The Mind’s Eye

By Tai Woodville

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” ~ Matthew 6:22

“This life’s dim windows of the soul / distorts the heavens from pole to pole / and leads you to believe a lie / when you see with, not through, the eye.” ~ William Blake

Something interesting is happening. Currently, and for the past several months, the number one most searched out post on Parallax is “The Art of Seeing: Third Eye Perception & The Mystical Gaze.”

Everyday someone finds Parallax through typing “Why do I see a spinning tunnel when I shut my eyes” (or some similar variant) into their search engine. According to WordPress’ statistical analysis, these are trending key words.

Given the fact that third eye “awakenings”—as these activations are known—are traditionally associated with deepened or expanded consciousness, I’d say this bodes well for the trajectory of humanity. And let’s face it: we could all use a little good news in that department.

The ever-expanding comments section of this popular post has become a veritable reference guide for everyday descriptions of a subject often obscured by abstract esoteric language. I’m thrilled to report it has become an active forum of discussion.

Four years ago, when I wrote “The Art of Seeing,” the subject seemed hazardously “woo”—it felt like going out on a limb. Now it seems more relevant than abstract. Because apparently a lot of people are having these experiences….and looking to the internet for answers.

[From “A Brief Guide To Expanding Your Mind.”]

So I thought it might be an apt time for a follow-up. I’ve had my eye on this subject—haha—for a while now, and definitely harbor a few more insights to offer in terms of practical application.

But first, what do I mean by a “third eye experience?” For me, it meant that during meditations (and I’m no yogi; I’m more of a ‘5 minutes in the bath’ type,) I began to see a subtle but definite spinning sphere in the darkness of my closed eyes. Sometimes it seemed to approach, yet in a teasing way, never “arriving.” Then one day I realized it looked more like a tunnel, or wormhole, than a sphere. This was a common thread in reader comments.

The idea of a chakra, or energy center, in the midpoint of the skull that acts as a channel for higher consciousness dates back to ancient Eastern literature, from Hinduism to Buddhism. It also figures prominently into ancient Egyptian iconography.

Though there are slight cultural variations in description (and of course mythology), the essential idea remains the same: the third eye is a conduit for extrasensory perception, a receptor for subtle visioning that each human possess. It is a recurring spiritual motif of the ancient world, which has continued in various occult societies, and through the direct experiences of meditation practitioners & clairvoyants, into the modern age.

[Personal Tao.]

In modern times the third eye has been linked with the pineal gland, as a physical counterpart to this energetic center (though many speculate the link has been made as far back as ancient Egypt.)

The pineal gland is responsible for producing melatonin, for light detection, and for regulating sleep patterns, as well as circadian rhythms. It is located exactly between the two brain hemispheres. Interestingly, the pineal gland of modern humans is often calcified, mostly from flouride & cell phone exposure. (Click here to see how to help decalcify it.)

Being that the pineal gland is associated with connecting to higher consciousness, the fact that the number one dulling agent is added, by government decree, to our drinking water begins to take on a sinister, dystopian quality, not missed by the conspiracy theorists of the world.

What is happening on a scientific level? Well, we don’t know for sure. But “scientists believe [that] the same way that fireflies and deep-sea creatures can glow, cells within our eyes emit biophotons, or biologically produced light particles.” [“Why Do We See Colors With Our Eyes Closed.”]

In other words, the lights we see when we shut our eyes (called phosphenes) are coming from our brain. Which does not seem at all incompatible with metaphysical interpretations of third eye activity, particularly when you bring the physical pineal gland into the whole operation.

“Is it possible to really ‘see’ energy? Not directly,” explains Taoist Casey Kochmer. “While our eyes can see the end results of energy in action [they] only ‘see’ what they are designed to see, light. What our third eye does is process information and then overlay that information over our other senses in such a way we can then interpret and interact with energy…

“Auras are such an information overlay. Your brain has the ability to process visual information, but the image it creates for you is not limited to what comes from your eyes. Consider what you see on this page as you read it. You aren’t seeing black lines. You are seeing words and then concepts and ideas overlaid on top of them.” (“What Is The Third Eye?”, Personal Tao.)

[Manzel Bowman]

Part Two … coming soon!

 

 

 

 

Inward Bound: Exploring The Fractal Matrix

By: Tai Carmen

[Fractal Spirals]

“So alienated from ourselves are we that when we encounter our own souls in the psychedelic dimension, we mistake it for a UFO. This is serious alienation folks, I think we have to get back into the inner jeweled realm and make ourselves at home there.” ~ Terence McKenna

“In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.” ~ David Bohm

In “The Art Of Seeing: Third Eye Perception & The Mystical Gaze,” I explored the phenomenon of inner visions experienced in meditation, such as mandalas and other “third eye” phenomena. The “third” or “inner” eye has been called a gateway to other dimensions, a personal portal leading into esoteric visionary realms.

“The Art of Seeing” received one of our largest, most in-depth reader responses. The comments section is filled with shared accounts from readers of their adventures in inner space.

There were a lot of fascinating similarities. The most common reports were of geometric patterns, and of perceiving blue, purple or magenta swirls—often taking the form of tunnels, passageways, vortexes or, as one reader described it, a golden hallway. There was a common theme of sensing it to be some kind of inner portal.

[Fractal Universe by CSuck-1T]

While Eastern mystical traditions have described the existence of the third eye, the energy body & chakra system for ages, the direct perception of these fields is a pioneering study. At this point, anecdotal sharing affirms that ours are not isolated experiences, but contact with a genuine dimension of reality.

Which raises the question: what is the nature of that reality?

[M.C. Escher]

 Quantum physicists, philosophers, cosmologists & psychonauts alike have all observed a holographic potential to the nature of reality.

A hologram contains the whole within the part. Not only is this true of our bodies—one cell, of course, contains our whole genetic blueprint—but the natural world is made up of recurring patterns, which repeat on every scale, from micro to macro, known as fractals. We observe the same formations, such as the Fibonacci Spiral, shown below, in both the macro universe & on the micro (sub-atomic) level.

Below, a microscopic image of a bacterial colony structure demonstrates fractal qualities:

In one experiment, or “chaos game,” numbers are randomly generated & then placed on a grid.

Within a few dozen repetitions, the shape we would recognize as a perfect fern will emerge from the abstract math. This is because Nature, in Her elegance, follows the simplest & most efficient possible path.

“Many things previously called chaos are now known to follow subtle fractal laws of behavior.

