Ethical Concerns

It is becoming increasingly hard to talk about me and my friends (in writing or in speech) without having to obscure a great bit of detail. Most of what we do is considered illegal and wrong by the present power structure. The truth is so much more enlightening. The truth, though, could get a lot of people in serious trouble.

Information should be free. Evolution should be encouraged. But for silly reasons I cannot be completely open about my experiences.

A Letter for Your Mom

Dear Mom,

I guess, if I had to start somewhere I would start with evolution. Now, I understand that you do not believe that we came from monkeys and I will admit that there is no proof that we did. There are skeletons that lead us to believe that this is possible, but there is no actual proof. What is evident, however, is that organisms (that is living things that eat, poop, and procreate) will adapt to their environment. Those that adapt will survive to pass on their genes to the next generation. This is called survival of the fittest.

Those organisms survive to pass on genes to other organisms that are forced to adapt and the cycle is continued. For instance, all the skin tones and muscle/bone structures can be accounted for by the different climates and land that we all come from. Understanding this would lead us to believe that it is imperative in our nature to examine our environment (physical, social, spiritual, and political) and attempt to change that flaws we see in it. When Martin Luther and the Reformers saw that there were many problems with the Catholic Church, they attempted to change things and so doing gave birth to the Protestant Church. Many of them were even arrested and tried for heresy.

This cycle of change still exists and it burns within each new generation. We are born into a world that we did not create. We are not responsible for it's mistakes, but are obligated to attempt to change what needs to be changed and not to repeat the mistakes of the past. If we were to merely follow the orders of those who came before us then how would we grow? We would be doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. The old regime will always oppose the new regime; this is evident very clearly in the social climate right after slavery was abolished in this country. The old blacks opposed the white man and the old whites opposed the black man. Their children didn't understand the prejudice of their elders and rebelled against it.

There are too many problems in this world to count. It is our duty and our right as a generation to try and make things better. It is out right to try new things, to actually see what works and what doesn't. Without this right, our world will never improve no matter what we do.

Now, you and I were lead to believe (by men, not The Bible) that those 66 texts were the only inspired texts and were the Whole Truth: The Word of God. The truth is that a group of priests from from what was known as the Orthodox Church decided what texts to keep and what to be declared as heresy. There were over 100 texts that came out of the Hebrew tradition and relating to Jesus. After Jesus' death, dozens of churches arose with different opinions about what Jesus said (and they had sacred texts to back it up). Most of these sects could be grouped into two categories: Orthodox and Gnostic. The Orthodox believed that Jesus was the Son of the Hebrew God, and the Gnostics believed that he was the Son of the Autogenes, who is at the same time the eternal God and another holy dimension without decay or death. The Gnostics believed that the god of this earth, who the Hebrews called Jehova, was a low god: cruel, jealous, and arrogant; that Jesus was sent to tell us that we could be free of his tiresome games.

Needless to say, there was conflict. It erupted into violence on both sides. The Orthodox burned the Gnostics alive and the Gnostics slit the Orthodoxed throats in the street. All of this over a disagreement about what Jesus said and what he didn't (and what it all meant). In the end, the Orthodox outnumbered the Gnostics and defeated them. They burned all of the Gnostic sacred texts and declared them Heretical for all time and they burned the rest of those Christians who held the Gnostic beliefs. Eventually, a council was called and the Orthodox priests gathered there decided what the Truth was.

Should our world views be defined by what men think? Where has it gotten us? The Bible promotes genocide (for God commands His people to slaughter all the people of Canaan because it is The Promised Land). The Bible promotes patriarchy (a woman is subjugated, below a man). Are these good things? Should we continue these ideas and should we propagate them? Is genocide and sexism okay because God says it is in the Bible?

