Michael Sternbach

Where is the map?

Unity is Love. Separation is fear and hate (for we hate what we fear). In other words, fight or flight.

All metaphysics are ONE.

Introduction to A Course In Miracles This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

So, assuming your mother gives you your Virgin Mary, I just hope for you that she will also be a creative and imaginative bed mate. If not, you may find yourself longing for one of those "virtueless sex Goddesses" you watched in videos sooner than you think...

Uh-uh... Bad question to ask Nungali. I looked into the Gulf of Aden, but all I saw was... water. Why don't you share your insights on the Gulf of Arden with us, Lois? Giving Nungali something to sharpen his wit until I will be back with more on Atlantic Atlantis.

Yes, in conventional populist Christianity you are pretty much expected to leave your brains at the doorstep - the reasons are obvious enough. While it is true that genuine spiritual experiences reach beyond the mental level, I am of the opinion that more of it than is commonly assumed can be conveyed by logical conceptions and their verbal expression. Luckily, there are a few examples for people who gained popularity in spiritually minded circles that were at once adept thinkers (i.e. spiritually inclined philosophers and psychologists). I may well get back to this thread with some more comments later.

Hi Anzhi, There once was a Dao Bum called ChiDragon, a Chinese scholar. He said that ch. 1 means that Dao can't be described by one word - implying that it can be described by many words! I asked him if that is just his personal interpretation, but he replied, that's the common understanding in China. Not that I necessarily agree to this reading, but I found it worth mentioning.

Nungali, are you sure you watched the right video? The last one on the first page of the blog, yes? From about five minutes into it, it goes on and on about the peculiar geographical position of that landmass! That is one of the structure's most telling features, at least as far as I am concerned. For the ancients always positioned their sacral buildings on significant spots and lines of connection. I too can't discern many of those details (rivers etc) that the blogger believes to see on the Google Earth image. I do think of him as the visionary type, letting his imagination carry him away at times. Many of your objections, although factually correct, miss the mark. We are not discussing the work of an academic scientist here! Despite all the inaccuracies in that presentation, the shape of that structure in conjunction with its position alone render it as potentially significant. The Atlantis-Meteor seamount complex, eh? Not that we would have to give any significance to that name, of course... I mean, it's not that we were occultists or something, right? Talking about the exact origin of Kircher's map, I will tell you once I will know myself. When I will have my books, hopefully. So did you find out if the sea level was low enough during the ice age for that landmass to be uncovered? If so, why shouldn't it have provided the ground Atlantis was built on? Again, I am not saying that this was Atlantis for sure. It just looks like a pretty good candidate to me.

I am aware of the discrepancies between Bailey and Blavatsky. I mean no offence, but I would agree to Bailey: Blavatsky is outdated as far as many of her statements. Meanwhile, so is Bailey too, and it's safe to say, all the other Theosophists of her time. "Victorian" - that describes them well. Again, that is not to say that there is nothing still of value to be found in their writings. For me, it's primarily in the area of conceptual outlines, and more so in Bailey than in HPB. But to each their own. Thanks, I might look into them occasionally.

People like Nikolai and I hardly have a choice in this. Different strokes for different folks.

Theosophy is somewhat out of fashion these days, even though some still endorse it as some kind of religion. Few understand it as the bold project it was intended to be: The union of the the religious mind with the scientific mind. It is hard to overestimate Theosophy's influence on other occult societies such as Anthroposophy and The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and therefore on almost all of modern esotericism. Much of the knowledge I have of Theosophy is based on the books by Alice A. Bailey which I studied eagerly during a certain stage. Their author would be the first to admit that some of the material is outdated. And so many times, I found myself bewildered by explanations and systems of correspondences that just didn't seem to make any sense. Then again, I saw nuggets of gold sparkling underneath those stupefying words - occasionally they were even out in the sunshine. Theosophy's relevance may be revived as mysticism and science will be further amalgamated in the course of this century, and its spirit will reincarnate in a new body.

It looks like the Americas are an addition by Kircher who saw the original map in the library of the Vatican. There are lots of ancient, mysterious texts kept there.

Nungali, while fussing over subsidiary matters, you didn't even mention what is of interest here: That there is a large platform submerged in the Atlantic which resembles the island on Kircher's map a lot. Let's consider that the sea level was considerably lower before the end of the last ice age. Moreover, it is at the same latitude like Giza and at a longitude that was predicted for Atlantis based on the structural analysis of an Egyptian temple. If I had the money, I would organize an expedition there at once. If you don't even find it remarkable, I probably can't help you.

Deal!

Well, obviously, there is no hard evidence for it (otherwise we wouldn't be having this debate), but I believe Atlantis was the home of a highly advanced culture which "inseminated" other cultures, especially Ancient Egypt. The legendary Thoth or Hermes Trismegistos may have been either an Atlantean himself or a student of theirs. I think that Atlantis was indeed an island between the African and American continents, just like Kircher's map suggests. Even though its accuracy seems hard to determine. However, I posted this link above, regarding that map: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread940795/pg1 There are several videos on here. You have explained why watching videos is unpractical for you, but alas, you need to watch at least the last one (before the comments, under the title "Proof of Atlantis", posted in June 2012) if you want to be on the same page with me (LOL). What the author of this blog has found is quite awesome. Oh, thanks for your concern, but no worries, I have a lucky hand with books.

