man Who Sired Humanity! (Cool funky theme music.)


© Antares, 1996-2004-2020-2022-2023

[Originally published in Journal One, May 1996. First posted 11 March 2020, reposted 4 November 2020 & 15 May 2022]

The Politics of Oil and Oil Palm Plantations (reprise)

The ragtag Royal Sulu Army prepare to invade Sabah

Below are spontaneous comments on the Sulu invasion of Sabah I left on various conversation threads over the past week. It's a vastly complex and multi-layered issue made urgent by the outbreak of violence which has cost nearly 100 lives on both sides. Brute force is an entirely inefficient and primitive way to resolve differences. These notes serve as a starting point for a wider discussion...

Taking on the Tausugs

A few hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolution was in its early stages. Nobody in this part of the world could foresee that all those hectares of jungle would someday be viewed as prime real estate - especially if oil deposits exist just off the coast. Can't blame the Sulu or Brunei Sultans for being so generous with parceling out their lands in exchange for small favors.

The wheel of fate and fortune spins. Here we are in 2013, and the Sulu people - mostly living in poverty compared to richer folks in the north and across the waters in what is now Sabah - suddenly realize they have been given a very raw deal. But short of wresting Sabah back by force of arms, they can only appeal to an international court for justice. So it's a complex legal issue made more complicated by all the secrecy surrounding it.

For example, we read that as recently as February 2011 the Malaysian Ambassador to the Philippines actually offered RM350,000 to Sultan Jamalul Kiram III if he would extend the lease by another 100 years. This only reinforces the Sulu Sultan's insistence that padjak means "lease" - not outright sale.

Jamalul Kiram III, self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu

Beyond any doubt there is an issue to be resolved peaceably and wisely, using a win-win formula. Malaysia has further compounded the problem by being in denial that the Sultan of Sulu and his heirs do have a legal right to cancel the lease and reclaim their ancestral lands - and they could also opt to sell the land outright for an agreed-upon sum. If I were the Sultan, I'd find the Malaysian government offer of RM350,000 for a 100-year lease extension insulting, in view of what Sabah is worth. If the Malaysian government does not recognize Jamalul Kiram III as the legitimate Sultan of Sulu, why didn't it discontinue payment of the ridiculous RM5,300 annual rent?

Not only that, rumors abound that during Mahathir's tenure, the Malaysian government was secretly financing the Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines - just as suspicion remains that the Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand are on friendly terms with Malaysia - or at least Umno and Pekida.

The only intelligent and reasonable path is to tell the truth - no matter how bad that makes Umno and Mahathir look (especially since they already look so bad it can hardly get any worse). What's done cannot be undone. If there are already 800,000 Filipinos in Sabah - a vast number with Malaysian identity cards and voting rights, what is to be done?

Accept them as our brethren and include them in our development programs? Or evict them by force? Obviously, the most compassionate solution is always the most enlightened. Sadly, the present Umno/BN regime doesn't have a clue what compassion, enlightenment and wisdom mean - all they know is how to skim fat commissions off unnecessary and environmentally ruinous mega-projects. That's why the bottom line is still... ABU!

A Malaysian armored car rushes into the fray

Warlordism, feudal traditions, monarchies trapped in a timewarp... these are the last vestiges of an era soon to be viewed as a bad dream of humanity's infancy.

Only 200 years ago the world was a very different scenario. Nobody thought it was necessary to live in harmony with Mother Nature. Natural resources were regarded as a means to immense wealth - timber, gold, diamonds, rivers and seas teeming with fish, forests filled with all manner of fauna and flora.

The Moro National Liberation Front, one of many
militant Islamic factions in southern Philippines (www.mnlf.net)

It was a time when an ambitious, strong-willed tribal chief could consolidate his power among neighboring tribes and become an even bigger chief, a panjandrum who could rule by fear and force of arms. The Dream of Empire drove men like Alexander, Genghis Khan, Attila, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to audacious extremes.

Tausug youth

Well, folks, those ways cannot be sustained in the 21st century - not when the rise of a global middle-class and the spread of information and knowledge have empowered ordinary folk everywhere, who no longer feel a superstitious awe of their hereditary leaders, who have outgrown the habit of kowtowing before unsmiling despots issuing decrees from ornate thrones. Alas, in the less developed regions of the world, such anachronisms still persist - and Southeast Asia has witnessed a tectonic shift in social and political changes since 1913 - and these changes have dramatically accelerated over the last 50 years.

