Kavanaugh compared to Decartes (Sperm Down the Drain)

In yesterday’s post I talked about the sickness of Kavanaugh and his abuse of the privileged class.  Well, looks like he has been appointed to the Supreme Court, and I couldn't be happier.  Looks like we finally have a Savior for the Fetus.

Now, some of you are thinking: what a dick, to make fun of abortions.  What you don't get is some of us think your jacking off in a shower is the same thing.  So, deal with it.

What happens when sperm goes down a shower drain?

This:

and this:

and this:

So, thank god for this:

I have it all!!!!!  I am God!!! Bow down to me peasants!

So we won't need this at our religious schools:

~Dr TV Boogie

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 What ever happen to the good old days when the privileged class used their fortune to contemplate life’s problems and make the world a better place.  Take for instance, Rene Descartes.  The guy did something with his privileged upbringing.  He was the son of a Nobleman and really didn’t have to do anything but drink excessively and give give Fox News interviews like Brett Kavanaugh, but instead, he used his brain!

What!  Tell me it isn't so!

Yes, Descartes used his privilege wisely.  Thus, he is known as our first real modern philosopher.

“I shall bring to light the true riches of our souls, opening up to each of us the means whereby we can find within ourselves all the knowledge we may need for the conduct of life and the means of using it in order to acquire all the knowledge that the human mind is capable of possessing...”

Unfortunately, however, the church still had a hold on everything and so Decartes had to pretend to be a Christian to save his job.  No shit, in his personal writings he stated that he knew the Earth rotated around the Sun, but because of what happened to Galilao -- the church locked him up for the rest of his life for stating the obvious, which the church then, not only believed masterbating in a shower was a sin, but also questioning the fact that everything evolved around the earth -- as recently reported on Fox news.

Grow up people, the church is still controlling you with lies.  They are keeping you from the truth of one world, one love.

~Damien Sinclair

The Stories of Cain

                        
 The story of Cain who bore the mark on his forehead, has always bothered me.

Someone may certainly kill his own brother in a quarrel, and he may panic afterwards and eat humble pie.  But that he should be marked with a special “sign” for his cowardice that acts as a kind of protection and inspires fear in everybody else is strange indeed.

What happened and lay behind the whole origin of the story was the “sign.”  Here was a man who had something in his face that frightened other people.  They did not dare lay hands on him; he impressed them, he and his children.  It is virtually certain that he bore no actual mark on his brow like a  birth mark; the mark was a little more intelligence and self-possession in his eyes than people were accustomed to.  This man had power and they all went in awe of him;  he had a “sign.”  You can explain that how you will.  People always want whatever is comfortable and puts them in the right.  They were afraid of Cain’s children; they bore a sign.  So the sign was not interpreted for what it really was but the contrary.  They said that people with this sign were odd, as indeed they were.  Men of courage and character always seem very sinister to the rest.  It was a sinister thing that a breed of strange, fearless people should be going about, and so they attached a nickname and a myth to this family as a way of taking revenge and ridding themselves of guilt for all the fear they had experienced. 

These ancient stories are always true in a sense, but they are not always properly recorded or given a correct interpretation.  In short, I consider Cain to be a fine person and they pinned this story on to him merely because they were afraid of him.  The story had its basis in hearsay, the kind of thing people bandy about, and it was true in so far as Cain and his children really bore some kind of mark and were different from other people.”

Did Cain kill his brother?  Yes, that is certainly true.  The strong man slew the weak.  But we may well doubt whether it was his brother.  It isn’t important.  Ultimately all men are brothers.  Thus a strong man slew a work man.  Perhaps it was the deed of a hero, perhaps not  At all events the other weaklings were now filled with fear, complained bitterly and when they were asked, “Why do yo not slay him too?” they did not reply, “Because we are cowards,”  but, “We cannot. He has a sign.  god hath branded him.”  The fraud must have originated somehow like that…But, I’m keeping you from your life.  Goodbye then!

And the Gods spoke and Brett Kavanaugh is elected to the Supreme Court, hero of the Fetus!

~Demian Sinclair

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Others say (lifted from The Ancient Hebrew Research Center):

We have all heard the story of Cain and Abel. Two brothers bring their sacrifices to God; Abel's sacrifice is accepted, but Cain's sacrifice is not. Out of jealousy, Cain take's his brother out into the field and kills him. Because of Cain's sin, he is branded with a mark and sent away. However, if we carefully study the text, we find that there is much, much more, to this story.
Their Names

Let's begin with their names. The names Cain and Abel come from the Greek Septuagint, a 2,000 year old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, where their names are written as "Kain" and "Abel." These names are the Greek transliterations of the Hebrew. In Hebrew, Cain is קין (qayin) and Abel is הבל (havel).

The word קין (qayin, from the root QN) means to acquire or possess something which is why Eve (chavah in Hebrew) said "I have gotten/acquired (qanah, also from the root QN) a man" (Gen 4:1). The word הבל (havel) means to be empty, often translated as vain or vanity in the sense of being empty of substance.

