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I stumbled across this game and I really like it and want to support the developers, so I'm trying to spread the word.

The game is called Anodyne and the developers are temporarily offering a promo through The Pirate Bay to download the game for free.  The promo ends February 18, 2013 at 5:00am Central Standard Time, so if you like Zelda-esque action/adventure rpgs, ACT NOW!

I've made a post on my blog with all of the instructions to get your free copy.  Just go here -->  Anodyne - A 16-bit Inspired Adventure! and follow the instructions.  It's worth it.

I hate to keep linking my blog, but there are a bunch of links in that post and I didn't want to litter the forum with links to BitTorrent clients and Torrent sites (even though everyone here probably already has uTorrent and visits The Pirate Bay often enough as it is). 

Nevertheless, check it out.

Here's the deal.  I'm realizing that I have a lot more detail that I want to include in my "short story", but including that detail will make more of a book and less of a short story.

SO!

I need some help.  If you've got the time, do the following 3 things:

1. Go read Cydonia in a Nutshell to get an idea of the plot.

2. Then read Cydonia Teaser - Chapter 1

3. And finally, go to my publishing blog's home, Work of Hart Publications and use the poll on the left side of the page to cast your vote. 

Should I carry on and make this story a full length book, add a little more detail and make it a longish, but standalone short story, or should I be more succinct and add this story to a collection of short stories before I publish it?

Your input could really help.  So I give you all my thanks in advance.  If you can spare a few minutes to do this for me I will be forever grateful, and may be inclined to give you a free copy (maybe even personally autographed) when I finish the story in whatever form I decide on.

The poll ends on April 7th (my fiance's birthday).  So get on over there and let me know what you think!

Again, many thanks.

~PR (Rusty)

Right, so I have a few blogs out there.  But I just started a new one that deals specifically with my writing.  I've recently started working on a novel that I will be independently publishing as soon as I finish it.  My new blog is the home of my writings, progress reports, updates, teasers and free downloads.

I am working on a short story now, the first chapter of which I just posted.  So read it if you'd like.

http://hartpublishing.wordpress.com

I'm planning to publish it and sell it on Amazon and some other places as an ebook for somewhere between $1-$5 (depending on how long it ends up being).  But I may put it up for free download on my blog, so check it out if you got the time and feel like reading some sci-fi.

Shades.Of.Consciousness deals with all things metaphysical, spiritual, ontological, philosophical, who are we, where do we come from, why are we here type stuff.

The AlterEgo is my personal introspection blog where I talk about myself, my life, my messed up mind and anything else I feel like discussing. 

[Shades.Of.Consciousness]

Shades.Of.Consciousness [My Blog]
Inter-dimensional Entities! [The Post For This Topic]

I've been a little absent lately.  Had a lot going on in my life keeping me really busy, and the pulse is a luxury I can't afford right this second.  I have been posting regularly in my blog, so everyone ought to go read it.

Shades.Of.Consciousness [My Blog]
Inter-dimensional Entities! [The Post For This Topic]

Anyway, I wanted to share a post and some photographs from my trip to Colonial Williamsburg last Friday night.  Among other things on our itinerary Friday evening and Saturday morning was a "Ghosts of Colonial Williamsburg Tour".  The tour guide told us that every building in Colonial Williamsburg had exhibited some sort of paranormal activity, some more than others, but all of them nonetheless.  So, on the tour the guide took us to about 6 or 7 of the "most haunted" sites [naturally, one of them was the tavern we were staying in, The Brick House Tavern; my little sister in law didn't sleep much that night, she's terrified of paranormal activities of any kind].

The guide suggested that we take photographs because it wasn't entirely uncommon for guests to get pictures of "ghosts" or other paranormal type things.  So...I took pictures.  I'll post them here so that you don't have to go to my blog to see them if you don't want too.  But let me preface the photos [as I did in my post] by saying that I do not believe in ghosts.  For me, once you're dead, you're dead; I have to specify that I mean on this Earth, I do believe that your consciousness and even self-awareness lives on in some form.