What we're seeing now in Sabah is the deaththroes of insular tribalism, of fierce competition for land and natural resources. This worldview is completely at odds with scientific advances that reveal how all life is interconnected and interdependent - and that symbiotic cooperation can produce synergies that will elevate humanity to an exciting new level of consciousness that is holistic and synchronized with cosmic cycles.The younger generations are ready for this - but it appears their elders are still stuck in their petrified, doctrinaire ways of experiencing reality.

They may look like ballet dancers - but I wouldn't want to start a feud with these Moro warriors

You just have to admire the courage and perseverance of the Tausug. Far better to have such hardy warriors as our friends and allies than as our permanent enemies. If their grouse is being neglected, marginalized and impoverished for generations, it's far wiser - and less costly in the long-term - to help them out financially. I'm sure the amount squandered just to get Psy to perform for 8 minutes in Penang would have helped the Tausug regain a sense of dignity and well-being.

Tausug men in the early 20th century

Sometimes, it takes a crisis to shake us up and remind us that beyond race, religion and nationality... we are all part of the human family. Indeed, most folks who resort to violence and crime are forced to do so because nobody was paying attention to their desperate needs. Aerial attacks on a small group of Tausugs equipped with only small arms does strike me as overkill. I'm sure there are less violent strategies...

No doubt this is one complex and convoluted issue that cannot be resolved elegantly and wisely - unless everybody agrees to shift to a higher, more inclusive perspective - and this is when I start looking at Abraham and shaking my head. How could one guy cause so much bloodshed and conflict over so many generations? Obviously the Middle Eastern portal through which the Book Religions were inserted into the 3D Matrix is controlled by renegade reptilians who will do anything to keep people divided and easily misruled - and nothing does that better than monotheist dogma and entrenched dualism.

[First posted 8 March 2013, reposted 19 March 2020]

Mr Bagus and the American Rightwing ~ excerpts from a virtual debate on might-as-right and the military solution (repost)

I started the Magick River Network on 22 June 2001 after a free e-bulletin service I had been using decided to charge an annual fee. With their permission I migrated all members on my mailing list to Yahoogroups - and I'm grateful to Yahoo for hosting so many virtual forums as part of its service to the web community.

After 13 years, I'm astonished that none of the original members has resigned from the forum, even though it has fallen silent ever since facebook appeared on the digital horizon. Indeed, as of today, we still have 143 members (144, if you count Mr God as an honorary member). As virtual forums go, the Magick River Network was blessed with a great variety of acute and articulate minds - all endowed with expansive and loving hearts - even the few with obnoxious opinions!

The intense discussions that ensued on every imaginable subject are now archived in the message folder - and a few have been retrieved from crashed hard drives, like my response to Mr Bagus - nickname for a dear friend of mine from 1969 - when he was posted to Batu Pahat as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Paul's 22nd birthday in Batu Pahat

When I first met Paul Herzenberg, he reminded me of the actor Elliot Gould, with his trendy sideburns and long, wavy curls. Paul was a practicing hedonist - fond of good food, pretty girls, big bikes, waterbeds and loco weed. He became a close family friend and later married a beauty named Peggy Liew from Kulai, Johor. When their first and only child was born, Paul suggested naming him "Kit Chen" - in my honor and as a nod to his family business, called "Kitchens by Herzenberg." Peggy snatched the pen from her hubby and formally recorded her boy's name as "David."

David Herzenberg turned 24 and decided to go backpacking around Asia. His dad insisted he look in on me. David stayed a total of 9 days at the newly constructed Bamboo Palace and when he got back to the U.S., sent me an invitation to join him on facebook. And that's how I became, quite possibly, the first Malaysian facebooker in mid-2005.

Handsome son of a gun: David Herzenberg

Anyway, much to my surprise, Paul Herzenberg joined the Magick River Network and, before long, began stirring up controversy with his hard-headed rightwing views (this was around the time of 9/11 and George W. Bush's fraudulent war on terror). There was a lot of heated discussion around the Neo-Con White House and its criminal invasion of Afghanistan, then Iraq. Paul, posting as "Mr Bagus," defended the U.S. plan to bomb Baghdad and "take out" Saddam Hussein...