“So many things turned out to be fractal, that the word “chaos” itself (in operational science) has been redefined as ‘following inherently unpredictable yet generally deterministic rules, based on nonlinear iterative equations.’ Fractals are unpredictable in specific details, yet deterministic when viewed as a total pattern…” (Fractal Patterns in Nature)

Fractal-like formations are often reported during both mediative visions and psychedelic journeying.

[Fractal Kit]

In an interview for “New Realities,” Alan Steinfeld asks visionary artist Alex Grey about his use of grids in his inter-dimensional, metaphysically themed paintings. “It comes from seeing the grid work in meditation and on psychedelic voyages,” replies Grey, “and it seems to be related to one’s perceptions and projections. ‘Theologue’ [shown below] is a recounting, an experience of witnessing a grid work that was emanating from my own awareness.

[“Theologue” by Alex Grey]

Continues Grey: “I was a node in the sourcing of the web and felt so expansive I was beyond my sourcing it. I could see it projecting from my awareness. Since we are all projecting it, it is a part of all of us. It is an aspect of our being.

“The grid is not a manifestation of the conceptual mind, but of transcendental wisdom mind.”

The ancient Avatamsaka Sutra describes the universe as a giant web, known as “Indra’s Net”:

“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great God there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.

“There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of the these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in it’s polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite.”

The jeweled net is an excellent description of a hologram, as each jewel contains an image of all the others.

In 1982, a team of researchers lead by Alain Aspect, discovered that subatomic particles, such as electrons, are able to instantaneously communicate with one another, regardless of how much space separated them.

This discovery, known as quantum entanglement, violates Einstein’s long-held tenant that no communication can travel faster than the speed of life, and is tantamount to breaking the time barrier.

Physicist David Bohm suggested this discovery implied an inherently illusory, interconnected & holographic nature to reality (detailed in his book, “Wholeness & The Implicate Order.”)

[Poster for “Thirteenth Floor”]

The fact that grid work, geometric forms & fractal imagery is regularly experienced by psychonauts from varying backgrounds suggests a Matrix-like possibility to the nature of reality.

After all, nothing is solid, the micro contains the macro & mathematics makes up the fundamental expressions of our world.

“We live in a fractal world of extraordinary beauty, full of information” notes metaphysical author & clairvoyant Stuarte Wilde. “But the sight of it is denied to us, at first anyway. To see is to be able to perceive the geometric reality that makes up your body and all of nature, and to see the angelic and the celestial heavens, as well as be more aware of the dangers of the hell worlds and the dark fractals people fire.

“We are inside complex geometric formula that describe our health, abundance, moods, creativity, our psychology…but mostly they describe our energy and vitality, or a lack of it. This sea of energy around us dictates what happens to us in 3-D; it shapes our fate, just as fractals dictate the shape of a fern leaf.”

[The Doors of Perception, Stuart Wilde]

What are your pieces to the puzzle?

Starseeds, Cosmic Consciousness and the Galactic Generations ~ Part 1

By Tai Carmen

Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. ~ Carl Sagan 

We are stardust ~ billion year old carbon. We are golden ~ caught in the devil’s bargain. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. ~ Joni Mitchell

Long before man went to the moon, he looked up at the stars and pondered his place in the cosmos.

Many a soul has looked up to the shimmering panorama of the night sky and felt a kinship, perhaps with a certain star or constellation. Many experience a sense of longing, as if some key to their existence might be hidden there.

It’s not just a poetic line. In a very real way we are made of stardust.

All the elements necessary to create life — carbon, nitrogen, iron, to name a few–were first forged in the nuclear furnace of a stellar explosion. And so every atom in the human body came, originally, from a dying star, propelled outward into the universe.

Countless books, movies, songs and legends reflect our sense of kinship with these burning bodies of celestial light, so seemingly different from our own bodies of flesh and bone…From radio hits about being “all made of stars” to Native American oral traditions, which describe human origins and helpers from the heavens.

In the past century, we have witnessed a renaissance of human thought, now aided by the information age. At the same time, we have seen an incredible amount of bloodshed and suffering. Is it getting better or getting worse? Apocalyptic prophesies abound. But so does talk of an awakening.

Over the past half century, connected with this idea of awakening, the terms “Starseed,” “Starborn,” and “Star Children” have become a part of the fringe cultural dialogue.

The idea has formed within this multi-generational conversation that some souls are “not from here.” Many mystically inclined would argue that none of us are spiritually “from here,” and the starseed concept is compatible with this idea. The theory goes that these souls, the starseeds, have incarnated more often in other solar systems; that earth is not their home planet.

According to Scott Mandleker, Ph.D., author of From Elsewhere: Being ET in America, recurring themes among starseed identified individuals include feeling alien to contemporary human culture; disconnection from, and even disgust with, accepted norms…a deep spiritual longing and the sense that, not only is there more to life than meets the eye, but that they have a mission to fulfill. The word “mission” seems to be a trigger word for starseeds almost without exception. Many have had extra-dimensional or ESP encounters, which have affirmed their sense of differentness and sensitivity.

There is usually a strong connection with nature and the stars, an interest in space, science fiction, other worlds, ancient cultures, environmentalism and human potential…perhaps even homesickness for a place they’ve never known in this life.

Many starseeds feel they have chosen to forget their other worldly origins in order to grow up on human terms and blend into the culture — though most feel the intention was to eventually “wake up” to their true calling as paradigm-pushers and ‘spiritual beings having a human experience,’ (as the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin quote goes.)

Though in some rare cases, starseeds feel they’ve been exiled to earth, the majority feel their intergalactic mission stems from the compassionate desire to help nudge humanity onto the path of its destined awakening.

Starseeds, without fail, intuit the civilizations from which they’ve come have moved beyond earth’s current state of divisive turmoil into a phase beyond war, disconnection and bloodshed. For this reason, starseeds invariably find themselves looking to serve humanity, choosing vocations which center around healing, teaching, human potential, the arts, environmental assistance and social outreach.

Most feel their own path of awakening, their spiritual journey, is of utmost importance in order to truly live the new paradigm they wish to exemplify.

Though the stuff of science fiction, and many would say wishful thinking, the phenomenon has been felt by so many isolated individuals, unprompted  — only later to be united by a website, a conversation, or a book — that it truly deserves some investigation by the open minded among us. And it could be science fiction itself is a product of productive starseed types, exploring inner worlds which lead them inevitably to worlds beyond their own.

The most common take on this intuitive knowledge is that these interstellar souls have come as artists, visionaries, dreamers and pioneers of thought to assist in humanity’s impending rebirth, to act as midwives through the inevitable labor pains.

Psychedelic icon Timothy Leary may have been the first to use the word “Starseed” in his short work, “Starseed: Transmissions from Folsom Prison.” 