In my post, I expressed that my opinion is that spectral entities seen by people and interpreted as ghosts are actually inter-dimensional people that can cross into this dimension.  There is a lot more to my theory on this subject, which you can read on my blog post if you want to hear more of my opinions. 

Shades.Of.Consciousness [My Blog]
Inter-dimensional Entities! [The Post For This Topic]

All of that aside, let's get to the exciting part, THE PHOTOS!  I must say, these are two of the best paranormal type photos I've ever gotten [except for maybe a shot I got at a Mayan Fire Ceremony of a field absolutely FULL of orbs, hundreds of them.  And when you zoomed in on some of the bigger ones, you could almost make out figures that looked like sprites or faeries].  The first is what I consider to be a person/being/whatever from another dimension, making an appearance in our dimension.  So, here it is:

I admit that I did adjust the contrast on this photo to make the form stand out a little bit more.  Nevertheless, as soon as I took this picture, me and my fiance immediately saw the light and then the figure.  If you don't see the figure, look in the middle of the picture, directly between and below the windows.  To me, it looks like a head, shoulders and then a torso that fades into a wisp that blows to the left with the light.  I know that there was no light leak in the camera [it was an iphone] because I took tons of pictures and all the rest were fine.  The flash was on, but there was nothing around me to create a reflection of light, nor was there anyone else taking a picture at that time.  So, I don't know, you tell me what you see. 

Now, the second photo is a bit different.  Here it is:

This one is not as explainable by my inter-dimensional person theory.  I think this falls into the category of an energetic imprint.  Some event leaves some imprint in the electromagnetic spectrum and plays out like a movie until the energy dissipates and the "apparition" fades away.  So let me explain what's actually happening in this picture.  I was standing by a brick wall, leaning on the wall for support to get a steady shot.  I wanted to just shoot this mostly empty yard, hoping for some orbs or something.  It may be a little tough to see, but in the center of the picture you can just barely see a white building with some dark rectangles on it, which were windows.  What you can't see is that this building continues all the way to the right out of frame.  But it was dark, foggy and I had the flash on, so it's hard to see the building period because of how far away it was.  All the way to the right you can see a lantern/candle in the far right window.  So here's the paranormal bit.  In real life, there was no light.  None.  There were no lights anywhere in the area of that building.  It was "late" by Colonial Williamsburg standards (about 6pm or so) and so all of the side streets and back buildings were closed down for the night.  The only place to find lights were on the main drag of the town.  This building was about 100 yards down a side street and my shooting was facing away from the main road that still had some street lights.  Both my fiance and her little sister came over and witnessed the area after I showed them the photo because they didn't believe it and they saw the same thing as me, absolutely NO lights in the area.  So there was essentially a "ghost candle" in the window that I can't explain.  I don't know, what do you all think?

Anyway, I just wanted to share these cool shots I got with you guys and see what you thought of them.  If you want to read my full theory on the specter and the energy imprints, along with a few other related topics [like explaining what I mean by "energy" and my description of consciousness as a form of electromagnetic technology that can perceive things our modern instruments can't; provided one's mind is disciplined or in the right state of mind at the right moment].

Shades.Of.Consciousness [My Blog]
Inter-dimensional Entities! [The Post For This Topic]

-PR [sorry for all the shameless blog promotion, but I want you guys to come read it]

This is a comic strip called "Psychonauts"

Psychonauts

For those unfamiliar with the term "psychonaut", these are people who explore the other realm with the assistance of hallucinogens.  Now, we DO NOT promote the use of the substances for OBEs.  The official reason is because this is a global forum and in many countries these substances are illegal.  However, in truth, the biggest problem is that these substances lead to unstable experiences.  You don't gain the control and subsequently the personal growth this way.  It's a short cut and you really can't truly become an OBE master by using short cuts.  The analogy that I have always liked is that becoming a master of OBEs and ultimately yourself is like climbing a mountain.  When you do this through dedicated practice, it takes longer, but you learn the topography of the mountain and carve your own path, which you can follow back down.  The same trip on hallucinogens is like strapping on a jet pack and hoping you hit the mountain, but you can easily overshoot the mountain, and you won't know you way back down.  The trip back down the mountain symbolizes assimilation of the knowledge learned at the top of the mountain. 