From Bagus2@xxx.com
Date Friday, January 31, 2003 8:33 am
To magickriver@yahoogroups.com
Subject Re: [magickriver] America is screwed! / PAUL'S RANT

Hey Ant and everyone................. [snip] You know; Like.... Here is an ass hole [Saddam] who is going to do his best to take us out... and Now is the time to get him away from the seat of power he has stolen from his people and also to add an element of stability in the world oil market which benefits every single country and especially the poorest citizens on the planet. Faham tak?

My friend, what I "faham" is this:

Nothing extraordinary or unusual about your worldview. Fact is, a good 85% or the human race thinks along those lines, including most of my blood relatives. It's weirdos like me who are out of sync with the COLD FACTS OF LIFE, with our hippie notions of universal love and abundance for all, including the roaches and the vipers and the sandflies and those poor misguided fundamentalist-types who have been oppressed for so many generations they only know how to blow themselves up along with as many others as they can take with them. Only difference is, my uncles & aunties aren't on the Internet - not to mention being on this list - but YOU are, and you're self-confident and honest enough to charge right in and tell us what goes on in your head at the end of a long day and you have trouble sleeping.

David R. Hawkins
(author of Power vs Force)

Well, Mr Bagus-Bagus, let me tell you something that might be of interest to you: according to David R. Hawkins (Power vs Force) that same 85% of the human race doesn't even know what INTEGRITY actually means - they can't tell falsehood from truth and are thus easily manipulated by the newspapers, magazines, and TV programs they subscribe to. What Hawkins says is that to date 15% of the human race calibrates spiritually at 200 and above. At 400+ you value scientific precision above all else and at 500+ you begin to experience universal compassion and Christ consciousness. At 600+ you're a master of your own destiny and beyond 800 you're a living saint. Fortunately the tiny minority who calibrate above 600 exert such a powerful influence on the electromagnetic grid, they compensate for the rest of us who are still floundering in false beliefs and reactive programming.

Neo-Nazi Bush

I'd say you calibrate around 166 at this point in time, not too far from the level of Integrity. The more open we are to new notions and possibilities, the more likely we are to attain ever increasing calibrations. And once you make it past the crucial 200 mark, it's relatively easy to make huge jumps in no time at all. However, the spiritual consciousness of Nazi Germany calibrated at 177 - the level of intense ego arrogance on a national scale, and certainly nowhere near a love-thy-neighbor state.

It's remarkable that George W. Bush, Jr - the self-anointed leader of "The Free World" - calibrates at only 52, way below the level of integrity. In fact, 52 indicates that on the soul level, the entity is undergoing torment in hell - while his physical vehicle has been hijacked by a non-human program controlled by hidden hands. Those of you who practice kinesiology may want to check my readings independently. I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Is free enterprise really free? Or has it been a rigged game all along?

Marlon Brando as The Godfather

Life is great, business is good, there is an endless supply of condoms at the drug store, food is everywhere and there is the occasional smoke which we used to enjoy so much. All made possible and plentiful by the beautiful American system of free enterprise with appropriate rules and regulations. I'll tell you, it's a pleasure to pay my taxes. In America: Business is the religion of the country. We can, all of us Jew/Moslem and Christian and/or Buddhist or whatever, participate together in the religion of business. This is a religion that does not lie and have bullshit fairy tales; it is one that sustains us and by doing so allows us to love each other. When you go home at the end of the day you are free to go to the Mosque or Church and fool yourself any way you wish. But the true religion of America is business and we are getting better and better at getting along and taking advantage of it.

First we make you very sick, then we sell you the patented cure... on a lifetime plan

Just takin' care of Bizniz. Nuttin' poisonal... BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD! Scene right out of some mobster movie I once saw (with Angelica Huston as the Capo's daughter). Well, the God of Business is also called MAMMON - and her psychotic brother AMEN (or MOLOCH) is armor-plated and armed to the teeth. And terrified of Death, hence his vampiric tendency to extend his life at others' expense... just like any corporation or state. 

Don't get me wrong - trade itself is an ancient activity by which means tribes were brought into mutually beneficial interaction. However, with the onset of gunboat diplomacy and piracy on the high seas, the equation became lopsided. It was no longer "fair exchange" but outright exploitation - rape, plunder, pillage. No doubt it was all part of Empire Building, the Father-Knows-Best syndrome, look at the size of his cannon! Put those giant toothpicks you call spears away...

