Archive for December, 2008
They Beat the Man Who Gave Bush a Fond Farewell
As the Butcher of Baghdad, George W. Bush, made his final visit to Iraq. Muntadar al-Zaidi decided to send him, just a tiny taste, of the sentiment towards him. He threw both of his size 10 Iraqi-made shoes at the disgraced President. Fortunately for Bush, he managed to dodge the bullet; which is more than I can say about the countless Iraqis who have been killed by the senseless war.
Bush is a disgrace to the united States of America, and to the human race in general, as is his entire family; all the way back to their Nazi-banker grandfather Prescott Bush. Under the Bush family’s influence, we’ve witnessed our once great nation crumble to the brink of collapse. Now even the most die-hard Bush loving blowhards admit that the man is a disgrace.
Now they see that the Bush regime truly is communist at its very heart. This family is not here to protect the American people; instead they are here to scuttle the ship and then profit from the demise of the republic.
I know that Bush is proud of himself, because this was his goal from the start. I also know that the sell-outs who backed him from the start are proud of themselves as well.
All of these cowards will pay for their indiscretions tenfold, that is the law of karma that has held true for all of time; there is no escaping divine justice.
Shoe thrower ‘beaten in custody’
The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody.
Muntadar al-Zaidi has suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.
Mr Zaidi threw his shoes at Mr Bush at a news conference, calling him “a dog”.
The BBC tried to contact Iraq’s top security official but he was not available for comment.
Meanwhile, offers to buy the shoes are being made around the Arab world, reports say.
Mass rallies in support of Mr Zaidi have also been held across Iraq, calling for his release.
Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC’s Caroline Wyatt in Baghdad he believed his brother had now been taken to a US military hospital in the Iraqi capital.
Hero figure
Mr Zaidi told our correspondent that despite offers from many lawyers his brother has not been given access to any since being arrested by forces under the command of Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser.
The Iraqi authorities have said the 28-year-old will be prosecuted under Iraqi law, although it is not yet clear what the charges might be.
Iraqi lawyers have speculated that he could face charges of insulting a foreign leader and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki, who was standing next to President Bush during the incident. The offence carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.
Our correspondent says that the previously little-known journalist from the private Cairo-based al-Baghdadia TV has become a hero to many, not just in Iraq but across the Arab world, for what many saw as a fitting send-off for a deeply unpopular US president.
As he flung the shoes, Mr Zaidi shouted: “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog.”
Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC that his brother deliberately bought Iraqi-made shoes, which were dark brown with laces. They were bought from a shop on al-Khyam street, a well-known shopping street in central Baghdad.
However, not everyone in Iraq has been supportive of the journalist’s action.
In Baghdad, the head of the Iraqi Union of Journalists described Mr Zaidi’s action as “strange and unprofessional”, but urged Mr Maliki to show compassion.
“Even if he has made a mistake, the government and the judiciary are broad-minded and we hope they consider his release because he has a family and he is still young,” Mouyyad al-Lami told the Associated Press news agency.
“We hope this case ends before going to court.”
Abducted by insurgents
The shoes themselves are said to have attracted bids from around the Arab world.
According to unconfirmed newspaper reports, the former coach of the Iraqi national football team, Adnan Hamad, has offered $100,000 (£65,000) for the shoes, while a Saudi citizen has apparently offered $10m (£6.5m).
The daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Aicha, said her charity would honour the reporter with a medal of courage, saying his action was a “victory for human rights”.
The charity called on the media to support Mr Zaidi and put pressure on the Iraqi government to free him.
Mr Zaidi, who lives in Baghdad, has worked for al-Baghdadia for three years.
Muzhir al-Khafaji, programming director for the channel, described Mr Zaidi as a “proud Arab and an open-minded man”.
He said that Mr Zaidi was a graduate of communications from Baghdad University.
“He has no ties with the former regime. His family was arrested under Saddam’s regime,” he said.
Mr Zaidi has previously been abducted by insurgents and held twice for questioning by US forces in Iraq.