So I and the forum itself cannot condone the use of these substances to achieve OBEs and self knowledge.  I might say that were you to partake in a ceremony in the presence of a trained "shaman" or guide that will go on the journey with you and teach you the way back down along the way, that could be acceptable because it's essentially religious in nature which makes it exempt from most laws (like the right to religious freedom in the USA). 

Nevertheless, the comic is neat and explores the other realm from the prospective of the author (who you can follow on twitter @PlaidKlaus) and is worth checking out.

I think it's pretty neat.  You might too.

So, I decided to try projecting today.  (Been in a dry spell due to health related stuff, nothing serious)

I laid down for my normal routine, progressive relaxation, some deep breathing, but then I decided to try something a little different for me.  Normally at this point I would have focused on my body and creating a falling sensation throughout.  But today I decided on a whim to go back to the ol' stare at the blackness technique, only I modified it slightly. 

Instead of waiting for shapes to appear or whatever, I focused intently on my "mind screen" (the place where your third eye is).  Once focused there I remembered an old trick I used to use where I drew energy in through the third eye to intersect at the line between my ears (which is roughly the pineal gland).  But this time I thought back to Robert Bruce's "reaching out for the vibrations" concept.  So what I did was created a vortex of energy going away from my third eye and I visualized it to look something like the wormholes from the stargate series.  the vortex was turbulent looking and so i focused on that turbulence and thought of it as "vibrations" and pulled them toward me or pulled myself toward them.

Within moments of doing this my hands were loose, which never happens to me.  Usually my whole body goes loose all at once.  So I decided the best course of action was to use the rope method at this point and slowly reached up to my imaginary rope, took one tug and my whole body just came loose.  Then I was off.  If you care about the experiences I had (one of which was kind of cool) you can read about it on my journal. 

But the technique itself is the important part.

After my relaxation and deep breathing, i created and outward flowing vortex from my third eye, focused there for a little while and once i felt that i was "trancey" enough, i pulled the vibrations of the vortex toward me and in a matter of minutes I was out of my body.

[We who know understand it to be no facile escapism, but a hard and testing – though infinitely rewarding – struggle toward the truth of what we ourselves are, what our place in the universe is, and what our duties are before God and the rest of creation.]

Our Failure As Guides And Mentors

I am writing this post as an open letter to all long time members, newcomers, lurkers, casual observers and anyone else who happens to stop by to see what Astral Pulse is all about.  I've been a member here for a while, not as long as some, but I've been around long enough for many of you to get to know me.  I've shared my personal problems with you and I've also shared my sometimes harsh opinions as well.  Some members respect me for it, some think I'm a jerk and it's alright either way.

I took a sabbatical from this forum recently, partially because of some personal issues in my life, but mostly because I had lost faith in what I believed were the reasons that this forum existed in the first place.  I fear that the society we have created and helped to evolve over the years is not what it was meant to be and I intend to make my peace by telling you all how I really feel about what it is that we do here. 

I will begin with a quote from a great mystic by the name of Gareth Knight in his foreword for one of my favorite books, "Walkers Between The Worlds" by John and Caitlin Matthews:

"Here is a book that answers a great need of our times – and it answers it very well.
That need is for a rational and informed description of how to apprehend the forces that form the structure of the 'inner worlds,' those hidden forces that underpin and mold the outer world, which we know through our physical senses, for a realization of the need to come to terms with these other dimensions of reality is fast coming upon Western man.

Those who have not yet understood this need are at times dismayed by what they see as a flight from reason.  However, we ought to realize this flight for what it is.  It is not a mindless rout of the irresponsible but the winging pinions of an informed institution no longer content with an intellectual preoccupation with surface appearances.

Others decry what they choose to describe as 'dabbling in the occult,' which they consider either idly foolish or perversely misguided.  While we, too, would not wish to encourage the occult dilettante, those of us who have spent more years in this research than we care to remember feel, with all due humility, that we have gained rather than lost in wisdom and human fulfillment.