The Hebrew word for "name" is shem and literally means breath or character. In Hebrew thought, ones name is reflective of one's character and the Hebraic meanings of the names of "Cain and Abel" are windows into their characters. Cain is a possessor, one who has substance while Abel is empty of substance. 

This is not gay, right?

 This may seem odd to us, because we have always assumed that Abel was the good guy and Cain the bad, but this is an oversimplification of the facts, as according to their names, a reflection of their character, Cain is what we would call "a man of character," but Abel is "vain."
Their Births

It is a well-known fact that Jacob and Esau were twins, but what is not commonly known is that Cain and Abel were also twins. In the normal Hebraic accounting of multiple births the conception then birth of each child is mentioned such as we can see in Genesis 29:32-33 where it states that Leah conceived and bore a son, and then she conceived again and bore a son. Note that there are two conceptions and two births. But notice how it is worded in Genesis 4:1-2.

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain; And again, she bore his brother Abel. (RSV)

Notice that there is only one conception, but two births. The Hebrew word for "again" is asaph, meaning to add something, in this case the birthing of Abel was added to the birthing of Cain. Cain and Abel were twins.
Their professions

According to the Biblical text, Abel was a shepherd. The KJV uses the word "keeper," but the Hebrew word ro'eh means shepherd. Cain is a "tiller of the ground." The Hebrew word translated as "tiller" is o'ved, which literally means a "servant." The word o'ved, is the participle form of the verb avad and the verb avad is found in Genesis 3:23 where it states that when Adam was expelled from the garden he was sent to "till" (avad) the ground. Therefore, Cain, who is the older of the twins, takes on the profession of his father, a very common occurrence in the Hebrew culture. I should note that while Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel are not Hebrews by definition, they are the forefathers of the Hebrew people. 

Their sacrifices

When the two boys brought their sacrifices to God, Cain, the farmer, brought fruit from the ground he worked and Abel, the shepherd, brought sheep from his flock. We are then told that God had respect for Abel's sacrifice, but not for Cain's, but we are not told why Cain's sacrifice was not respected.

Something of interest that can be gleaned from this story is that we often assume the first commands by God were given to Moses at Mt. Sinai, but this is evidently not the case, God gave his commands, or at least some of them, to Adam and Eve and their children and it is apparent from the narrative that Abel obeyed those commands, but Cain did not.

Because God did not respect Cain's sacrifice Cain was angry and sad. Then God gives him some instructions. The first of these is; " If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" God is telling him that he can overcome this; all he has to do in the future is bring the correct sacrifice, and all will be well. Then God says, " and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." In other words, if you continue to bring me the wrong sacrifices, you will sin. Lastly God says, " And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." It is assumed by most that the "his" and "him" in this verse is "sin," however, this is impossible.

It is important to understand that in Hebrew all nouns are either masculine or feminine. For instance, the earth is feminine, but the sky (heaven) is masculine and the word for fish is feminine, but the word for bird is masculine. The Hebrew word for sin is hhatah, which is a feminine noun. If the "his" and "him," which by the way are the correct gender for the pronouns in the Hebrew text, were referring to "sin," then the correct pronouns would have been "hers" and "her." We can then conclude that the "his" and "him" are referring to something or someone other than sin. 

You make me hate myself, man!

Their Relationship

Let's take a closer look at that the last part of what God told Cain. Here is a literal rendering of this passage from the Hebrew; "and toward you is his desire but you will rule over him." Now, let's go back to the previous chapter (Genesis 3:16) where God is speaking to Eve about her relationship with Adam; "and toward your husband is your desire, but he will rule over you." Did you notice that these two passages, aside from the gender of the pronouns and to whom the passages are referring too, are identical?

In the passage about Adam and Eve, Eve is to follow her husband and her husband is to rule over her. In the passage about Cain and Abel, "he" is to follow Cain and Cain is to rule over "him." So who is the "he" and "him?" It has to be Abel. Remember that Cain was born first and is therefore, according to Hebrew tradition, the leader. But apparently, Abel is attempting to take over the leadership, possibly because he felt superior to Cain as his sacrifice was accepted by God. Also, don't forget that Cain's character was one of substance and Abel's was one of vanity.
The Murder

The King James Version translates Genesis 4:8 as follows.

And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

This is a pretty straight-forward passage, but it has been altered in order for it to make sense. It is not uncommon for the translators to "fix" the text so that it can be understood by the reader easily. In my opinion they do a disservice to the reader by hiding these problems. I am of the opinion that the translator should remain true to the Hebrew text and then footnote their opinions. The very first part of that verse actually reads, from the Hebrew, "And Cain said to his brother."

What did Cain say to his brother? We don't know, that is missing from the text. The King James translators fixed this by changing the word from "said" to "talked." This may sound trivial, but you must understand that every time the Hebrew uses vai'yomer (and said) the conversation follows, but not here. At some point when the scroll was being copied, a copier accidently skipped over what was said by Cain. 