A nobler level of intertribal intercourse would be cross-cultural collaboration. I could never have accessed the Iranian or Japanese psyche - except through literature, music, or films produced by sensitive Iranian and Japanese artists. These days, the overall trend of "global" business is homogenization - what social philosophers call Coca-Colonization.

Nicolas Cage in Lord of War: "If I don't sell them guns, someone else will do it."

As such, the game has fallen into the hands of the Big Players - and the local grocery has been taken over by a predatory global franchise. In effect, your Religion of Business is a 19th century carryover which no longer applies in the 21st century - if only because there was never any real soul in the rough game of money-grubbing where Darwinian beliefs made it okay for the strong to bully the weak - instead of helping them.

It's the best example the rest of the world can have. Create common interests and create scenarios whereby strangers can be in close proximity and work together. Forget the false love shit - be friends first and the rest will take care of itself.

Peter Finch as newscaster Howard Beale (1976)

Did you ever see the movie Network (starring Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway)? You sound just like the CEO of the TV Corporation who called Finch in and converted him from Corporate Critic to Corporate Apologist.

Push them buttons all you want but the truth, if you live long enough to see it, will be there for all to see........... The good guys are going to win over the religious fanatics.

A fanatic is a fanatic, regardless of ideology. Takes one to know one. There are no good or bad fanatics - only rampant or reformed ones. BTW, Paul, you're not the only American friend from the Good Old Days (1960s/70s) who's taken refuge in comforting rightwing beliefs in their late middle age. My best friend from West Essex High School recently found my email on a search engine and we were delighted to once again be in contact. But 4 or 5 emails down the line, I discover he's considering a job with the NSA (National Security Agency) - the ultra-secret office that supervises all covert operations.

George Herbert Walker Bush: his father Prescott
co-founded the Skull & Bones Society

THAT is the saddest outcome of what has transpired on this planet since Daddy Bush inaugurated the New World Order in 1990.

Incidentally, I'm re-reading a first novel by Daniel Blair Stewart called AKHUNATON: The Extraterrestrial King (Frog Ltd, 1995). I'm truly impressed with Stewart's acute insights and research which he skilfully combines into a monumentally significant allegory for the New Millennium. The final chapter is chillingly prophetic of what's happening right now within the Pentagon: fundamentalist Christian hawks taking over from the old war god Amen whose high priests demanded human sacrifice... just as they do today, never mind if they're Iraqi children or brainwashed American conscripts. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING AT THIS TIME!

It's a funny world. It's a beautiful world with almost infinite possibilities...

Paul, that's the mellowest thought you've contributed to the discussion so far and I was touched by your use of the phrase "infinite possibilities" - because that's my definition of "heaven on earth."

Seed by Richard Sarson

A world of Infinite Possibilities allows for a total change of heart that will stay the hand of a would-be hunter or sniper or defense secretary. It allows for spontaneous understanding and sudden enlightenment and the effortless reconciliation of antagonistic viewpoints. It allows for the miraculous realization that separation is really an illusion, that there is a profoundly beautiful coherence waiting to be experienced as an unexpected epiphany.

As a species we can only evolve as swiftly as the slowest, most fearful, most aggressively resistant family member. Your opinions serve a great purpose, in that those of us who do not share your views are forced to be more compassionate and patient in the way we look at earthbound humans.

We have to adjust to the psychodynamics of apparently conflicting perspectives without giving up on communication and sharing. Even if occasionally we unleash a harsh or unkind response, it's a case of "sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never really harm me." Hurling the worst manner of invective at our foes - whether Al-Qaeda or Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi or George Bush or Dick Cheney or Squinty Rumsfeld - is okay, even if it gets us hot under the collar. But launching bombs and depleted uranium missiles is NOT okay. And I hold this truth to be self-evident.

Speaking softly is optional...

Herein lies the crux of the issue: the moment we give up on gentle persuasion and resort to the big stick, we have lost moral ground. In the case of geopolitics, if we cannot win hearts and minds over through the power of all-embracing love and understanding - and are compelled to use brute force - then our self-righteousness becomes hollow and hypocritical. And this disqualifies us from any claim to moral leadership in the game of planetary futures. We become "fair game" - and will be 'taken out" even as we plot and scheme ways to "take out" those we accuse of malice and wrongdoing.

Sending you a blast of tropical warmth,
Antares
~^@^~


[Excerpts from the Magick River Network forum, January-March 2003. First posted 4 July 2012, reposted 8 August 2014]