There is no shortage among us of able, responsible citizens – even if those less well informed may sometimes grasp incredulously when confronted with our view of the truth.  We who know understand it to be no facile escapism, but a hard and testing – though infinitely rewarding – struggle toward the truth of what we ourselves are, what our place in the universe is, and what our duties are before God and the rest of creation.

...Crises pass, or come to pass.  Man's relationship to eternity lasts forever."

One of the reasons that I stopped contributing to this forum for a while was because of reading that book and a couple of others.  People here just don't get it, they don't understand what Astral Projection really is.  Because of the people that started this forum, I believe that it was given a particular "character" that focuses on the modern day, "mainstream" idea of what Astral Projection is and completely disregards the truth of the practice.  Occasionally someone might mention ancient Egyptians or something, but people don't seem to understand that Astral Projection is as old religion itself.  And by religion I mean the individual's connection with nature, with the whole of reality. 

To me, Astral Projection is the means by which humans reconnect with who and what they are at the deepest level possible.  It was how tribal leaders healed their people, how they maintained the connection with the universe for their people.  It's so much more than just a fun thing to do or a way to "contact your guides" or whatever people choose to do it for.  I'm not saying that their reasons aren't "noble", just that they don't heed the true nature of what they are doing.  I just wish that more people could make the connections to understand how Astral Projection goes by so many different names and has been practiced by so many people for eons.  Instead, they try to take the mystery out of it and make it some scientific endeavor.  I'm not opposed to true science, but what modern humans practice is not true science in a general sense.  They are so desperate to break Projection down to some fundamental parts and they can't see the forest through the trees as it were. 

Granted, I believe this forum is here to serve the newcomer, to help them find direction.  But I feel that as a whole, the forum lacks the true appreciation for what Astral Projection really is and in the end we perpetuate an incomplete notion of the amazing practice to which we have access.  I mean, look at this "Astral Academy" stuff.  Adrian has turned it into a business.  Yes, the forum is free, but to get to the forum you have to first accept the marketing, like this skill is not free.  If we could only share the entirety of what it is we're really doing here, I think so many more people would be successful.

I came back because I felt like I could help people, and I'll continue to do so, but I wish that so much more could be taught.  This is magic and magic is science that we have been conditioned to believe is backwards and superstition.  But in truth, magic is the science of our mind, our soul, our being.  To grasp that and tug on the thread that will unravel the mystery of who and what we are is what I believe to be our true purpose.  And Astral Projection, phasing, pathworking, soul travel, walking between the worlds, dreaming, active imagination, meditation, remote viewing, psychic vision, mediumship, whatever you wanna call it, is the path.  We all must walk it differently, but it is the darkness that validates the light of our waking life.  Darkness has a negative connotation to most people, but not to me.  I love darkness, I love the idea of it, the shadow is where the mystery connects to the glory in of the light. 

I think there is a bigger picture that is neglected and we need to recognize that.

-PR

I wasn't planning to share this here, but you guys always support me so I wanted to let you know a little about something that happened in my life.

I was in a car accident last saturday.  It was my fault, I looked at my cell phone and rear ended someone.  My airbags didn't deploy and I hit my head on the steering wheel and got knocked silly.  In my delirious state the officer decided I must have been on drugs and so he arrested me.  I was too dazed to say anything besides "I don't feel very good".  He ignored me and took my straight to jail where I had to spend the night.  I was charged with DUID (Driving Under the Influence of Drugs), which I wasn't.  Most of you know I have had a drug problem that I've been fighting for a long time, but I really wasn't high. 

It just seems so messed up that when I'm finally getting my life in order, I get slammed with bullcrap like this.  I've got a great attorney and I'm contesting the charge.  There are a lot of details that make this whole case a bunch of crap and my lawyer believes he can get it dropped.

