Monday, February 6, 2023

The Khinzir* Report (revisited)


THE PIG is one of the oldest forms of livestock, having been domesticated as early as 5000 BC. It is believed to have been domesticated either in the Near East or in China from the wild boar. The adaptable nature and omnivorous diet of this creature allowed early humans to domesticate it much earlier than many other forms of livestock, such as cattle. Pigs were mostly used for food, but people also used their hide for shields and shoes, their bones for tools and weapons, and their bristles for brushes. Pigs have other roles within the human economy: their feeding behavior in searching for roots churns up the ground and makes it easier to plough; their sensitive noses lead them to truffles, an underground fungus highly valued by humans; and their omnivorous nature enables them to eat human rubbish, keeping settlements cleaner than they would otherwise have been.

Pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, providing about 38 percent of daily meat protein intake worldwide, although consumption varies widely from place to place. This is despite religious restrictions on the consumption of pork and the prominence of beef production in the West. Pork consumption has been rising for thirty years, both in actual terms and in terms of meat-market share.

Throughout the Islamic world, as well as in Israel, many countries severely restrict the importation or consumption of pork products. Examples are Iran, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Pork is one of the best-known of a category of foods that are forbidden under traditional Jewish dietary law. The biblical basis for the Jewish prohibition of pork is in Leviticus 11:7. The Qur'anic basis for the Islamic prohibition of pork can be found in surahs 2:173, 5:3, 5:60, 6:145 and 16:115.

Seventh-day Adventists likewise eat no pork. Rastafarians too avoid the consumption of pork, their basis is also the book of Leviticus. [The Rastafarian religion is essentially a quirky spin-off of Judaism.]

The Scottish pork taboo was Donald Alexander Mackenzie's phrase for discussing an aversion to pork amongst Scots, particularly Highlanders, which he believed to stem from an ancient taboo. Several writers who confirm that there was a prejudice against pork, or a superstitious attitude to pigs, do not see it in terms of a taboo related to an ancient cult. Any prejudice is generally agreed to have been fading by 1800.

(From the Wikipedia entry on PORK)

Think about this for a moment. Several ethnic and religious groups on earth share a pork taboo: Jews, Arabs, Malays, and Rastafarians. Okay, some Seventh-Day Adventists avoid eating pork - probably because of the Gadarene swine story in the New Testament that describes how Jesus arrives in an area called Gadara and encounters a man possessed by demons. Jesus then chases the demons into the bodies of 2,000 innocent swine... who, maddened by the demons, stampede into the sea and drown. In this scenario the pigs were blameless and ought to be profusely thanked for taking on the possessed man's evil karma.

What else do these pork-fearing tribes have in common? A deeply-embedded religious fervor, perhaps, that makes it virtually impossible for them to get close to other tribes - especially the pork-loving ones. In effect, the pork taboo serves as a tribal, cultural and culinary barrier isolating a few groups from everybody else.

Problem is, even though the Arabs and Jews don't eat pork, they still can't get along with each other. In fact, they've been at loggerheads since Abraham, on the wicked advice of his wife Sara, dumped his mistress Hagar. You see, Hagar was the mother of Ishmael, Abraham's firstborn and forefather of the Arabs; while Sara gave birth to Isaac, forefather of the Jews. Yup... deadly sibling rivalry, owing to parents playing favorites among their kids.

Who are the world's biggest pork-eaters? The Chinese, Germans, English, Irish, most Scandinavians, Balinese, Papua New Guineans and Americans (in that approximate order). What characteristics do these racial groups share? Well, they are all known for pragmatism, industriousness, resourcefulness, an ability to learn from other cultures and enjoy a joke at their own expense. Doesn't that make you wonder if there may be some hitherto unidentified substance present in the flesh of pigs that tends to ground people in common sense, good humor, and enhances their long-term survival quotient?

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*Khinzir = Arabic for "swine"

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH 
The Other White Meat

The Gadarene Swine Fallacy

[First posted 11 August 2008, reposted 19 September 2015  & 8 February 2017]

Sunday, February 5, 2023

DEPRESSION (revisited)

Subject: World-Action...... DEPRESSION
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000
From: "World-Action"

Someone who does a HUGE amount to help the world has just written to me telling me how depressed they get. I have replied saying I get very depressed too. Last weekend several hundred World-Action e-mails of various types were zooming all over the world. My feeling was that these e-mails contained significant information and inspiration. In fact, very important information and inspiration. Out of a possible 1,000+ people who read them, I received about four good responses. Quite frankly I feel depressed. Depressed because myself and Rory Winter put a lot of effort into sending these mailings about. And depressed because I am very concerned about the state of the world and I felt these ideas were important. Now, I am wondering if others feel depressed too. Do YOU feel overwhelmed by the world situation?