In November 2007 he was kidnapped by a gang on his way to work in central Baghdad and released three days later without a ransom.
He said at the time that the kidnappers had beaten him until he lost consciousness, and used his necktie to blindfold him.
Mr Zaidi never learned the identity of his kidnappers, who questioned him about his work before letting him go.
Hard Times Among the Hyenas
source: LaRouche Political Action Committee
December 9, 2008 (LPAC)–“It’s all gone ‘poof’,” one Goldman Sachs banker told today’s Wall Street Journal. Bankers who once wrecked companies and looted pension funds are now finding themselves reduced to irrelevance. Once Masters of the Universe, they are now lucky to have a job. “Investment banking has become a phantom realm,” the Wall Street Urinal said “where everyone is busy but no one is doing anything,” where “status is conferred by a quality meeting, not a completed transaction.” The “basic reality” of their profession, the paper said, is an “excess of bankers.” If you feel tears swelling in your eyes at the plight of these poor souls, who are now faced with selling their yachts and their country homes, and cutting back in other ways, perhaps the knowledge that Wall Street played a major role in destroying the productive power of the U.S. economy, laying waste to countless American businesses and families, will help. This is a classic case of “they did it to themselves.” And, of course, to the rest of us.
Then there’s the spectacle of hyena versus hyena, which we see breaking out as the members of the pack turn on each other in self-preservation. Take the case of Carl Icahn, the notorious corporate raider, and Leon Black, head of private equity giant Apollo Management. Former allies (both got rich from the Drexel Burnham Lambert junk-bond machine, Black as a Drexel banker and Icahn as his client), they are now fighting over money. Apollo needs to reduce its debt by getting its holders to cash it in at as little as 36-cents on the dollar, while Icahn, who owns a bunch of it, calls that fraud and has filed suit.
Hyena versus hyena. Maybe they should have a quality meeting.
Daylight Dancer
by Lacuna Coil
Answer me, it can’t be so hard
Cry to relieve what’s in your heart
Desolation, grief and agony
Trying to move
down in this grave
Trying to believe in every faith
As another bridge to clarity
Want to stay another way
(Want to stay another way)
Want to stay another way
(Want to stay another way)
Take another chance
to find a distant sanity
and turn your pain in truth
Take another chance
to fight a different enemy
and try to free it
Read the rest of this entry »
Secrets of Alchemy: The Great Cross and the End of Time
Alchemy is an exceptionally ancient art whose teachings stretch back for many thousands of years. Most practitioners of Alchemy carefully pass on their knowledge to the next generation; with only the most exceptional and intuitive students receiving the true teaching. The teachings themselves are often formed into puzzles, of sorts, which force the student to learn how to think, if they want to truly absorb the knowledge.
In today’s world most thinkers consider themselves to be Scientists. This is often an erroneous categorization, however, since many of the so-called scientists are not genuinely interested in uncovering the empirical reality; instead they tend to be more interested in making facts fit to accepted models.
The primary differences between the Scientists and Alchemists lie in their field of awareness. Scientists tend to be aware of very small, specialized portions of phenomena; they often do see any importance in incorporating the whole into their understanding. Because of this, they tend to have very limited understanding.
While Alchemists share the same curiosity for understanding phenomena, they prefer to incorporate a broader understanding of the whole, instead of simply focusing on the matter-centered reductionist paradigm of the scientists.
The following documentary delves deeply into the work of Fulcanelli, the author of Mystery of the Cathedrals. The author of this documentary delves deeply into the Fulcanelli’s work and attempts to shed light on the mystery of the Cross of Hendaye.
The mystery of this cross is surprisingly complex and intricate, as is common in the tradition of Alchemy. To most observers, the cross simply bears a simple error; but to the astute student of the occult, it becomes apparent that an intriguing puzzle is presented in this artifact.
Fulcanelli: The Mystery, the Secret and The Man
Vincent Bridges | Wednesday, December 1st, 1999
In his masterwork, The Mystery of the Cathedrals, the anonymous author Fulcanelli poses a riddle: How does a Tree become a Stone, which then becomes a Star?
