Apech

I think I'll start a thread in Hermetic sub on this cos I don't want to be accused of cucumbering this thread.

http://www.meshrep.com/PicOfDay/mummies/mummies.htm Tocharian Mummies are interesting ... but I despise the racial theories of man's development. We are all the same species and share the same heritage.

No magic at all I assure you. I wish I knew more about Egypt a lifetimes study has only scratched the surface.

Thanks! Interesting. Will have to ponder. Correspondances between systems always give rise to these kinds of ?what's the word? questionabilities.

Heaven ########## ########## ########## Ch'ien #### #### {had #### #### Water Fire #### #### Li, this ########## Tui {water ########## is Chen} ########## usually is K'an} Sun ########## {had Chen, #### #### this is Li} ########## ########## ########## Air ########## Sun #### #### Earth #### #### #### #### Ken Moon #### #### ########## K'an #### #### ah right some 'mistake' here ... Joyous lake is called water and water is called moon, thunder is called fire ... Fire in in the centre ... ... so are these mistakes or just some strange interpretation?

Well I guess it just reads a little clumsy compared to the elegance of most translations. But he was clearly putting a lot of thought/work into his version and cross relating a lot of ideas/images ... Not sure about the hexagrams ... who says they are wrong and why. Such a statement would depend on having greater insight than the Great beast himself. In symbolic language there's hardly ever a right and wrong just a myraid echoes of truth.

Tell me ... does Dzogchen involve having to have the last word?

H'ordeurve? Wait right here... This product does contain nuts. Would you like yours crushed?

No offense intended.

You have turned into a boxing chicken ... this is getting confusing.

turgid is an understatement ... watch out for that ganglia chaps!

Funny if slightly too cynical for my taste I don't agree about the hermetic transmission ... it definitely occurred but of course all you hear about is the likes of Mr. Crowley. But even he knew a thing or two ... he liked to play tricks though ...

Marbles, Your avatar ... is it a bunch of roses or a blue carrot? What are you trying to say here? LOL.

@Mithshrike .. damn you are hard!

The likes of Plato were said to have studied in Egypt but not Alexandria. Rhacotis was chosen by Alexander as the result of a dream influenced by reading Homer and (more likely) because it was a deep water port suitable for habourage for sea going ships. he is said to have laid out the ground plan for the city himself and deliberately made it a Greek city and cultural centre. there were of course Greeks in Egypt long before this ... and Egypt had by then been conquered by the Persians anyway. Rhacotis was said to be small and insignificant especially compared with the previous capital Naucratis. I think the idea that Pythagoras was Chinese is influenced by a very similar Chinese proof of Pythagoras' theorem in China. But of course as Pythagoras' theorem is true a similar geometric proof does not mean that the same person formulated them. There is absolutely no doubt that Egypt influenced the Greeks enormously. Since it was already so ancient by the time they were formulating the ideas for which they became famous. The Egyptians regarded them as child-like with restless minds. One of the reasons that Egypt became the conduit for wisdom from the ancient world is that it survived the collapse of the late bronze age. In around 1200 BC the other extant civilisations the pre-classical Greeks, the Hittites and the MInoans were wiped out possibly by natural disasters but definitely by attacks from the so-called Sea People. The Sea People were a group of nine tribes who marauded the Mediterranean coast during this time. By the time they got to Egypt though, the then king Ramessses III was ready and he trapped them in a river estuary and destroyed them ... thus saving Egypt from the same fate as the other great Bronze Age cultures. Little is known about the fate of the surviving Sea People ... although they had become a spent force and no longer a threat. Egyptian records indicate that one of the tribes went to the Levant and became the Philisitines (Palestinians) ... so we have to assume that the Sea People were semitic although it is speculated they originated in the area of Sardinia. What eventually did for the Egyptians was of course Christianity or more particularly the Christianised late Roman Empire. Strangely Christians like to paint themselves as the great civilisers and preservers of culture and reason. Whereas they were completely the opposite - the Taliban of their day - they burned down the Serapeum in Alexandria where the remnants of the great library were housed, they closed the temples and desicrated them. They did their best to destroy our legacy. But even as they did so ... in Egypt the new Christian churches and the saints worshiped in them took on some of the features and powers of the old gods. If you take for instance the imagery of Mary and Child Jesus this is a copy of Isis and Horus and so on ... so despite the attempted cultural genocide by the Christians somehow the influence persisted.