Why is this?  Truth is, what Cain said was taken out on purpose and we will never know what he said, or will we?

The punishment

The first punishment for Cain is that he is will no longer be able to work the ground.

And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; (RSV, Genesis 4:11-12a)

The second punishment is banishment.

you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. (RSV, Genesis 4:12b)

Cain is distressed by this punishment and says to God, according to the translations;

My punishment is greater than I can bear (RSV, Genesis 4:13).

This implies that there is no remorse in Cain and he is more worried about his punishment than the evil act he did to his brother. However, the Hebrew word translated as punishment is avon, which means "iniquity" or "guilt." With this understanding, he is actually saying, "My guilt is greater than I can bear." With this translation we see great remorse. Cain then continues to say,

Behold, thou hast driven me this day away from the ground; and from thy face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me. (RSV, Genesis 4:14)

Grace and Mercy

It is often taught that the Old Testament taught Law and the NT taught Grace. However we find throughout the Old Testament instances where God shows Grace. The story of Noah, the exodus of the Israelites and many others are stories of grace and this story is no different as God grants mercy, grace and hope to Cain.

Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If any one slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who came upon him should kill him. (RSV, Genesis 4:15)

God evidently believed that Cain's murder did not deserve death, either by his or anyone else's hand and this may be a sign that there is more to this murder story than we are told. Don't forget that the conversation between Cain and Abel is not known for sure and it is also possible that there are elements of this story that have not been passed down to us.

What is the mark that God placed on Cain? We of course cannot know with any certainty, but there are some clues. The Hebrew word translated as "mark" is the word 'ot, which is used in the Biblical text for a "sign." This word is also used in non-Biblical texts for a "letter," as in a letter of the alphabet.

And the LORD said to him, "Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it." (RSV, Ezekiel 9:4)

In the above passage, the Hebrew word for the "mark" is tav, which is last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The above passage would be better translated as, "and put a 'tav' upon the foreheads." In the Ancient Hebrew alphabet, the letter tav was written as a picture of two crossed sticks, a cross if you will, and is a sign of a covenant.

It is possible that the "mark" God placed on Cain was the letter tav and may also be a sign that God was in covenant relationship with Cain.
Conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, if we carefully examine the text more closely we will find that there is much more to the story of Cain and Abel then most of us have been taught. I don't have all of the answers; in fact, as I study the Biblical text carefully, I will usually wind up with more questions than I do answers. But this is what Bible study is all about. It is not about getting all the answers, it is about the search. It is not about the destination, it is about the journey. 

You Decide! 

Good Riddance Judge Karma Kavanaugh.

Still don't believe in karma boys and girls?  

How about this one.  The guy being considered for the supreme court this month, yes, Brett Kavanaugh, really seems to be dealing with some karma. 

In a quick recap, the guy was born privileged, went to Yale, and so, yes, he pulled himself up from his bootstraps like the rest of the wealthy bastards -- at least, that's what they want you to believe.  Inside they know the truth.  

Kavanaugh drank too much as a youth.   Okay, so what, so did I and a lot of us.  He also drunkenly forced himself on a woman... that's where I think most of us bow out.   No matter how drunk I got, that wasn't going to happen.  I might say some screwed up things, you know, lie about maybe have gone to Yale, but I didn't put my hands on her mouth and humped her while another rich friend laughed.  

So now, all of this has come out in the hearings to appoint this guy to the highest judgeship in the land, and you know what, it doesn't matter.  That's not his issue.  His issue is that while being pissed off for having to answer questions about his past indiscretions, Kavanaugh went conspiracy wacko on us by saying it was the "Clintons" who were doing this to him.  

Now, this is where the karma comes in.  If you remember, president Bill Clinton was impeached for having gotten a blow-job by an intern while in the White House.  Most of us didn't care, and I'll admit, we probably should have.  I mean, it was consensual, but as the metoo# movement has showed us, she might of sucked the presidential penis out of fear of retaliation.  So, in hindsight, the impeachment was a good thing.  

Clinton and his Victim

The attorney prosecuting Clinton on this was helped by the young, Brett Kavanaugh who gave him the questions to ask President Clinton.  One of the questions was about phone sex.  And, of course, this really did help destroy President Clinton -- which, for the record doesn't matter because he was a Democrat in Republican clothing and so, good riddance ....  

back to this story:  so, Brett Kavanaugh made his mark in the prosecuting of the Bill Clinton blow job.  And this fact alone, elevated Kavanaugh to a cush job in the George Bush White House, which ultimately allowed Brett Kavanaugh to be up for this appointment for the supreme court.  Yes, Kavanaugh's personal insight to abusing woman helped him impeach Clinton, and ultimately, elevated him to this opportunity.  Nothing else.  Not his wealthy, rich boy schooling or high brow family connections.  And, since it is football season, let me put it to you this way, Kavanaugh just scored a touch down, but it is because one of his linemen held a would-be tackler and without this foul, Kavanaugh would have been sacked a long time ago. 

