Heaven and Earth

AMEN.

2011-11-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

‎
"What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. 16 Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?"

1 Cor 14:15-16 (KJV)
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... And with that, too, how can someone say "Amen" when they knowest not even what "Amen" means? What is the root, the signification of that saying? This is a good question to ask, in avoidance of speaking in tongues, since it pertains to the best way in which to enter or conclude praise and prayer. The essential and hidden (formative and hallowed) God of Gods from the Old Kingdom forward, Amun, is the answer to the question at hand.

As much as has been written about and by David and Solomon, I will surmise some possible facts. Sol-Om-On may be a phonetic designation for the symbolic conjoining powers of the solar disk (at the time of Akhenaten called the Aten), the original vibration, and the universal soul and Lord beyond the Light (The Light of Lights). It may also be transliterated as representative of that first mentioned characteristic (Sol, the disk itself) as well as Aman or Amun. In other words, Amen-Ra (Re), who is a dual entity persona affiliated in order to represent the Son and Sun God in corporal power and presence. The Hebrew spelling of Heaven equates to Amen, phonetically, in that A-B-N (aleph-bet-nun) is pronounced without a fricative breath on the B like "be" or "buh" and rather sounds like an "M" in as much: Amun or Amen. Thus, the saying of Amen in praise both represents the Lord and Heaven altogether in that Heaven is not without the Lord and yet the name of the Lord is hallowed -- it is sacred /secret [[ Matt 6:9 KJV ]].

Knowing of what it is that we pray, confess, praise, and preach is key to our acceptance in the Eye of God.

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1 "Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. 2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 3 But if any man love God, the same is known of him."

4 "As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. 5 For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) 6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him."

1 Cor 8:1-6 (KJV)

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I like these passages. They really give testament to the way that we can indeed know things of the world and create scientific process out of our experimentation and trials, yet, that even through this we will always be learning and cannot thereby really trust in idolatry of ourselves or of deified images as representative of Truth and eternity (or perpetual description, as only Light can be perpetual - as is now the international standard reference for a meter stick, e.g.). This is also a relief for any ethnoscientific people of the world who may worship pagan symbolism, because as long as they realize that their symbolism is a sort of cultural ecology, as well as a history-and-moral keeping social conservation system for their culture, and that there is only one God of Gods, they are not thereby worshipping other Gods before God Almighty. Gnostics and pagans of Christian heart and following be saved, as such; and, even those of belief in One God, unknowing of who Jesus Christ was and is, also be saved in as much that they cannot be sinning at a lack of telepathic or auto-intellectual observance of every occurrence in human societies throughout time (that's a job of God the omnipresent).
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However, to live rightly is firstly to understand rightly rather than in tongues (on the surface, or confusedly) or not at all. Forgiveness is chief amongst the governance of God. Of those who may come to finally know the way of forgiveness, justice, goodness, faith, hope, and charity and then practice them not, living in ways persuasive or coercive to detriment of others and the Earth...

19 "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. 20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. 21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them."

2 Peter 2:19-21 (KJV)
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I wish to make a prayer rope.

Can I yet make one in solace? In my... in any... "secret place" of prayer and praise?

A "Holy of Holies," lined with gold leaf and structured with cedar wood, is likely capable of acting as a total EMF shield and containment unit at the same time -- a blocker of unwanted spiritual and mechanized interference and a magnifier of focused intent within. EMF shielding cloth may do well enough as clothing for absolute sanctified spiritual occasions, but enduring alone time in a special witness-proofed, soundproofed and EMF-proofed chamber, with burning beta-carbolines (Frankincense or Nag Champa and anointing oil), would be key to complete communication with God. Was Moses being prepared for the future in command to create the Holy Tabernacle, and Solomon thereafter him? Or has there always been an element of physiological and psychospiritual interruption around us aside from people and machines -- namely, I might assume, from the Sun itself (Re/Ra/Aten)?

Are we at a sort of moral dilemma in that hiding from the Sun is hiding from the Light?

Or is it, rather, that the Light of Lights our Heavenly Father is beyond light itself - the speed of it, the spectrum of it, the spacetime continuum in total - and thereby we shall not worship the sun before Him? Even Deism is scientific; acceptance that there is at least the possibility of a much bigger being outside of the "matrix" of the universe, rather than nothing, is all it requires (and we can't quantify squat in terms of what's outside the box we're in - subjective qualification is really all we have and all we need to have for such insight being that we are composed of light matter and cannot physically transcend its bounds like the omnipresent signature of dark energy).

Spiritually, neurolophysiologically, however...

Science has a chief way of coming 'round full circle to identify spiritual insights as being sensible and beautiful.

Amen.

The Purpose of the Deity

2011-11-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

Matthew 7:5 --
"Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Romans 2:1 --
"Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."

=== Our very bodies do corrupt our minds with sin; even in deepest prayer are we bound to harbor that sin & our willfulness, desire, greed, envy, and like vices. We cannot be exemplified as realizers and purveyors of the Lord's true judgment & grace in as much. Our prayers can seem to provide answers from the Lord which are actually natural fallacies. No matter how balanced a mind and heart and spirit we may believe we have (or which we are believed to have) we are human, and humans inherently err (sin). We load our own perceptions with falsehoods, as we enculture ourselves in like manner. As perfect as the Lord's creations all are, we are all in the Lord, and of the Lord, with the Lord, but still substationed in view of and subject to the Lord.

Matthew 6:9 --
"Our Father in Heaven, may your name be kept holy..." ("hallowed be thy name")

We cannot know the visage or the true name (description and identifier) of the Lord. We can only know the Deity, with a human or anthropomorphized face, through which we can address the Lord.

Verse 3 of the Gospel of Thomas --
Jesus said, "If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

The Powers That Be (TPTB)

2011-10-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

‎...my bias on The Powers That Be, up to and including the "State Religion," has been not entirely informed. There are people who know people who mandate and/or oversee beneficent operations that we think have nothing to do with The Powers That Be. TPTB do far more good work than anyone really can know because so much of it is necessarily obscured for the sake of national security. I get it. I really do. Well, humbly rather, I get *the pattern.* Much of it is done because the mind that peers through the veil is immediately a loose cannon, and, if all are loose cannons - without fallback mechanisms to recognize the good in it all - then society fails. It's crazy, but, in my view, it's what it is.

Earth 2, Revisited

2011-10-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

Could it be possible to travel to exoplanets in 100 years or so?? Could it be possible to deposit our genetic material there for extended and broadened continuance?? Check this out.

In my opinion, co-evolution is the hitch, though... how do you "build" a human to thrive on a planet whose conditions are *similar* to Earth's but may reflect, for example, the life from 3 million years ago (or future forward) rather than now - we would have to predict *everything* regarding genetic responses... allergies aren't even the tip of the iceberg.

Now... the genetic modification (xenomorph-human hybrid) of a life form that already lives there... THAT may be the thing. Sound much like Sumerian mythos? Weird. Not to say that WE created the cosmos or the planet itself, but you know. From astrotheological pantheons come ethereal monotheisms; when populations get large enough, and there's already myriad cultures to worry about, it helps to keep people in focus groups. So we contemplate The Big One. Anyway, we could always tell our hybrids an astrotheological pantheon myth-history, right? One where we are now also co-stars?

This seems to be a doorway. Not necessarily for *us,* but for our genetics. And for resource research as well. Who will determine the codes of conduct? Star Trek had a pretty good guideline going for that. It's probably been considered. Hopefully. But the possibilities! Can we protect our home base, first and foremost? We need it. IT needs itself. I don't think anybody has a solid argument against this. Do you?

WALL STREET HAS ALWAYS BEEN OCCUPIED.

2011-10-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

On Popularly Mistaken Representations of “Liberty”

By Brendan Bombaci

The term “liberty,” broadly flaunted by the European and American justice systems, is not at all relative to the imagined worldview of egalitarian ‘total freedom within reason,’ the way that most citizens interpret it. The phrase “at liberty to do what we please” does not mean “able to do what we morally please without consequence of dominant judgment.” Aside from moral and ethical practices (which still are validated only by worldview consensus), even if a person does something that is unimposing and yet naturally lawful (by laws of nature), a state system can rebuke their civil freedoms by majority judgment by way of the very complex definition of liberty as an “inalienable right” (binding everyone equally to liberty). Within the philosophical roots of “natural rights” dating before the Roman Empire, at least, and relative judicial implications being endowed as far back as the medieval ages, this ‘social contract theory’ has been exapted over time according to stately and corporate needs, and is more complicated in meaning, and in discourse, than meets the eye.

Social contract theory was developed and internationally enforced, by only a handful of political philosophers during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, as a way to bring a sense of public common law to civilians so that rules could be applied to resolve raw disputes of physical or intellectual oppositions. This suggestive push towards a volunteering governmental ‘contribution’ helped to remove reactionary sensationalism, stemming from tyranny over the public, and to establish a compatriotism of democratic community. John Locke coined the “war of all against all” (Locke 259) as the described law of the land, whereas this ‘law of man,’ in contrast, substantiates an agreement between parties that “…being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions;” and fittingly, “when disputes arise, people tend to decide them in their own favor… it is desirable therefore to have both a set of written laws and also an independent judge to decide disputes” (Locke 259). However, it is struggled against that judges and congressmen have the power of title to transcend the rules of citizen liberty justice. The evolution of this empire-state social structure allows for the creation of laws that go against the mass wishes of We the People, because ‘higher’ levels of incorporation and wealth equate to majority status in any capitalist society.

Although industrializing nations have been promoting since the Nuremburg Trials that all people truly should be considered equal and free from birth, “certain inalienable rights” do not necessitate the rights for equal representation in the distinctive, controlling civil and political realms. Thomas Jefferson scripted upon the Declaration of Independence that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights. . .” However, it is also generalized by the terms of social contract theory and English Common Law, that “Liberty is divided into four types: natural, personal, civil (permission from government to do that which would otherwise be a trespass) and political (the permission to vote and hold office)... The first two are inalienable; the latter two are government granted” (AskDefine). Equal freedoms, and liberties (which are placeholders for freedoms within bounds), are henceforth differentiated by common law. State and national laws can be altered by the branches of government, through the third and fourth types of liberty, to further (passively or actively) dampen the civil and political abilities of citizens in ways that may impose upon the first two, actually inalienable personal and natural freedoms. At times, Supreme Court cases alone can prove or disprove the veritable application of these alterations. Without civil and political freedoms, we are endowed only with God-given rights to our confidence and our biology, and we can be disallowed the freedom to roam, own, eat, and live. As long as we accept licensures, and sign our “Christian names” (representing our natural personage) to give responsible representation to those licenses, our bodies are accountable. Our licenses are like avatars in a community system game, and, those of business and corporate status, and then legal office, have successively greater powers than other avatars.

Empirical social justice reformist John Locke further defined natural rights as, “lives, liberty, and estates, which I call by the general name, property” (Locke 259). So then, we are entitled to life which is a natural right anyhow, we are entitled to liberty which truly means the same thing as ‘life’ in the first two liberty types (with the civilian and political liberty powers out of our control), and, we are entitled to estates. Both civil and political laws can impose upon estates, at the benefit of capitalist governmental power, over the actual freedoms of a society who might not understand the political terms that rule them. The model for enforcing majority rule in the Western justice system of inalienable rights comes from his suggestive “tacit consent” incorporation, whereby any person agrees that their vote is meaningless if they are not in the political majority, and, this almost privatized oligarchy comes with a clause: “the fact that a person stays in his country, for all he could leave and go to another one, confirms his act of consent” (Locke 260).

If somebody is born or forced into any civil or political licensure, against their own inalienable will and rights, without a free chance to oppose and exit that situation, they have no way of breaking the bond of Constitutional ‘tacit consent.’ “Many scholars now argue that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, wrote the principles of equality and natural rights into the Constitution for the first time” (AskDefine). This Amendment takes the skewed terminology of ‘liberty’ for established civilians and specifies at least one humanitarian clause to which it does not inherently submit (liberty for all persons). The simple fact that this editing was necessary, and was enacted in order to protect the lives and property rights of abused minority people, lifts some attention to often neglected voters or protestors upon modern issues. It is apparent, though, by how many amendments exist, that “liberty” does not equate to “freedom,” and that the dominating capitalistic usefulness of such a misrepresented terminology has been unveiled. Persons, though, can also be corporate entities – laissez faire market systems and scientific revolutionaries created the United States of America to incorporate every city, thereby also incorporating (to one degree/rank or another) the entire U.S. citizenry.

Reactionary mistakes have been by citizens of the U.S.A., through simple misunderstandings of social justice terminology. The well-discussed philosopher and writer John Rawls once put it that “essentially, justice is the elimination of arbitrary distinctions and the establishment, within the structure of a practice, of a proper balance between competing claims” (Rawls 655) but that a basic liberty, the liberty of conscience, is “liberty as applied to religious, philosophical, and moral view of our relation to the world” (Rawls 657). This is a matter of majority rule over worldviews giving distinction to Right and Wrong. The system works, as long as everybody takes part, and it works to greatly reward its participants as long as they are willing to play the majority rule game that decides how they must behave to achieve success. Even the U.S. Forest Service uses the old capitalist Roman motto “greatest good for the greatest number” to impress their goals, their influences, and their directions, and, they would not make the decisions that they do without the statistical demographic data (the pull from and predictions of society’s activity) with which to back it all up.

As such, we battle over ethical and legal behavior. We battle over who is doing Right in society, whether it be the sacrificial working class family or the hardball virtuosic company. If actions are legal, they conform to the same rules of hardball that anyone else can play. Because someone does not play hardball does not necessarily give him any power to dispute and effectively halt the actions of those who do. This country was built, from outside, for people to do business within. It provides comforts, but we cannot confuse comforts as significant of some all-inclusive Reality of the way things are, either within our country or interactive with it from outside. Many say that our freedom is not free. In light of what we know from the mercy of dominators (to whom most of us owe our serf-and-servant begotten livelihoods), they speak the truth. Our freedom is preserved through liberty, and, it can be equally taken away. It may seem defeatist to those who do not know the way it all began, and by what paths it all unfolded, but, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Ultimately, they may be challenged – they may be beat – from a closer seat. And we are all welcome to sit.

CITATIONS

AskDefine

2011 Inalienable. AskDefine. http://inalienable.askdefine.com/. Accessed 16 October 2011.

Locke, John

1690 Second Treatise of Government. In Philosophy: History and Problems, sixth edition. 2003. Pp 259-260. Samuel Stumpf and James Fieser, eds. Boston: McGraw Hill publishing.