But what really gets me is how I was treated.  I was dizzy, dazed, in shock and ultimately found out I had a concussion (I went to the hospital today and had a CAT Scan).  But instead of offering medical assistance, the officer arrested me.  Then he repeatedly denied me my right to call my attorney.  I wasn't read my rights, I was treated poorly and now I have to deal with all this legal crap.  It just pisses me off that a cop can pretty much do whatever he or she wants.  He wouldn't even allow me to exchange insurance info with the people I hit (the cop was sitting at a gas station next to the stop light so he saw it all happen and was on me before I even got out of my car).

Anyway, I just needed to vent a little.  I went to the hospital today and checked out ok.  I got a concussion, whiplash and plenty of muscle stress in my back and one hell of a sciatica flare up.  But I'm alive and I'll be alright.  Thanks for letting me share.

-PR

I wasn't going to post any of this, because it's already on my journal so it really isn't necessary, but I have a question.

I had 2 projections today, here's what happened:

(sorry for the tl;dr)

  #1 - I rolled out of my body and stood up in my room.  At first movement was very sluggish and I fell a few times before being able to get my bearings.  Saying that I fell is a little misleading because I wasn't really walking at all, I was floating.  So really I was getting flipped around in the air and feeling like I was falling because it felt like gravity was re-orienting itself and I was having trouble adjusting.  After a few moments I oriented myself and walked to my bedroom doorway, from which I could see my dining room and kitchen.  When I looked into these rooms they bother appeared as bedrooms with large beds in them.  Each room had a different color scheme, but they were otherwise fairly similar.  Just a plain room with a big bed in the middle.  The color schemes were a bit odd though.  I'm not entirely clear on them, but the dining room was definitely plaid - wall paper, carpet, and everything on the bed; the color I'm unsure of, but it was a warm color (something in the yellows, greens, oranges, reds, etc.).  The kitchen had a blue decor, but I can't remember the pattern.  I was a little confused at seeing my kitchen and dining room as bedrooms, so I rounded the corner and looked in the living room, and sure enough it was a bedroom too.  The walls were wood grain paneling and the bed was all cream colored, but the front door was still where it always is (unlike the doors that are normally in the other rooms), so I made my way for it.  I jumped through the front door and I was in my driveway, but the barns around my house weren't there.  It was just like a dirt road in the middle of the woods at night.  I could see some stars above me through the trees and began walking.  I took a few steps and then blacked out and was back in my body.

#2 - I woke up and took off my mindfold and looked at the clock, which said 8:38.  I was confused by that because I had set an alarm to go off at 8:00, but with my earplugs in I assumed that I just didn't hear the alarm and it just snoozed itself (which my phone's alarm does if it goes off for a while and you don't turn it off).  So I got up and went to the kitchen.  In the kitchen I saw a pan of cooked chicken tenders on the stove.  That's when I asked myself how I cooked chicken tenders if I started projection practice at 5:00pm and it's now after 8:30pm and no one else was at home.  At first I thought that I had put them in and let them cook while I practiced, but realized that made no sense because they would have been burned up little black charred nothings if they cooked for 3&1/2 hours.  It suddenly occurred to me that I was still projecting or perhaps lucid dreaming since this seemed to be a false awakening and I didn't remember having any of my normal exit sensations.  Then I was back in my body and decided to stop while I could still remember the experiences.

the details are mostly unimportant.  what i want to know is if you guys think the second experience was a lucid dream or a projection.  to me it felt like i just woke up and got up like normal, though the experience seemed a little "fuzzier" than waking reality, I thought I was awake.  i didn't realize it was a false awakening until later.

now i know this is kind of splitting hairs, but i'm curious.  do you think the second experience was an LD or a projection?  I didn't have my normal exit sensation/experience, it just felt like i was coming out of trance and waking up.  But then things went weird and I was back in body waking up again.  i guess it doesn't really matter, but i was wondering what others thought.

The Anomalist is a journal/blog that has been around for years.  If you haven't ever come across it, check it out, it's fun.

There are a couple of free PDFs of their published journals, which are a collection of essays from various authors on various topics.  But you can also buy most of them in paperback or occasionally on kindle at amazon.