Your Son

Strip Mall Satori

The first step to enlightenment is getting past the smell. We had formed a cloud of two behind some brambly bushes off of a dinky hiking trail to a city park. Time to seek visions. The recipe is simple chemistry. Water, starting fluid, bottle, shake and drain. I dowsed my rag and began a deep rhythmic breathing. Pictures of Buddhist watercolor flickered behind my eyelids. My head was shaved. Dangling so gently above my smooth head a needle dispensed the finest lavender chalk to track my meditations. Flash to a moment of my master showing me the chalk. It was so soft, scented like spring, delicate and precious. i held the chalk in my hand and clumsily i spilled the chalk on myself. I looked at my hand with the rag in it, repeating softly, "i'm sorry". What are you sorry about? i was back in the bushes with my cloud mate, tears in my eyes. I glanced behind in time to catch the corner of a bright orange Buddhist monk's robe flutter away into the brush.

Jesus the Hacker

It may come as a surprise to some that there are many different accounts and interpretations of Jesus and his message. After his death there were dozens of cults that arose in his name: each with their own holy scriptures to back it up. The largest of these groups called themselves the Orthodox (meaning "right" or "correct") Church and they set out to destroy any other views about Jesus and to kill all those who held these views. Among the sects that they murdered were a lose grouping of cults known as the Gnostics.

The Gnostics believed that Jesus was not the son of the Jewish god (who they called Yaltabaoth which means "the arrogant one," and also Saklas meaning "the fool") but that he was the son of the highest god (who really couldn't be labeled a god on the account of his being huge and indescribable). In there mind, Jesus had come from an eternal dimension (one without decay like our world) know as Barbelo to tell us that we could be free. Not only can we be free, but that in us we posses a piece of Barbelo (which is in itself th highest being the Gnostics called the Autogenes which means "self generated" or at times The Luminous Cloud) inside of us and that eternal part of us is powerful and yearns to be free and infinite again.

If we are, in fact inside of some ultra-complicated computer simulation (which I believe we very well might be), then a more liberal interpretation of the Gnostic belief could lead us to believe that Jesus was not an immortal being at all, but a hacker from outside the computer. Maybe the time period in which he found himself when he entered our simulation made it necessary to dumb down the message - to bring it to a level that the humans of that age could digest. Could his message have really been that we could unplug from the machine and be free in the world beyond?

I will leave you with a quote from Jesus. It can be found in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas.

verse 1:  And He said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."

Idea for a Time Machine

-Deprivation tank
-Mask of 80% Oxygen, 20% Diethyl Ether
-LSD and DMT through IV (slow drip for up to 48 hours)
-Headphones piping in a metronome that is set to become slower and slower gradually over a span of 48 hours
-Post Hypnotic Suggestion

Demons... CONTINUED

(this is a continuation of the previous article)

Now, there is much speculation as to what these demons might actually be. Some would say that they are malignant and evil by nature; I tend to believe that the goals and attitudes of these demons are as varies as there are goals and attitudes. How these beings came about is more or less a chicken or the egg kind of argument. Most wizards I know would tell you that a spirit or demon can be created in a variety of ways:

1. A demon can be created out of pure emotion.
2. A demon can be created with some sort of magic or ritual spell.
3. A demon can be created when someone dies.
4. A demon can be created when some intense event occurs.

I have heard that when one summons a demon you are actually creating that demon there on the spot. I would have to say that this could be half true. I believe that if one were to summon a demon that did not already exist, the effect would be that of creation. It is also a good question to ask ourselves: where do these demons go when we are not summoning, creating, or communing with them?

Demons and Why I Won't Summon One For You!

I was asked by a former employer of mine to summon a demon. He wanted real physical proof that magic was real and that I could use it. I tried to explain to him the gravity of the situation, how a demon would most likely want something from one of us in return, that it could possess one or all of us, that any dangerously unpredictable thing could come out of such a ritual.

And I say to you now the same thing that I said to my former boss,

It does not matter which came first,
the demon or the ritual to summon it,
for when a demon is summoned
a demon appears.

a huff around the lake

Me and a few of my "disciples" were walking around a lake huffing Ether through our rags. We called it, "A Huff Around the Lake." I found that even though we were walking in a circle, we could not detect it. Eventually we came to where we had begun without ever making a single turn.

That is Zen.