Of course, being Fulcanelli, he shies away from such blunt simplicity. It was far too much too say openly that the secret of alchemy, and of science in its broadest sense, consisted of a Tree forming a Stone and igniting into a Star. Never mind solving the riddle of how it’s done.
And yet, the careful reader will discern this very enigma at the core of Fulcanelli’s book. Why?
Because the truth is simple. The secret of alchemy is contained in the riddle of how a tree — the Tree of Life, the World Pillar, the Djed — transforms into the Precious Stone of the Wise. And then, the core of the mystery, how that Stone becomes a star, an imperishable light body or perhaps even the body of a star in Orion. However, even though the truth is simple, the secret has a way of protecting itself.
Take Le Mysterie for example. Much has been written about just who “Fulcanelli” might have been, but very little, outside of Canseliet, has been written about what Fulcanelli said. Eugene Canseliet, Fulcanelli’s pupil, took the approach in his works of expanding on Fulcanelli’s alchemical metaphors without venturing a concrete explanation of the process itself. By his own admission, he never succeeded in what he imagined the ultimate goal to be, the transmutation of lead into gold. Therefore, we might be justified to suspect Canseliet’s level of understanding.
But what did Fulcanelli say? Does he actually reveal the secret of alchemy’s riddle?
Understanding Fulcanelli’s masterpiece requires preparation, guidance and more than a little patience. Le Mystere is not literature in the normal sense. It’s an initiation document designed to instruct the reader in a new way of thinking in and about symbols. Fulcanelli is always honest. He never cheats the reader or hides behind his vows of secrecy, but he does insist that the reader do the work. Otherwise the revelation is worthless. Therefore, the initiation takes the form of a puzzle, or a riddle.
For preparation, one could do no better than to read carefully all of Book III and Chapter Two of Book V of Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Fulcanelli assumes that any intelligent reader would be aware of this perspective and would basically agree with it. Fulcanelli, in Le Mystere, is trying to provide specific examples of Hugo’s metaphors in stone. A good guide book to Notre-Dame is also valuable, as is a general history of the Gothic period and its cathedrals.
The best preparation however is to forget everything you have ever read or heard about alchemy. Let Fulcanelli explain it to you as if you had never heard the word before. In practical terms, it means skipping Canseliet’s prefaces and Walter Lang’s introduction. Or, at least, save them until last.
When we do this, we start where Fulcanelli started, with an experience, a gnosis, of the transcendent power of a Gothic Cathedral. He tells us that his first sight of a cathedral, at the age of seven, sent him into “an ecstasy, struck with wonder.” Today, the only way to recapture a little of “the magic of such splendor, such immensity, such intoxication expressed by this more divine than human work,” is to stand some quiet summer evening just in front of the railing at the Great Porch of Notre-Dame de Paris and slowly let your vision crawl heavenward over the complex universe of symbolic forms. Bathed in the golden light of sunset, thousands of forms and concepts and images struggle toward some unity of purpose that our modern mind finds all but incomprehensible. But to the child, or the child-like, it has the power of revelation.
book in stoneFulcanelli informs us that the images on the cathedrals speak more clearly than words and books. They are “simple in expression, naive and picturesque in interpretation; a sense purged of subtleties, of allusions ,of literary ambiguities.” The Gothic, he suggests, is like Gregorian chants, many voices coming together in a single note. This is important guidance for understanding the book as a whole. Fulcanelli combines images or voices all juxtaposed on a single note or theme in such a way that every voice is related to the theme as a whole. As in music, the structure that allows this inter-relatedness is based on geometry and mathematics. It is nothing less than the hermetic Grand Theme, the Music of the Spheres, which is depicted within the Gothic cathedrals.