Kavanaugh yelled in the trial:  "It is because of the Clintons!"  And the truth is, "No, it is because of your privileged class!" you haven't earned shit.   You've done evil to get where you are, and evil is bringing you down. 

Good Riddance Judge Karma Kavanaugh. 

~Dr. TV Boogie

This day was Justice Thurgood Marshall’s beginning.

The story of the Passion of the Savior, has something about it that I don't like. Read it through, I mean really read it, and you'll see there is an insipid element in it.  It's this business of the two theieves.  Wonderful how the three crosses stand next to each other on the Mount!  But they why this tract-like story about the honest thief!  First he was a criminal and had committed evil deeds, God knows what, and now he melts and takes part in tearful scenes of sorrow and repentance!  What sense is there, I ask you, in such repentance when he is only two steps away from the grave?  It’s nothing but one of your pious moral tales, sugary and unconvincing, helped down with the grease of sentimentality and an edifying background.  If you had to choose one of the two thieves today for a friend or consider which of the two you would prefer to trust, it certainly wouldn’t be the sniveling convert.  No, the other is the man and has real character.  He despises a conversion which for a man in his position can only be a pretty speech, and pursues his own way to the end; he does not forswear the Devil who must have aided and abetted him at the eleventh hour.  He has character in the Bible.  Perhaps he was a descendant of Cain’s.  Don’t you agree?

I know, it’s the old story, as long as you don’t take the thing seriously.  But threre’s something I would like to tell you: we are here darling with one of the places where one is very conscious of the weakness of this religion.  The point is that this God of both the Old and New Testaments is a wonderful figure but not what he purports to represent.  He is all that is good, noble, he is the fatherly, the beautiful, the most high, the sentimental — all right!  But the world consists also of other things which are merely ascribed to the Devil.  And that half-section of the world is suppressed; it is never mentioned.  It’s is the same as the way they celebrate God as the father of all life but the whole of sex-life which is the basis of life itself they are silent about, or indeed, whenever possible describe it as sinful and the work of the Devil.  I have no objection to people honoring this God Jehovah, far from it.  But I consider that we should sanctify and honor everything, the whole world, not merely this artificially separated, official half.  Therefore alongside the divine service should be a Devil’s service; that in my view would be right and proper.  Otherwise you must create a God for yourself who embraces the Devil in himself and before whom you don’t have to drop your eyes in shame when the most natural things in the world take place. 

I know some of you are having thoughts you can not process from what I’ve just written.  If that is so you must know that you too have not lived so far according to your own conception of life, and that is not a good thing.  Only the ideas that we really live have any value.  You have known that your “permitted” world was only half of the world and you have tried to subjugate the second half after the manner of the priests and teachers.  It will not be to your benefit. That is to say, it benefits no one once they have begun to think....

I’ll end it here with a message to Brett Kavanaugh:  “Thou shalt certainly not kill — nor rape and kill girls. 

Speaking of which, today is the anniversary that our first non-white male judge was appointed to the bench in 1967.  It was Justice Thurgood Marshall.  Funny how far we’ve come.  Today, Marshall would be the poster child for Fox News’ “Everything Wrong With American” talking points.  Funny, that on this historic day, we are considering the most outright, right-wing justice ever in Brett Kavanaugh.  Maybe this is a turning point.  On Thurgood Marshall being placed on the bench, a man of color, the conservative world went nuts and started taking over every office from school boards to governorship to publi TV.  Maybe with the outright nuts of appointing a operative Republican to the bench, we can now start bringing the United States back to the center before if falls off the cliff of despotism. 

~ Demian Sinclair

Monday Love from a Buddhist Perspective.

Monday Love.  

I figure we all need it.  You know, for most of us a new weeks is beginning, our football team won, and we have decent jobs with healthcare and no need to worry for those who don't.  It's the one time in the year when "fate" is acceptable in most religious organizations.  

Just as blood nourishes the heart, so love nourishes spiritual freedom and is, in turn, keeps flowing. The connection is so strong that Buddhism, often known as a Path of Freedom, could equally be called a religion of love.  Perhaps this is what the Dalai Lama had in mind when he said his religion is kindness.  For the Buddha, love is one of the paths to full spiritual liberation.

For me, I like to meditate on love a lot.  I usually send love, and success if it is a business outing, to a place before I go there.  Funny, when I don't do this, complications arise.  I've been doing this for years and have the date to back it up, for me, that is.  

Lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and a particular form of equanimity are the four kinds of love taught and encouraged in classic Buddhist teachings.  None of these are uniquely Buddhist; they are four qualities of heart that reside within everyone, at least as potentials. Teachings about the four forms of love existed in India prior to the Buddha and they were elements common to the Indian spiritual world which he included within his system of practice.  While Buddhism cannot exist without love, it may be helpful to realize that love can exist happily apart from Buddhism.  Learning the ways of these four loves does not require one to become a Buddhist.  It only requires a willingness to develop innate capacities.