He penned “Starseeed” while serving time on charges of marijuana possession, for which he was issued a 95 year sentence — an unheard of amount of time for the crime committed. While officially held on drug charges, at the hearing the judge remarked: “If he is allowed to travel freely, he will speak publicly and spread his ideas.” (Jesse Walker, “The Acid Guru’s Long Strange Trip.”)

President Richard Nixon had earlier labeled Leary “the most dangerous man in America.” (“Tim Leary, Pied Piper of Psychedelic 60’s.”) To have the president of the United States call a pacifist author-philosopher by this title should tell you something about the repressive state of affairs in which free thinkers find themselves.

Yet the irrepressible psychedelic spiritualist continued his work from jail, writing in 1973:

“This signal is being transmitted from a cell in Folsom Prison, which is the Black Hole of American society […] Some cosmologists suggest that Black Holes […] may be passageways to another universe, just as the manholes in Paris lead to a world beneath the street. Well, the maximum security prision is a fine place from which to scane the universe […]

“Out here, beyond good and evil, one sees America in pain, injured nervous systems propelling robot-bodies in repitiuous, aimless motion along paths labeled rights and wrong…”

Yet Leary remained fiery with optimism:

“The entire universe is gently, rhythmically, joyously vibrating. Cosmic intercourse. This is a message of hope and interstellar love from the Black Hole. Irrepressible optimism. Yes, it is true that repressive pessimists now control planetary politics. This is a larval phase.”

At this time, Leary had begun receiving what he believed were telepathic messages from outer space, presumably the genesis for “Starseed.” He began to see man’s true means of spiritual transcendence as coming from the stars:

“[…].certainly the anticipation of ‘saucers’ transporting humanoid bodies is naive. It is more likely that extra-planetary contact will be received by the instrument which was designed over three and a half billion years ago to pick up electro-magnetic vibrations. The human nervous system itself […]

“This message of neurological resonance can be censored, imprisoned but cannot be crushed because it comes from within, from the DNA nucleus inside each cell, from the evolving nervous system. The Higher Intelligence has already stepped on planet earth and its script is writ within our bodies, emerging in every generation.” (  Click this link to read the full piece online.)

(He did end up getting an early release, after five years, and resumed his energetic career, this time with emphasis on man’s place within the cosmos.)

To take the Starseed Test, click here! (Normally, I don’t put much stock in these test, but this is a good one, composed by licensed psychologist Scott Mandleker, author of From Elsewhere: Being ET in America, which we’ll examine in the next installment of the Parallax starseed series.)

Click here for PART II

Technology of the Gods

By Tai Carmen

“And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of 
the north and a great cloud, with brightness 
round about it, and fire flashing forth continually, 
and in the midst of the fire, as if it were gleaming bronze.”  (Ezekiel, 1:4)

The above painting, “The Baptism of Christ” by Aert de Gelder, was rendered in 1710.

Though religious scholars argue that such UFO-like representations in old works of art (of which there are actually quite a lot) are taken from the Bible’s many references to God’s showy appearance in bright clouds, whirling chariots of fire, whirlwinds and wheels, this protest only highlights the point that representations suggestive of ET presence date back further, and appear more plentifully, than many might imagine.

(Pictured below, Madonna with Saint Giovannino, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 15th century.)

(Pictured below, “The Annunciation with Saint Emidius” by Carlo Crivelli, 1486)

Ezekiel describes being visited by a“great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself ” (1: 4) from which emerged four living creatures with the “likeness of a man” (1:5), a wheel beside each living creature (vs. 15). “As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four(1:18).”

Each creature had “four faces and four wings” and “sparkled like the color of burnished brass.”  One had the face of a man, the others, respectively, the face of an eagle, the face of an ox and the face of a lion.

Interestingly, we see similar animal-headed divinities depicted in far older mythologies. For instance, the lion-headed Sekhmet of ancient Egypt:

The bird-headed Horus …

….the bull-headed gods of Ancient India….

…and the Apkallu griffin from ancient Sumerian mythology:

Some Apkallu are depicted as humans with wings …

According to the Babylonian creation myth, these ancient Sumerian gods, known as the Annunaki (translating to “those of royal blood” or “offspring of the prince”) created humankind to serve them by tilling the land, but the humans rebelled and the Annunaki freed them because they were more trouble than they were worth.

According to the Sumerian tablets, which detail the culture’s religious beliefs, the Annunaki were said to have “helpers” which “acted as if alive, but were not.” In other words, by our terms, android/inorganic beings. The picture below are Sumerian artifacts said to depict “servers or helpers of their gods.”

These figures resemble modern day descriptions of “grey aliens” …

As do many ancient petroglyphs, such as the 5000 year old Australian cave wall renditions below:

The description of the Annunaki’s “helpers” sounds a lot like the Archons of the Gnostic Gospels, who were also described as being animated but without true life or spirit, inorganic by our terms. The Archons are said to be silent manipulators of humanity, whispering deceptive suggestions into our unconscious and feeding off the fear and confusion they produce with their psychological warfare.

As one alleged abductee on www.think-aboutit.com relates: “Our emotional adrenaline is like candy, or a drug to them. They can steal this from us by causing us to feel fear, to feel passion, hate, anger…” The same writer wonders if the ancient practice of sacrificing virgins to appease the gods was not perhaps related to this hunger for human energy.

Though admittedly speculative, it would explain an otherwise counterintuitive and weirdly prevalent practice of the archaic world.

Gnostic scholar and author John Lash relates:

“Physical descriptions of Archons occur in several Gnostic codices. Two types are clearly identified: a neonate or embryonic type, and a draconic or reptilian type. Obviously, these descriptions fit the Greys and Reptilians of contemporary reports to a T. Or I should say, to an ET.”

Other figurines of Sumerian deities depict distinctively reptilian types:

These tall, slim beings bare a marked similarity to some Native American petroglyphs (featured below) among whom stands, in this instance, a rather robot-looking individual:

Another Sumerian figurine depicts a very grey alien-like fellow:

The ancient Sumerian tablets known as the Lament of Ur describe an “evil wind” and a “great storm” as being responsible for the destruction of the great city of Ur. Many have wondered whether this does not describe dueling alien factions with advanced weapon technology. Certainly the “storm” described does not sound like your average man-to-man combat of the ancient world:

“Enlil [Lord of the Wind, a chief Sumerian deity] brought Gibil [Lord of Fire] as his aid. He called the great storm of heaven — the people groan. The great storm howls above — the people groan. The storm that annihilates the Land roars below — the people groan. The evil wind, like a rushing torrent, cannot be restrained. It attacks the weapons of the city and completely devours them…

“Alas, storm after storm swept the Land together: the great storm of heaven, the ever-roaring storm, the malicious storm which swept over the Land, the storm which destroyed cities … May that storm, like rain pouring down from heaven, never recur.