The Grand Theme is introduced by the arrangement and subjects of the nine chapters in part one, called “Le Mystere des Cathedrals.” From its title we can supposed that it was meant to impart an overall viewpoint from which the rest of the book, the details of the pattern, can be understood. Grouping the themes of the nine chapters as presented defines an interesting symbol: the sword in the stone. The first three chapters compose the grip of the subject and the sword, whose basic theme, the hermetic wisdom of the Gothic cathedrals, continues through a stone of five inter-related symbols within the cathedrals, and on into the foundation “stone” of Notre-Dame de Paris. This device also presents the lightning flash order of creation taught by magickal cabalists such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
The next three sections fill in this revealed Tree. “Paris,” the second part of Le Mystere, completes the Tree of Life foreshadowed in the first section. This second section, reflecting the archetypal world of the cabalists, gives us the most complete rendition of the Grand Theme of ten spheres and twenty-two paths, including the gnostic Path of Return. “Amiens,” section three, fills in a portion of the developed Tree by giving the reader a deeper understanding of the planetary processes. The fourth section, “Bourges,” juxtaposes a series of mythological images on the planetary spheres, creating a fourth Tree. Therefore each of the “locations” or spheres have multiple images from which a meaning can be derived.
The added chapter from the second edition of Le Mystere, “The Cyclic Cross of Hendaye,” completes this pattern by crossing the abyss from Daat, gnosis, to Kether, the divine Crown. The key of course is that in the world of action, the fourth world or level of abstraction to the medieval cabalist, the Tree is formed in space. The Hendaye chapter completes this view by revealing the secret of an ancient astro-alchemical science based on the alignment of local events with the galactic axis.
In our book, “A Monument to the End of Time: alchemy, fulcanelli and the great cross, we examine in detail Fulcanelli’s use of this hermetic Tree of Life pattern. This introduction however is for the first time reader, or the reader who wishes to read Fulcanelli as if it were the first time. For that person, we can only admonish them to pay close attention to the images discussed and the illustrations. Fulcanelli is carefully building an inherent or implicate order by his use of patterns of images. Even the transpositions and other “mistakes” or departures from the established order are designed to impart some significance.
So who was Fulcanelli?
One of the benefits of reading Mystery of the Cathedrals without preconceptions is that the personality of Fulcanelli jumps off the page. This is the strongest evidence against the committee theory. It is hard to imagine how a committee could have arrived at such a clear sense of personality, and who among the group had the literary skills to pull it off? Canseliet? If that is the case, then literature lost one of its finest novelists when Eugene Canseliet turned to alchemy.
As we wind our way through Mystery of the Cathedrals, Fulcanelli becomes a trusted guide, always directing our attention to the key points, but always letting us make our own conclusions. As he does so, we find that a few hints and suggestions leak through concerning Fulcanelli himself. By the second or third careful reading, a profile emerges.
Fulcanelli was born in Picardy, a day’s ride or a little more from Amiens, whose cathedral he first glimpsed with such lasting effect as a seven year-old. His family was formally noble, or even royal, but had come down somewhat by his birth. At an early age, he moved to Paris, becoming a student in the Latin Quarter. His field of study seems to have been classical literature, with a side interest in medieval history. So much is clear. What’s hazy is which century it happened in.
Most commentators have assumed it was the 19th, since Fulcanelli was apparently about 80 in 1930, which makes him born around 1850. However, the personality that confronts one on the page is decidedly 18th century. There are even clues that Fulcanelli was in Paris before 1748, making him around 200 years old in 1930. However, a close reading of the first chapter of the first section reveals that Fulcanelli could have been present in the early 15th century. How old was he?
From Mystery of the Cathedrals we can discern a vague profile. He studied in Paris between 1740 and 1760, and joined some magickal lodge or society in the decades before the fall of the Ancien Regime in 1789. He seems to have spent the 19th century traveling across France collecting evidence of the existence of his order and its predecessors. After the Great War, he decided to publish an initiatory document, The Mystery of the Cathedrals, an examination of the order’s symbolism, Dwellings of the Philosophers, and a revelation, The Final Glory of the World, of which all that remains may be the Hendaye chapter.
Of course, this profile raises more questions than it answers. But we are left with the feeling that Fulcanelli was a real person, with a message to deliver.
