1,500th Post.

Yay.

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News & Tidbits.

I'm looking to move my blog to a better host, or else try to figure out CSS (style sheets) + XHTML so I can use my own fonts and large-element formatting (like what appears in the sidebars, the width of the blog, a better archiving system for easier access to past posts, and so on). Anyone knowing anything on the subject please contact me with advice. As usual I'm always doing my own research, but it would be nice to talk with someone who's already macheted their way through this before.

In particular I want to be able to host multimedia files of all types without too much fuss, to specify my own screen fonts (or descending list, if need be), and to control as many aspects of the look and feel of the blog as possible, so it doesn't look like anyone else's out there, and so I can do many more interesting things with it, including have music, video, interactive bits (flash or flex), beautifully and precisely laid out and presented text and pictures that don't appear just vertically in a bland roll call... an innovative navigation system...

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I'm starting a water-only fast today. In fact I've already started. I'm going to purify myself and lose weight and see God. Speaking of which...

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Someday I'll post on pre-Abrahamic religions and the nearly universal presence of the Goddess and Godman (duality) that existed across "pagan" cultures worldwide. Osiris, Mithra, Dionysis, Lucifer in the true meaning of his name, Litlith, Nepit, ah hell...

Isis ~ Demeter ~ Arinna ~ Yemaya ~ Diana ~ Inanna ~ Ishtar ~ Hecate ~ Brigid ~ Freyja ~ Nammu ~ Astarte ~ Sophia ~ AuLat ~ Maat ~ Minerva ~ Nut ~ Otohime ~ Hathor ~ Mawu ~ Aphrodite ~ Kanayama-hime ~ Luna ~ Kali Ma ~ Quan Yin ~ Selene ~ Kore ~ Amaterasu ~ Pandora ~ Medusa ~ Nathor ~ Venus ~ Gaia ~ Funadama ~ Sedna ~ Iris ~ Corn Mother ~ Dana ~ Kannon ~ Cerridwen ~ Irene ~ Macha ~ Rhiannon ~ Kishimo-jin ~ Hel ~ Mary ~ Benzai-Ten ~ Frigga ~ Vinca ~ Lady of the Beasts ~ Uba ~ Rowan ~ Artemis ~ Ma ~ Ki ~ Gabjauja ~ Lhamo ~ Amentet ~ Gabija ~ Laka ~ Selene ~ Allat ~ Uac Rapito ~ Pavasiya ~ Lahar ~Zemyna ~ Securitas ~ Sechat-Hor ~ Pandara ~ Saps ~ Rheia ~ Ma-Zu ~ Ran ~ Quiritus ~ Prende ~ Kishi-Bojin ~ Flora ~ Mayahuel ~ Chup-Kamui ~ Mafdet ~ Diti ~ Fauna ~ Aradia ~ Kaminari ~ Vaisgamta ~ Atabey ~ Pales ~ Zeme pati ~ Kaupuole ~ Rasyte ~ Marisha-Ten ~ Etc...

And these are just the female names for the duality of spirit. People used to value body, spirit, and mind equally, and aspire toward transcendence, not obedience.

Don't get it twisted up and believe in monotheistic religions who use these universal stories of morality for their own ends, villifying noble concepts about life and being, and making you forget your own equal place in the universe to bow in servitude to an overbearing God who demands your loyalty and constaint praise.

The world has literally gone mad since the old days, the old ways. The cities of Babylon have spread and brought a strange plague into the minds of men. Sophia has been forgotten. Knowledge lost. Are we bound to 'discover' it again only through science, and destroy ourselves in order to renew the cycle, or is there some way out this time?

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I'll bet you never learned about the Book of Enoch in Sunday School.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JThSrbJTyXg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek4F65iqQBk

Nor did you most likely learn about Gnosticism or Hermeticism, since these are "heresies" - but were once doctrines believed by just as many people as today's bizarre orthodox Christianity (even in its several forms).

In many or most ways, the ancient pagan 'beliefs' in natural forces personified were much more sophisticated than today's monotheistic-literalist's closed-minded views are. They understood (at least the 'initiates' or 'priests' did) that the antropomorpism they spoke about was metaphorical and, in essence, this was "the secret" at the heart of most 'mystery cults/religions' (i.e., paganistic beliefs) of ancient times - the revealing that the underlying order of Being was a natural world which operated according to mathematical and physical law - hence the great prevalence of astronomy and sacred geometry amongst the most educated members of these societies (think of the Egyptians or the Mayans or the Pythagoreans and the importance they places on numbers, directions, and time). The pantheons of gods these societies trotted out were for the masses to perhaps take literally, to assuage their fears about crops or illness or whatever, but the gnosis/sophia (Greek words meaning knowledge/wisdom) gained as far back as Sumer and Egypt and passed on to Greece and India and China and everywhere else, was that there were in fact NO gods, that the concept of divinity was within us all, as knowledge to be understood or indeed literally incorporated through study and meditation.

Sound like anything we value today? Science maybe? Buddhism or relaxation tapes and introspection? Runner's high or psychotrophic drugs or Aldous Huxley's 'perennial philosophy'? These ideas were present at the very dawn of civilization, when men and women first put down roots, and who knows how much earlier, given that Goddess and Phallic figurines have been unearthed dating to the Mesolithic at a time with modern human were still sharing Europe with Neandertals. Dualistic spiritualism recognizing our place within the environment in a real, natural sense without the gibberish of "parents in the sky" was the norm, it would seem. Animals aren't religious, and neither were ancient humans, though paradoxically as their technological sophistication grew, their belief in themselves dwindled, and they sought gods for answers to questions now had and could no longer provide satisfactory answers for themselves. It's possible that specialization of labor had much to do with this, as it led to a loss of feeling in control of one's own life. Think of the average cubicle dweller today - it's no wonder he or she might find solace in going to Church on Sunday (as long as it didn't overlap a critical football game), just to try to make sense of it all and have some peace of mind. With the power to live all aspects of life fully having been wrested from us, by allowing ourselves to be marginalized to the point of absurdity, we have perhaps lost our very sense of purpose in the process.

But the point is, the big experiment of Abrahamism: literal monotheism under a very male deity called either Yahweh, God, or Allah, has perverted the whole intellectual tradition of mankind and any progress toward understanding our place within nature ever since it began to take hold. It's very frustrating that it's only been in the past three or four hundred years, and even then only in certain shifting enclaves, that this lost wisdom eschewing supernaturalism or at least bringing it down to the level of pan-humanism and not placing it forever beyond our grasp in the province of a vengeful, special King, has finally seen the light of day again (at least in the West; the East has had a much more successful experience at beating away humiliating monotheism, though supersition is not free from that part of the world either).

Imagine if Jewish temples and synagogues had never existed; if Roman Catholicism had never existed; if Islam had never existed. With so many minds freed from preoccupation with that nonsense, how much more enlightened as a species would we be? How much better stewards of our planet would we be, understanding that this is it, there ain't no afterlife where everything is green and wonderful, so we'd better take care of the plants and animals and air and water of THIS world and make the most of THIS life. Or... maybe everyone would just end up godless capitalists and still act foolishly. Sometimes it's hard to believe in any evolved altruism in our species except for the odd individual who is truly selfless. Maybe if bioengineering is to not be scary and stratifying and the ultimate downfall of humanity, we will change our genes for aggression and exploitation into ones of compassion and humility.