Michael Sternbach

If I accidentally touch a hot plate and retract my hand reflexively, how does that imply a moral choice? I can say: "I think I can't know anything," thus avoiding a paradoxon.

I should probably add that in a circle (or sphere) of infinite expansion, its centre is everywhere...

Okay, I thought about it some more. And although this may come as a shock to some, I found that there must actually be two kinds of Wuji. (Any connection to what Daeluin has shared about wu and ji above perhaps?) One is point like, infinitely small, zero-dimensional - the center of a circle, a centered Nothingness, yet the origin of all there is. The other is infinitely expanded - in it, all opposing forces are balanced, reconciled, cancelling out one another: The circumference of a circle. Nirvana is samsara, samsara is nirwana.

I think you are right.

Virtual particles are already on the threshold to manifestation though. Rigorously, Wuji is the Nothing that lies beyond it. Then again, there seems to be no true Nothing. I see a parallel to the vacuum or empty space. Then again, Wuji is beyond space and time. Gotta think about this some more...

In the Vedic system, space or Akasha is the fifth element. It takes the place of aether in the Aristotelian model. Aether, also called the quintessence, is thought of as being in the centre of the cross of the elements, linking them - but arguably also their origin. It also pervades all space beyond the terrestrial (sublunar) sphere. Given the proximity of all these ideas, I would say, yes, we can draw a parallel between Wuji (the origin of Taiji) and space. Continued on spacester's spaced out new thread...

I can't change your login name but have altered your screen name. However, make no mistake: The Flash will remember who you are! Your friendly moderator

Frankly, I don't.

Done. We hope so too. Your friendly moderator

Hi Apech, I deleted the bad link that wasn't working, as requested.

I can't say what the problem is either, except that we have been experiencing a number of anomalies recently. That's why we will upgrade the forum software as soon as we have finished running the preliminary tests. However, I have indeed been able to modify your profile (don't worry, I reversed all changes made immediately), so if you are in a hurry, feel free to send me the changes you want by PM, so I can get them done for you.

Reading for Liminal Luke Query "My partner and I are presently living in Zacatecas, Mexico. It´s small and provincial (but cheap!), and I often yearn to be closer to the US border and the friends I have up there. So here´s my question: what do the cards say about us moving to the border cities of Tijuana or Rosarito?" Decision spread Thoth Deck 1 5 3 7 6 4 2 Issue = 7 = Ace of Swords Option 1 (Moving) = 1, 3, 5 = Knight of Wands, Strength (9 of Wands), The Lovers (VI) Option 2 (Staying) = 2, 4, 6 = Ace of Cups, 8 of Cups (Indolence), Sorrow (3 of Swords) The issue is coming to a place of transparency and making a clear-cut decision (Ace of Swords). Moving near the border would provide you with a springboard for powerful action (Knight of Wands) and lead to newly found strength (9 of Wands). The Lovers could mean a refreshment of your existing relationship and/or refer to the friendships you mentioned. Moreover, it's a card of decision making, and when it shows up in this spread, the side it's on tends to be the one that the querent has already chosen (perhaps without being fully aware of it). Mind you, it connects back to the decisiveness of the Ace of Swords, for the Hebrew letter it is attributed with (zain) means "sword," and there is an arch of swords shown on the card. The elements attributed to this whole series (Fire, Fire, Air) are harmonious with each other, that's also quite encouraging. However, the summary of these cards is The Devil (XV), so it must be acknowledged that this option is not without some difficulty, perhaps of a financial nature (as per your query). Staying where you are is represented by (among others) the Ace of Cups, so you are sort of comfortable where you are. But as 8 of Cups (Indolence) indicates your feeling stalemated, it might be more of an apathetic state. In keeping with this, Sorrow (3 of Swords) suggests that, if you opt to stay, you will continue agonizing over this decision nevertheless; the central sword of the three on the card is the same as on the Ace, except that it is being attacked by two lesser swords representing gnawing doubts. The elements of the three cards (Air, Water, Water) are not as harmonious as the ones in the upper series. Their number values add up to The Hanged Man (XII), again speaking to your sense of some kind of permanent suspension in that place. The summary of the spread overall is Fortune (X); the card shows a wheel which can turn in either direction and reiterates that you are standing at a crossroad - it can lead to great fulfillment if you make the right decision. The conclusion I draw from all this is that, notwithstanding certain difficulties, it is indeed advisable for you to boldly step beyond your current boundaries and move closer to the US border. Your feedback - now and/or in the future - would be appreciated, Michael

We have reached 150 pages of "Origin of Mankind"... Congratulations, Junko!