Rawls, John

1957 Justice as Fairness. In Journal of Philosophy, vol. 54: 653-662.

The Tree of Life: an Eco-Security Analysis with Biblical Terms

2011-10-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

by Brendan Bombaci

To genetically modify organisms on such a locationary scale of perfection so as to cause, i.e., the various branches on a tree to each produce different phytochemicals, hormones, or ultimately, even other plant and animal gametes, sperm, and embryos – or permutations of cloned and autofertilized embryos that would evolve on allelic levels enough to create diversity – is to create perhaps the most efficient and pseudo-organic mechanism for the protection of all life on Earth.

To eat of this Tree is to be immortal, for to eat of the tree is to have access to it, and the task of gaining knowledge with which to cultivate it and create both inorganic and organic life, ad infinitum, dependent only upon environmental grow-media at hand.

The Tree may in fact be metaphorical to phylogenetics entirely, and yet be metonymical to all species of lifeforms that can arise from the simplicity of a source of Genesis. The Miller-Urey Experiment has provided immensely convincing evidence as to that source originating with only water, gas, cyclical light exposure, and heat. That life evolved from very few initial growth patterns and that those patterns are not far-fetched from species evidence found in and on meteorites (and perhaps on meteors, as far as public knowledge goes), we can see that it must be something intrinsic to The Tree itself that causes “immortality” that man, as of yet, is not yet possessed by. Is this a conundrum? Is man, being part of the Tree of Life, capable of fruiting and recreating new fractalated patterns of growth for its future complexity and thrift, then, not also able to parent The Tree?

Manipulating genetic expression of life forms may be a key to giving them capacities to handle dramatic planetary climate shifts. There is selfishness to this premise. Ultimately, it is the case that “life goes on;” yet, if we as a species wish to do the same, with cognitive and physiological continuance rather than massive and indeterminable alterations, we must think of bioregional resource dependence. What is food for one is toxin for another. When food resources shift, so the subsistence strategy shifts and technology wanes in favor of discovering new ways to survive, let alone actually thrive. Neanderthals did not handle climate change well. That was not long ago. Our story may become a similar one if we do not uphold the particular sorts of biological diversity that we have co-evolved with. This is perhaps an almost megalomaniacal idea (globally synchronous environmental modification), if not for the fact that simply hunting and gathering is much the same, on a small scale – one that we can no longer manage, without embracing an apocalyptic reset first. Malthus implied this. We cannot simply split off from the tribe and create a new one; there are far too many of us now. And not many are as self-sacrificing as they may claim to be, as dark a topic as that is.

Do genetic modifications cause long-term imbalances in protein expression that disintegrate it from the natural food webs, or do they eventually balance out because introns – “jumping genes” – have far more important roles in DNA evolution than we once thought? This would not be idealism, because jumping genes regulate gene expression through generations. They do this in order to manage fitness to varying circumstances. If a plant’s genetic material is perhaps only altered to an inverse percentage, of its lifespan to the span of natural time passage within which it would naturally evolve as much as husbanded to, then it would likely not require much natural time to balance any negative consequential byproducts (negatively impactful to its environment or it’s self, or non-beneficial to humans) out of its descendants. Less modification likely means less time required for ecological balance. Kept within Arks aside Seed Banks for the duration of their balancing developmental stages, through generations, they would pose no threat to Eden.

Eden itself may be to natural environments what proscriptive linguistics is to descriptive linguistics. It is a symbolic ideal. As much as a language needs form and function, it also thrives upon evolution. Evolution, checked and balanced for systematic form and function as well as its appropriateness in alteration dependent upon set and setting, is not flawed. Nor is it flawless. It is in everlasting oscillation like a symphony of variable-scaled Fibonacci wave functions in a perpetual space-time toroid, eternally recycling, distributing, and ornately decorating Life.

This is a meme that repeats throughout modern science fiction. Whether or not it is timeless, or fiction at all, is the question at hand. Huge particle colliders such as CERN may be the only ways for us to truly grasp how old the Universe really is, how large it really is, and how much biological life it is actually capable of supporting – especially in light of resource depencies for high-tech Space Age societies that wish to be sustainable and ethical in their undertakings but can only do so in rationality to inorganic material depletion from terrain, water, or ether. They may also continue to provide us with information about subparticles that can give huge boosts to supercomputing developments that would enrich Tree of Life research and development as well as Ark containment vessels.

Some may say that the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Right and Wrong (of logic, rationality, self-identification, and symbolism) was a bad move. However, it was only in the eating of that Fruit that man could strive to become capable of fostering further Life through command of one epoch of evolution. This may be a redundant and vicious cycle, when we understand that the goal is to simply keep Life alive. Is that the only understanding of which a sound mind should relate? Technological society is a blessing and a curse. We all know this. However, technological society is not industrial society alone; it began with drumming on roots, using sticks to eat ants, vines and leaves to make beds and shelters, secondary altruistic hand-me-down gestural and vocal teachings, psychopharmacology, toxicology, stone tools, and fire. It began with megalithic calendars. It did so because tracking the cosmic cycles is paramount to mastering them. Most people wouldn’t think of leaving technology even if they stopped living in industrial societies. There may be no way to reverse millions of years of genetic programming and the allure of celestial destiny, in any reasonable timeframe, anyhow, as those inverse proportions of ecological change-to-allelic adaptation would relate.

Is Life inherently a bittersweet romance? Or, is it framed and directed as such by humankind during the course of its endeavors? Industrial society literally aims for the stars. Anthropogenic terraforming may not be that easy. There are options. Would we deposit co-evolutionary Genesis on other planets, already-terraformed by their solar systems, and leave any part out of the equation, once aware of its integral relationship with the complete epochal environment? Would the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge be left out? Aside from ecological equilibrium, what purposes do these Fruits serve? They apparently and uniquely confer the endowment of Space Age possibilities to those humans that consume them. However, it may be the case that until humanity redeems itself to become planetary steward rather than parasite, cultural effects have mostly been a sort of Fall because of the growing disparities between population groups for resources and for desired worldview politics – no matter how glorious and beautiful our intellectual and physical advances have become. Surely there is more to Know.

Redemption would be a matter of recognizing responsibility and infinite possibility in the Cosmos. This is a career, but a fantastic one at that – and perhaps the Career – that can only be vouched for by massive cooperatives, rather than any individual alone. The Glory, as it were, is that of God – for just as the Baptism of each galaxy occurs as The Great Mystery when, from water, as Miller and Urey have high-lighted, Life springs eternal with but one need for a cellular womb… our capacity for passion and compassion may be metaphorical to the foundations of that womb as it rewards us with arduous responsibility but also great creative power.

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“The flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” could be considered the Sun, the cherubim in the East the angled arcs of light which precede it. Eden is that which is always beyond reach. Eve’s childbirth pains can be considered relative to our cranial capacities, since the cognitive developments of Homo sapiens came not without a price (pain as the mother passes an oversized skull through her pelvic bones and tissues). The Tanakh in Genesis 3:22 even notes “And the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” – lest needing to coordinate as a prepositional phrase to an ending statement, in order to actually suggest that man cannot, as is assumed, either consume fruit from the Tree of Life or cultivate it and live forever. In other words, it is not written that: “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, he will never be immortal or able to cultivate and steward The Tree as such. Mankind lives forever through his children. This makes sense with the next ambiguous statement in the Tanakh (Genesis 3:23), “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” By the sweat of our brows, as it were, we live with the ability to make judgments as the LORD does, and thereby create future possibilities and to evolve as we see fit.

The Tree of Knowledge would, of course, support a myth-building society that would utilize symbolism as well as judgment and mass communications to uphold their knowledge and utilization of the Tree as well as all of man’s own developments. Pre-Neolithic people travelled a long way, together, and became separated for the sake of extension and departure from stable subsistence strategies (that never seemingly changed for hundreds of thousands of years) and re-convenience with new destinations, resources and lifestyles. Each eventually came to amazing technological and linguistic capacities, still shaking hands across waters in unique similarities through trade and exogamy and mass migrations. I know of no current Western theological arguments over the precedent between the two, (1) Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit and (2) the naming of all animals of the world. It's interesting that man, by current interpretations, did not know the difference between Good and Evil (a metaphorical phrase for "ability to measure/differentiate" – for Good and Evil are rhetorically rational to one another based on duality schemata – before naming all the animals of the world into a sort of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. One would think, in light of mankind’s major re-sorting with climatic shifts and (in all probability) resource management necessities, that they had figured out Good and Evil before really working the Earth and themselves, because they would surely want to know which company to side with and what acts/methodologies to standardize and which taboos to set. Clearly, not everyone would agree with this simultaneously.

But then, one could argue, names were given on a systematic basis only – a sort of scientific nomenclature, or at least an ethnophylogeny such as a kin relationship system – before they were given mythological characteristics such as Good, Evil, Mundane, Profane, Divine, et cetera. In that scenario, mankind would have eaten the Fruit after naming all creatures of the world. And even if without a scientific nomenclature, agglutenizing language might have sufficed. It did, actually, according to written record. Yet, it likely did not do so before it was symbolized mythologically because traditional ecological knowledge from culture to culture shows us that there are uncountable ways to associate or dissociate material or ethereal entities. All of these ways makes sense, and allows for successful subsistence and social conservatism, within the cultures that they are found. In as much, we can see that naming of any entity, be it a psychological process or a plant or animal, requires a systematic process by which to organize it amongst all others – and this requires Knowledge of Good (beneficial, altruistic, plentiful, peaceful, et cetera) and Evil (maleficent, thieving, sparse, aggressive, et cetera). Really, the Tree of Knowledge represents judgment in general, for to know “Good” and “Evil” requires a knowledge of all that is in between, which becomes systematized, hierarchical, and widespread as culture.

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It is implied, perhaps, that because man has eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, that he carries its "seed" onward, no less. Just like the "seed" of the Tree of Life, which he took with his hand outstretched (rather than eating of the first tree, per se), with which to cultivate life for eternity onward... he also learned the source of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. These seeds, fruits, flowers, nuts, spores, vines and leaves (aided with yeasts in some cases) have been entheogenic sacraments in myriad cultures for thousands of years.

The Tree of Life is best care-taken for by those with capacities to do so. This capacity is given by a choice. Original sin removed us from Eden, the prime biolab of idealistic Heaven (an Earth untilled by cognizant effort and will to manage) - and to an Earthly existence. Of course, that existence knows no bounds when it is able to judge. To rationalize number, weight, and measure from inspired conceptions toward future grandeur and present glory, and to pass on the advantages and the mystery, moreover, is to "live" immortal - beyond mortality, as those beings that came before us and many which live amongst us do not benefit from. In much myth and religion throughout the known world, immortality pertains to everlasting essence inclusive of all inorganic and organic material and life. As we now know, evolution tends to create life out of a basic set of instructions - we are indeed looking for exoplanetary beings not dissimilar from those we know on Earth (because of the Strong Anthropic Principle and Cosmic Fine-Tuning). The Universe may seem as though it is barely populated with life, but it is likely teeming. Incredibly, it is with anthropomorphic beings that it is most likely analyzed and constructed within at the most profound and cooperative levels of consciousness.

Humans, thereby, are likely immortalized through the functions of the Universe itself. And, this grand play has likely played out before, is now playing at an exoplanet near us, and will play out again as Cosmic Expansion provides. Quintessence is evidence of Heaven, or at least that which is always beyond reach and "outside" of the Universe and space-time itself. We may not be able to access its source, or even manipulate it with any threshold-breaking style, as it expands and cools our Cosmos, but we can gain from the provisions of solar systems. Genesis, or Big Bang events, however they begin and however they may possibly end, are likely to occur either cyclically or "just on time," whether by a sort of "season" of mechanized/scheduled occurrence or as commanded by omnipotent forces outside. Mankind's redemption may be in knocking on the threshold to pay our respects and cooperate on a truly magnificent scale. We can do this in spirit. What does it take to do this in person, in outfit, or in shipment, materially? Inspired consciousness and the technology that stems from it. Continued technological advance with continued societal growth (that means everybody's children today and forward), almost surely requires celestial travel. It certainly requires the passion to do it... but also the careful creativity and thereby the compassion to do it sustainably and ethically on order to steward all life we encounter that we ourselves are not outranked in stewardship capacities by.

We must raise the young and respect our elders, as it is, and the Tree likely has many.

This is our role, not constrained to Earth, as it is inscribed in Heaven.

What It Is.

2011-09-06T19:09:00.000-07:00

Calm the mind and heal the body, lose the bias and clean the slate, find the worth in everything and stay a while before it's too late. ~ Brendan Bombaci

"My heart is fixed, O God; I will sing, yea, I will sing (your) praises, even with my glory. Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn." -- Psalm 108:1-2 (my preference, as transmuted from the text of two different Bibles)

Ever see this Bible before? Probably not. It was written by a certain guild of elites for those elites, who, by the way, were gnostic, monastic entheogenists (utilizers of sacred inspirational visionary medicines beyond Boswellia) - recognizing the rich history of religion and psychointegrator plants in nature, combined between their own and that of the growing number of people whom their hierarchical offices oversaw. These stories are legend. They hearken to the practices of the Shem Hor of Egypt (the Priests of Horus), the (Greater and Lesser) Eleusinian Mystery Schools, of Rome, and perhaps even of the Knights Templar.

NZT is real. To a degree. It's not a clear pill, however. And it crafts a certain balance - of the brain hemispheres and of the active portion and meditative portion of life. Ah -- and you need not take it every day... or every week or month or year, for that matter. Sound too good to be true? Well, when the student is ready, the teacher is made manifest. Ritual, belief, set and setting all make it real. No manner of shortcuts borne from greedy or lusty aspirations of self-made power will provide. Only the True may pass...

It is good to be in a country where clinical trials, of the safety and efficacy of entheogens, involving literally enlightening, healing, uplifting, and allopathic treatment of people (of psychosocial disorder or fatal conditions), can even take place. There are many today which disallow for such brilliant forward thinking and action. I commend our institutions for taking this step forward -- total legality is ridiculous, and blanket regulation is sub-nominal -- where true understanding on a scientific level [especially because our collective heritages regarding such substances have been mostly lost, obscured, or destroyed] can help us all grasp the reality of our evolutionary discourse with entheogens that contributed to our current capacities, as well as our ability to utilize them for the betterment of ourselves and our social orders. They are, after all, sacraments.

Panacea

2011-08-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

"Cure-all."

I don't know about that, per se, but Vedic Chai is indeed a great remedy for may ailments. These include flu, plague, cancer, bronchial infections, fatigue, and much more. Here's a wonderful recipe to get it done (God willing).

{{ all organic ingredients, only }}

1 tsp Rooibos [this is not original recipe, but it is better to use than black tea in many cases]
1/2 tsp Ginger cut-and-sifted
5 cloves
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp fennel

Grind to a pulpy powder with a mortar and pestle. Pour hot water (just below boiling - bring to a boil and then remove for 15 seconds) over these ingredients in a tea strainer and let it steep for 10-15 minutes. There is no tannic acid in Rooibos, so no worries about that. The longer steeped, the more medicinal.