David Hatcher Childress, author of Technology of the Gods, suspects ancient atomic warfare, siting, among others, a discovery from 1947 (interestingly, the date of the alleged Roswell UFO crash,) which ran in the New York Herald Tribune:

“When the first atomic bomb exploded in New Mexico, the desert sand turned to fused green glass. This fact, according to the magazine Free World, has given certain archaeologists a turn. They have been digging in the ancient Euphrates Valley and have uncovered a layer of agrarian culture 8,000 years old, and a layer of herdsman culture much older, and a still older caveman culture. Recently, they reached another layer of fused green glass.”

“It is well known,” muses Childress, “that atomic detonations on or above a sandy desert will melt the silicon in the sand and turn the surface of the Earth into a sheet of glass. But if sheets of ancient desert glass can be found in various parts of the world, does it mean that atomic wars were fought in the ancient past?”

Childress adds that geological processes don’t account for the exact nature of these ancient sheets of desert glass:

“Lightning strikes can sometimes fuse sand, meteorologists contend, but this is always in a distinctive root-like pattern. These strange geological oddities are called fulgurites and manifest as branched tubular forms rather than as flat sheets of fused sand. Therefore, lightning is largely ruled out as the cause of such finds by geologists, who prefer to hold onto the theory of a meteor or comet strike as the cause. The problem with this theory is that there is usually no crater associated with these anomalous sheets of glass.”

Ancient Indian literature is rife with references to flying vehicles (called vimanas,) weapons of mass destruction and sophisticated technology.

The following excerpt from the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, details a blast that seems uncannily atomic:

“Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana hurled a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendor […] The cloud of smoke rising after its first explosion formed into expanding round circles like the opening of giant parasols…

“It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis [ancient Indian clan with royal/divine bloodlines] and the Andhakas [Hindu demons]…

“The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white. After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected…A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts. All points of the compass were lost in darkness. Fierce wind began to blow upward, showering dust and gravel….

The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon. Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy… over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely.”

Could the “fire and brimstone” that God rains down on Sodom and Gemorrah have been a nuclear detonation? Abraham looked toward the city and “lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” (Gen. 19:28)

Interestingly, Genesis also describes a rather speculation-inducing incident, detailing the interbreeding of fallen angels (ETs?) with human women:

“When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. […] The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” (Genesis 6:1-4)

In The Book of Enoch (an ancient manuscript from Old Testament times, ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah) details the goings on of these fallen angels, called Watchers — as they were sent to “watch over” earth. (Enoch is cross-referenced in the Bible as a 365 year old man who “walked with God,” and afterward “he was not, because God had taken him” (Gen. 5:24).

According to the Book of Enoch, the Nephilim plundered the earth, causing great violence and perversion, at the height of which the great flood was sent to sweep the earth clean.

“The Book of the Watchers” and “The Book of Giants” (From The Book of Enoch) describes this hybrid human-Watcher offspring as giant savages who taught mankind about weaponry, cosmetics, sorcery, astronomy, reading and writing…interventions which displeased God.

This same idea of godly  intervention vs non-intervention recurs commonly throughout the world in mythology…perhaps most famously echoed in the tale of Prometheus the titan (interestingly, also a giant), who gave mankind the power of fire, only to be punished by Zeus with the eternal torture.

Many Christians have begun to wonder if ETs are not actually demons, but few have asked the question: were the demons of old ETs to begin with?

Is it a coincidence that satan is described as “the dragon?” Could satan be a symbolic stand-in for reptilians?

Interestingly, the Gnostic Gospels describe a revisionist form of the Garden of Eden story, in which the true creator God is distinguished as distinct and different from the gods who interacted with humanity after their creation, none other than the Archons.

The idea that aliens have been among us since ancient times is known as the ancient astronauts theory. Exhibit A: a 5000 year old suspiciously spaceman-looking figure found in Kiev:

Exhibit B: Astronaut-looking fellows in an Italian cave, dating back to 10,000 BC:

I tend to see epics like the Bible the same way I see the mythologies of all great cultures: stories of our ancestors worth studying for clues to our history and existence, containing truths which may be more allegorical, or, just as possibly, more literal than we allow ourselves to contemplate.

All possibilities should be considered.

From tales of the Sumerian Annunaki to the Gnostic Archons, from the Native American Star People, who came down from the skies to teach their tribes knowledge, to the ancient Egyptian gods who showed the priests astronomy — from the gods of ancient India, who traveled on flying chariots, to the God of the old Testament, who arrived on blazing whirling clouds with rings of eyes….something is going on.

Perhaps the idea of a heavenly war is not so farfetched as many a secular skeptic has believed. As Alison Goddard writes for the Times Higher Education, there have been reports of a series of mysterious explosions in outer space:

“British scientists hope to solve the mystery of gamma bursts soon. When a burst of gamma rays was detected in the sky in 1967, scientists at the Los Alamos laboratory thought that it was due to covert nuclear weapons testing. The discovery was not reported to the world until 1973, by which time many such bursts had been picked up by satellites designed to look for violations of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The data showed that what could have been nuclear explosions turned out to come from outer space.  More than 30 years later, gamma ray bursts continue to baffle scientists.” 

The experts, in this case, have only theories.

Truth, as they say, is often stranger than fiction and, as science fiction author Arthur C. Clark said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The Doppelganger Effect: Second Selves and Ghostly Doubles

By Tai Carmen

Though pop culture references to “doppelgangers” (a German word translating to “double-walker”) are often used to describe people who resemble one another, the word has a rich and often eerie history, which has more to do with ghost stories than celebrity look a-likes.

Famous witnesses of the doppelganger effect include president Abraham Lincoln, the great poets Percy Shelley and John Donne, Goethe of Faustus fame, Queen Elizabeth I , and Catherine the Great of Russia.

Lincoln saw a second face, exactly like his own but with a ghostly pallor, in the mirror on the night of his election. The face disappeared when he stood up, reappeared when he lay down. Though old mirrors have been known to cause double images, what would make the second face significantly paler? Writes Lincoln of the unnerving experience:

” [The memory] would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a “sign” that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.”

Incredibly, this turned out to be exactly the case. Lincoln was re-elected for a second term — assassinated in the theatre, where he had gone to celebrate his second win.