One current thread where different perspectives regarding lost civilisations are being expressed is this one: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/39928-atlantis/ There again, we see the old dichotomy between the rationalistic scientific and the intuitive occultist view. This exists in other, non-historical areas as well, to be sure. What it boils down to, IMO, is that we tend to find evidence and interprete it in keeping with our beliefs. It is not (just) the other way around. The idea that there was a time when humans used to live much longer than today belongs into that same category. You find such statements in the Bible and in channelled texts by Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts and other psychics. It seems to tie in directly with lost civilisations. The underlying concept being that humanity hasn't primarily evolved from a more primitive state to the height of modern Man (as conventional history would make us believe), but has descended from a state more exalted in many ways, even losing almost all its knowledge of the latter. Ancient cultures such as the Greek and Indian ones held this belief. Undeniable evidence for that may indeed be found one day - when humans will be ready for it. That is, if and when they have re-ascended again sufficiently on the collective level. Which should go hand in hand with a reconciliation of the scientific with the occultist approach.

Thank you for your kind words. Please refrain from vaporizing members, that would be a violation of the few rules we have here. The mods will see to it themselves whenever we decide it's inevitable in a given case.

It's not too late

See the Pyramid Texts Online Utterance 216 151: Orion is encircled by the Duat, when the One-who-lives-in-the-Horizon purifies himself. Sothis is encircled by the Duat, when the One-who-lives-in-the-Horizon purifies himself. This Unas is encircled by the Duat, when the One-who-lives-in-the-Horizon purifies himself. He is content because of them, he is refreshed because of them, in the arms of His father, in the arms of Atum.