In addition to the journals, the site is also a "DAILY REVIEW OF WORLD NEWS ON MAVERICK SCIENCE, UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES, UNORTHODOX THEORIES, STRANGE TALENTS, AND UNEXPECTED DISCOVERIES," as they describe themselves.  So it's a daily blog about the unexplained.  Fun fun.  I've got some of the journals on my kindle and I will say that the essays are extremely varied in content and are just an all around interesting read.

Just thought I'd share.

-PR

Has anyone seen this movie?

It's from like 1988.  It's really interesting.

It's not an OBE movie or anything, it's totally a conspiracy movie that is in line with some of the alternative history theories out there (especially like Tsarion or Bramley, if you don't know them, think David Icke, but not full of bullcrap and disinformation).

If you're into that kind of thing, its a neat movie.

Here's the IMDb about it, its a John Carpenter movie.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/

I stopped my projection practices a while back.  I got kind of bored with AP/OBE practice I guess and just quit.  I'm sure I just got really interested in other things for a while, which is true.  Then other things happened.  But I just started practicing again a few days ago and once I actually put the real effort in today I had my first conscious exit projection in two years.  In fact, I had several.  I made the mistake of continuing to go out once I got pulled back (which is a mistake because it makes remembering the projections a lot more difficult).  I did it probably 5-7 times before I finally "woke up".  About the only part of any of the projections that I can remember is rolling out of my body and standing up by my bed.  Each projection probably lasted about 30 second to a minute, so I know I explored my immediate area some.  I have some still frame like images of the farm around my house, but I don't really remember what I did or where I went beyond that.

In addition, I rarely, if ever remember my dreams in the morning, but during my recent projection practice I've been falling asleep and remembering dreams as well.  I just need to get back into the habit of writing down my dreams and projections as soon as I come back.

Anyway, hopefully the success continues.  It was kind of like riding a bike.  I mean, it took me like 2 years to learn to project in the first place, but it only took me like 3 or 4 days of attempts to have a successful projection this time.  I guess those 2 years were worth the effort because my dream recall, projection success and projection recall are all coming back very quickly and easily.  Now I need to spend more time strengthening my focus and attention so I can hold the projections longer and begin my pathworking again (I've still got an unfinished "mind mirror" kingdom out there that needs to be finished and that requires focus and attention).

PR

[The Nature of Dreams]

This is an excerpt from the book "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.  It's a great book that I highly recommend.  I will preface this by making it clear that this is coming from the perspective of Tibetan Buddhism, so the terminology and perception of the processes and events come from Buddhist teachings.  I'm not to keen on Buddhist teachings myself, however, this author is also pretty westernized and he presents the Buddhist teachings in a way that western occult analogues can easily be identified.  So, I decided to post this excerpt because I think that the points made are very important to the practice of what is referred to as dreaming (but really means conscious or lucid dreaming, as well as astral projection).  I feel that these teachings are often ignored and as a result are the source of failure for many people.  I'm pasting a copy of the first couple chapters that I found to be relevant, as well as a link to a pdf version of those chapters. 

Again I highly recommend this book, it has helped me a lot and I think it brings a new perspective to LD/AP.  I met the author when he did a book signing at the bookstore I used to work at, and he told me that not only do the Tibetan Buddhists see dream as more "real" than waking life, but it only makes sense to live all of your life consciously, not just half of it.

Here is the link to The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep on Amazon, which they carry in both paperback and the kindle version.  It's worth buying, though if you're resourceful enough I'm sure you could find a free copy on the internet.

And here is the link to the PDF version  of the excerpt that I have posted here.

Excerpt from "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep"
By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