To your health!

and, by the by, check with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on these ingredients.

Kairos is...

2011-08-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

from Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos):

"Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment (the supreme moment). The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.^[1]

Kairos (καιρός) also means weather in both ancient and modern Greek. The plural, καιροι (kairoi or keri) means the times."

and

"In rhetoric kairos is "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved."^[2]

Kairos was central to the Sophists, who stressed the rhetor's ability to adapt to and take advantage of changing, contingent circumstances. In Panathenaicus,Isocrates writes that educated people are those “who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day, and who possess a judgment which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely misses the expedient course of action". Please refer to chronos to find different meanings of time.

Kairos is also very important in Aristotle's scheme of rhetoric. Kairos is, for Aristotle, the time and space context in which the proof will be delivered. Kairos stands alongside other contextual elements of rhetoric: The Audience, which is the psychological and emotional makeup of those who will receive the proof; and To Prepon, which is the style with which the orator clothes their proof."

and

"In the New Testament kairos means "the appointed time in the purpose of God", the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled). It differs from the more usual word for time which is chronos (kronos)."

~~~~~

This is a key. Knowing what kairos is will crystallize the growth of your non-predestined but ultimate (one of myriad ultimates) and gnostic pathway in life's changing fluid dynamic system.

Whom Every Man in Arms Should Wish To Be

2011-08-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

Words...worth this Very Moment and Those Forward in Time

----------------

from Bartleby.com (http://www.bartleby.com/41/391.html)

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.

The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

391. Character of the Happy Warrior

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)


WHO is the happy Warrior? Who is he
What every man in arms should wish to be?
—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought:	5
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn,
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,	10
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power	15
Which is our human nature’s highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;	20
Is placable—because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;	25
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
—’Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,	30
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He labours good on good to fix, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
—Who, if he rise to station of command,	35
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;	40
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state,
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose power shed round him in the common strife,	45
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,	50
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw:
Or if an unexpected call succeed,	55
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
—He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;	60
Sweet images! which, whereso’er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—
’Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,	65
Conspicuous object in a Nation’s eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one	70
Where what he most doth value must be won.
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,	75
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,	80
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven’s applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is he
Whom every Man in arms should wish to be. [this poem can also be found in the wonderful book:] William Wordsworth William Wordsworth: Favorite Poems. 1992. Pps 50-52. Stanley Appelbaum, ed. Mineola: Dover Publications.	85

Exposing Musical Magic

2011-07-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

For each interval, (1 is... 2 is...) the corresponding following 2 numbers (4 and 8, 3 and 7, etc) are your semitone keys. Just augment those (one semitone up) [if the keynote lets you] and VOILA!

Litany Code

1 is 4 and 8

2 is 3 and 7

3 is 2 and 6

4 is 1 and 5

5 is 7 and 4

6 is 6 and 3

7 is 5 and 2

(it's easy as Pi : just count 3 away from the last number and you have both semitone key locations)

So this trick will take you out of your "natural" keys which correspond predictably to an established Ionian root. It allows for much more creative and yet harmonically stable tinkering within a song. Each new set, which is really just the Ionian form of each natural key, can be further modified with minors, augmentations, tritones, and dominant/diminished moods. Finishing up such experimentation with a resolve to the natural key once again, and then through the circle of fifths back to the root note, is a beautiful time.

Hysteria. Mass. Fricking. Hysteria.

2011-07-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

From Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" (p 165)

¨“The term [hysteria], sadly, became so widely used that our contemporaries in their dubious wisdom… not only dropped it, but also lost sight of the phenomena it represented: high levels of suggestibility, imaginal capacity, sensitivity to contextual cues and expectations, and the element of contagion… Little of all of this seems to be appreciated by a large number of practicing clinicians.”

– Dr. Fred H. Frankel, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston

But it's not just hysteria. It's also about doing hysterical acts over and over and over and over again, with only a new name of the game to show for, to no avail at all and without any rhyme or reason. So, it is hysteria... but it is also madness.

"Natural" Phoods

2011-07-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

From "A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health" in the International Journal of Biological Sciences

"We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity. This can be due to the new pesticides (herbicide or insecticide) present specifically in each type of GM maize, although unintended metabolic effects due to the mutagenic properties of the GM transformation process cannot be excluded [42]. All three GM maize varieties contain a distinctly different pesticide residue associated with their particular GM event (glyphosate and AMPA in NK 603, modified Cry1Ab in MON 810, modified Cry3Bb1 in MON 863). These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown. Furthermore, any side effect linked to the GM event will be unique in each case as the site of transgene insertion and the spectrum of genome wide mutations will differ between the [...] modified maize types. In conclusion, our data presented here strongly recommend that additional long-term (up to 2 years) animal feeding studies be performed in at least three species, preferably also multi-generational, to provide true scientifically valid data on the acute and chronic toxic effects of GM crops, feed and foods. Our analysis highlights that the kidneys and liver as particularly important on which to focus such research as there was a clear negative impact on the function of these organs in rats consuming GM maize varieties for just 90 days."

Even sustainably farm-raised Tilapia are fed corn meal anymore.

...'nuff said.

FOIA: Noxious Weed GIS Geodatabases

2011-06-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Are you a wildcrafter of plant foods and herbal medicines? Did you know that you can file a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request with your local BLM and/or USFS offices in order to acquire "noxious weed GIS geodatabases" pertaining to particular forest service districts? With the DVD that they will send you, you can print high-quality detail-layered maps from any college campus (and with a GIS nerd's help) that portray those areas which have been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. As such, including this data with that of mine runoff toxicity in the water supply upon which your wildcrafted plants thrive, you can basically certify your foods and medicines as ORGANIC by choosing uncontaminated locations.

How we do.

Existence

2011-05-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

BECAUSE IT'S ONE CHOICE TO MAKE,

BUT ULTIMATELY BECAUSE IT'S OUR ONE TRUE

RESPONSIBILITY.

Liberty, rights, freedom...

none of it exists without in-spired and ecologically functional, cognitively polyphasic societies.

(photo by Kairologic, 2011)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1390667/Seventeen-lost-pyramids-thousands-buried-Egyptian-settlements-pinpointed-infrared-satellite-images.html

http://sourashtri.blogspot.com/2010/10/dwarka-india-12000-year-old-city-of.html

http://www.mostlymaya.com/el_mirador.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html

Dendrochronology... was advented by whom again? For what purposes? Is there more reason than one?

Probably.

Probably. Magnetic pole reversals ARE NOT A JOKE.

Keep your eye on the Epa's UV Index in days to come - where there's smoke, there's fire; and, where there's UV there's increased X-Ray exposure too. Clothing won't save your butt on that one. Caves, stone and metal structures, and large bodies of water... just may.

And, besides, the main point is that we must move away from the ecological teleology

of the "Occidental" human superiority complex. If historical and ancient societies could be broken to pieces by resource troubles, and they knew the elements better than we've understood until recently, we too have some things to think about.

“[...A]nthropologists have greatly informed debates about human psychology and cognition. The first and most obvious conclusion, reached before the end of the nineteenth century, was that “primitive” peoples are not ignorant, nor are their lives dominated by magic; they invariably have a deep, rich, and more of less systematic knowledge of their environments. As time has gone by, we have learned how traditional peoples can maintain a religious view of the world and still combine it with a hardheaded, factual view. By contrast, Western society has developed its characteristically detached and disenchanted view of nature. As a result, many are now saying that the Western world has lost something.” [Sutton and Anderson 2010:115, emphasis added]

Of the native and remaining indigenous peoples of the world, “We may not find their religions persuasive or their [ethnoecological and ethnomedicinal] techniques infallible, but we may be able to build on their experiences to devise more powerful ethical teachings. It seems likely that we will survive only through combining Western science with a new ethical, moral, and religious attitude toward the environment.” [Sutton and Anderson 2010:116, emphasis added]

(Sutton, Mark Q., and E.N. Anderson

2010 Introduction to Cultural Ecology, second edition. Lanham: Altamira Press.)

Entheogens as Sacraments

2011-05-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

Shall we argue whether or not entheogens have been, and can be, sacraments? Let us assess the key items of justification for this undeniable fact through consultation with the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. The below is a two-section excerpt from that web site.

________________________________

" Nature of the Sacraments of the New Law > Definition of a Sacrament >

The sacraments thus far considered were merely signs of sacred things. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, accepted today by many Episcopalians, the sacraments of the Christian dispensation are not mere signs; they do not merely signify Divine grace, but in virtue of their Divine institution, they cause that grace in the souls of men. "Signum sacro sanctum efficax gratiae" — a sacrosanct sign producing grace, is a good, succinct definition of a sacrament of the New Law. Sacrament, in its broadest acceptation, may be defined as an external sign of something sacred. In the twelfth century Peter Lombard (d. 1164), known as the Master of the Sentences, author of the manual of systematized theology, gave an accurate definition of a sacrament of the New Law: A sacrament is in such a manner an outward sign of inward grace that it bears its image (i.e. signifies or represents it) and is its cause — "Sacramentum proprie dicitur quod ita signum est gratiae Dei, ei invisibilis gratiae forma, ut ipsius imaginem gerat et causa existat" (IV Sent., d.I, n.2). This definition was adopted and perfected by the medieval Scholastics. From St. Thomas we have the short but very expressive definition: The sign of a sacred thing in so far as it sanctifies men - "Signum rei sacrae in quantum est sanctificans homines" (III.60.2).

All the creatures of the universe proclaim something sacred, namely, the wisdom and the goodness of God, as they are sacred in themselves, not as they are sacred things sanctifying men, hence they cannot be called sacraments in the sense in which we speak of sacraments (III.60.2, ad 1um). The Council of Trent includes the substance of these two definitions in the following: "Symbolum rei sacrae, et invisibilis gratiae forma visibilis, sanctificandi vim habens" — A symbol of something sacred, a visible form of invisible grace, having the power of sanctifying (Sess. XIII, cap.3). The "Catechism of the Council of Trent" gives a more complete definition: Something perceptible by the senses which by Divine institution has the power both to signify and to effect sanctity and justice (II, n.2). Catholic catechisms in English usually have the following: An outward sign of inward grace, a sacred and mysterious sign or ceremony, ordained by Christ, by which grace is conveyed to our souls. Anglican and Episcopalian theologies and catechisms give definitions which Catholics could accept.

In every sacrament three things are necessary: the outward sign; the inward grace; Divine institution. A sign stands for and represents something else, either naturally, as smoke represents fire, or by the choice of an intelligent being, as the red cross indicates an ambulance. Sacraments do not naturally signify grace; they do so because they have been chosen by God to signify mysterious effects. Yet they are not altogether arbitrary, because in some cases, if not in all, the ceremonies performed have a quasi-natural connection with the effect to be produced. Thus, pouring water on the head of a child readily brings to mind the interior purification of the soul. The word "sacrament" (sacramentum), even as used by profane Latin writers, signified something sacred, viz., the oath by which soldiers were bound, or the money deposited by litigants in a contest. In the writings of the Fathers of the Church the word was used to signify something sacred and mysterious, and where the Latins use sacramentum the Greeks use mysterion (mystery). The sacred and mysterious thing signified is Divine grace, which is the formal cause of our justification (see GRACE), but with it we must associate the Passion of Christ (efficient and meritorious cause) and the end (final cause) of our sanctification, viz., eternal life. The significance of the sacraments according to theologians (e.g. Summa Theologicæ III.60.3) and the Roman Catechism (II, n. 13) extends to these three sacred things, of which one is past, one present, and one future. The three are aptly expressed in St. Thomas's beautiful antiphon on the Eucharist: "O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur, recolitur memoria passionis ejus, mens impletur gratia, et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur — O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of the passion is recalled, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of future life is given to us". "

" Nature of the Sacraments of the New Law > Matter and form of the sacraments >

Scholastic writers of the thirteenth century introduced into their explanations of the sacraments terms which were derived from the philosophy of Aristotle. William of Auxerre (d. 1223) was the first to apply to them the words matter (materia) and form (forma). As in physical bodies, so also in the sacramental rite we find two elements, one undetermined, which is called the matter, the other determining, called the form. For instance, water may be used for drinking, or for cooling or cleansing the body, but the words pronounced by the minister when he pours water on the head of the child, with the intention of doing what the Church does, determines the meaning of the act, so that it signifies the purification of the soul by grace. The matter and form (the res et verba) make up the external rite, which has its special significance and efficacy from the institution of Christ. The words are the more important element in the composition, because men express their thoughts and intentions principally by words. "Verba inter homines obtinuerunt principatum significandi" (St. Augustine, Christian Doctrine II.3; Summa Theologiæ III.60.6). It must not be supposed that the things used for the acts performed, for they are included in the res, remarks St. Thomas (Summa Theologiæ III.60.6, ad 2) have no significance. They too may be symbolical, e.g. anointing the body with oil relates to health; but their significance is clearly determined by the words. "In all the compounds of matter and form the determining element is the form: (Summa Theologiæ III.60.7). "

_________________________________________

While the American legal institution has been making misinformed war upon super/natural sacramental substances, many seminarian and scientific theologians may agree that such substances are potent natural manifestations of how “faith encounters God’s power” (Steindl-Rast 2001).

This is, after all, a Christian nation (Blank 2009:160) whose Supreme Court abides fundamentally by the system of beliefs communicated by The Church and by The Scottish Rite.

The Supreme Court "more recently held that [C]hurches can use Schedule I narcotics (17) for their religious ceremonies, while terminally ill cancer patients cannot use drugs from the same schedule to alleviate their symptoms without fear of federal prosecution” (Blank 2009:160, emphasis added). That is just too interesting.

In light of legal terminology, we should surely abide by the democratized say-so of any denomination of Christians at all - even Gnostics - when they pronounce an entheogen to be their religious sacrament. When grace is associative with revelation, illumination, with healing, with subjective account of the eternal and of divinity, let alone the conferral of knowledge or insight from an external source, entheogens are classed as sacramental. All they require for fully legitimate positive sanction is their traditional set, setting, and administration (via medicine man/woman, shaman/ness, et cetera). In fact, by virtue of how our Supreme Court deems a belief system to be a "religion," even ritualists of scientific/ deistic, animistic, and atheistic faiths certainly qualify for such legal equality (Blank 2009:167,190; Sullum 2007). As long as we are not under a religious fascist dictatorship or tyranny, and there are those people who do not believe in original sin - and that all men are inherently evil and unworthy compared to Jesus as well as mere tools of God whose only salvations are through said demi-God deity - there is room for spiritual insight, freedom, love, and evolution.

