Apech

Well at the risk of being feisty again ... I remember the Stig version of how moderation was supposed to work and discussed it with him as I was a mod at the time. It had a lot of merit but it was a kind of moderation by consensus ... very time consuming and ultimately irrelevant because it wasn't what sean wanted ... and most importantly some people wanted less moderation ... some people no moderation at all ...some people wanted more ... so that's hard to deal with because different people wanted different things ... and it was not as if there was a general agreement about how it should work ... this included a lot of insults hurled at moderators (including me) which didn't help. It was all very bad tempered and negative in my view. I really don't see why a few volunteers trying to make TBs a better place for general posters had to put up with all that over a couple of short term suspensions. The issue is that there are existing rules ... no insulting and swearing at people and so on which everyone knows and will be enforced ... then there is the issue of political views or homophobia or racism ... which if couched in so-called rational terms (i.e. without swearing or insult in the normal sense) then what are the mod team supposed to do? If someone says that they think a homosexual lifestyle is unhealthy then should this be censored out or can we rely on people challenging these ideas? If someone says there are differences between races because some religious teaching says so ... then should that be censored out? When I was a mod I can't remember ever taking any action on content ... I moved something i thought racist to the Pit once and argued against it ... but that's all I can remember ... it was always behaviour that was moderated not ideas. i think in extremis I would think something like neo-nazi white supremecist literature should just be deleted ... but I can't recall seeing anything like that on here anyway.

there was a definite feeling that sooner or later we were going to blow ourselves to smithereens at that time ... mutual assured destruction and all that stuff ... that song used to give me goose bumps ...

You could say ... bet my thread's bigger than yours ... or something.

great song ....

I'm always feisty ... well maybe not. Your points are completely reasonable and I think the best way to increase board membership is to have quality threads discussion interesting topics in a pleasant way ... allowing for banter and joshing as a normal real life conversation would. Any thread discussing my penis size would be short ... well not that short ... average ... completely adequate ... not that you would look at the thread and laugh .... more like you'd just shrug your shoulders and say well yes its a thread ... it does its job ... maybe not the longest thread in the world but hey its enough ... its the thread that God gave me ... that miserly bastard ... that sort of thing ...

The eastern world, it is exploding Violence flarin', bullets loadin' You're old enough to kill, but not for votin' You don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin' And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin' But you tell me Over and over and over again, my friend Ah, you don't believe We're on the eve of destruction.

Well I'm all for the open-ness of the law in the real world ... but then issuing a suspension for an insult or whatever is hardly major legislation more like a misdemeanour offense ... if we are going to make that sort of comparison. Having done my stint as a mod I would have to say it is completely unreasonable to expect the mods to take the time to explain themselves every time they do something. For several reasons ... one being that it takes up a lot of time and these people give their time freely on a voluntary basis ... another being they don't report to us they report if to anyone apart from each other to Sean. Really the only person owed an explanation is the person being suspended and that only so they are clear what it is that earned the suspension and can avoid repeat behaviour. We use this board as individuals free to come and go as we please but when we do we just have to accept that there is moderation and that's that ... if you don't like it go start your own board with no moderation or endless threads going round in circles discussing why so and so got banned ... that's up to you.

My understanding is that Buddha did not deny the existence of gods but viewed them as not being a source of refuge in that worship of them would not lead to liberation. I understand this to be because the consciousness of a god is tainted by pride and thus although they may have great powers for long periods of time, they do not see things as they really are which is the essence of enlightenment. I also think that the Lord Buddha woud refute the idea that it is possible to posit the idea of God = Absolute since if a being was the absolute i.e. infinite ... it would have no possible relation to the finite. The possibility of relation of finite to infinite lies in non-dualism which was to a certain extent 'hidden' in the Buddhas original teachings but became the core them of Mahayana through Nagarjuna and others. In fact the Hinayana concept of Nirvana retains a kind of duality in that there is samsara to escape from and nirvana to go to ...

Now mind is many. But how many exactly? Count the brain cells .... three!

Donald aka Z, Thank you for this post it is certainly a worthy method of collating useful information here on TBs ... of which I would like to see more. With your permission I am going to suggest to the august and magnificent beings who are the mod team that your post be copied to form the opening post of a new thread. I attempted to start a discussion on theurgy some time back but it stimulated a zero response (probably a record for TBs) ... so maybe with your help we could get some productive debate on the subject in the Hermetic sub forum. A.