Since the quoting issues still haven't been resolved (staff is working on it ), my comments are written in red. Nungali, on 04 Jul 2016 - 06:12 AM, said: You are targetting a whole bunch of ideas in this single paragraph that we need to look at one by one: It is in fact an old idea that a body of spiritual knowledge existed in and was disseminated from a lost culture. Sure, happens all the time. I dont dispute that at all. Thats what I was detailing above. While identifying that source as Atlantis may indeed be a relatively modern idea, there was a wide spread assumption amongst Church Fathers as well as Renaissance occultists that wisdom emanated from Hermes Trismegistos in an unbroken chain to Plato and beyond (see Frances Yates: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 15 f.). Hermes (or Thoth/Tehuti) was seen as the founder of the ancient Egyptian culture, establishing writing, mathematics, law and other topics, including the occult sciences. of course, I am aware of that, I encountered the concept years ago in my early occult studies. Now I am also fascinated with Egyptology, History and other fields of research to get a more accurate picture. Things have come a long way since those days ... even in the last 20 years ! Even if the above founder is considered mythology, I have read accounts where some Greek philosophers are supposed to be Egyptian - its just that a Greek version of their name was passed down, or they were Greek but had an Egyptian teacher. Then again ancient Egypt was heavily influenced by the Mesopotamian cultures at various times. Indeed, the 'sudden' rise of the advance tech of Ancient Egypt has lead to man a theory and is one of my favorite subjects ... but nowadays from an empirical view. This is a huge subject. Most notably, modern advances in archaeology, ( one of which is we now have Aboriginal, Egyptian, Indian, South American archaeologists ) has been the revision and elimination - to an extent - and also due to newer finds , of the old 'Empire model' of developing cultures . I am rather chuffed at this , so I will repeat it here. After a lot of debate with professionals and others I came to the conclusion about why Egypt was able to advance the way it did , it has to do with a large multi-cultural input, a solid core of past tradition/practices ( building, religion, farming, etc ) , and the way they treated, interacted and adopted those cultures and technologies. Also how parts of it split of, developed further in isolation and came back to blend in the new - a type of social alchemy of 'circulation'. I put my idea out there. To my surprise one of the people I converse with, learn from, question, agreed with me . he is a curator and guide at an Egyptian museum in Chicago . He said "That is my view too ! many times visitors to the museum ask me that question, how did Egypt rise the way it did, and I tell them that is the conclusion I came to .: I can give you his online discussion address if you want to check on that. Or to follow the conversations. Please do. I would like to take a look at it. In fact, Adrian Gilbert, in the preface of his edition of the Corpus Hermeticum, also concludes that the Egyptian culture as we know it was the result of a blending of various cultures - Atlantis being one of them. I believe that's the way new cultures are being created in general. An excellent book on this is 'Ancient Egypt - from the First Farmers to The Great Pyramid' by John Romer (and John has an excellent intro on 'empirical based evidence' and the above mentioned dynamic of assuming cultures developed by bringing civilization to savages the way the British Empire did .... also, both ( empirical evidence and old ideas about Egypt being advanced by some advanced race - usually across the Red Sea into Upper Egypt via the Easter desert and Wadi Hamnamet ) are looked at in another good book ( to get an empirical perspective ) Genesis of the Pharaohs by Toby Wilkensen (which I reviewed on another thread here ) The Egyptians were convinced that the Gods once ruled their country directly. Further, there was a belief in a primaeval island on which they originally lived (see A. E. Reymond: The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, pp. 55 ff.) - so it takes no great leap to link this to the isle of Atlantis, the knowledge of which was preserved by Egyptian priests according to Plato. Yes, I know about that. Its a central core beginning part of Egyptian mythology. I do think you are taking a great leap to link the two together. If we detail Plato's Atlantis and the concepts of the 'primeval island' side by side, they would be very different. If we just say , they were both islands so there is no great leap to ink them as the same thing or related to the same thing .... nah ! The myth of Egyptian origins and the first island is clearly related to a later period anyway and to do with the flooding and receding of the Nile, the 'Dog Days' , agriculture, etc . To my knowledge, that "primeval island" has never been described in such detailed a manner as to allow to dismiss any similarity with Plato's Atlantis. It is also quite remarkable that the ancient Egyptians encoded the time of about 10.500 BC in the orientation of the Great Pyramid towards the Orion constellation, which was the time of the destruction of Atlantis previously given by Edgar Cayce and which doesn't deviate all that much from Plato (who gives 9500 BC). Now you are fudging Michael ... the ancient Egyptians did no such thing ! Its modern people that claim that. Now, you are giving Edgar Cayce as a source , that is occult history, I am talking about real history, archaeology, dating, cross referencing to vast amounts of knowledge collated and compared for years by Egyptology, anthropology, and translation of texts that the ancient Egyptians wrote themselves. I just find it remarkable that various sources (Plato, Cayce, South American texts) all referred to a great flood occurring roughly at the same time, which today we know to coincide with the end of the last Ice Age. Moreover, we find a similar story of a "deluge" also in Babylonian mythology and in the Bible. What I'm doing is not "fudging" - it's "fa-jing." Talking about South America, your objection that its cultures are too far removed in time from the Egyptian civilisation doesn't hold up to scrutiny, as, similarly to the latter, the Mayans and Aztecs believed that their cultures had descended from earlier times. The first period or "First Sun" ended with a great flood (Popol Vuh, Codex Vatico Latinus), which (according to the latter source) occurred in 11.025 BC. and the gap ? Are you suggesting that the recent development of South American cultures (and specifically I was thinking about how people relate the pyramids there to those of Egypt ) both had a mythology or contact with someone that enabled them somehow to build fantastic pyramids , 5000 years ago in Egypt, but somehow held the knowledge until the time the South American pyramids were built ? Yeah, that's weird. But hardly weirder than the fact that the Egyptians first learned and then lost the art of building perfect pyramids all of a sudden. See this relatively recent post of mine: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/40620-the-origin-of-mankind/page-23#entry680006 Or are we going to claim all the dating is wrong and the Sphinx is also older and so are the pyramids in South America. I haven't looked into the South American pyramids that much yet. As for the Egyptian ones, we indeed can't be too sure about their age. There is relatively little evidence that the three Giza pyramids were actually built by the pharaohs they were named after, and so-called evidence to the contrary may have been dismissed too quickly by orthodox archaeology. See Graham Hancock: Fingerprints of the Gods, pp. 320 ff. Or is it a 'great leap' to think that people work in stone, eventually they get good at it, a pyramid is a structure naturally lends itself to such design ,,,, heck, its basically a pile of rocks stacked together ! That's how the comparatively unsuccessful architects before and after the 4th dynasty must have looked at the matter. Perhaps you were among them? Is it just coincidence that the Great Pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico were obviously built to represent the three belt stars of Orion, and that the larger of them has exactly the same base and half the height of the largest pyramid in Giza? http://coolinterestingstuff.com/ancient-pyramids-match-the-alignment-of-orions-belt That is not an idea that is currently accepted * , it floated for a while, but as I said above, a lot has been researched and discovered lately .... there is a wealth of interconnected resources and people with access to all the previous research and findings and papers ( peer reviewed thanks) and using today's modern IT ... are we really going to let that be over ruled by a guy sleeping and dreaming up stuff ? Peer reviewed means little more than other members of the same "faith" having found something acceptable for publication. And if we look at the history of science and technology, we find that it is often the stuff "a guy was dreaming up" that opens up the step of their evolution. I read the Orion Theory in the 70s and loved it ... but errrmmm .... haven't we moved on a bit from there ? ? / http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/scott-wolter-robert-bauval-and-the-orion-correlation I will present Hancock's response to his theory's "rebuttal"; may the interested reader of this thread draw their own conclusions. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/piramides/esp_piramide_9.htm This linked article provides insufficient references and is highly conjectural overall. Yes ... mixed with other stuff . Do you think that is outdated pop occult woo you might be reading ? No... I think that is biased conservative science hype you might be reading.