PART ONE
The Nature of Dreams

1  Dream and Reality

   All of us dream whether we remember dreaming or not.  We dream as infants and continue dreaming until we die.  Every night we enter and unknown world.  We may seem to be our ordinary selves or someone completely different.  We meet people whom we know or don't know, who are living or dead.  We fly, encounter non-human beings, have blissful experiences, laugh, weep and are terrified, exalted, or transformed.  Yet we generally pay these extraordinary experiences little attention.  Many Westerners who approach the teachings do so with ideas about dream based in psychological theory; subsequently, when they become more interested in using dream in their spiritual life, they usually focus on the content and meaning of dreams.  Rarely is the nature of dreaming itself investigated.  When it is, the investigation leads to the mysterious processes that underlie the whole of our existence, not only our dreaming life. 
   The first step in dream practice is quite simple: one must recognize the great potential that dream holds for the spiritual journey.  Normally the dream is thought to be "unreal," as opposed to "real" waking life.  But there is nothing more real than dream.  This statement only makes sense once it is understood that normal waking life is as unreal as dream, and in exactly the same way.  Then it can be understood that dream yoga applies to all experience, to the dreams of the day as well as the dreams of the night.

2  How Experience Arises

IGNORANCE
   All of our experience, including dream, arises from ignorance.  This is a rather startling statement to make in the West, so first let us understand what is meant by ignorance (ma-rigpa).  The Tibetan tradition distinguishes between two kinds of ignorance: innate ignorance and cultural ignorance.  Innate ignorance is the basis of samsara (continuous cycle of suffering; generally considered the antithesis of Nirvāṇa), and the defining characteristic of ordinary beings.  It is ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of the world, and it results in entanglement with the delusions of the dualistic mind.
   Dualism reifies polarities and dichotomies.  It divides the seamless unity of experience into this and that, right and wrong, you and me.  Based on these conceptual divisions, develop preferences that manifest as grasping and aversion, the habitual responses that make up most of what we identify as ourselves.  We want this, not that; believe in this, not that; respect this and disdain that.  We want pleasure, comfort, wealth, and fame, and try to escape from pain, poverty, shame, and discomfort.  We want these things for ourselves and those we love, and do not care about others.  We want an experience different from the one we are having, or we want to hold on to an experience and avoid the inevitable changes that will lead to its cessation.
   There is a second kind of ignorance that is culturally conditioned.  It comes about as desires and aversions become institutionalized in a culture and codified into value systems.  For example, in India, Hindus believe that it is wrong to eat cows but proper to eat pigs.  Moslems believe that it is appropriate to eat beef but they are prohibited from eating pork.  Tibetans eat both.  Who is right?  The Hindu thinks the Hindus are right, the Moslem thinks the Moslems are right, and the Tibetan thinks the Tibetans are right.  The differing beliefs arise from the biases and beliefs that are part of the culture – not from fundamental wisdom. 
   Another example can be found in the internal conflicts of philosophy.  There are many philosophical systems that are defined by their disagreement with one another on fine points.  Even though the systems themselves are developed with the intention to lead beings to wisdom, they produce ignorance in that their followers cling to a dualistic understanding of reality.  This is unavoidable in any conceptual system because the conceptual mind itself is a manifestation of ignorance.
   Cultural ignorance is developed and preserved in traditions.  It pervades every custom, opinion, set of values, and body of knowledge.  Both individuals and cultures accept these preferences as so fundamental that they are taken to be common sense or divine law.  We grow up attaching ourselves to various beliefs, to a political party, a medical system, a religion, an opinion about how things should be.  We pass through elementary school, high school, and maybe college, and in one sense every diploma is an award for developing a more sophisticated ignorance.  Education reinforces the habit of seeing the world through a certain lens.  We can become an expert in an erroneous view, become very precise in our understanding, and relate to other experts.  This can be the case also in philosophy, in which one learns detailed intellectual systems and develops the mind into a sharp instrument of inquiry.  But until innate ignorance is penetrated, one is merely developing an acquired bias, not fundamental wisdom.
   We become attached to even the smallest things: a particular brand of soap or our hair being cut in a certain fashion.  On a grand scale, we develop religions, political systems, philosophies, psychologies, and sciences.  But no one is born with the belief that it is wrong to eat beef or pork or that one philosophical system is right and the other in error or that this religion is true and that religion is false.  These must be learned.  The allegiance to particular values is the result of cultural ignorance, but the propensity to accept limited views originates in the dualism that is the manifestation of innate ignorance.
   This is not bad.  It is just what is.  Our attachments can lead to war but they also manifest as helpful technologies and different arts that are of great benefit to the world.  As long as we are unenlightened we participate in dualism, and that is all right.  In Tibetan there is a saying, "When in the body of a donkey, enjoy the taste of grass."  In other words, we should appreciate and enjoy this life because it is meaningful and valuable in itself, and because it is the life we are living.
   If we are not careful, the teachings can be used to support our ignorance.  One can say that it is bad for someone to get an advanced degree, or wrong to have dietary restrictions, but this is not the point at all.  Or one might say that ignorance is bad or normal life is only samsaric stupidity.  But ignorance is simply an obscuration of consciousness.  Being attached to it or repelled by it is just the same old game of dualism, played out in the realm of ignorance.  We can see how pervasive it is.  Even the teachings must work with dualism – by encouraging attachment to virtue, for example, and aversion to non-virtue – paradoxically using the dualism of ignorance to overcome ignorance.  How subtle our understanding must become and how easily we can get lost!  This is why practice is necessary, in order to have direct experience rather than just developing another conceptual system to elaborate and defend.  When things are seen from a higher perspective they tend to level out.  From the perspective of non-dual wisdom there is no important and unimportant.