In his article titled The Buddha's Teachings on Love, Gil Fronsdal states: Love does not need to be left to chance.  It mustn’t be a matter of “falling in love,” nor must it be accepted in whatever degree or frequency it happens to appear. The Buddhist tradition has developed a range of practices and reflections designed to develop our capacity to love.  As with a treasure behind a locked door, we can find the key that allows us to open the door of love; like a muscle, love can be strengthened through practice.

 In their most developed forms, the four types of love can each become a boundless radiance glowing from us.  As such, love may flow from us equally toward all beings or it can glow freely without needing to be directed to anyone.  When boundless, love without any particular object is recognized in Buddhism as a form of liberation.

To be “free” only when things are pleasant is not real liberation.  Similarly, to love only in optimal conditions is not real love.  Not a few Buddhist meditators have experienced great love while in meditation, only to have it disappear quickly outside of meditation.  It can be easy to love all beings in the abstract, but it can be a great challenge to do so when we have to live with them.  It is one thing to love and another to express that love in daily life.

One of the most rewarding spiritual practices is to cultivate the ability to bring love into all aspects of our life and to all people we encounter.  This entails learning how to include love’s presence while we speak to others, are in conflict with others, and are living with others.  While this can be a daunting task, it begins with having the intention to do so.  And it is supported by appreciating each manifestation of love that we encounter.  Even practicing loving-kindness for the time it takes to snap the fingers is beneficial.  Each drop of practice is significant and, as the Buddha said, “with dripping drops of water, the water jug is filled.”

 Enjoy your week, I hope it's a good one. 

~Demian Sinclair

skeleton asteroid is headed right for us!

It is September 29th, 2018, and maybe the worlds gone mad under Donald Trump.  While all this Supreme Court Nomination  is going on the Republicans have passed another tax cut for the rich and a skull shape commit is heading straight for us.

No shit, the asteroid that NASA has deemed as the Death Star will pass over us around November 11th.  It will first be close enough to us to draw on our energy on October 31, 2018.  Halloween. 

Getting back to the tax-cut, have you seen our national debt lately?

Oh, that's right, you're drinking the kool-aid.  Just as George Bush cut taxes and increased spending for an unfunded war, Donald Trump is cutting taxes and increasing spending while taking credit for the Obama recovery.   It's bonkers.  And only one conclusion:  they are trying to destroy the economy to one, break the system so they can rebuild it without any liberal programs such as welfare, social security, or two, the conspiracy guys and gals are right and they want a financial collapse so they can have a one-world government.  

I agree with the later people.  And I believe the one-world government is under the whitest country left:  Russia.  

God help us all.  They're are no more heroes, only greedy takers.  

Fortunately for me, I'm giving up on attachments and things, so it doesn't matter. 

Buddha said:  

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Ommmmmmmmmmmm.... 

Gorbachev

 On this day in 1989, the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev's passed a bill allowing publications of books, movies, and television news without censorship.  Within a year the country would collapse. 

The true death of communism. 

Too bad it didn't last and seems to be spreading to these here United States. 

In 1990, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB (their CIA) were gave huge bonuses so they could buy up the new assets being up for sale, which was, everything.  Under Communism the state owned everything, and so, when communism did fail, everything was for sale, and who had money?  You guess it, the ex-KGB guys who includes none other than Donald Trumps pal, Vladimir Putin. 

No wonder all the foreign leaders other than Putin are laughing at Trump.

That Old Fashion Christian Love, from Benedict Arnold's Memoir.

Benedict Arnold

 It is well known that the Providence Plantations, and Rhode Island in particular, were known for a greater tolerance in religious matters than prevailed in the neighboring Plymouth colony, probably because they were of gentler blood, or if not that, more willing to follow the lead of gentlemen.  The intolerance of sectaries in Massachusetts was cause of the escape of many from that colony into ours, not always of the most desirable;  but as they were especially intolerant of attractive women, it is possible that we gained in the long run.  Many such of delicate nature were whipped at the cart-stair in hardly more than a shift from the town of Boston to the Providence line.  This same intolerance has been a cause of much of my trouble in later life, the Massachusetts Puritans being unable to recognize a gentleman when they saw one, or indeed to take a broad and catholic view of any communities or circumstances not straitened to the narrow range of their own understanding. 

Thus in 1724 Father Rallé, a Roman Catholic priest of saintly life and great learning, who had risked his life in missionary service to the Algonquin Indians in the Kennebec Valley (what was then a District of Massachusetts) suffered indeed no harm from them, but was killed and scalped by Massachusetts settlers, who left his mangled remains to be decently buried by the savages on the banks of the Dead River.  I found his grave, as shall be later related; and was at the pains of erecting a proper stone monument not un-moistened by my own tears.  

                                                        Benedict Arnold (My Story)

Where Did All the Pagans Go?