The vision of a doppelganger has long been considered a harbinger of death. Queen Elizabeth saw her own double laid out upon her bed shortly before she died. John Donne witnessed his wife’s ghostly doppelganger holding a dead child in her arms the same evening she gave birth to a stillborn child, though the couple were thousands of miles apart, and he did not learn of the event until many days later.

Percy Shelley, still widely considered the greatest poet of the English language, reported viewing his doppelganger while in Italy. The apparition pointed silently to the Mediterranean Sea, in which, not long after, Shelley drowned in a sailing accident.

The custom of covering mirrors with cloth after a death in the family has its roots in the superstition that the spiritual double of anyone passing by the mirror might be projected into the glass and carried off into the underworld.

The idea of a subtle, energetic body (or “spirit body”) within the fleshy corporeal form, distinct from the soul, is an ancient concept touched upon by philosophers from Plato to Aristotle, deeply imbedded in Ancient Eastern and Egyptian spirituality.

The idea finds its roots in the concept of the astral plane, a modern term to describe an ancient idea: that increasingly subtle energetic/celestial realms exist outside of our reality. The astral body then is the vehicle in which the soul can travel these otherdimensional planes. Ancient yogis and modern occultists have attempted to travel the astral plane while still living, a thing known in contemporary language as astral projection. Many report having achieved the feat.

Adepts at such a practice could allegedly project their avatar across many miles and appear in two places at once, a concept known as bilocation.

Though the Eastern yogis are most known for tales of teleportation, it’s also present in the Christian tradition.

In 1774,  St. Alphonsus Liguori is said to have gone into a trance while preparing for Mass. When he came out of his meditation he reported that he had visited the bedside of the dying Pope Clement XIV. His presence was confirmed by those attending the Pope, despite his being four days travel away, and not appearing to have left his original location.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes how, as an adolescent, upon asking his guru, Swami Pranabananda, to locate a family friend, the swami went immediately into trance. Not understanding, the young yogi sat politely while his guru sat engaged in deep meditation.

Thirty minutes later, the swami emerged from his trance state and announced that the family friend would be arriving shortly. Astonished when the friend did indeed shortly arrive, young Yogananda asked his guru how this could have happened. The swami explained that he had simply “gone” to where the friend was bathing in the Ganges river and told him Yogananda wished to speak with him. As far as the friend knew, he had simply run into the swami at the Ganges.

Such phenomena was not considered miraculous in ancient India, but seen as a natural part of the development of yogic disciplines.

In her article, “The Art of Teleportation and Bilocation,” Mary Desaulniers elaborates on the scientific basis for such phenomena:

The discovery of the “biophoton,” a coherent, laser-like light stored and emitted by all living cells suggests that large scale, quantum states of coherent photons can produce resonant, collective, wave effects like telepathy and teleportation […] 

[According to MIT physicist, Claude Swanson, author of The Synchronized Universe] the human body can be seen as a “quantum system, with a set of quantum states all vibrating in step.”  [T]he human body can function as a coherent oscillating system in which each electron becomes synchronized with others behaving “in phase” and reinforcing one another.

When the human body generates a store of coherent energy which takes up a spatial pattern, it increases the probability of such a structure or pattern appearing in real life. It is this power of coherence or synchronization that makes possible exceptional human functioning events like teleportation and bilocation.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating documented accounts of bilocation occurred in what is now New Mexico in 1622. Father Alonso de Benavides had been assigned to the Isolita Mission to carry out a conversion of the local Jumano Indians. To the priest’s surprise, the tribesmen were already familiar with Roman Catholic rituals, had alters and crosses, and knew the Catholic liturgy — all in their native tongue!

Mystified, Father Benavides wrote both Pope Urban V11 and King Phillip of Spain to find out who had been there before him. The reply was that nobody had been sent. Unsatisfied with this answer, Father Benavides began asking the Jumano investigative questions regarding their knowledge of the Catholic rites. The Indians told him they had been instructed by a beautiful “lady in blue” who came among them for many years, teaching them this new religion in their own language.

Knowing that the nuns of the Poor Clare order wore blue, Father Benavides found a painting of one of the nuns and brought it to show the Jumano. Was it she? he asked. Yes, they said: the dress was right but the woman was different. She was young and beautiful (where the woman in the painting was portly, plain and mature.)

When he returned to Spain, Father Benavides was determined to solve the mystery and went to speak with the Poor Clare nuns (who were a cloistered order, never leaving the nunnery after taking their vows.) He found his answer at last in Sister Mary of Jesus in Agreda, Spain, of the Poor Clare order.

Sister Mary, as it turned out, had been falling into a cataleptic trance during her prayers for years, after which she recalled “dreams” of traveling to a strange, wild land where she taught the gospel. Amazingly, she was able to offer detailed descriptions of the appearance, customs and dress of the Jumano, which was impossible for her to have known about, as they were a newly discovered tribe.

When asked how she had communicated with them, she replied that she had merely spoken in Spanish, and “God had let them understand one other.”

Whether one believes it was the work of God or the power of Sister Mary’s conviction, the story — and like phenomena — remains simply fascinating. Such is the mystery of human consciousness.

The Mystery of the Masons

By Tai Carmen

So far as I am acquainted with the principles and doctrines of Freemasonry , I conceive it to be founded in benevolence and to be exercised for the good of mankind . ~ George Washington

What do Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Mark Twain, Volatire, Oscar Wilde, Buzz Aldrin, Nat King Cole, Aleister Crowley, Winston Churchill, Duke Ellington, John Wayne, Mozart, and Isaac Newton all have in common?

They are all great men, most of them polymaths, adept in multiple disciplines. All famous, admired (with the exception of the controversial Crowley). And they are all Freemasons.

So what is the origin of this “secret society,” so wildly speculated over, which has secured the favor of such diverse and fascinating men?

Though the official origins of Freemasonry are a blurry and much debated matter (the first documented reference dates back to a 1390 poem, and the first Grand Lodge was founded in England, in 1717, ) the spiritual roots of the fraternity are often linked with the ancient Egyptian mystery schools, a pagan tradition of esoteric knowledge handed down from generation to generation, which included astronomy, astrology, geometry, and spiritual teachings.

32nd degree Freemason, Thomas D. Worrel, affirms that the fraternity’s “roots are dug deep in the Mystery Schools of Antiquity,” detailing:

“Freemasonry continues an initiatic tradition whose beginnings are lost in antiquity. This statement cannot be proven historically.Yet the more you study Masonic rites and its symbols, the more you become convinced that you are dealing with something ancient, maybe even primordial. It becomes clear that this tradition is much older than Masonry’s institutional beginnings in 1717, older than the cathedral builders and medieval guilds, older even than King Solomon’s Temple or the Egyptian Pyramids.