There are different ways of expressing this but I would say that it all depends on your own ability to assimilate perception. Its not so much that we develop new abilities but more that we stop inhibiting our innate capacity to perceive as energy ... spirit or however you like to express it. You can gradually remove the filters that our ego puts in place to block out what it perceives as a threat ,,, opening up the doors of perception. If you force too much then you can do yourself damage and develop unhelpful sates which could be called madness. The first signs are usually about knowing things ... things about the future or what people are thinking or knowing who's calling when the phone rings ... that sort of thing ... simple things. I think its important not to focus on this sort of thing but just accept it happily and keep practicing. yes animals respond to our energy no doubt. just my thoughts take it or leave it.

a trip to Kashmir I'll climb on Jacob's ladder stairway to heaven.

I heard the Big Bang when I was having breakfast.

piss piss piss piss piss micturate your life away it's all gone to pot.

Blinded by their greed who's greed are you speaking of them, you know, them guys them, you know, them guys thems the ones I was meaning blinded by their greed, Blinded by their greed, cops pursue Dunkin' Donuts while dawn donates blood while dawn donates blood I will only give urine their taking the piss.

1% storage but 75% cocoa?

*slaps forehead* ... sorry I should have checked that ... thanks

Damn you bubbles you win again!

Better version with pics: tbs 3.pdf Text only: There are the four Sons of Horus. If you read up about them you will mostly find references to the so called Canopic Jars which held organs removed from the body during mummification. However this is only one instance of their 'use'. If you recall the threefold division of the knowable universe ... the subtle (the sky), the causal (the air) and the gross (earth) ... you can find the Sons of Horus on all three levels. In the sky they are the Four Rudders of Heaven which define what the Egyptians saw as the four quarters of the sky. They are the four pillars or supports of Shu which assist in holding the sky away from the ground. In the body they are the four protectors of vital organs. So they are everywhere defining the structure of the knowable world, they are the precursors of the four elements of Greek and Hermetic tradition. The Egyptian coffin is a model of the cosmos. The lid is Nut the sky, and the base is the earth and the sides Shu and the four Sons of Horus. This is the way in which the Egyptians saw all their structures, tombs, temples and so on as models of the cosmos. Also in the hidden realm of the Duat the four Sons of Horus have their place. As protectors of the organs removed from the body during mummification they in their turn are 'protected' by four goddesses which represent four phases in the cycling of energy. I have talked before about how Isis is used to represent energy in a rising, growing towards light phase and Nephthys as the descending into dark phase. But the Egyptians made a further division between the day sky and the so called 'under-sky' in the Duat. So the cycling energy could be said to be in both the day sky and the under-sky. The rising energy is now attributed to Isis in the day sky and the goddess Neith (or Nit) in the under-sky. And the setting energy to the goddess Serket (the scorpion goddess in the day sky) and Nephthys in the under-sky. If you imagine then that you are standing facing south. The sun will rise on your left and go up in the sky in an arc described by the 'plane of the ecliptic' – this varies according to the season of the year in a band of about 12 degrees. But by midday the sun should be at the top of this arc and in front of you ... at the height of summer nearly over head but the rest of the year at a varying angle. So the south is a point of maximum brightness of the sun in the sky and also at night the direction of the brightest star Sirius and the constellation Orion. Opposite behind you is the astronomical north, a point around which the northern constellations appear to revolve. Because of the precessional movement of the earth the exact position of the north point varies against the star background over long periods of time, so that different stars take up the role of north star and sometimes there is no star at this point, just empty space. Sometimes mummies were inclined backwards on a mound of sand so that the top of their head would be pointing towards the astronomical north and the sun at midday would be directly ahead in their field of vision at midday. This gives two polarities of maximum light and total dark. The maximum light is associated with the sun Ra and the dark with the void or abyss of Nun. On your left is the eastern horizon and your right is the west. Classically the Egyptians associated east with the living and west with the dead. The sun moves from east to west in the day and from west (via the Duat) to east during the night to complete a whole cycle. If we start from midnight when the sun is hidden and call this the north point where we are most attuned to the void (Nun), then the pathway from here to the eastern horizon is identified with the goddess