What is a pagan?  If you are like most Americans, you’re probably thinking witch on a broom, thief on a cross, or worse, Goth in the public bathroom.   Yikes, tell me it isn’t so.

It’s not.

Truth is, being a pagan isn’t all that different from being a Christian, Muslim, or jew; we drive cars, take vacations, and sometimes even vote for racist presidents, just as the other faiths do;  however, where we differ, is in our acceptance of others.  Another way of saying this is, we are a faith that builds bridges, not walls.  We are willing to hear the other side, and will even go so far as to pray with them to their god/gods.  For in the old days whenever a pagan traveled to another village, that’s what you did: you respected and honored the gods of that village, for you knew there were many gods.  Conversely, As a pagan, you also knew that there was only one ultimate divinity, and that the other “gods” were different manifestations, or stages if you will, of this single “unidentifiable” creator.  

No, the pagan wasn’t interested in denouncing your god, but in his/hers direct experience with the god.  Above the sanctuary at the Oracle of Delphi were inscribed the words “Know Your Self.”  And this is what pagans intend to do with their time in this existence.  For it is through this self-knowledge that we become the Oneness with god we seek.

The Pagan philosophers of the past taught that everything is a part of the interconnected whole.  All things are subsumed within the supreme Oneness that is God.  God is the mind of the universe and his/hers creation is the body.  God is “Apollo” meaning “Not-Many” and also “Pan” meaning “All.” 

Sounds like a bunch of philosophy mumble jumbo, now doesn’t it?

Perhaps.

But consider this:

The word “Philosopher” means “lover of Sophia, the goddess of wisdom.”  And out of wisdom, we pagans discover the god within.  That is to say: the Higher Self that lies behind the ego-self.  The old Pagan sages recognized this wise inner teacher as their identity and so saw themselves as immortal gods, not transitory bodies destined to dirt, as some would have you believe.  

The Pagan philosophers of old taught us that by cultivating goodness, we can purify ourselves from selfishness.  By cultivating goodness, we break the chains that bind us to our illusionary ego-self, freeing us to experience our true divine nature.  Central to the Pagan path is accepting whatever life brings us as our divinely decreed fate:  surrendering the illusion of personal power and recognizing ourselves as “puppets of God.”  This is not a passive resignation, but an actively engaging one accepting things as they are by being a willing vehicle of God’s unfolding purpose in the universe.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

So then, where did all the pagans go?

In a nutshell, pagans of old were much like the small town businesses of today who meet the needs of the people of the town with food supplies, hardware goods, pharmacy prescriptions, animal feed, etc., until, that is,  the Walmart, Super Store, comes to town and puts them out-of-business with its one-size fits all merchandising; this is what the major monolithic faiths did when they came to town and replaced the local religions with a One-God-Fits-All religion, which, unlike they want you to belief, didn’t start from the bottom up, but from the top down.  The town leaders backed by the landowners and warlords brought the monolithic faiths to town through edicts.  The town’s people had no choice but convert, or die.  The old rites became capital offenses, and those who still supported the previous pagan emperors, executed.  A few people, a previous life of mine if you must know, kept the truth they knew in their hearts to themselves, they pretended to go along with the new faith, but kept the pagan practices alive when safely alone.  Others, hid in the woods and trees, some became solitary practitioners, midwifes, others herbalist, hermits, and all would soon be defined as witches, ogres, and devils by the new bullies of faith, who until this very day are still threatened by the very word Pagan…  

Why’s that?

What are they afraid of?

Join me next time when we talk about Donald Trumps wall:  is it to keep them out, or keep you in?

Think about it.

Mote it be, brothers and sisters, mote it be. 

madden curse

Are you ready for some football? 

The NFL Madden Curse made more timely by the recent shooting at this year’s Madden Gaming Convention in Jacksonville Florida, you know the story:  some nut with a gun shot two guys because they out-shinned him in the game he thought he was king of.  I'm not sure if this shooting has anything to do with "the curse," but it definitely seems to be part of the Fool's Journey.  

Suspect David Katz in 2017 when he won tournament.

Getting back to "the curse": over the last twenty years, 16 players who have appeared on the cover of the popular game have been plagued with dismal seasons or suffered serious injuries during the year the game came out wearing their images.  

In 1999, the popular game stopped putting the ex-old Oakland Raiders couch, John Madden on it -- in case you don't know who about John Madden, he was the overweight coach who would walked up and down the sidelines with his hands in the air talking to himself like one of our many homeless of today.  

Last Cover With Madden On It

In 2000 the cover of the popular game changed from Madden to a football star.   The first person to obtain the honor, Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders who had just gotten off a 1000 yard rushing year.  So what did Sanders do that first year?  Nothing.  He retired.  Maybe he knew something.  He never stepped on the field as a player again. 

Sanders Cover

From there, the list goes on from Minnesota Vikings QB DAunte Culpepper's 2002 appearance, where he went from a perfect season in 2001 to a dismal season where he was injured six games, fumbled 16 times, and went 4 and 7 in his starts.   