It is not easy to define what Freemasonry is. Any definition would be inadequate, because Masonry has a deeply individual meaning to each member of the fraternity. No doctrine is expounded inside the lodge; there are no sermons, no interpretations. Even though teachings are incorporated within the rites, the meanings and interpretations are for the most part left to the candidate, whose task it is to integrate them into his own past and future life.

An initiate’s personal involvement with Masonry may change during his lifetime as well. For some it may be just a social club, a charitable institution, or a way of promoting education and the arts and sciences. For others it may also be a way of probing for the deepest truths.”

The Lodge initiation for the third degree (the first inner circle by invitation only, the beginner levels are open to all,) consists of a ritualized allegorical reenactment of the murder of Hiram Abiff, the priest-architect of King Solomon’s Temple. The Hebrew bible corroborates this basic story, relating a formal request from King Solomon of Jerusalem to King Hiram I of Tyre, for workers and materials to build a new temple. King Hiram responds:

And now I have sent a skillful man, endowed with understanding, Huram my master craftsman […] skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, stone and wood, purple and blue, fine linen and crimson, and to make any engraving and to accomplish any plan which may be given to him, with your skillful men and with the skillful men of my lord David your father (2 Chronicles 2:13-14 )

The story goes that Hiram Abiff, a keeper of ancient mysteries, was constructing a temple for King Solomon to house the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem, now reconstructed as the Temple Mount or Mount Zion (check out PARALLAX’S investigation of some very strange UFO activity surrounding this sacred shrine in “Spaceships Over Jerusalem“) when his own workman murdered him in a failed attempt to extract his priest-architect secrets.

It has been said that the ritual serves as a reinforcement of the idea of loyalty, because Hiram died because he would not share the secrets entrusted him.

The single eye, known as the “All-Seeing Eye” takes its meaning from the ancient Egyptian “Eye of Horus“ an emblem of protection and inner sight. The legend goes that Horus, depicted most often as a falcon, lost his left eye in a fight defeating Set, god of the underworld. This left eye (The Eye of Horus) became the moon, (representing occult knowledge/hidden wisdom,) while his right eye, called “the Eye of Ra” became the sun.

The symbolism of the pyramid traditionally represents man’s climb towards higher knowledge, the evolution of spirituality upwards. However, at the same time there is an undeniable suggestion of caste system symbology, with the masses as the wide base at the bottom, and the select few, elite initiates, represented by the tippy-top, closest to heaven.

Though we are taught in school that America was founded on Christian tenants — and this is not necessarily in conflict with being a Mason — it is beyond conjecture that the founding fathers also incorporated a massive amount of Masonic imagery into the architecture, symbolism and signifiers of our country. It wasn’t hidden — newspaper accounts from the day ran descriptions of Masonic ceremonies in Washington as naturally as they reported any other governmental activity.

The most famous example of this type of symbolism, of course, is the all-seeing eye and pyramid displayed on our one dollar bill. Supposedly, the detached top symbolizes the heights we have yet to reach.

But the most widely identifiable symbol for Freemasonry is the “square and compass”  — architectural instruments used to calculate the movement of the heavens. The G is most often ascribed to God, or The Great Architect of the Universe, to use the secular, builder terminology of Freemasonry. But it has also been connected to Geometry.

The two triangles are also said to represent the star of David, or  “Seal of Solomon,” which signified the union of opposites, embodying the alchemical/hermetic axiom, “As above, so below” — a concept, denoting the microcosm within the macrocosm, first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes:

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.

Although Freemasons are often accused of Devil worship, to become a Mason, one must first profess faith in an undefined Higher Power/Supreme Being. In an attempt to foster brotherhood and tolerance within the fraternity, matters of religion are prohibited from being discussed within the Lodge.

One of the primary accusations of conspiracy theorists is that the Masons worship the devil, specifically a goat-headed humanoid figure called Baphomet. The Knights Templar were accused of worshipping the same creature, and ultimately persecuted for non-Christian activity. Though the confessions — extracted under torture — are considered dubious by scholars today.

Originally a symbol of Christian folklore representing pagan idolatry, Baphomet  first appeared in 11th century Latin as a corruption of “Muhammad” (‘Baphomet’ = Mahomet = Muhammad). Later the terms shows up in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century.

Crusade scholar Helen Nicholson writes that the charges were essentially “manipulative,”and typical of witch-hunt-style smear campaigns. Medieval Christians falsely believed that Muslims were idolatrous and worshipped Muhammad as a god, with mahomet becoming mammet in English, meaning an idol or false god.

In the 19th century, the name of Baphomet became further associated with the occult when Éliphas Lévi published Dogmas and Ritual of High Magic, in which he included the now-famous image of Baphomet, a depiction he had drawn himself. Levi explained the figure in symbolic terms, the goat-head representing “the sinner,” while the fire above his head represented man’s potential to obtain higher knowledge.

The Baphomet of Lévi was then further utilized in supposedly symbolic terms by occultist (and Freemason) Aleister Crowley in the early twentieth century. Crowley described the goat-headed figure as representing the Union of Opposites, and hence spiritual perfection.

Baphmoet’s connection with Freemasonry, however, remains dubious, as the first accusation — by Christian evangelist Jack Chick, who claimed that Baphomet is a demon worshipped by Masons — was based on a 1890’s hoax by Léo Taxil. Taxil employed a version of Lévi’s Baphomet on the cover of his sensationalized paperback “exposé” of Freemasonry — which, in 1897, he revealed as a hoax satirizing ultra-Catholic anti-Masonic propaganda.

Misunderstanding another creed or culture’s symbols is a common source of prejudice. While a human skull on a scholar’s desk might strike some as morbid, even death-worshipping or evil, to an old-world alchemist, or even a modern day occultist, it can represent a meditation on impermanence, and the inevitability of death; the goal of which is to better live one’s life.

That being said, to a Theistic Satanist, it could also represent the Dark Lord. Such is the mercurial and fascinating nature of symbols. Considering the men who have been involved in Freemasonry (Einstein, Franklin, Washington, Twain,) I am inclined to personally disbelieve the Baphomet accusation.

With all the conjecture and speculation about the Masons, it is rare to have any personally verifiable fact relating to the fraternity. And so, to close, the author will share a true family story about an experience her mother had with a bona-fide Freemason occult ritual.

My maternal grandfather was a Freemason. My mother does not think he was very “high up” and remembers him only involved to the extent of a newsletter correspondence course (though how many little girls know the full nature of their father’s nocturnal activities?)