So when European and American people can prove their lineal ancestral traditions as relate to entheogenic substances, they can utilize them with the full force of the law to protect their practice and their ideology. WE ARE, AFTER ALL, NOT A CHURCH-STATE. We're just a nation that borrowed the Empirical Law of the Kingships and The Church we left behind in order to... escape their tyranny... and start... anew. Or something. Are we anew? Or are we in the dark?

Let us be enlightened -- extraordinary, rather than subordinary (subordinate). And let us not ever forget our roots.

Articles 18, 19 and 25 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights protect all human beings. As regards the toothless disclaimer of that declaration, Article 29, no person need adhere to their country's laws as if they supercede those of this U.N. declaration, as relates to entheogenic sacraments: the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in this democractic society hold strong no matter which religious circle has proclaimed their authority to be recognized under Liberty as practitioners of faith involving otherwise-illicit entheogenic sacraments. The same holds true for the current medicalization of those entheogens, as is the case with marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA - even when the second and the latter of that group area both man-made molecules. I for one feel that entheogens should be as holistic, in their vegetal extracts and, in some cases, in their selectively concentrated breeds, as ultimately possible. But I am not the only one.

No less, the States legislate. The UN authorizes.

I wonder if this is... getting there?

_____________
REFERENCES

Blank, Michael

2009 Disestablishing Deism: Advocating Free Exercise Challenges to State-Induced Invocations of
God. Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 31:157-191.

Steindl-Rast, David

2001 Foreword. In Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion, vol. XV. The CSP

Entheogen Project Series, 3. Thomas B Roberts, ed. San Francisco: Council on Spiritual Practices.

Sullum, Jacob

2007 Spiritual Highs and Legal Blows. Reason 39(2):42-54.

Medicine

2011-05-07T21:46:00.000-07:00

Read this. And this. And this, too. Know your history... and perhaps know better some original factors that co-manifested your own religion (pg 69, at least, on this link).

Visit Mercola's site here for an incredibly powerful article regarding Medical Marijuana.

Let me just say now that I am proud to live in Colorado for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that our state has laws set for the responsible, safe, and healthful utilization of Marijuana. The positive research now available is astonishing. Its tremendously empowering commercial benefits give us capacities which other states lack. I can't have sympathy for those states which are going bankrupt right now because of otherwise actions.

Watch the full episode. See more MontanaPBS Presents.

Vote by the power of action to support federal regulation rather than prohibition of medical marijuana.

Tantric Puja: Transcendence through Sound and Form

2011-04-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Tantric Puja: Transcendence through Sound and Form

Brendan Bombaci

“Yoga is suppression with awareness; Tantra is indulgence with awareness.” – (Osho 1998:17)

Tantric puja is the ‘ordinary ritual’ form of Tantra, which otherwise also includes various sensual modes of transcendental meditation and religious devotion. This term originated in the ever-morphing geographical areas of India and Asia. Tantric puja involves two main elements of meditational utility, both of which are intensely focused upon; these are mantras (repeated chants or tones) and yantras (2D and 3D geometrical designs of deep symbolism). Generally, Tantra is considered a spiritually liberating, sacred realization of unity that exists between sound, form, and consciousness. From this, Tantric puja may be the kin to, if not the source of various standardized geometrical ratios in music, architecture, and visual/kinetic art compositions of the world today. Well known in the Western world are fundamental examples of mantras and yantras, like meditational chants such as “Om,” and distinctly Eastern, symmetrical designs known as mandalas. But, in its esoteric and magnified context, Tantric puja is so much more: it is the glorification of body and mind and the sensational recognition of cosmological creation and physics. This respect includes sonic and material geometries of nature’s forms, such as in the Fibonacci Sequence/Phi Ratio. Mantras and yantras are not merely for superficial pleasures; they do not exist for audio and visual background consumption, as much of the capitalistic Western world – which has arguably disassociated sacred meanings from symbols – has portrayed their purposes. Yoga postures, called asanas and mudras, like the human body itself, have been described as yantras given form by sound (subtle vibrating mental commands) and made audible (transmissive of thought and meaning) by form. Asanas are capable of tapping ‘the divine within,’ via modeled awareness. Unlike Yoga, however, Tantric puja (which will be called ‘Tantra’ from here forward) seeks not the way of the warrior, but the way of the senses.

There are a vast many ways to describe Tantra, and there is more than one culture to contend with on particular orthodoxy of the subject matter. On one hand, Tantra is a personal means to an end: the ultimate Altered State of Consciousness (ASC). To the Western world, perhaps more familiar with the idea of ‘trance,’ as an ASC, it may be said that “while trance is only one of many altered states that include dreams […] and states of spiritual concentration, trance states are particularly interesting because of their wide range of cultural meanings” (Barfield 1997:471, emphasis added). That is, individuals from different cultures experience trance states according to their enculturation – by their cognitive references to symbols, their conditioned responses, their cosmologies, their gender roles, and more ethnically defining traits. On the other hand, Tantra is a socially conservative ritualistic behavior like any other institution, even if it is marginalized or meek. It is, after all, a religious model which enforces ritualized symbolic associations. Asian Tantra and Indian Tantra are the official “camps,” and there is plenty to compare and contrast them by.

In Asian Tantra, Esoteric Buddhism (a.k.a. institutional esotericism, or ‘Mantrayana’) and Tantric Buddhism (a.k.a. siddha esotericism, or ‘Yogini Tantra’) have practically, historically, and politically separate leanings.

“Mantrayana differs from the Perfection Path (paramitayana) Mahayana Buddhism that historically preceded it in its emphasis on the ritual entering of a circle of divinities (a mandala) and on the recitation of sacred formulas (mantra) - the production of sounds whose wavelengths cause fundamental universal powers to resonate. […] Mandalas and mantras are also a part of Yogini Tantra […], but the texts and the practices differ, now incorporating union with a female partner and a belief in a highly developed interior yogic anatomy, one shared with Hindu Tantrism.” (Woodward 2004:330, emphases added)

For the elite Esoteric Buddhist monks living through the Nara and Heian periods in China, the attainment of Buddhahood, indeed their primary goal at the time, was accomplished by artistic and musical talents – including mandala craft and melodic spiritual chanting – as much as it was by scripture and meditation (Nettl 2008:150). This was for a charged practice of self-enlightenment that was followed by educational, but entertaining, public discourse. The ideological paradigm did not last forever, but it was adapted from others with which Chinese culture interacted, and it definitely continued in a similar manner, though mostly excluding music in practice, in other surrounding societies. Even now, followers of Buddhism from myriad geographical locations provide that apparent example when they convene at the Indian state of Bodhgaya, Bihar for the Kalachakra Initiation where they chant en masse, take turns meditatively creating the largest ephemeral sand mandala recorded, and spread their seeds of faith and wisdom amongst non-Buddhist locals and travelers alike.

Tantra in general might be said to fundamentally encompass much of the same formatting, but Indian Tantra has its own defining traits, language, and associated religion. Hindus do not generally consider themselves part of a religion (nor do they call ‘it’ Hinduism); their practices are subjectively considered a moral lifeway, called Sanatana Dharma. None the less, deities dutifully and functionally serve as mandates for the belief structures which empower and enchant all forms of Yoga, as well as Indian Tantra. Buddhism isn’t much of a different schema, in that it also deifies ethereal and/or enlightened beings (both the spiritual essence of Buddha as well as past Boddhisattvas) and idolizes their imagery, while simultaneously infusing its adherents with the notion that one can achieve Godhead status. Moreover, both of these modalities give great importance to sound and space.

“The principle behind this use of the yantra is basic to tantric perception. Each yantra makes visible the patterns of force that can be heard in the mantra sound syllables, and each yantra reciprocally encloses its own unique power-pattern. Together, yantra-mantra may be said to build form (by the act of configuration), to conserve form (the configuration itself), and finally to dissolve form (as the aspirant comprehends its inner meaning and soars beyond it).” [Khanna 1979: 6]

Relative more to Hindus than the Chinese or Southeast Asians is the language of Sanskrit. The alphabet for this language is called the Mantra Purusha, or ‘person of sound,’ which instantly produces telling imagery of how its speakers correlate physical waveforms and communication to a primally sentient, anthropomorphic being. “In this regard, the sixteen Sanskrit vowels make up the head of the Mantra Purusha; the five sets of five consonants, twenty five in all, make up the four limbs and the trunk,” and, “ The five semi-vowels and four “s” and “h” sounds make up the tissues, prana and mind” (Frawley 1999:275). Here we have an ancient form of artistically encoded physical science and a motif for the mythologized human yantra (being-symbol) as a creational force, all at once.

Yantras themselves can transcend language barriers. Through communication and educational training, people of the Western world have learned well enough within the last forty years how to understand and self-realize the various Eastern transcendental spiritual states and religions. The opposite is also true, regarding Eastern embrace of Western thought. As some population groups of the Eastern world have come to understand each others’ belief systems, they have even syncretized some of their aspects. Yet, even without polyglottal intermeshing, mandalas can portray universal ideas through their usage of symmetry and asymmetry, and distinguished patterning of flourished ‘ir/regular polygons,’ as well as both odd and even numbered design-element intervals. Mandalas and three-dimensional yantras can represent, respectively, physical objects and even maps; enlightenment can be found in the cognizance it takes to deduce those depths. Through linguistics, we’ve gathered a loose, but multilaterally agreed translation of ‘mandala’: “manda” means “essence” (or “pith”), and “la” means “seizing,”

“"So, mandala" conveys a sense of "seizing the essence" or "enclosing the essence." It does not seem a misreading to interpret "essence" here as what is real or sacred. And the sense of enclosure of space connects to the three-dimensional, structural forms of the phenomenon. The still extant practice of drawing a mandala within a mandala house in some cases reflects the same origination” (Albanese 1977:13).

Such reflection can be metonymically tied to many notions. The motions of the Heavenly bodies and nature’s own architectural compositions, of both inorganic and organic matter, are no exception. Cultures divided by vast distances and periods of time have arrived at similar conclusions regarding what is compositionally/mathematically/geometrically elegant.

There are practices in many cultures which mirror the critical component of Tantra’s disciplined tonal production (mantra) for the sake of religious devotion. The formal chanting of the Koran, for example, is done with two types of ‘sung’ verse: “Muttaral is the unembellished, subdued, syllabic, relatively simple style; Mujawwad is emotional, ornamented, melodically complicated” (Nettl 2008:65). Both styles exert heavy influences on the scales – maqam – of Middle Eastern music, similar to how Hindu Sanskrit was born of mantra, and how simplistic Buddhist music, like Shomyo, (Nettle 2008:150) was born of Tantric chant. Nettle also outlines “the music of the Zurkhaneh, a kind of traditional gymnasium where men exercise to the chanting of a specialized singer, or morshed, who accompanies himself on drum and bells, using the latter also to direct the participants to change exercises (2008:67). By the way that the Koran is addressed and spiritually envisioned by the act of chant, instruments, and bodily exertion, Zurkhaneh is akin to Tantric puja - if it was to be performed in a fraternal gathering rather than in a solitary, or heterosexually coupled setting. Closer to home, in the Hindu Brahmanic (elite/royal) cultural caste, the very sounds of the ancient Vedic hymns were “considered to be the necessary means for coercing the gods to provide for the needs of the people, and after many generations in a new land, the people feared that the archaic language and the pronunciation of the Vedas would be lost” (Nettl 2008:35). Thus, the raga was born. When musicologist Dr. Solveig Macintosh discovered, while researching khyal singing styles of North India, that “music and language were linked at very basic levels going back to ancient India,” she quickly “began to delve deeper into the roots of Vedic mantra recitation and the evolution of India’s oldest classical vocal form known as dhrupada” (Olson 2007:334). Again, we have an example of socially conservative politico-religious preservation in persuasively artistic means; the very tones in Middle Eastern and Indian ‘songs’ of today are as socially symbolic as any rich painting.

If a Tantrika, who mainly chants long, mono-vowel/consonant mantras, is able to emit overtones and create extra-low frequency binaural rhythms within his own vibrating chest and head, the average number of intoned cycles per second would most likely entrain his brainwaves (and therefore his level of consciousness), forcibly, to that very frequency. Psychologically – that is, neurophysiologically – this would be the one automatically unifying, effectual factor between individuals of differing cultures (Morris 2002:71). Concurrently,

“A common mistake is to view mantras in conceptual terms, splitting hairs over the meaning of the vocables. Mantras are not to be regarded as parts of speech, or elements of grammar. They are non-discursive symbols articulating the ineffable in terms of resonating wavicles [in quantum physics: ‘particle waves’] of sound vibrations. The concentrated symbol of the metric mantra and the compact whole of the yantra coincide to arouse appropriate psychic states in the sadhaka.” [Khanna 1979: 34-36, emphasis added]

This very statement implies that the vibratory mode – the timbre or oscillation – of the mantra is more important for transcendence than the spoken words themselves (with their deep symbolism and subjective interpretations). It may even be the case that the invention of mandalas coincided with the advent discovery of geometric modal phenomena on vibrated surfaces. This type of event, described by fluid dynamics, is commonly referred to as ‘cymatics.’

Cymatics is a term given to the symmetrically oriented, geometrical patterns which are created by the sympathetic resonance of a vibrated planar surface. These patterns can only be seen when such a vibrating surface has an excitable particulate material or fluid resting upon it; and, these materials thus come to life, in their efficient organic formation and collective movements around structured waveforms of sound. These patterns can be transformed, or deviated, depending upon differences in the amount and sizes of the particles or fluids which ‘catch’ in the planar modes (vibratory nodes and antinodes). Ernst Chladni (1787CE) was the original pioneer of a method dedicated to the exploration of these phenomena, but Leonardo Davinci (~1500) Galileo Galilei (1632), Robert Hooke (1680), and Margaret Watts-Hughes (1891), amongst many others (Cymascope 2010), may be the first in recorded European history to have documented observances of them. After these curious minds, in 1967, Hans Jenny took the science to new heights; and, it was he who first applied the Greek term Cymatics (or ‘wave’) to its designs and its study. This recurring, cross-cultural paradigm of learning and relearning nature’s role in musical harmonies (in relation to geometrical objects) may well root back to an Eastern manmade yantra – perhaps a mandala-decorated gong/s – which served, beautifully and metaphorically, as a standardized tuning mechanism at the same time. It is surely the case that heavy research has been put into the ornate ‘cube’ decorations of Scotland’s intriguing Rosslyn Chapel, by composers and musicians Tommy and Stuart Mitchell (a father-and-son team), which testifies to such an intuitive encryption of knowledge upon etched stone (Mitchell 2006:32). The decorations brilliantly encode the medieval Solfeggio concert pitch, and its note intervals (its scale). A similar sort of encryption is seen elsewhere, too – in Java and India, of course.

Depictions of Hindu creation myths such as the Ramayana are found upon the carved stone relief murals on the walls of Borobudur temple in Java. Within these multilayered visual stories are found musical instruments, depicted to illustrate the profound keystone importance of music. The suggestion from such museum-quality artistry is that the flutes, bells, drums, lute, and string instruments therein altogether represent the first Southeast Asian record of a musical ensemble, and that it may indeed be the origin of the contemporary gamelan itself (Wikipedia 2007). That this image is scrawled upon the framework for a much larger teaching tool – a physical Sri Yantra mandala of nine levels, representing universal abundance, as a stone temple – a resonance is felt regarding the Indian and Eastern myths (as well as modern quantum physics) of microcosms within macrocosms:

“The Barabadur Stupa like the yantra is conceived as a place of spiritual pilgrimage. In the stupa the journey starts at one of the four doorways, and continues through the lowest galleries, which illustrate in relief scenes from the Buddha legends representing the world of desire and illusion. As the pilgrim moves in a spiral to the upper terraces which open out to the sky, the Buddha images become more and more abstract – an change which represent the transition from the world of matter to the world of the spirit. It parallels the sadhaka’s journey from the material to the spiritual during meditation on the Sri Yantra. Movement from the lower, outermost levels to the centre, the summit/bindu, is to be translated from the world of matter to the world beyond thought.” [Khanna 1979: 148]

This sort of three-dimensional spiritual materialization is seen nearby in the East, and accurately dates to the same period of history, denoting a definite cultural ideology-exchange taking place.

Ellora is an archaeological World Heritage Site some thirty kilometers from the city of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The manmade, labyrinthine Buddhist ‘caves’ there, which date from around 600-800CE, are in such close proximity to similar Hindu and Jain caves that historians and anthropologists alike cannot dissociate the cultures from their collective syncretism and harmony with one another during that time. Relatively, “In subsequent periods [to the mandala-making Harappan civilization of 3000BC] the Vedic altars (c. 2000 BC), pregnant with cosmic symbolism, were conspicuously abstract in design,” and “It was in tantrism (CE 700-1200, the tantric renaissance period) that the use of mystic symbols was fully revived” (Khanna 1979:10). These caves contain three-dimensional rock-cutout mandala reliefs and painted Buddhist imagery (which change in meaning as a pilgrim moves about them), but they have much more interesting contexts. “Instead of proceeding mentally through a two-dimensional mandala the worshipper at Ellora could walk through a set of three-dimensional mandalas, the caves themselves” (Malandra 1985:67). Borobudur and Ellora both can give us some further clues about the nature of unifying Eastern principles. “The Sri Yantra itself is essentially three-dimensional, like a terraced mountain, and both yantra and stupa represent the cosmological scheme of the mythical ‘world-mountain,’ Mount Meru,” (Khanna 1979:148) and moreover, “Meru rose up in a third dimension; in doing so, it pierced the heavens; in piercing the heavens, it transcended time as well as space; in transcending time it became […] a magical tool for the rupture of plane” (Mabbett 1983:66, emphasis added). This occult metaphor gives ordinary yantras, and mantras associated with them, supernatural qualities. Through meditation on them, the self-deifying spiritual pilgrim becomes the origin of lightning, sound, and the universe itself. There are many yantras within Eastern Tantra that appear significant enough in themselves, at first glance, but which extend deep into the ideological networks in which they reside.

In the right hand of Buddha, and of initiated monks, is the vajra/dorje (an “indestructible force”); in the left hand, the ghanta (a bell) – light and sound, respectively, materialized in geometric creations of the human mind. In Tantric Buddhism these symbols are polysemic in representation. The vajra is a representation of lightning and supremacy – of Vajrayana, the ‘Thunderbolt Way’ or ‘Diamond Way’ experienced in attaining Buddhahood – and of upaya, the male ability of professional rhetoric or “skill in means” (Gombrich 1997:17). The ghanta is a representation of the commanding vibration which clears all space, the female nature of prajna (wisdom) which is “the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress [or of ‘suffering,’ as is written in the Four Noble Truths],” otherwise known as “the faculty of discernment”(Bikkhu 1997: SN 48.10, emphasis added) . Indian polysemic symbolism is similar. Shiva’s trident (in the right hand) is an indestructible force, while the drum (in the left hand) is an instrumental means of spiritual bliss, and is also the source of cosmic creation. The serpents found in his presence portray fearlessness and control while simultaneously being icons of the Kundalini – the sensual force of creation in every person – which sleeps, coiled at the base of the spine. “The awakening of Kundalini in meditation causes her to rise up through the meru channel to the highest of the seven chakras or planes, where the union of Siva [the creative and destructive male force] and Sakti [the feminine creative force] finally takes place; this mediates the liberation of the worshiper from the bondage of samsara [the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth found in all Eastern religions]” (Mabbett 1983:78, emphasis added). In fact, there are thousands of such symbolic yantras within these cultures. Each serves as a reminder of personal place, and of relationships in nature, as much as they are aides for soul-searching, health, and liberation.

Obviously, meditation on any of these devices is not necessarily a simplification of thoughts and reduction or withdrawal from sensory experience. The usage of visual and auditory symbols, which are culturally unique in their mental effects (as Barfield notes regarding ‘trance’), also perpetuates technological advance; this occurs somewhat like the manner by which mandalas became ‘plan view maps’ for three dimensional temples and complexes. Technology itself, in this sense, can be considered a type of liberation.

“In Tibet, one finds prayer cylinders rotating on a vertical axle, powered by an anemometer-like horizontal wind turbine. Since in the shamanistic areas fluttering flags are a form of prayer, it has been assumed that wind-driven prayer cylinders are early, but unfortunately they have not been dated. The initial idea of salvation by the rotation of sacred writings, however, must have been Chinese rather than Tibetan. Perhaps as early as the sixth century, but certainly by A.D. 823, revolving book-cases, usually octagonal, were sometimes placed in Chinese Buddhist monasteries to store and facilitate reference to, the Tripitaka.” [White 1960:518]

White actually carried on this research to detail how forthcoming impellers, propellers, turbines, and rolling mills were inspired by these Eastern designs. In fine point, the Western world had been convinced that Henry Ford invented the functional differential gear, and that all mechanical engineering has him to thank for it, thereby – until recently. The Antikythera Mechanism, found underwater off the coast of Crete (the largest of the Greek Islands), is a shining example of why archaeology and history are important for the realm of cultural preservation and science (Freeth, et al. 2010). It uses differential gearing, and it was created between 600-300BCE. This complicated clockwork device, recreated an duplicated in labs throughout the world, smoothly details the movements of six planets and the Moon in reference to the Sun. It predicts all types of eclipses and even the bygone dates for the Grecian Olympic Games – all with astounding precision. This currently baffles academia, and spawns debates like no other find.

Tantric puja is fantastic in its own right, no matter how it continues to influence or how it’s been the subject of influence itself; yet, it is seemingly practiced by even those who are not familiar with it, let alone aware of it. Though the Silk Road was refined and officiated by royal mandate of the Han Dynasty, from around 206BCE-forward (Nettl 2008:90), there was surely intellectual trade between the Mediterranean region, India, and China, taking place before that time. These exchanges that took place between peoples along its meandering paths became admixtures of agglomerating ideologies, but they also caused the ignition of brand new social offshoots. It might be said of the Eastern world that there exist two branches of transcendental spiritual practice, based on dichotomous extremes: the warrior’s path, and the path of peace. Yoga and Tai Qi Quan – as modes of transcendental meditation – are performed to become a powerful, minimalist, and retained individual. Tantric puja, of both India and of Asia, is performed in order to become an inter-dependent, but deified person of sensorial, constructivist, and social sensibilities. Although practitioners of Tai Qi Quan – and the related styles of Qi Gong and Gong Fu – do not necessarily incorporate mantra into their rituals (even if they do emphasize the crucial nature of mental focus and of precise rhythmic breathing), they do certainly incorporate obvious yantras, in the forms of their ‘effects’ (materials and performances) and their compositionally ‘oriented’ temples, courtyards, and dojos within which they practice. Yogic masters, too, fit into a similar schema. These disciplines are all connected because they use yantras and mantras, whether or not they are Tantric puja specifically. Still, whether or not they are formally sanctioned or considered consensus reality, symbols and vibrations of all sorts are the foundations of culture everywhere. Like Tantric puja, these foundations just take a little insight, towards reverse-framework, in order to be realized.

References Cited

Albanese, Catherine L.

1977 The Multi-Dimensional Mandala: A Study in the Interiorization of Sacred Space. Numen 24(1):1-25. Brill: Bedfordshire, UK.

Barfield, Thomas

1997 The Dictionary of Anthropology. Blackwell Publishers, Inc.: Malden, MA.

Bikkhu, Thanissaro

1997 Indriya-vibhanga Sutta: Analysis of the Mental Faculties (translated from the Pali Canon). SN 48.10. Access to Insight. John T. Bullitt, publisher: June 7^th, 2009. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.010.than.html. Accessed April 4^th, 2010.

Cymascope

2010 Cymascope: Sound Made Visible. http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/history.html. Accessed April 4th, 2010.

Frawley, David

1999 Yoga & Ayurveda: Self-Healing and Self-Realization. Lotus Press; Twin Lakes, WI.

Freeth, Tony; et al.

2008 The Antikythera Mechanism: Decoding an Ancient Greek Mystery. Nature 454(7204):614-617. Macmillan Publishers, Limited: London, UK.

Gombrich, Richard F.

1997 How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers: New Delhi, India

Khanna, Madhu

1979 Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity. Thames and Hudson; London, UK.

Mabbett, I. W.

1983 The Symbolism of Mount Meru. History of Religions 23(1):64-83. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL.

Malandra, Gerry Hockfield

1985 Ellora: The “Archaeology” of a Mandala. Ars Orientalis 15:67-94. Freer Gallery of Art: Washington, D.C.

Mitchell, Thomas J.

2006 Rosslyn Chapel: The Music of the Cubes. Diversion Books:Northallerton, UK.

Morris, Charles G.; Maisto, Albert A.

2002 Psychology: An Introduction, 11^th ed. Pearson Education; Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Nettl, Bruno; et al

2008 Excursions in World Music. Pearson Education, Inc.; Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Olson, Carl

2007 Review of [2005] Hidden Faces of Ancient Indian Song. International Journal of Hindu Studies 11(3):333-336.

Osho

1998 The Book of Secrets: Keys to Love and Meditation. St Martin’s Griffin: New York, NY.

White, Lynn Jr.

1960 Tibet, India, and Malaya as Sources of Western Midieval Technology. The American Historical Review 65(3):515-526. American Historical Association: Washington, D.C.

Wikipedia

2007 Borobudur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Musician_Borobudur.jpg. Accessed March 4^th, 2010.

Woodward, Hiram

2004 Review of Esoteric Buddhism in Southeast Asia in the Light of Recent Scholarship. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35(2):329-354. The National University of Singapore.

Tantric Puja: Transcendence through Sound and Form by Brendan M. Bombaci is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

La Fascinante Arquitectura Astronomica / Ecologica de Los Mayas

2011-04-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

Let he who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast. That number is 6³.

Mayan architecture continues to be much more than purely functional. Much of it has told stories, listed zones of kingship, kept count of astronomical cycles since creation, and symbolically linked these schema altogether. Much is inlayed with complex glyphs that are simultaneously phonetic, poetic, metaphoric, and numerological. There is a general agreement that the information stored in these glyphs is relative to exactly the geographic location of the structure upon which they are etched or embossed. Many of the more well-known ancient Mayan temples and halls were reserved for the religious elite and for warriors, much as in Rome and in America today. The view from atop most of these buildings is astonishingly provincial compared to that of the forest floor. There is a direct correlation between the knowledge of the cycles of nature and cosmos and those members of Mayan society who were allowed access to such knowledge. Hence, the elite, with such access, could claim divine right for their powers of understanding and seemingly direct communication with the deities of the Day Signs and the Lords of the Night.

Buildings are aligned principally with the equinoxes and solstices, as is seen in much architecture of Native America as well as Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia. This mirror of Heaven may be the common sky folklore which all ethnicities share, from a collective outgrowth away from the Old World. The planet Venus orbits just over 13 times for every 8 orbits of the Earth, creating a pentagrammic pattern of inferior conjunctions. Each successive inferior conjunction occurs after about 1.6 Earth years and therefore shifts about 144 degrees in the direction opposite the Earth's orbital motion. After each cycle of 8 Earth years, the pentagram precesses about 1.5 degrees in the direction of Earth's orbital motion, reflecting the fact that the Earth:Venus orbital ratio is an approximate ('near') rather than a perfect orbital resonance.

(de Wiki) “Composite 3D laser scan image of El Caracol from above. El Caracol is a round stone structure with a partially ruined domed roof that originally had a cylindrical shape; it was named Caracol (Snail) due to its internal spine that climbs up in a spiral. Narrow windows cut into the outer walls seem to have been designed in order to observe the irregular movements of Venus, which was considered to be the sun's twin and held great significance for the Maya, particularly in decisions pertaining to war. The staircase at the front of the Caracol faces 27.5 degrees north of west, perfectly in line with the northern positional extreme of Venus and producing alignments at the building's northeast and southeast corners that track both the summer and winter solstices. The Caracol is one of the oldest standing observatories in the Americas, and highlights the great importance that astrological phenomena held for the people of Chichen Itza.”

There exists a separation of 144 degrees between the radians of a true pentacle, where they touch the circumference of an encompassing circle. Moreover, 144 is the 12th numeral in the Fibonacci Sequence (which the Aztec knew of before Fibonacci was even born) which represents the Golden Spiral in nature, is the same as 12 squared (12 by 12), is roughly the same number as the amount (142-147) of centimeters in the Maya “xo’ot” unit of measurement, and, thereby arguably analogous to mathematics of the furlong and horology of Mesopotamia. 144 of these Mayan xo'ot measures comprises one "zapal" of startlingly furlong-approximate length) [O'Brien and Christiansen 1986]. This 144 is also the same as the Kabalistic Gematria (number-wording) “Double Tetragrammaton” – one of the pre-Biblical “Esoteric Hebrew Names of God” [Parsons] revered secularly throughout Egypt and all of ancient Mesopotamia. This occulted ‘144’ is a big deal, in terms of summing up many secrets of sacred geometry, for all of humanity’s research efforts into the hidden realm.

All Zodiac signs shift through the calendar in 25920 years. The Tzolkin is 260 days long. After 52 years, the number of weeks in a year, the Tzol’kin meshes with the Ha’ab 365 day calendar. The temples would be used heavily for festivities at the end of every 52 year period. Four of these periods equals 208 years – one De Vries Cycle or intensified climate variations. That particular solar cross observation had a place in society unequaled in astronomy across the world. Also, instead of intercalating the calendar system like the Roman Catholic Leap Year does today, the Maya paid witness to the strange Sothic Cycle which causes the constellations to precess one degree in 4 years. Westerners since Rome either think that this cycle causes an uncontrollable spinning of otherwise predictable celestial motions or they would simply rather have a perfectly still cosmos instead of a naturally complicated one. Amazingly, just by abiding a particular calendar system (Gregorian), this complication is both obscured from view and apparently dissociated from climate change. There are 27.6923 Calendar Rounds that take place throughout one Sothic Cycle – which is roughly the amount of days that pass in one Anomalistic Lunar cycle. So, the Sothic Cycle was likely akin to one lunation for the Maya; and, there occur 18 of these 1440 year-long Sothic Cycles in one 25920 year Precession of Equinoxes. The Maya were all about fractal geometry. 18x20 is the numbering system used for the Long Count of 5200 years (linked to 2012). If we imagine that the full 25920 year period is akin to this 18x20 system, then the 18 Sothic Cycles in one Equinox Precession can be multiplied by 20 to equal one Great Cosmic "Year" (symbolically) of 518,400 years within which there exists a fourfold pattern of sea level rise/drop variance across the Earth. No less, at a smaller level, each of these "lunations" could be split 20 times into 72 year segments which represent the amount of time it should take for one degree of sky to shift (numerically more so than apparently) through the precession of equinoxes.

Welcome to the Age of Aquarius. Embrace it. It's written in stone and tied to self-consciousness borne from the entheogenesis that founded our capacity to stargaze let alone manifest complex societies.

Aztec Priest-Kings and Sacred "God's Flesh/Heads" Mushrooms

(image from the Fleshcap Crew @ www.Fleshcap.com)

The Forbidden Apple/ Sacred Mushroom atop the crown of the Assassins' Seal
(screenshot of XBOX360 game titled "Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood")

The Church and the Sacred "Forbidden Apple/Fruiting" Mushroom

Here's some MORE... and yet again.

And I couldn't help myself... so, more here.

Worth Repeating: Over 50 Studies Show Cannabis Is Medicine

2011-04-12T20:05:00.001-07:00

Hey! DUH! What's that? 50,000 year-old knowledge? Oh, right... it has contemptuously been getting washed away with politico-religious militant ideologies by corporatocratic heads because pagans ("people of the land") are heretics ("witches") and "just plain bad/stupid/dangerous people." Achem. Sorry.

<<>>

By the by... WHO OWNS YOU?

I AM CALLING SHENANIGANS ON THIS.

2011-04-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

from news article "The Memo that 'Proves Aliens Landed at Roswell'... Released by FBI"

(similar article found here: FOX News)