Culpepper Cover

Other examples:

2007: Seattle Seahawks RB Shaun Alexander

Like Faulk, he entered his cover year with five straight 1,000-yard seasons under his belt. And his dominance also came to a halt. In 2006, his rushing total dropped from 1,880 to 896, and two years later, he was out of the NFL, a Washington Redskins washout.

2008: Tennessee Titans QB Vince Young

He was Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2006. For his cover year, though, Young threw just nine touchdowns compared to 17 interceptions, missed a game and earned a seat on the bench for 2008, never fully regaining Jeff Fisher's trust.

2009: Green Bay Packers/New York Jets QB Brett Favre

EA began by making Favre the cover athlete as a tribute to his Packers career, which had just ended. But then Favre forced his way out and into New York. All he did there was throw an NFL-high 22 INTs and hurt his shoulder before moving to Minnesota.

2010: Arizona Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh Steelers SS Troy Polamalu

Fitz had one of his standard Pro Bowl seasons with more than 1,000 yards, but Polamalu missed a career-high 11 games in 2009 thanks to an MCL injury, recording a career-low 20 tackles before sticking to the sidelines.

2011: New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees

Throwing 33 TDs and earning another Pro Bowl selection is good stuff, but Brees had what constitutes as an off year the season he graced the cover, throwing a career-high and franchise-record 22 picks. His Saints also lost to the 7-9 Seahawks in the playoffs.

2012: Cleveland Browns RB Peyton Hillis

You forgot about him, didn't you? Hillis grunted his way to 1,000 yards as a surprise lead back in 2010, but during his cover year, he missed a half-dozen games with an injury, averaged just 3.6 yards per carry and ran his way into a journeyman backup career.

2014: Minnesota Vikings RB Adrian Peterson

If Johnson shattered the curse, Peterson may have reignited it in 2013. Fresh off his sixth 1,000-yard season and two years removed from a historic 2,000-yard campaign, he missed all but one game after being indicted on child abuse charges.

2017: New England Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski

The five-time Pro Bowler was coming off another double-digit touchdown season in 2016, but he missed virtually all of the Patriots' first four games with a hamstring injury, then finished with just six starts due to a herniated disk and other injury issues.
Verdict: Cursed


So you see, there is something happening here and it ain't pretty.  So, what about this year?  

 Pittsburgh wide receiver Antonio Brown gets the honor.  Let's revisit this after the season, but so far, it's not looking good: how about this headline:

Antonio Brown Clearly Not Right Physically Or Mentally To Start 2018 Season

 

Witchworks: Shakespeare's Macbeth Curse

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a grisly tale of murder and ambition, a dark drama in which the treacherous protagonist and his wife murder their king in order to assume his crown.  It is a play greatly respected by theater folk—but never loved.  For 400 years, stage lore has held that disaster dogs the trail of everything associated with Macbeth.  So firm is the superstition’s grip that many thespians will not even say the name of the work, referring to it instead as That Play, the Scottish Play, or the Unmentionable.

Legend has it that the curse of Macbeth begins with the three spell-brewing witches whose deceitful prophecies give rise to the title character’s fatal ambitions.  Shakespeare, it is said, based their dialogue on a real witches’ spell, thus rendering the work ill-starred for all time.

On a less mystical note, the play was misbegotten politically.  The first production reportedly so offended James I, monarch when Macbeth premiered around 1605 at Hampton Court, that he banned all performances of it for five years.  James, the first of England’s Stuart kings, was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been executed for treason at the command of Elizabeth I.  James was a squeamish soul, and among his chief dreads were assassination, witchcraft, and madness—three themes central to the plot of Macbeth.

The first known performance after the ban was in 1610 at Shakespeare’s famed Globe Theatre in London.  The Globe burned down in 1613, and all the props, scenery, and costumes of Macbeth were lost in the fire.  

Shakespeare died three years later, and the Scottish tragedy vanished from the stage for about half a century. It then resurfaced as a light opera.  Music apparently discouraged the curse, which seemed to remain dormant until early in the eighteenth century. 

In 1703, Macbeth was ;dying at London’s Covent Garden when England was strafed by one of the worst storms in its history.  Rains and hurricane-strength winds killed hundreds of seamen, caused extensive damage in London, and nearly destroyed the port town of Bristol.  A number of theater-hating moralists of the day proclaimed that the storm expressed God’s displeasure with Macbeth, whose witchy goings-on were deemed to be particularly objectionable. 

During a performance of the play at London’s Portugal Street Theatre in 1731, an argument in the audience go so out of hand that a riot erupted and the theater was nearly burned down.  In 1808, Covent Garden opened its fall season with a production of Macbeth.  Within a month, the theater burned to the ground, killing twenty-three people and destroying irreplaceable manuscripts and sheet music. 