CLIP

Best wishes,
Michael
World-Action and Rainbow Dream Vision
http://www.world-action.com

MY GOOD FRIEND ANTARES FROM MALAYSIA WROTE:


Date: Wed, 31 May 2000
From: Antares
Subject: DEPRESSION (The Rainbow Dream Vision Revisited)

Dear Michael,

Of course we're all depressed, even I the Eternal Optimist, or we'd be zombies. The only ones who aren't depressed right now are either zombies or Zombie Masters (the ones who increase their own power by turning others into remote-control zombies!) Someone I loved through and through turned into a zombie after the Grand Stellium... the hologram of heaven on earth, Magick River, is now a giant construction site... the tribe I married into has become hysterical and retreated into alcoholism and xenophobia... those who threaten the political status quo in Malaysia are still languishing in jail with zero hope of justice because all the honorable judges have been fired or retired... while the zombie-in-the-street continues to worry about "the next meal" and "the next pay rise" and "what the neighbors are going to say."

MY FRIENDS, WELCOME TO WORLD WAR THREE!!!

The battleground is your psyche. The weapons are ideologies, misconceptions, and constrictive thoughtforms. The enemy is invisible and lurks in Inner Space... is, in fact, your own hardwired circuitry, your tampered-with genomes, whatever makes you prone to depression, self-pity, and despair. 


I recommend that everyone re-read THE MIND PARASITES and PHILOSOPHER'S STONE by Colin Wilson (1968/1969): he foresaw that the Greatest Danger facing Humanity was an enemy that existed only in our wildest paranoid anxieties - but could so easily demoralize the visionary in each of us to the extent that we collapse, like Winston Smith, into an even deeper level of apathy and numbness, content to watch the screen (whether telly, laptop or smartphone) and sip our Victory gin...

How do we fight back??? What use is Shadow Boxing??? Can we possibly hope to destroy Evil forever??? Has the Dark Brotherhood emerged the victor in the aeons-old battle between Light and Dark???

Take it easy, Michael... take it easy, Dear People... take it easy, Antares! Lao-tse, my once and future favorite sage, always advised: "If you don't know what to do, do nothing."

Doing nothing is not apathy. It is the passive phase of a cycle that includes activity and festivity. We have been very active for several centuries... or at least decades. The seeds we planted and sowed on our journey are now germinating, but the seedlings are very tender yet. The Shadow of Nothingness fears Oblivion and will do Everything Possible to delay or thwart the inevitable paradigm shift, the quantum jump, the ascension of Lady Gaia, the New Golden Dawn. We must allow it to exhaust itself, while responding instinctively, like veteran tennis players, to the to-and-froing of our mental focus.


Meanwhile, the apocalyptic horrors will pile up around us. Let them. Just keep the Inner Light glowing within, remember we are Perfect Holograms of the One, of All That Is, and that means the Darkness, the Evil, the Disease are all within us too. They are the outward manifestations of our collective petty ego fears and jealousies. The shadow self that feels shame and guilt and profound unworthiness - that could buy an unlikely story like Original Sin - the traumatized inner child programmed to believe it will never be good until it has become Rich and Famous!

Yes, Michael, I am indeed troubled by the swift change in polarity that happened in the last two years: since June 1998 positive trends have turned negative. A powerful sign was the lack of funding interest in Jean Hudon's Earth Rainbow Concert 2000 Project. Now I ask myself: have I not experienced exactly the same sort of disappointment with my own visionary schemes? And is disappointment not due to expectation? But is it possible not to expect? Not to hope? Not to desire? Not to visualize a new heaven on a new earth?

We have to continue anticipating, desiring, hoping, visualizing. But we must let go of the outcome. We must surrender that to the Supreme Indifference of the Void. For that is indeed our Briar Patch - whence all Being originated, that Infinite Potentiality out of which the Finite Universe actualized itself. Whether we win or lose or draw... it's just another Cosmic Poker Game. True, this time the stakes are incredibly high. But whether you're playing in rand or rupiah, euro or US dollar, it's just Monopoly money!

Undaunted & Undeterred,
Antares


[First posted 3 December 2006, reposted 5 February 2018]