I should ban you, but... Welcome to the forums!

Arbounreal

Aura

Nungali, on 04 Jul 2016 - 06:12 AM, said: You are targetting a whole bunch of ideas in this single paragraph that we need to look at one by one: It is in fact an old idea that a body of spiritual knowledge existed in and was dissiminated from a lost culture. While identifying that source as Atlantis may indeed be relatively modern idea, there was a wide spread assumption amongst Church Fathers as well as Renaissance occultists that wisdom emanated from Hermes Trismegistos in an unbroken chain to Plato and beyond (see Frances Yates: Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, i.e. p. 15 f.). Hermes (or Thoth/Tehuti) was seen as the founder of the ancient Egyptian culture, establishing writing, mathematics, law, and other topics, including the occult sciences. The Egyptians were convinced that the Gods once ruled their country directly. Further, there was a belief in a primaeval island on which they originally lived (see A. E. Reymond: The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, p. 55 ff.) - so it takes no great leap to link this to the isle of Atlantis, the knowledge of which was preserved by Egyptian priests according to Plato. It is also quite remarkable that the ancient Egyptians encoded the time of about 10.500 BC in the orientation of the Great Pyramid towards the Orion constellation, which was the time of the destruction of Atlantis previously given by Edgar Cayce and which doesn't deviate all that much from Plato (who gives 9500 BC). Talking about South America, your objection that its cultures are too far removed in time from the Egyptian civilisation doesn't hold up to scrutiny, as, similarly to the latter, the Mayans and Aztecs believed that their cultures had descended from earlier times. The first period or "First Sun" ended with a great flood (Popol Vuh, Codex Vatico Latinus), which (according to the latter source) occurred in 11.025 BC. Is it just coincidence that the Great Pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico were obviously built to represent the three belt stars of Orion, and that the larger of them has exactly the same base and half the height of the largest pyramid in Giza? http://coolinterestingstuff.com/ancient-pyramids-match-the-alignment-of-orions-belt

Nah, the park had a cloak of invisibility.

Loads of books of relevance to the Golden Dawn and to Hermeticism in general can be found here: http://www.golden-dawn-canada.com/library.html