As my mother remembers it, she was around nine years old, when her father asked her to come “help him with something.” She entered his bedroom, which was darkened by closed blinds, a single candle lit on the left-hand corner of his vanity mirror. Without further explanation, her father sat down in the corner of the room and asked her simply to gaze into the mirror.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later, my mom was bored out of her nine-year-old mind. Just as she was thinking about how much she’d rather be playing outside, her reflection in the glass suddenly transformed from a freckly nine year old visage into the head and shoulders of an unknown black woman in a turban. The image, she said, was as clear and real as her own reflection had been a few seconds before.

She screamed with surprise to see her own face replaced with a stranger’s. Her mother came running into the room, crying, “What are you doing with my child!” and with all the commotion, the image promptly disappeared.

My mother found out later it had been a Masonic exercise to see past lives — her father had been trying the exercise without success, and decided to see if it would have a better affect on a child without expectation.

*Addendum: I have been informed by a Mark Master Mason who read this post that this mirror exercise is not strictly Masonic. He himself has never heard of it, adding that there are some unsanctioned lodges, of which it may be a part of their catalogue. Also, he says, often the same type of people drawn to Masonry will dabble in other aspects of the occult. See comments.

Connectivity Through Form: Sacred Geometry & the Golden Mean

By: Tai Carmen

“There is a special ratio that can be used to describe the proportions of everything from nature’s smallest building blocks, such as atoms, to the most advanced patterns in the universe, such as unimaginably large celestial bodies.” Justin Kuepper

“The man who speaks with primordial images speaks with a thousand toungues.” Carl Jung

The Golden Ratio — also known as the Golden Mean, Phi, or the Divine Proportion —  has inspired the imagination of artists, mystics, and mathematicians for centuries.

The proportion is derived from something known as the Fibonacci sequence — an arrangement of numbers wherein each succeeding term is simply the sum of the two preceding terms (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.) The Fibonacci Sequence forms the basis for our Golden Ratio —  1.618 — a proportion which recurs with amazing consistency throughout the natural world.

For instance, sunflowers, which have opposing spirals of seeds, utilize the Fibonacci sequence to most efficiently distribute their seeds in the most compact space.

Ancient Greek philosopher and geometer  Pythagoras is thought to be the first to have determined that human proportions themselves corresponded with the Golden Mean — later revisited by Leonardo da Vinci, most famously explored in The Vitruvian Man sketch.

The Golden Mean is unique in that the ratio of the whole to the larger portion is the same as the ratio of the larger portion to the smaller portion of the whole.

For instance, the length of any given person’s shoulder to their fingertips (the whole), divided by the length from their elbow to their fingertips (the larger portion), results in the  1.618 Golden Ratio.   Then also the length from their elbow to their fingertips (the larger portion) divided by the length from their shoulder to their elbow (the smaller portion) will yield the same result.  The Golden Ratio. Completely consistent and the same in every human being.

Another example: if you divide the number of female honey bees by the number of male honey bees in any given hive, you will get — that’s right — 1.618. The Golden Ratio.

“The Fibonacci numbers are Nature’s numbering system. They appear everywhere in Nature, from the leaf arrangement in plants, to the pattern of the florets of a flower, the bracts of a pinecone, or the scales of a pineapple. The Fibonacci numbers are therefore applicable to the growth of every living thing, including a single cell, a grain of wheat, a hive of bees, and even all of mankind.” ~ Stan Gris

We see the Fibonacci spiral in everything from DNA ….

…. to the spiral of our solar system ….

…to the inside of the human ear …

…to the “Logarithmic Spiral” of a common shell.

Below, see the mathematical representation of the Fibonacci Spiral.

Not surprisingly, the proportions within the Golden Ratio are commonly utilized in art and architecture to obtain maximum aesthetic harmony.

These patterns are backed mathematically with astounding consistency, suggestive of order within the seeming chaos of our world. For some, the existence of the Golden Ratio is proof even of God. At the very least, it shows an architectural harmony to the building blocks of life.

The belief that God created the universe according to a geometric plan has ancient origins. Plutarch attributed the belief to Plato, writing “Plato said God geometrizes continually.” In modern times the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss adapted this quote, saying “God arithmetizes.”

These naturally recurring patterns have a close relationship with Sacred Geometry, the use of geometric form as cosmic language, most famously represented by the mandala. Classically used in Eastern religions to help aid meditation, the mandala can be found in diverse cultures throughout the world, often representing the connectivity and continuity of life.

On his Sacred Geometry website, Bruce Rawles muses:

The fact that the root [of the Golden Ratio] is [mathematically] irrational expresses the concept that our higher dimensional faculties can’t always necessarily be expressed in lower order dimensional terms – e.g. “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (from the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1, verse 5).

The figure above, The Flower of Life, is the modern name given to the ancient geometrical figure composed of multiple evenly-spaced, overlapping circles. It is considered by many to contain ancient, religious value depicting the fundamental forms of space and time. Found in the palace of an Assyrian King, the oldest Flower of Life design dates back to 645 BC.

Below, we see its pattern echoed in a snowflake.

…and again in a Mandala.

From the Flower of Life, the Egg of Life is born.

The distances between the spheres of the Egg of Life are identical to the distances between the tones and half tones in music. Also, they are identical to the cellular structure of the third embryonic division.

A shape also echoed by atoms.

When viewed together, this seemingly disparate array of forms become a fascinating interplay of universal symbols, suggesting order and connectivity, from plant, to animal, to man; from the tiniest atom cluster to the largest intersteller swirl.

And it all starts with a simple  mathematic sequence.

Spaceships over Jerusalem

By Tai Carmen

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational.” ~ Stephen Hawking

Although NASA’s recent discovery of a new kind of life (a bacteria that survives in conditions previously thought uninhabitable) was somewhat less “alien-life-y” than the rumors prefacing the announcement, talk of UFOs has been in the news lately, to an almost eerie degree, starting with Stephen Hawking’s recent announcement that we should not go looking for (or trying to contact) alien races, because:

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Then, this January 28th [2011], some remarkable footage emerged — extremely convincing, if you ask me, and yet to be debunked — videotaped by four separate witnesses.

The footage captures a light hovering oddly for some minutes over Jerusalem’s sacred Mount Zion & The Dome of the Rock, then quickly descending in a vertical drop, disappearing from sight & exiting in a shock of light. (In watching the video, the action starts after the first 55 seconds, so watch it for at least a minute plus, it’s worth it, I promise; very odd.)