Neith (or Nit). Neith is the personification of the red crown of Lower Egypt which is also used sometimes as the letter 'n' which means water. Although she is associated with the red crown of the northern kingdom she is also most usually placed in the East, the town of her cult centre is Sais and here there was a sacred centre called the eastern gate. She is a huntress and sometimes a jackal but also a creatrix in her own right. So this pathway from north to east is about the creative potential of the void, the bubbling up of form from nothingness, the tension on the water, the intent which causes form to emerge. Protected by her, in fact said to be 'within her' is the Son of Horus of the East the jackal headed Duamutef, guardian of the stomach. The stomach is essentially an acid bath which breaks down food to make it assimilable to the body. Duamutef whose name means 'Praiser of his mother' is said the 'overcome the foe', that is defeat all the forces which line up against the sun, personified in the serpent Apep. From the east the sun arcs across the sky toward the midheaven. This pathway is sacred to Isis. Isis is the queen, the throne, the great mother and this pathway is a way of growth towards maximum brilliance. She envelops and protects the man headed Imsety, who is guardian of the liver. The liver is like a chemical factory for the body. Imsety is aid to rise up, give commands and make the 'house' (i.e. Body) flourish. From the height of heaven the sun moves on towards the west where it will set below the horizon. This pathway is sacred to the scorpion goddess Serket. She was companion to Isis who healed the sick child Horus when stung by a scorpion. One of the effects of a scorpion sting is constriction of the throat, and a title of Serket is 'she who relieves the windpipe.' So the sense of this pathway is, having built up to the zenith of the midday, of release. If the first half of the cycle is like an in- breath this is the beginning of the our breath. The Egyptians signposted this change by saying that the sun god changed from his day boat to his night or evening boat at the height of heaven. The release of the Serket pathway is accompanied by a feeling of pushing away. In the morning the sun is moving towards us and in the afternoon away. It is diminishing in luminescence. It was was said the sun became like an old man at sunset. Serket holds within her the son of Horus of the West, the falcon headed Quebehsenuef, who's name means 'he who refreshes his siblings'. He is said to join together the parts of the body. This deity guards the intestines. The intestines extract nutrients and water from food and excrete what is unwanted. From the west to the north, the last part of cycle is sacred to Nephthys. In Egyptian this name is Neb.t-hwt which means Lady of the Temple Enclosure. Her name is often translated as Lady of the House which has led to some seeing her as a kind of housewife. This is completely wrong. Nephthys is the High Priestess of the temple and holder of the mystery. The mystery being the void itself. If you like she opens the doorway to the void and guides to the deepest darkness of the night. This is why she is often counterpoised to Isis as the way to maximum light. Nepthys is said to 'hide the secret thing' that is the mystery. She holds within her the ape headed Hapi who in turn guards the lungs. He is said specifically to join the head to the body and here the 'head' is used as a term for what we would call mind. Just to add a further layer to this mandala, the Egyptians tended to group things by polar pairs of 'opposites'. This is based on the fundamental theme of Egyptian mystical thought which is the union or embrace of Ra and Osiris in the Duat. This idea of resolution of opposites runs through the whole the Egyptian culture and is actually the foundation of their thinking which is pluralistic and non-dualistic. That is they could hold any number of representations of the ultimate deity and they could understand that opposites can be resolved without the need for one of the polarities to overcome the other. For this reason they would pair up north with south and east with west. So we get Isis and Nephthys as a pair and Neith and Serket as a pair. The canopic jars holding the organs would be placed in a chest like this as two pairs facing each other. Here is the canopic jar chest from Tutankhamun. The sons of Horus here have human faces rather than the faces of animals. The goddesses were depicted on the four corners of the chest. In this way the energies of deities, organs and their functions were joined and integrated into a finely balance unit representing innner harmony.

'bum conversation' ... what could be more basic and healthy?

I'm going to bring her an apple everyday ... beat that!!!!

Huh! creeping to the new mods already LOL.

horizontal eyes?

Sure. But I meant the whole stage managed performance ... not the excitement ...

I think maybe around the same time ... anyway we've both been on here a long time ... it's still great ... as I've said before more or less my home page ... always something new ... something I've never heard of or some link that I can follow up ... even its just the music you've been listening to a little bird told me that we have two new mods as well.