Well of course Egypt is actually African. Its roots are in the first peoples to leave the once fertile Sahara and settle in the Nile Valley ... sites like Nabta Playa show this and are dated to maybe 10,000 - 8,000 BC (rough dates) ... these same people went on to found the great Dynastic culture. The legacy of the Egyptian wisdom is in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus which went on to influence the history of European culture (the renaissance etc.). So in this sense it is Western. When Alexandria was built (about 300 BC) Egypt was already several thousand years old (Dynastic period starts about 3100 BC) and what the Greeks came to learn there was a kind of melting pot of ideas from the ancient world (Egypt and Sumer), jewish mysticism and Greek philosophy such as neo-platonism. I can't see any evidence that all greek philosophers studied in Alexandria in fact some like Socrates, Pythagoras and Heraclitus seem to pre-date Alexander himself so I don't see how this can be so.

yes paper was invented by the Chinese ... the date given is usually around 104 AD. Egyptian papyrus, from which the word paper comes started at least by Dyn 1 so about 3000 BC although it is speculated that it was in use from around 4000 BC. So not everything western is stolen I think.

That's hard!

I value reading your opinions/thoughts I find it helpful to hear different views and try to understand them ... and also respect your wish to withdraw.

yes that quote shows I think that the right to bear arms was viewed in the context of a 'well regulated militia' ... I realise you don't agree with this but it is a rational argument. Its not a weird argument ... its a feeling or preference based on how I would like to see young children brought up ... i.e. not thinking violence and guns are either normal or necessary in an environment away from war or hunting etc.

I have read about it and know therefore that although your interpretation is the current one, there is an alternative and case law history which suggests something closer to the one I was suggesting (e.g. US v miller). So when you speak of actual meaning ... it is the case that different people have understood it differently at different times. Also I would add that Switzerland is alpine terrain difficult to conquer and part german speaking anyway ... so there's lots of reasons that Mr. Hitler didn't bother. I'm not extremely critical ... or even critical of the US generally ... I'm suppose I'm critical of some of its foreign policy but then when I think of the alternatives ... well I'd rather America as the superpower than anywhere else because of 'individual liberty and rule of law'. I'm not sure why you are 'extremely critical' of the UK but it sounds like you haven't been there. But I am sure there's plenty to dislike about if you so choose. Generally I would say we have similar values but the way in which our cultures have evolved is different ... so the result is different. Personally i would not like to send a young child to school where the presence of armed guards was thought necessary. That is if I had a choice. generally speaking the police in the UK are not armed ... while the criminals often are ... but they still manage to deal with it in most cases.

I was probably taught more about American history than you were about European history ... although obviously I don't know what you were taught. But I do know that the US has been very inward looking for a long time now. The phrasing of the 2nd amendment it seems to me specifically talks about a well regulated militia and it is those which chose to ignore this that have formulated the current interpretation. Ok yes, perhaps the founding fathers were trying to prevent an overbearing government or dictatorship ... that's seems reasonable ... but the context is groups of sensible people with muskets standing up for their right of self determination. These kinds of events (the shooting) occur in a lot of places not just the US. There have been examples in England, Germany and Norway for example so I am not trying to say that it is something totally specific to the US or that the US is a bad place ... just a very big place with a lot of personal freedom ... for which I am thankful. What i am trying to suggest is that looking for a response to this awful event without thinking about controlling in some way the availability of the weapons which allow them to happen seems quite odd. BTW I realise you started the OP with 'prayers' but the title of the thread calls your democratically elected president (2nd term) Obomba ... as if he somehow was part of the problem while actually i suspect he is just wrestling to find a solution which is acceptable to most people ... like any sane human would do.

How do you do spoiler???