Perhaps the only way to truly understand Fulcanelli and his masterpiece is to take your now well-thumbed copy of Mystery of the Cathedrals and go to France. The major locations can all be visited in a week or more, and a month or so of vagabondage will allow you to cover everything mentioned in Mystery. It is well worth the experience.
Two examples should give the reader the flavor. Nothing in the literature of either alchemy or eschatology describes so eloquently their inter-relationship as does the Great Porch of the Last Judgment at Notre-Dame de Paris. We come looking for Fulcanelli’s Path of Return images and find them on the supports for the pillars of the Last Judgment. The quintessential image of Alchemy occupies the base of the central pillar which leads to Christ in Judgment. This says so much more clearly than any words can that the End of the World has for its foundation the science of Alchemy.
templar churchAnother example is Fulcanelli’s use of clever side comments. Twice, in significant places, he mentions a church at Luz in the Pyrennes. In his only use of the word Templar in the entire book, Fulcanelli labels the church as Templar in his second mention. This should grab our attention. And if it does, and we make the long trek to the High Pyrennes, we will find that someone knew the key to the mystery right down to the 19th century. Fulcanelli doesn’t tell you it’s there, he merely assumes that you will find it if you look.
The houses in Bourges are not to be missed, both are open to the public. Tours in English are held in Notre-Dame de Paris on Saturday at 2 PM, and are essential. Everything closes for lunch, except Notre-Dame. Be sure to visit Hendaye on Wednesday mornings when the town square is full of vendors. Go looking for the Saint Marcellus statue on the south side of Notre-Dame de Paris. Demand that the guide in Jacques Coeur’s house show you the pentagonal treasure room. Seek and ye shall find!
How does a Tree become a Stone and then a Star?
Simple. The eternal polar axis of our celestial sphere, whose equator is the sun’s apparent motion against the stars, or the zodiac, forms the middle pillar of a cosmic Tree of Life. This Tree is also found within our bodies, and when we align these Trees and project them outward on the celestial sphere we create a jeweled sphere, The Precious Stone of the Wise, in which forms the Cube of Space. The Tree has become a Stone.
The next step, from Stone to Star, requires the transformation of light. Aligned properly, the Precious Stone can tell us the quality of time and the physics of creation. Internalized, this projected alignment leads to bursts of light, flashes of kundalini. If the process is supported by dark retreat and sudden light immersion, then it is possible that the entire body could be transformed. Something similar seems to have happened in the case of Padmasambhava, the Tantric master who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century.
But, given the information in the Hendaye chapter, then it is just possible that our species is on the verge of a mass initiation experience triggered by the “new” light from the center of the galaxy. Perhaps Fulcanelli’s “double catastrophe” is both physical and mental. When the Light of the Star shines into our souls, will we be ready for the change?
The Tree of Life unites our universe across vast scales of existence. When we identify with that immensity, we expand as we try to encompass it all. The flash of gnosis is the result, and from that, if we are lucky, comes the science of alchemy.
Fulcanelli has given us excellent guidance on the process. He shows us how the initiation worked in the past, and points toward the mass initiation that may be unavoidable in our future. When Isis, the Great Cosmic Womb of the Galaxy gives birth to the new Horus Light of transformation, let us hope that we have all solved the riddle of becoming a star.
Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt. “All that is, is Light.”
What’s In Your Head… Zombies?
by The Cranberries
Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence,
Who are we mistaken?
But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family.
In your head, in your head they are fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are crying…
In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey. What’s in your head,
In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?
Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, dou, dou, dou, dou, dou…
Another mother’s breakin’,
Heart is taking over.
When the vi’lence causes silence,
We must be mistaken.
It’s the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen.
In your head, in your head they’re still fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are dying…
In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey. What’s in your head,
In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?
Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, oh, oh,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, hey, oh, ya, ya-a…
Ascend
I am talking to you
And you know that everything I have I give to you
But I still hide a secret and you’ll never touch me there
I’m going to the mountain with my knowledge
I’m going to the mountain
I’m going to the mountain with my knowledge
With my knowledge
And when the heavens crack and when my heart is yours
When walls are tumbling down, and gate will shatter
And light comes down and walks through the dead who rise
For the kingdom come and the holy one
We will ascend and take the hand of Gabriel
And then the sky opens up just for us
And I hear him speak
I hear your heart
I hear your heart
I am talking to you
And you know that everything I have, I give to you
But I still hide a secret and you’ll never touch me there
I’m going to the mountain with my knowledge
I’m going to the mountain
I’m going to the mountain with my knowledge
With my knowledge
And when the heavens crack and when my heart is yours
When walls are tumbling down, the gate will shatter
And light comes down and walks through the dead who rise
For the kingdom come and the holy one
We will ascend and take the hand of Gabriel
And then the sky opens up just for us
And I hear him speak
I hear your heart
I hear your heart
Jarboe – Mouth of Flames
by Jarboe
I am she whom the winds fear
I am she who brings the fire
I am she the lightning and the thunder
I am this shower of life
I am she; the mouth of flames
Into the light, I fall grace
I am she whom the winds fear
I am she who brings the fire
I am she the lightning and thunder
This shower… Life
I am she: the mouth of flames
Into the light I travel
I travel…Grace
I am she whom the winds fear
I am she who brings the fire
I am she the lightning and thunder
I am this shower of life
Into the light I fall into grace
Into the light I fall into the mouth of flames
If You Really Want to Help, Just Let it Be
There are a great many well-meaning people, who intend to be helpful; they want to have a positive impact on someone else’s life so much that the effort becomes more about them helping than the ones they are trying to help. When this occurs, those who are receiving the “help” must question the real intent and meaning of these actions.
In observing a “helper,” you tend to notice one of three things: they truly want to help, they are helping to satisfy a self-gratifying desire to help or they feel obligated to help in some way.
When someone wants to help for self-gratifying reasons, they generally care more about what they get out of the act, as opposed to the “help” actually being helpful and welcome by the other individual. The end result of this sort of behavior, is that the “helper” is merely trying to control the situation, without regard to the wishes of the other individual.
If someone wants to experience something in their own way, then how helpful is it to force “help” upon them; when, in doing so, it causes more problems than it solves? Then what we have here is not “help” at all, but a form of selfishness labeled as “help.”
Since the person on the giving end of this energy believes that they are only being helpful; they become unaware of the fact that they are actually doing more harm than good to those who they claim to be caring about.
If one really cares about another, then why not honor their wishes fully, without projecting guilt towards the other for not wanting the help? Might one think that they “know better than the other,” how to live that other person’s life; and have “been there” and “done that”; but actually closed their mind to the possibility of other ways of approaching situations?
If someone has something important happening in their life, which they want to do their own way; then why should they want outsiders coming in pushing for their own agenda?
This essentially forces the other to deviate from their preferred course of action, otherwise be viewed as “the bad guy” and made to feel guilt for not taking the modified course of action. How helpful is it to distract someone from accomplishing that which is important to them in the way they have chosen?
Often, the most helpful thing one can do, if one truly wants to help, is to allow the loved one to take the path they have chosen, without assistance, if that’s what they prefer. It is often best to assume that one is not in need of assistance, unless they have asked for it directly.
The most loving thing one can do for another is to have unconditional acceptance for the other’s choices, without projecting ones own wishes and ideals upon them.
To put it simply, just “let it be” and one will help more than one could have planned or imagined possible.
Christmas is NOT What You Were Taught it is
What you have to realize is that “Christmas” goes way back to the days of our tribal ancestors. The Pharmacratic Inquisition delves into the true history of “Christmas.” This history is nothing like what we have been taught by our religious, government or educational rulers.
Have you ever wondered why we use trees, stockings, reindeer and bearded men with sacks? Did it ever occur to you that “Christmas” occurs on precisely the same day as the winter solstice (the true end to the solar year).
If you want to understand the true history of our people and know the methods by which they purified their spiritual understanding, you have to look back into the forbidden history of “Christmas” as well as “Christianity.”