Mishaps and mayhem continued to haunt the play through the years: Cast members suffered accidents or sickened or died, productions went awry, and even audiences sometimes seemed afflicted by the presumed curse.  It was an 1849 production of Macbeth at New York’s Astor Place Opera House that ignited a tragic climax to a long-running feud between two actors, England’s William Charles Macready and the American Edwin Forrest.  At the play’s farewell performance, Forrest partisans congealed into a mob outside the opera house.  They stoned the theater and smashed windows.  The militia, called to quell the riot, fired on the crowd.  In the end, at least twenty people were killed and many more injured.

A 1937 production at London’s Old Vic theater starred Sir Laurence Olivier and won wide praise, but at considerable cost.  Lillian Baylis, manager of the Old Vic, died during rehearsals.  Director Michel Saint-Denis and actress Vera Lindsey were injured in an accident.  Olivier first lost his voice, then nearly lost his life when a falling stage weight just missed hitting him. 

Lillian Baylis

During a production in Oldham, England, ten years later, British actor Harold Norman practiced bits of his title role in his dressing room, careless of the superstition holding that the play must be recited only onstage.  In the play’s final battle scene, Norman was accidentally stabbed by the actor playing Macbeth’s antagonist, Macduff.  The wound was fairly slight, but an infection set in, and a month later, Norman died.  Shortly thereafter, his infant daughter was accidentally suffocated, and his widow, also a performer, suffered a mental breakdown.

One of the most bizarre misfortunes in Macbeth’s long and blighted history involved a 1935 New York staging at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, featuring an all-black cast.  It was produced by John Houseman and directed by Orson Welles, and the gifted pair decided to give it a distinctly voodoo flavor, setting it in Haiti and importing some genuine voodoo practitioners to conduct their exotic rites onstage.  The production was a huge critical success, with one notable dissenter:  Conservative critic Percy Hammond of the Herald Tribune called the opening performance a boondoggle and worse.  Grim-faced voodooists stayed in the theater overnight, chanting and drumming.  The next day, Hammond fell ill.  He died soon afterward from pneumonia.

At times, the Macbeth curse turns more puckish than malign, as it did for Charlton Heston one evening during an open-air performance in Bermuda.  Lady Macbeth was to die by throwing herself over a rampart into the sea below here high-walled castle.  The dummy representing the unfortunate lady was hurled to its fate—only to be flopped back onto the stage by an uncooperative wind.  The grave moment turned farcical; the audience roared with laughter as a hapless messenger announced to Macbeth, “The Queen is death, my Lord.”

Being raised a Christian I remember the first time I heard about reincarnation; every week the parents sent me and my cousins to the Saturday matinee to watch whatever movie was playing.  There weren't a lot of theaters back then and so we saw what was playing.  This one Saturday it was about an boy from India who was walking a cow talking about how he thought his uncle was one of the flies on its back. It was the first I ever heard of reincarnation and stuck with me.  For several weeks after that I looked at pets and insects differently.  

As I grew older, the reincarnation thing -- along with bigotry, hypocrisy, and downright ugliness towards other faiths -- pulled me away from the Christian faith.  Based on a book I recently read by a Christian writer, maybe it shouldn't have been.  The book is Jesus the Wicked Priest, and in this book Marvin Vinning introduces some interesting facts about reincarnation which I will describe now.  

Origen

First, Christianity is the only religion that outright denies reincarnation.  That's right, the ONLY religion.  But it didn't always.  The early Christians and the Essenes from whom they sprang taught reincarnation.  Of course that work was destroyed with most of the other non-christian writing that were deemed heretical by the church of the day, and if it wasn't for the Gnosis who left us the dead sea scrolls, would we really know this.  Before I get into these examples, there is the golden oldie of biblical passages that scream reincarnation, and so I'll jump to it now:  Nearly every Jewish family still pays homage to the tradition that the literal, bodily return of Elijah is expected before the Messiah can come.  Jesus's disciples knew this too, which is why they asked of him, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must first come?"  Jesus answered that the expected guest had already come in the person of John the Baptist:  "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John: and if yo are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.  he who has ears to hear, let him hear."  This is the passage I have quoted in the past here on EstoericDaily.com to suggest that even Christians know in there heart-of-hearts, that we've all been here before.  Vinning goes further: of all the Christian early fathers, none dealt more rigorously with the complicated question of reincarnation that Origen of Alexandria.  Origen held a complex doctine of the preexistence of souls.  He said that souls "emanated" or "cooled" into this world by prior workings of their free will.  Origen beleived that before the creation of man (and woman, to set the record straight), God was creating worlds for the wayward soul to cycle throught en route to salvation, a process that Origen termed apocostasis.  To you and me, reincarnation. 

Finally, consider this, the word reincarnation is a term which didn't come into being until those wonderful French intellects gave it to us around the seventeenth century.  So there was no word for reincarnation before then, even in the Buddhist text!  The Buddhist said "rebirth" but knew it meant what we now consider "reincarnation."  Isn't it funny that a big part of the Christian faith is around being born-again? 

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