~~~~~~

"A bizarre memo that appears to prove that aliens did land in New Mexico prior to 1950 has been published by the FBI.

The bureau has made thousands of files available in a new online resource called The Vault.

Among them is a memo to the director from Guy Hottel, the special agent in charge of the Washington field office in 1950.

In the memo, whose subject line is 'Flying Saucers', Agent Hottel reveals that an Air Force investigator had stated that 'three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico'.

The investigator gave the information to a special agent, he said. The FBI has censored both the agent and the investigator's identity.

Agent Hottel went on to write: 'They were described as being circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter.

'Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall,' he stated.

The bodies were 'dressed in a metallic cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots.' "

~~~~~~

RIGHT!

Alien contact and/or The Second Coming... a completely profitable, Red Herring, supra-governmentality driven domination event of global proportions... in the cards? And soon?

I mean, REALLY. Alien ships, just like crop circles, started being seen, photographed, videotaped and testified for as of the turn of the 20th century. Why then? Because that's when electrical technology was coming up fast and broad. Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles on land, sea, and in air. Microwave cannon-engraved geometrical designs. Voices of God/s and/or aliens in the heads of anyone under fire from a similar device which causes the microwave auditory effect or Frey Effect. Hallucinations caused by MKULTRA (and other extra-nationally similar secret Psy-Op) attacks and experimentation.

BUT WHO MAKES SUCH CRAZY DEVICES? Surely none of THESE ex-military and military industrial complex officials...

Have there been community wide studies on the mass effect of public perception regarding such events? Have there been groups like the Rosicrucians that have been working diligently to convince of, and prepare people for, the coming of the end of civilization as we know it (like this man who wrote the 2012 date)?

And what's better to keep your projects "Hidden in Plain Sight" when people don't even think that they are human caused, let alone of a particular national interests? Propaganda has been a military specialty since time immemorial. Really, the most modern forms are simply a high tech version of the same "sorcery" or "witchcraft" which is still practiced by some 3rd and 4th World population groups.

But would an American spaceman lie to us for a PR campaign? Or for some secret satyrical effect?

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust.

SPECIAL EFFECTS, PEOPLE. EVERYTHING TO SEE HERE -- STICK AROUND.

Sounds a lot like ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, ... where those closest to and ACTUALLY OF THE SAME STUFF AS the Gods are the elites! The pharoahs, the heirophants, the Cesars, the Popes. I'm sure after enough time passes that there'll be some politico-religious justification for power holdings, too.

And now that we can genetically modify things... how easy would it be to genetically modify human genes with those of other species to craft an artificial alien presence amongst us, and then enculturate them/ raise them to represent this farce whenever the time is right?

We'd have to, if we really want to see an "alien," considering any living alien species would likely extinguish itself or entire solar systems before it actually got a chance to *attempt* the novelty of a multiple lightyear trip.

It's the snake in the grass.

Just open your eyes.

Have a nice day!

An Argument for the Masses

2010-09-12T18:49:00.001-07:00

If an entity is composed, at all, with at least a portion of... with any 'touch'of perfection... then that entity must be entirely perfect, because 'perfection' is a qualitative state rather than a quantitative state, & since it cannot be decomposed or degraded or admixed with anything quantitative - which is imperfect. Any perfect entity which has ever been amongst imperfect entities, & interacted with them, has necessarily and actually indicated and made apparent that all entities interacted with (as well as their component parts, histories, interacted-with relative entities, etc) are equally perfect.

This is the case unless, of course, all entities are composed both of perfection & imperfection simultaneously & no thing is any closer or further from either ideal than any other entity, & can never be, or ever have been, one extreme or the other.

Save the Diviner's Sage, Ska Maria Pastora (Salvia Divinorum)

2010-07-23T14:39:00.001-07:00

Folk Names: "Aztekensalbei, blatter der hirtin, diviner's sage, foglie della pastora, hierba de la pastora, hierba de la virgen, hoja de la pastora (Spanish, "leaf of the shepherdess"), hojas de adivinacion, hojas de maria pastora, la hembra, leaves of the Mary shepherdess, mazatekischer salbei, pipilzintzintli, sage of the seers, salvia, salvia of the seers, ska maria pastora, ska pastora (Mazatec, "leaf of the shepherdess"), wahrsagesalbei, yerba de maria, yerba maria, zaubersalbei."

[Ratsch, "The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications," 1998:462]

~~~~~

Reaching back into the history of the Americas, regarding Catholic Spanish and otherwise Jesuit (Jesuit) dominators, these doubtlessly syncretized common names of the species Salvia divinorum have been relative to the beliefs of the politico-religious elites... in that the sacred sage wisdom is derived from the 'Mother of God'... Mary or Isis, depending on the revision. This is especially the case because collective histories of pre-conquest inhabitants of the Americas barely reference anything close to what Salvia divinorum is -- that is, except for the pipilzintzintli mentioned in the Ratsch quotation above; that is an Aztec word from the Codex Badiano translated roughly as 'noblest little prince.' In the Aztec cultural context, this plant represented "the God pilzintecuhtli (baby prince), another aspect of Xochipilli [or Tonatiuh] and also related to the Sun and sometimes described as the husband of Xochiquetzal [the mother of Quetzalcoatl - who is the 'feathered serpent' also anthropomorphized as the God Ehecatl]."

[Granziera, Patrizia; "Concept of the Garden in pre-Hispanic Mexico;" Garden History v.29 no.2 (Winter 2001): p188; emphasis added]

~~~~~

Please read some crucial information (@ "Salvia Truth") regarding this wonderful entheogenic and medicinal plant, and keystone species of cultural heritage conservation, under pressure from the federal government and in need of serious scientific research access (and thereby legal protection).

"But more interesting [than hallucinatory effects] from a therapeutic standpoint are the other properties attributed to the plant; properties that are much more difficult to assess. Are these concepts that are translatable into our western (orthodox) healing theory, or is ska Marla Pastora being used as a magical treatment (for a placebo effect)? Extended observation in the field by an acute observer would undoubtedly be more fruitful than immediate attempts to isolate compounds responsible for these purported activities."

[Valdez, et. al.; "Studies of Salvia divinorum (Lamiaceae), an Hallucinogenic Mint from the Sierra Mazateca in Oaxaca, Central Mexico"; Economic Botany, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1987); p290; emphases added]

~~~~~

Embedded cultural mythopoeics, social contracts, and individual stages of awareness as well as psychological health indicators all play extremely important roles in the experience/s imparted by the Diviner's Sage, upon every one of its subjects... there are those who fear and there are those who revel - those who scare, and those who inspire. Health, SES, education, and control (ritualized settings and cultivar standards, i.e.) duly make a huge difference in how this fantastic healer/teacher medicine is subjectively and objectively perceived.

And, for an article regarding Salvia in Scientific American...

So what now? If you have never experienced the healthful effects of this entheogenic member of the Sage/Mint family, you may wish to do so in the near future. It is not to be recommended by anyone except yourself, upon reception of enough knowledge regarding the subjective psychological and physiological effects. Erowid is a grand source for this.

(above: the Salvinorin B molecule -- relatively non-affective)

(the Salvinorin A molecule -- a rather potent entheogenic biochemical which our apparently otherwise-useless Kappa Opioid receptor sites, in our brains, are efficiently designed for)

If you are up to the task, try these venders below. The first one is a seller of live plant cuttings; grow your own and be sure of organic standards, free from dangerous chemicals that would endanger your experience and perhaps harm you physically or mentally. The second has been a vender of organic Salvia Divinorum raw leaves and extracts of fine quality for years.

Go Knowingly and Go in Peace.

To Commemorate the Heavenly Motions

2009-05-23T11:46:00.001-07:00

(prior information before this point has been edited out due to alterations in my life circumstance)

As dedicated as I am to learning and applying knowledge of archaeoastronomy, I cannot say that I fully agree with all of the Mayanist experts, regarding calendrics, all of the time... I feel that my own future career in Anthropology will help to solve many of the questions and disagreements within the international forum of this artful science.

One example of my own course of thinking involves the 2012 date itself. It is, indeed, but an ending day (if December 23rd isn't really the one) to a 5184-year period marked by the Mayan Long Count of Days. This falls under a 5-count collective of such Long Count periods, which altogether add up to the 25920 years in one Precession of Equinoxes, whereby we see every constellation of the sky come full circle. However, there is a discrepancy that I do not see other researchers evaluating so far. If the Long Count utilizes "Tuns" (a 360-day year, leaving out the "5 demon days" of the Wayeb within a 365-day Haab year), then it would continue tabulating each new year after the end of that 5-day New Year celebration. It would not keep running through said celebration. So, in as such, the Long Count dates are wrong. The 2012 date is 72 years off (unless, since this dating is all confused, the whole Long Count actually began in 3114BC to begin with).

Either one end, or the other, of the Long Count (LC) cycle, is off by 72 years! Just take 5184 years and multiply by 5 to get how many days should be added on to the whole cycle, to make up for the miscalculation of running the LC dating through each Wayeb. Why else would the LC even utilize a system of year-measurement (the "Tun") aside from those used in the Haab, the Tzolkin, the Tun-Uc, or the 29.53-day Lunar Calendar??? It wouldn't, otherwise.

They had a 360-day year, in many respects... similar to Egyptians and many of the early Mesopotamian people on the other side of the globe...

Just ask yourself where we got our 360-degree navigational/compass system.

This error would effectively lengthen the Long Count, either stretching the origin back to 3186BCE, or the ending to 2084AD. Maybe it's split, even; 36 years added to the age and 36 years added time yet to come. Either way, I have some work cut out for me that might involve myriad Relative Dating methods, historical glyph records, and more.

In Harmony,
Brendan Bombaci

Harmony of our Ancestors

2009-05-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Archaeoacoustics, Archaeology of Music, Ethnomusicology, & Archaeometry... now these are exciting fields of research well worth your time if you're interested in anthropology and physics. Just check out an abstract of the article "Rock Music" in the Journal Archaeology, by clicking on the picture to the right.

Such applied anthropological studies can be satisfactorily supplemented with some education in psychology and animal behavior, as well as psychoacoustics and brainwave entrainment models (such as 'Frequency-Following Response').

There is nothing quite so empowering as understanding some aspects of why certain places feel 'inhabited' or 'haunted' with spirits or strange energy fields (click the megaliths). Indeed, much of that sensation is our own; it is a perceptual interpretation wrought from our own sensory modalities. In some cases, folks who live too close to high-powered microwave panels, like those on cell phone towers, experience the same creepy feeling -- only it's due to the Frey Effect, otherwise known as the Microwave Audio Effect. Likely, if we didn't have an inner ear, we wouldn't feel any of these 'evoked responses' at all, except for those which vibrate our very guts and bones within.

Some scientists have been working with environmental acoustics such as those found in famous cave painting sites throughout Europe and New Zealand, pyramid complexes of the Maya, and social centers of Greece. It is interesting to see how cultures of the past either religiously personified or reverently understood the dynamics of sound effects, and, what our own modern cultures make of such ideologies in contrast or comparison to their own. There are even online forums, such as the Yahoo! Archaeoacoustics group, which connect both discipline-relative scholars and the history-curious public to these circles. Even UCLA offers their MuSICA Research Notes (MRN) to the internet, compiling and cross-correlating myriad fields of research for the purpose of better understanding music and the mind. Of course, UCLA's Ethnomusicology Department isn't too shabby, either.

Any culture in the world can base their musical scale around one key note that would never take an ounce of difficulty in discovering -- even without the use of another instrument or tuning fork. The 'C4' note of Western music was once, hundreds of years ago, standardized to 256Hz. As such, it was most easy and efficient to organize a whole set of notes around this one whose lowest octave is 1Hz! It is binary in nature, and likely a useful plan for ethnomusicologists and musicians alike; the quick interpretation and field-tuning abilities that would come from such a renewed standard could really link many cultures with one another, as music 'universally' is thought to, already. The second-hand is already an international standard in time-keeping. Why not the root note of all musical scales of industrialized countries? After all, most cultures have at least one musical note that is approximately that frequency already; and, it's far easier, and more rooted in the mathematical nature of music (to begin with), to tune instruments by a pitch that (on a string, say) observably vibrates once per second! Once the ratios/intervals are established, everything else is simply 'doubles' and 'halves' of the original derived notes... it's the harmonic series... no stress there!