Nope. Don't you get it? I am the tapeworm that keeps her slim! Now, before I go into your other questions... I am trying hard to find some of my books on Atlantis with more elaborate information. They must be in some of the still unopened boxes from my last move... I am also supposed to receive a new book soon which is based on modern geological/oceanographic discoveries. Bear with me - I'll be back!

It would be interesting to watch some sample videos.

Dream

Let's try to clarify the problem. Do you mean that you don't even have a sleeping room of your own?! Or it doesn't have any door? Or is the issue that your parents don't allow you to engage in "dual cultivation practice" with a GF at home? Or what else?

Hi Nikolai, An excellent topic - and a difficult one indeed. I agree with your premise that external reality reflects internal reality. But what does this mean, exactly? I have gathered some thoughts on this over decades, bits and pieces only. I will proable present them gradually, spread over several posts. No coherence claimed! Also, plenty of open questions. Maybe if we join our efforts, we can gain some further insights? I also agree with you that other people will tend to reflect your own attitudes towards yourself. For example, if you are inclined to reproach yourself for things that go wrong, others will be guaranteed to reproach you as well. If you change this attitude towards yourself, others WILL reflect that change. I have seen it happen! But - if a particular girl loves me or not, is that to be decided entirely by myself? What about her own characteristics and circumstances that would seem to have an influence here? Well, if the the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics holds true, if it is at all possible that the girl in question would fall in love with me, it will actually happen in (at least) one of those reality strands. But is it the one that I (THIS "I"!) am going to experience? What decides that? A poor understanding of the relationship between internal and external reality actually holds great psychological dangers. It is the reason for there being perfectly guiltless individuals feeling personally responsible for a war having broken out somewhere. Others believe that a newsreporter's twitch on TV is some kind of a message to them personally! This kind of mental disturbance is among the worst and potentially render somebody completely dysfunctional. Yet, it is not unreasonable to assume that there is a strand of reality in which no war started. So there should be a "me" that experiences THAT reality. What decides which probability "I" end up in? You mentioned nature's laws. That may be the biggest biggie. Is their validity dependent on individual - or even collective - consciousness? I, for one, say: No. They exist in an objective manner. Some of them may actually be circumvented by consciousness under certain circumstances, but they are never truly broken. They go hand in hand with nature's constants. It is regarded by many physicists as a big mystery why the fundamental constants of nature seem fine-tuned for life. One of these fundamental constants is the fine-structure constant, or alpha, which is the coupling constant for the electromagnetic force and equal to about 1/137.0359. If alpha were just 4% bigger or smaller than it is, stars wouldn't be able to make carbon and oxygen, which would have made it impossible for life as we know it to exist. In other words, external reality's coherence depends on an intricate network of laws and constants that cannot be messed around with based on individual whims. I consent that there is an inner world whose laws and structures, and relationship to the outer world, we are just beginning to understand.

The Lower Tan Tien is rather a "power space" felt inside the body than a point on its surface. It is however associated with (I think) Conceptor Vessel 3 a few inches below the navel. Don't worry too much. You will feel its location with some practice.

I live in No, NOT Sweden or Swaziland! Satisfying people's curiosity as to what Atlantis may have looked like, spurred by our Russian host. Something published by Kircher deserves an occultist's attention, in my view. And while I do not consider it any kind of evidence either, I find this thought provoking: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread940795/pg1

Cayce's medical diagnoses and his suggestions for therapies proved right in countless cases (no pun intended). Also other kinds of information he provided while in trance was shown to be accurate. That doesn't mean that he was always right about everything (no psychic is). However, it does mean that he isn't a bad reference. The video is not the evidence, rather, the evidence is in the video. Trying to properly evaluate evidence is one thing - to depreciate it a priori because it is found on UFO TV and/or Youtube quite another. It has been said that science is the latest development of error, and there is some truth to that, given that so many scientific insights, once seemengly well supported by facts, needed to be revised later when new facts were discovered or finally acknowledged, or when old facts were seen in a new light. If you want to continuously make your beliefs a decal image of the latest doctrine, that's your choice. Good luck with this. Personally, in certain cases, I prefer to wait for science to catch up with what my intuition tells me (and if it doesn't - bad for science ). The foregoing should make my position on this clear. Well, that's funny... This experiment did not challenge any assumption made by orthodox science. In fact, it served to demask a seemingly magical explanation as merely an application of known physics. You do strike me as a natural sceptic, to some degree. Yes, that is one of a number of amazing archeological sites. My "prophesy" is that they will lead to a largely expanded view on the history of our species, at last. Much like a few remaining questions in physics once opened up a whole new world of exploration now called "quantum mechanics". And in parallel to where science in general is heading - hopefully. That this is taking a vague and disputable form first, occasionally exploited by charlatans, is hardly surprising. I am gathering some material on this topic right now... Just in case!

You keep repeating yourself.