According to Revelation, Mount Zion is where, at the end of time, the Second Coming of Jesus begins —and where the Kingdom of Heaven is supposed to be established as “The New Jerusalem” comes down out of the heavens onto the earth.

The Dome of the Rock is an ancient Islamic shrine, the significance of which stems from The Foundation Stone within its walls.

Also known as the “Pierced Stone,” this ancient enshrined rock has a small hole on the Southeastern corner that enters a cavern beneath the rock, known as the Well of Souls.

It is believed by some to have been the location of the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and is the holiest site in Judaism. Jewish tradition views it as the spiritual centerpoint of heaven and earth, and Jews, currently and historically, traditionally face the stone while praying.

Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad ascended heavenward from the Foundation Stone, and Jewish legends has it that the Ark of the Covenant is being stored there.

A veritable feast of conspiracy material! Substantive of theories connecting yesterday’s religious gods with today’s UFO sightings.

The place is charged & significant for the world’s most dominant religions. Quite a fancy place to make a show. And the question arises, since the place is so steeped in spiritual/paranormal legend: is it the first time?

“…As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.” Ezekiel 1:4 – 1:24

In a weird twist, Chinese National television Xinhua reported on January 4th 2011 that the Obama administration may be preparing to disclose government contact with extraterrestrials, on the eve of China President Hu Jintao’s state visit to the United States.

Online sources speculate that a cold war may be developing between leading nations in regards to who will disclose alien contact first, detailing that, while no leader wants to admit ET knowledge, they also may not want another nation to beat them to the punch.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Technology of the Gods!

The Question of Reality

By Tai Carmen

“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?” — Chuang Tzu

From Plato’s Cave to The Matrix, thoughtful humans throughout the ages have found different ways to ask the same question: Are we fully cognizant of the true nature of the reality that surrounds us?

There is a basic unease to the human condition, the vague and gnawing sense that there must be something we are missing, something we have not been told; a feeling rooted, no doubt, in the fact that we are born into a world where the most burning questions have only theoretical, subjective answers.

Religion has attempted to fill this void with meaning, but even in its answers, more questions arise.

How solid is our reality? Science, so often pitted against the mystical, has the most mystically fraught of answers: not solid at all. On an atomic and subatomic level — as we all learned in school, though most likely didn’t grasp the full implication of at the time — there is space and movement between atoms. The so-called solid wall is teeming, pulsing, dancing — molecules full of wide open space.

If I put my hand on the wall, the sensation I experience as touch is the interaction between the molecules of my hand and the molecules of the wall; on an atomic level, there is a point where the difference between my hand and the wall become indistinguishable.

In other words, it has been scientifically proven in our lifetime that the reality we behold is — to some degree, anyway — illusory.

The idea that the nature of form is misleading and ultimately unreal, of course, has been in existence for centuries — perhaps most famously put forth in the Eastern concept of Maya, (found in Buddhism and Hinduism,) a word derived form the ancient Sanskrit, ma, meaning “not,” and ya, meaning “that.” Though the details differ, Judeo-Christian philosophy reiterates the same basic idea: that things are not as they appear, and this world is but a pale echo of a brighter, truer place.

There are more sinister shades, more paranoid potential, to this question of reality. The possibility that, as in The Matrix — where humans are grown by sentient machines, imprisoned in a virtual computer-generated world —we are living in an unperceived prison of sorts. As the character Morpheus says:

“What you know you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad.”

Of course, we can clearly see that there are many things wrong with the world — war, hunger, violence, hatred. Easily, that can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-it-feeling of unease can find its root in quite tangible phenomena. Perhaps it is a form of escapism to look elsewhere than the obvious issues — wishful thinking that there is some explanation which would make the world’s horrors somehow more comprehensible. And yet, true though this may be, it doesn’t hurt to probe, to dig, to question consensus reality.

The Matrix premise borrows heavily from the Gnostic tradition, wherein the world was created by imperfect gods (though within the spectrum a perfect one exists.)

These flawed creators are described as a race of inorganic beings local to our solar system, called Archons. Agents of error, they feed off human misery and hence work to deceive the mind towards darkness. Pretty trippy stuff, considering the ancient texts date back to the 3rd and 4th century.

The fact that our experience of stimuli in the world is actually an experience of our brain’s interpretation of that stimuli (rather than the thing itself) does make a Matrix-like gap between reality and perceived reality plausible.

After all, the smell of a rose is simply information recognized through sensory organs and registered as “rose.”

The light waves we see when we perceive the rose are in our eyes, not the thing seen; the molecules we smell are in our nose, not the thing smelled. They are not the thing itself, but a relayed message or impression of the thing.

In the language of philosophy, this is known as the “brain in a vat” thought experiment. Theoretically, if it were scientifically possible to place a brain in a life-sustaining liquid environment (or “vat”) & hook its neurons up to a supercomputer—generating electrical impulses identical to those the brain normally receives—the brain would perceive the simulated reality as experiential reality.

This concept is used as a  basic argument for philosophical skepticism; as theoretically it is impossible to know, from the brain’s perspective, whether it exists in a scull or a vat.

Surrealist artist Rene Margitte plays with this concept in his famous painting, The Treachery of Images, which displays a pipe, underneath which is written in French: “This is not a pipe”

For, indeed, it is not a pipe, but a representation of one. Yet our first thought upon reading the painting’s caption is to object—certainly this is a pipe. 

Yet upon reflection we must admit that the clever artist’s pronouncement is absolutely accurate and, indeed, our tendency to associate the-thing-itself with its representation has been illustrated.

How can we assume this world is as it seems, when nightly dreams themselves can seem so real? What deeper, truer, more expansive identity and truth might be revealed to us about the cosmos and our place in it upon leaving or waking from this reality?

I’m not in any hurry to get there, and as Tom Hanks says in Joe vs. The Volcano, “Some things take care of themselves,” but I do — after many a dark night of the soul wrestling with doubt — have a good feeling about it. After all, the world minus man’s debacles, is a place brimming with potential and inspirational phenomena.

I’ve heard the life-as-dream/world-as-illusion theory described as angst-producing, proof of pointlessness. I don’t see it that way. Does an inspiring nocturnal dream enrich our spirit any less because it gives way to a deeper, fuller reality upon waking? Is a great novel any less meaningful because it didn’t really happen? When you start subdividing it, the word “real” itself begins to lose meaning.

We can knock on a table and feel reassured by its bright, solid sound. But even the table is like Magritte’s pipe — both what it seems to be and also not at all. Reality ripe with paradox and potential, lots of wide open space for us to take a tip from the molecules and dance, even in the smallest spaces.