Just a suggestion.

Off to find a nice echo in the woods somewhere...

In Harmony,
Brendan Bombaci

The de Vries Solar Cycle & The Festival of the Fires

2009-05-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

from a climato-dendrochronological research paradigm by:
Societa Astronomica Italiano

"It is commonly believed at present that the 200-year solar cycle (deVries cycle) is one of the most intense solar cycles. This is evidenced, for instance, by occurrence of deep solar activity minima (Maunder, Sporer, Wolf) in approximately two-hundred-year intervals during the last millennium. By using the proxy data on solar activity variations (10Be concentration in Greenland ice), Wagner et al. (2001) traced the development of the de Vries cyclicity for the period 50,000 - 25,000 years BP. Vasil’ev et al. (1999) inferred from the data on variations in 14C in tree rings that the 200-year solar cycle is one of dominating solar cycles during the Holocene. The time coincidence between the development of Maunder, Sporer, and Wolf minima and expansion of Alpine glaciers Haeberli & Holzhauser (2003) point to a climatic response to the deep solar minima. A similar conclusion was inferred from analysis of glacier expansion in Alaska. Wiles et al. (2004).

The goal of this paper is to reveal the 200-year climatic cycle in Central Asia by analyzing the tree-ring growth data for Juniperus turkestanica at the high timberline in Tien Shan mountains and to compare the obtained palaeoclimatic data with the development of the de Vries periodicity during the last millennium."

~~~~~

Cleansed by Ahau. At just the right synchronicity of astronomical cycles.

Indeed, this very cycle is tied into the Aztec "Festival of Fires," and Mayan "Calendar Round." They feared the 'end of their civilization' at the intermeshing of both Tzolkin and Haab calendar systems (52 years' time). Each Calendar Round is one quarter of these Solar impulses.

It seems there's a patent out on a clock that utilizes this ancient knowledge, no less, and culminates every so often in a recycle after one "Chultun"... a Calendar Round.

~~~~~

These sectionals were but smaller divisions of a much larges calendar system, which most people today know no further beyond a 5184-year-long Count of Days. It finishes up in 2012, but it's only one fifth of the bigger picture. By 5, this number equates to the Precession of Equinoxes. We in the Western world would love to coordinate such knowledge to our own roots, as it was shared by, yet it is unknown whether or not the knowledge of the Greeks (gleaned from the Egyptians before them) was from a people well-studied in the subject (like the Naqada or Buto-Ma'adi of the Nile River Valley & Delta) before or after the Maya. The building of complex structures and written language (therefore historical record) came much after astronomical and alchemical cognition, to be certain... they were but material manifestations of what was known, for purposes of immortalizing the crucial life-saving knowledge of our ancestors.

If not for tools, if not for fire, if not for knowledge of the Heavenly motions and the climatic changes that they bring (<-- link), we would likely be extinct as most all of the Hominin line has been for just over the period of one Precession of Equinoxes to date.

To quote William Calvin (from his book How the Shaman Stole the Moon):

"And what, might you ask, is a neurobiologist doing writing a book about astronomy? I tell the astronomers that this is the neurobiologists’ revenge — the astronomer Carl Sagan did, after all, write a best-selling book about neurobiology. (Indeed, The Dragons of Eden sets a high standard for would-be interlopers.)

Or what, for that matter, am I doing writing a book that is, in part, about shamanistic practices and the possible origins of religion? That’s a little harder to answer, even to myself; unlike astronomy, such are not among my hobbies. Yet while out hiking and admiring the views from ancient ruins such as Stonehenge, I stumbled on something interesting, a candidate for how the first shaman, the first priest, the first prophet — and maybe even the first scientist — might have gotten started in their part-time occupations, back in the hunter-gatherer days of the Ice Age. I have come to think of ancient astronomy as the first “knowledge-based industry,” that a shaman was also likely the first scientist."

The "Georgia Guidestones"

2009-04-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

As on Wikipedia, :

"The Georgia Guidestones are located on a hilltop in Elbert County, Georgia, approximately 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Atlanta, 45 miles (72 km) from Athens (precise distance is 44.3322 miles), GA and 9 miles (15 kilometers) north of the center of Elberton. The stones are standing on a rise a short distance to the east of Georgia Highway 77 (Hartwell Highway), and are visible from that road. Small signs beside the highway indicate the turnoff for the Guidestones, which is identified by a street sign as "Guidestones Rd."
~~~~~

If you didn't catch the astronomical numerology in there, you would be humored to visit the (click this->) "Common Ground" link on my main website. You will not be disappointed.
~~~~~

More on this awesome construction, from WIRED magazine...

"Called the Georgia Guidestones, the monument is a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the "guides" themselves, directives carved into the rocks. These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely eugenic (guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity); others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (prize truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite)."

and...

It's an American Stonehenge...one with a serious purpose for us.

(more from the WIRED article)
"What in the world would it be for? Fendley asked. Christian explained that the structure he had in mind would serve as a compass, calendar, and clock. It would also need to be engraved with a set of guides written in eight of the world's major languages. And it had to be capable of withstanding the most catastrophic events, so that the shattered remnants of humanity would be able to use those guides to reestablish a better civilization than the one that was about to destroy itself."

~~~~~

There are conclusions towards the end of this article that echo those made by so many people throughout the world thus far: the Rosicrucian secret society, spawned during the Enlightenment Period and Scientific Revolution, is behind it... and that their alchemical beliefs hold true to the main tenets listed on these giant monoliths. Moreover, there is a postulation towards the general astro-alchemical ideology, passed down within such secret societies over hundreds of years worth of collected knowledge and lore, of a solar sunspot cycle that oscillates every 13000 years, and that we're on the next kick right now.

Woo-Hoo! Hey, our modern astronomers, astrophysicists, geologists, and climatologists can't be wrong when mass agreements between their own circles are targeting a cosmic order to the waxing and waning of Earth's changes... and the Precession of Equinoxes is huge in those sights.

And just to get Cabbalistic on everybody...

one hint that is the numerology behind the measurements of the capstone:

(my attempt at Hebrew gematria, by Rosicrucian terms)
9'8" = 9x8 = 72
6'6" = 6x6 = 36
1'7" = 1x7 = 7

72x36 = 2592
2592x7 = 18144 (18th 'degree' of Masonry gets you into the Rosicrucian Order, and, 144 is the Hebrew equivalent to the 'Name of God,' entitled "Double Tetragrammaton" [YHVH x 2] )
18x144 = 2592 (again)

...add 'em up in multiplication, sequentially, and you get 2592, which is analogous to 25920... the length of time it takes for one Precession of Equinoxes to occur.

The Language and Demise of Neanderthals

2009-04-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

The Squabble of Babble: Neanderthal Speech and their Mysterious Demise

(2009 Human Origins term paper)

by Brendan Bombaci

Anthropology has many perennial arguments, not the least of which involves professionals who either believe or discount the notion that Neanderthal speech was possible. It’s a pretty hot debate. Ever since Homo neanderthalensis remains were first classified as their own species, much hard work has gone into revealing just how far their communicative abilities went, in comparison to those of the Homo sapiens groups they coexisted with. Paleoanthropological evidence, from select skull samples over the last few decades, has suggested to some that Neanderthal larynx structuring might have obscured language from them. There are, conversely, researchers with evidence claiming otherwise. One researcher found nerve channels to be relatively lacking in the ribcage region of an ‘early’ Homo specimen (1.5mya), asserting that proper breath control for vocalization would have been hard to impossible. Archaeological records hold that Neanderthals may have been the first flutists, however, and, if that is the case, they likely had no trouble with breath control. Indeed, Neanderthals had a hyoid bone (of the velar complex) and a hypoglossal nerve channel which closely resembled that of modern man, and which would have offered great control over linguistic musculature. To boot, recent studies in molecular genetics point to matching genes between H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis, relative to both speech recognition and creation, thus positively allowing for language, and cranial vault endocasts visually exemplify this. We will now explore various professionals’ tentative hypotheses of the matter, and I will use such contrasting data to issue my own ethnology on possibilities of their speech technology and of their likely-connected disappearance.

Open System languages, as intricately and massively evolved animal Calls, originate from complex brains, and, the study of paleoneurology used to be more complicated, and at times, quite convoluting. “The elusive morphology of the brain and the extreme enlargement of the neocortex among the hominids make it difficult to describe and quantify its variability. Despite the fact that several analyses produced valuable results, the descriptive nature of such an approach allowed only general conclusions, because “”the information that we glean from endocasts remains (literally) superficial”” (7). [Bruner 1] But there are qualified upshots being made, since so much endocast data has been increasingly more detailed and substantial with the computational modeling advances of this past decade. More so, “the analysis of endocranial surfaces can be carried out on a greatly enlarged fossil sample, and inferences on the evolution of the cephalic structures may be improved by more robust analytical support (9).” [Bruner 1] This is general scientific progress in paleo/anthropological circles; so, applying such progress to Neanderthal studies is, of course, no exception.

Pro and Con sides to the newly information-saturated morphological argument are represented well enough. We will first address the Pro argumentation. “Work by Marianne Le May and Normal Geschwind at Harvard Medical School, and others, has extended this [endocast] analysis to our ancestors. The temporal lobe and Sylvan fissure leave a clear indentation and ridge on the inner surface of the skull, which is different on the two sides because of the enlarged speech area on the left in modern humans. The same enlarged left temporal area was found in the skull of our brutish-looking cousin, the Neanderthal.” [Thompson 442, emphasis added] This particular assessment derives Neanderthal linguistic competence from the rational mass and contours of brain areas. Further computer modeling work performed by Franklin Yates of George Washington University focused on replicating the performance of the vowel ‘e,’ based on morphology of Neanderthal skulls, including pharynx and larynx dimensions, with the added superimposition of either human-like vocal tracts or chimp-like vocal tracts (since this aspect must be assumed due to time-evoked taphonomic disintegration of the organ). Yates’ assumptions that Neanderthals could speak, to begin with, were fueled by the work of Professor Matt Cartmill who found that “their [Neanderthal] skulls also had human-size canals for the hypoglossal nerve, suggesting that they could indeed talk,” [Cartmill 2, emphasis added] and evidence that the Neanderthal hyoid bone was “…identical in size and shape to the same bone in modern humans...”. [Conroy 556] Applying a shorter, less likely chimp-esque wind pipe, the program creates a voice difficult to understand; but, with a vocal tract similar to the general Homo lineage (and rationally 25% longer than ours), the sound is simply basso – “if Barry White had sung in a choir of Neanderthals, he would have been the tenor”. [BBC]

Promising though these findings may be, the works of linguist Philip Liebermann and English anatomist Ann McLarnon solidified (mainly) the Con stance of this debate with their own evidence. Liebermann has critiqued numerous jaw-replete skulls, and formulated an idea that “a more modern throat didn’t evolve until 500,000 years ago, and that some evolutionary lines of genus Homo never did acquire modern vocal organs,” and furthermore, “that the Neanderthals […] never developed our range of vowels, and that their speech – if they had any at all – would have been harder to understand than ours”. [Cartmill 2] In Northern Kenya, during the 1980s, a young Homo male was found in deposits dated to 1.5mya; Ann McLarnan examined the vertebrae and concluded that the spinal cord in the rib cage region “was proportionately thinner than it is in people today […and] that the youth may not have had the kind of precise neural control over breathing movements that is needed for speech.”. [Cartmill 2, emphasis added] Although these studies nearly assume to be definitive, whilst not accounting for a modern hyoid, hypoglossal nerve channel, temporal lobe, and difference in species (as in McLarnan’s account), these two research foci must still be taken into consideration. Tongue length is as big a determining factor as tongue manipulation, as breath control is to breath endurance. We will address the tongue-length vocalization problem, but first we must partially determine if Neanderthals had the genetic possibility of speech – coding them for willingness and persistence at least – and incorporate an artifact that may actually be a telltale sign of Neanderthal breath control and tonality perception.

FOXP2 is a gene which has received great attention over the last few years. Research involving the communication abilities of bats, and of birds, originally gave FOXP2 the fame of being The language gene. We now know that there are perhaps a few, if not many more genes which also code for linguistic grace, but this one is certainly powerful. Doctor Constance Sharff and colleagues found in 2007 that, “when young zebra finches learn to sing or when adult canaries change their song seasonally, FoxP2 is up-regulated in Area X, a brain region important for song learning,” and a follow-up research group, led by Scharff and Doctor Sebastian Haesler, experimenting with genetic modification, appended that, “the birds, with lowered levels of FoxP2, imitated their tutor’s song imprecisely and sang more variably than controls”. [Blackwell 2007] Cornell University manages the prestigious Bioacoustics Research Program at their Lab of Ornithology, to which behavioral ecologist Sandra Vehrencamp contributes scientific field research. In December 2008, Vehrencamp’s work was being published, accentuating the amazing news that she had deciphered “meaning within bird communication.” [Blackwell 2008] From same-frequency matching by the young to master their parents’ songs, to song sharing amongst cross-territorial males, to females choosing a male whom has truly become a singer-songwriter of rhythmic melodies and expert trills, this study doesn’t even have to mention the term FoxP2 to those whom have the slightest reference. “People with FOXP2 mutations have severe…problems with making the quick and complex movements of the mouth and tongue needed to talk intelligibly,” and, “those affected also seem to have trouble with language comprehension.” [Mason] The team of European researchers, to finally test Neanderthal bones recovered from Spain, was lead by Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; he believes that “from the point of this gene, there is no reason to think that Neanderthals did not have language as we do.” [Mason]

Con argumentation could still possibly infer, however, that a human’s negatively affected FOXP2 gene would not accompany an altered larynx or windpipe, but that they still cannot speak and/or understand speech. The reverse may also be true, to a lesser degree: FOXP2 offers langue, but the model phenotypic rhetorician may still be mutable by other genes coding for morphological parole. If Neanderthals had all the genetic and mental competence, the nervous system, the throat musculature, and the breath capacity for speech, but still lacked a low larynx – and therefore had a short and mouth-filling tongue and no breath control – this one bottleneck would have withheld them from Sinatra status. Liebermann’s decisive opinion was suited by this determining factor, but, if we cannot see a Neanderthal windpipe, how can we see a Neanderthal tongue; and even still, why in the world would such an otherwise-successful, robust, and weather-hardy species have a totally irrational ‘gag issue’ or inability to breathe properly? How would there even be material evidence of transmission-of-culture, let alone such a highly technical, ritualistic, and seemingly emotional one? It doesn’t add up. Even if they did have any sort of physical impediment to their linguistic performance, they were brainy enough to probably have figured out ways to supplement what they could not say.

International Manual Language doesn’t officially exist, but it would be a gift of peaceful cooperation and a ticket for anyone to access every culture’s wealth of worldviews, arts, and knowledge. As of now, many countries have their own manual languages, and America is one example. American Sign Language (ASL) “consists of thousands of distinct signs,” and, “most signs are completely arbitrary in the sense that their form has no inherent physical relationship to their meaning,” [Bonvillain 31] which really means that concepts like ‘displacement’ (speaking of that which is abstract, past or future tense, or immaterial) and ‘openness’ (creativity to create new meaning in language) are totally available to speakers of ASL. Arbitrariness exists uniquely in both spoken and manual languages, in ways that dramatically empower a species beyond simple Call systems or shared ritualized behaviors. Some people tend to speak vocally and manually at once, further conveying complexities of their meaning, intent, or inquisition in ways that one of those languages alone could not as efficiently manifest. The same sort of linguistic stratification can be imagined between harmonious and monotonous people; these ‘prosodic’ features of speech are necessary for many to distinguish between jokes and seriousness, happiness and distress, truthfulness and chicanery. Some people just simply cannot stay awake in the presence of a monotonous individual. All in all, it is not too far-fetched to draw up a scenario wherein Neanderthal people are speaking with one another in their maybe not-as-potent vocal language and a manual language, simultaneously, in order to convey their meanings in a satisfactory way. Then, there is also a probability that they knew prosodic meaning well enough to emulate it.

Illustrated maps, detailing the eco-zone of the Neanderthal world, show Teshik Tash, Uzbekistan (West Asia) to be the furthest East they settled. [Conroy 455] Dating methods place their occupation or visitation to at least the Middle Paleolithic, meaning that they may have had trade through that area since before that and/or after a period estimated to 80kya. This place draws a halfway point between the Alps of Europe, and the lush Henan Province in China – respectively – the first (& second) general area of any probable musical instrument fragment, and then the third (assemblage of whole instrumental flutes, specifically). These instruments are all flutes of similar pitch and scale, and yet their depositions are separated by 29-36000 years, up to 3600 kilometers, and, by species relation! The first “flute” (a fragment), discovered in the Divje Babe I site in Idrija, Slovenia, was presented by paleontologist Ivan Turk in 1997 as a drilled-out juvenile bear cub femur, dated to 43,100ya. Amongst Neanderthal remains (whom most readily and consistently are perceived as an artless race), and heavily damaged, this find was initially scrutinized. When this type of bone alteration was tested for taphonomic causation rather than intentional hole-production, however, Ivan Turk reported that:

“"...compact bone regularly splits longitudinally when a tooth penetrates this deep, as was the case with the holes in the suspected flute.... Strength was measured at the Laboratory of Non-linear Mechanics... using steel points, bronze casts of wolf and hyena dentition, and fresh thigh bones of brown bear. In widening the experimental holes to the size of those on the suspected flute, exerting the same force as for piercing, all juvenile bones cracked.”” [Fink 2]

Since that time, similar finds, like “the bone flute from the cave site of Geissenklosterle in Germany,” which “claims to be the oldest at cal. 36,000 BP,” [Zhang 1] receive more attention to such detail, for they may be the crucial secrets about our past relatives, and their interactions, which we’ve been seeking. Interestingly, though, the Geissenklosterle flute and the 9000 BP Jiahu assemblage [Brookhaven] are apparently both remnants of Homo sapiens culture, which suggests that the Neanderthal flute of Slovenia was the first geometrically crafted musical instrument, and, that Neanderthals not only had breath control, but a firm understanding and self-representation of prosody – that they utilized harmonic spatial relevance, pattern, and rhythm. It also proclaims, perhaps, that they may have traded away their invention to (leading to reverse engineering), or taught modern man how to craft, the bone/reed flute.

Putting a lot of thought into it, Neanderthals likely communicated well, but just ran into some snag/s that stopped them in their tracks. The New York Academy of Sciences recently “found more grey matter in the auditory cortex of the right hemisphere in musicians compared to nonmusicians,” and that, “the use of music to enhance memory is explored and research suggests that musical recitation enhances the coding of information by activating neural networks in a more united and thus more optimal fashion.” [Blackwell 2006] Such a difference may not be as pronounced between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, as those we’d find today between people (given that music can be an everyday career now rather than a ritual activity), but I’d still say that simple animal mimicry for hunting or recreation, or even hummed lullabies to their children (whom they clothed, protected, equipped, and taught so well), let alone the advanced making and playing of flutes, easily lends these ancient people plenty of linguistic credence. That may have not been enough to save them a place in line for the future ride with Homo sapiens, though. It appears that “Neanderthals were using technology as advanced as that of contemporary anatomically modern humans and were using symbolism in much the same way,” but it was, perhaps, an unfortunate “culmination of 100,000 years of climate hitting Neanderthals hard, their population diving during the cold years, rebounding during warm years, then diving further when it got cold again,” [Alper 6] combined with other possibilities, that phased out their fitness.

Catarrhines are generally loud creatures, including humans. With the special evolutionary niche this Family of ours has exploited, in audio communication systems, it is just out of order proposing that even Australopithecines were unable to vocally command the attention of their kin over vast distances. It would be rare to find an argument for such a stance if it was mentioned of Neanderthals, no less. Unless that argument contained a valuable piece of information to give it vibrancy: “we have a phonetic apparatus [hyoid] in which the horizontal and vertical segments are of similar length, while as we understand the Neanderthals, they had a vertical segment similar to or just a bit shorter than ours, but a much longer horizontal segment.” And furthermore, “theirs would have been a different instrument producing different sounds[…and so]the words to the music may or may not have been the same, or they may not have been.” [Arsuaga 266] Already, there is much evidence pointing to the very real probability of speech for Neanderthal people, and of precise speech for those who had a more modern hyoid (like the 60,000 year-old Kebara find); but, with a laterally wide hyoid segmentation, their chances to throw their speech to the wind, and not just holler vowels, may have been lessened. For this is the very reason, flutes and all other types of pipe instruments (ie, organs & chimes) must be rounded cylinders, and not oval cylinders, in order for powerful overtones not to cancel each other out. This adaptation may have acclimatized Neanderthals to the colder regions which the rest of their bodies were stacked for – being that a wider esophagus (like their nasal passages) could better warm their inward breaths – at the sacrifice of long-distance articulate language. It may also have advanced two ominous problems which Homo sapiens shared to some degree, one of them being an almost-total inability to shout perceptible language in a battle or emergency.

Common anthropological knowledge has it that full Neanderthal traits were coming into speciation around 130,000 years ago. Doctor Saharon Rosset has determined, by the study of over 600 complete mtDNA genomes, that the species we know so well as modern humans was actually “divided into two separate groups within Africa for as much as half of its existence,” during a time when “Eastern Africa went through a series of massive droughts between 135,000-90,000 years ago.” [TAU] She asserts also that it was not until 60,000 years ago that Homo sapiens genomes were becoming recombined and humans began colonizing a larger world; and, this date meshes well with the timeframe for our modern-hyoid Kebara specimen. Something might be said about genetics and hybridization possibilities yet, but first we must address one connected issue of morphological roulette. Perhaps Neanderthals became comfortably adapted for stable, cold-to-extremely-cold zones due to the glacier-returning end of the Eemian, before which Europe “witnessed average temperature fluctuations of 10-14 degrees Celsius within the time length of one or a few human generations.” [Ciochon] Evolution is efficient, but when multiple geophysical shifts are taking place (including the ensuing stasis-threatening Holocene), the game is more based on luck – being in the right place at the right time – than strategy. Indeed, Alfred Wallace suggested years ago that a possible system within genetics which works “exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident,” and, a team of Princeton University scientists found such a system, last year, located within mitochondria which constitutes the ETC (electron transport chain) and acted “to correct any imbalance imposed on [the proteins] through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order.” [MacPherson] In this way, the metabolic system works to fight for stasis in a mature lifetime, in order to allow the dramatic variances to occur mainly during developmental stages of youth; so in other words, a species can adapt to any given situation over centuries of exposure, but when that species happens to be a communicative one that utilizes behavioral adaptations of culture to share solutions to life-threatening problems, the genetic body is fighting just as much as the cultured mind, and, out of sync, survival suffers.

Molecular clock models may be off by more than anthropologists, and all biologists, would like to imagine. This is intimidating for more reasons than the simple fact of mutation rates being punctuated, rather than gradual (as the models are assumed upon). Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology proclaims that “A 95% confidence interval generated by bootstrap re-sampling of the alignment data gives a range of 465,000 to 569,000 years [for human-Neanderthal divergence dating, and]… obviously, these divergence estimates are dependent on the human–chimpanzee divergence time, which is a much larger source of uncertainty,” [Greene 5]. Moreover, Paabo also stated in 2009 after his team had decoded 60% of the Neanderthal genome, that “it was clearly something in their interaction with the environment or with modern humans that caused them to be extinct,” and, “that will not be something you can see from their DNA sequence.” [Morgan] When Mark Batzer and colleagues compared a human (Venter’s) genome to a simulated ‘perfect’ copy, to discover how introns affect DNA mutations, they “found 706 places where transposable elements had stuffed extra DNA into Venter’s genome […and,]at the same time, recombination between the mobile elements cut 140 chunks out of Venter’s genetic instruction manual.” [Saey 16] This was only one ‘generation’ worth of intron-possible mutations, in a laboratory-controlled context; and promptly, the team concluded that these “jumping genes” are unexpectedly powerful contributors of nuclear DNA change. When such persistently potent variables manipulate evolution, I think it is a tad unprofessional to presume much from relatively new, 38kyo molecular Neanderthal evidence, via mtDNA or nuclear DNA. “Given the fast mutation rate of mtDNA,” for example, “would any human mtDNA from 100k-200kya resemble that of modern humans?” [Conroy 578]

Whatever language and worldview these once-strong people held has either died with them, or become spoils for us. Interbreeding was probably taking place, though rarely, as many (like Paabo, Krause, & Conroy) would agree, and so it may be that hybridization formed a part of our genotypic reality today. Though, the physics of advanced cultural transmission (family connectivity) requires language, and contractually, in the case of Sapiens-Neanderthal family clans, it may have also required dispute. Says Philip David Zelazo and colleagues, “it should be remembered that the conquerors were moving into a new environment, and one might have expected the indigenous Neanderthals to have held the home advantage, as modern sports teams do, and suggests that “the invading sapients may have been simply wiser, as their name suggests, although their ascendency was probably not simply a matter of brain size, because the Neanderthal brain appears to have been slightly larger than the brain of H. sapiens.” [Zelazo] Metabolic upkeep required for the Neanderthal brain, and massive musculature, as well as for their bone, marrow, blood and immune system, could have been seriously compromised as factors of the general consensus that environmental stress lead to their demise. They may have become eating machines with not much to eat. Known medicines, too, may have been changing with the climate. Their vocal/respiratory & circulatory adaptations would have hindered them in warmer times; pneumonia and fever may have ensued. If Homo sapiens people had compassion, it surely would not have been all of them – similar to humanity today – and the aggressing conservative-types might have held the survival issue over the heads of the tougher Neanderthals as a defensive wagering chip and for access to sapiens women, for chances at successful reproduction. Homo sapiens clans may have then squandered Neanderthals’ material goods, and their entire geographical region. It seems likely, indeed, that Neanderthals utilized their own proto-language; but, just as these people couldn’t ‘speak up,’ they weren’t destined to thrive.

Works Cited

Alper, Joe

2003 Rethinking Neanderthals. Smithsonian 34, no. 3. Pp 82-87. OmniFile Full Text Select, WilsonWeb (accessed March 31, 2009).

Arsuaga, Juan Luis

2002 The Neanderthal’s Necklace. Pp 266. New York, NY: Walls Eight Windows Publishing.

BBC

2001 Neanderthal’s Gift of Speech. World Service Online. 29 March 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010710_neanderthal.shtml. 11 July 2001.

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. (reporting on Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences)

2006 Music Thought to Enhance Intelligence, Mental Health & Immune System.

Science Daily. 12 November 2008. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060622172738.htm.

2007 Gene Implicated in Human Language Affects Song Learning in Songbirds. Science Daily. 6 September 2008. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071204091933.htm.

2008 Say it in Song: Researcher Deciphers Meaning Within Bird Communication. Science Daily. 21 December 2008. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081219172125.htm#

Bonvillain, Nancy

2008 Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of Messages. Pp 31. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

1999 Brookhaven Lab Expert Helps Date Flute Thought To Be Oldest Playable Musical Instrument. United States Department of Energy: Upton, NY.

Bruner, Emiliano; et al.

2003 Encephalization and allometric trajectories in the genus Homo: Evidence from the Neanderthal and modern lineages. Arsuaga, Juan Luis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. October 14.

Cartmill, Matt

1998 The Gift of Gab. Discover Magazine. Pp 56-64. New York, NY. Vol 19 No 11, November.

Ciochon, Russell L et al.

2006 The Human Evolution Sourcebook. 2^nd ed. “Genetics and The Making of Homo Sapiens.” Pp 455. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Conroy, Glenn C.

2005 Reconstructing Human Origins: A Modern Synthesis, 2^nd Ed. Pp 455, 556, 578. WW Norton & Company, Inc. : New York, NY.

Fink, Bob

2008 Fang or Flint: What Made the “Neanderthal Flute”?. Crosscurrents: Journal of Ancient Music, Pre-History, Archaeology, & Origins (& Other Social History & Science Matters). Pp 1-10. Greenwich Publishing. No 198, April.

Greene, Richard E.; et al

2006 Analysis of One Millions Base Pairs of Neanderthal DNA. Nature, 444. Pp 330-336. 16 November.

Macpherson, Kitta

2008 Evolution’s New Wrinkle: Proteins with Cruise Control Provide New Perspective. News at Princeton. The Trustees of Princeton University: Princeton, New Jersey.

Mason, Inman

2007 Neanderthals Had Same Language Gene as Modern Humans. National Geographic News. National Geographic Society. 29 March 2009. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/24570673.html. 18 October 2007.

Morgan, James

2009 Neanderthals ‘distinct from us’. Chicago, IL: BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7886477.stm

Saey, Tina Hesmen

2009 UNEXPECTED DIVERSITY: Mobile DNA Elements Help Shape Human Genomes. Science News, 175 #6. Pp 16. 14 March.

TAU

2008 We Almost Split in Two. Tel Aviv University Division for Press Relations. 27 April 2008. http://www1.tau.ac.il/pressoffice/english/index.php/press-releases/214-280408. 31 March 2009.

Thompson, Richard F.

2000 The Brain: A Neuroscience Primer, Ed 3. MacMillan. New York, NY.

Zelazo, Philip David et al.

2007 The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. Pp 585. Cambridge University Press.

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