ACTIONS AND RESULTS: KARMA AND KARMIC TRACES
   The culture in which we live conditions us, but we carry the seeds of conditioning with us wherever we go.  Everything that bothers us is actually in our mind.  We blame our unhappiness on the environment, our situation, and believe that if we could change our circumstances we would be happy.  But the situation in which we find ourselves is only the secondary cause of our suffering.  The primary cause is innate ignorance and the resulting desire for things to be other than they are.
   Perhaps we decide to escape the stresses of the city by moving to the ocean or the mountains.  Or we may leave the isolation and difficulties of the country for the excitement of the city.  The change can be nice because the secondary causes are altered and contentment may be found.  But only for a short while.  The root of our discontent moves with us to our new home, and from it grow new dissatisfactions.  Soon we are once again caught up in turmoil of hope and fear.
   Or we may think that if we just had more money, or a better partner, or a better body or job or education, we would be happy.  But we know this is not true.  The rich are not free from suffering, a new partner will dissatisfy us in some way, the body will age, the new job will grow less interesting, and so on.  When we think the solution to our unhappiness can be found in the external, our desires can only be temporarily sated.  Not understanding this, we are tossed this way and that by the winds of desire, ever restless and dissatisfied.  We are governed by our karma and continually plant the seeds of future karmic harvest.  Not only does this mode of action distract us from the spiritual path, but it also prevents us from finding satisfaction and happiness in our daily life.
   As long as we identify with the grasping and aversion of the moving mind, we produce the negative emotions that are born in the gap between what is and what we want.  Actions generated from these emotions, which include nearly all actions taken in our ordinary lives, leave karmic traces.
   Karma means action.  Karmic traces are the results of actions, which remain in the mental consciousness and influence our future.  We can partially understand karmic traces if we think of them as what in the West are called tendencies in the unconscious.  They are inclinations, patterns of internal and external behavior, ingrained reactions, habitual conceptualizations.  They dictate our emotional reactions to situations and our intellectual rigidities.  They create and condition every response we normally have to every element of our experience. 
   This is an example of karmic traces on a gross level, though the same dynamic is at work in even the subtlest and most pervasive levels of experience: A man grows up in a home in which there is a lot of fighting.  Then, perhaps thirty or forty years after leaving home, he is walking down a street and passes a house in which people are arguing with one another.  That night he has a dream in which he is fighting with his wife or partner.  When he wakes in the morning he feels aggrieved and withdrawn.  This is noticed by his partner who reacts to the mood, which further irritates him.
   This sequence of experiences shows us something about karmic traces.  When the man was young, he reacted to the fighting in his home with fear, anger and hurt.  He felt aversion toward the fighting, a normal response, and this aversion left a trace in his mind.  Decades later he passes a house and hears fighting; this is the secondary condition that stimulates the old karmic trace, which manifests in a dream that night.
   In the dream, the man reacts to the dream-partner's provocation with feelings of anger and hurt.  This response is governed by the karmic traces that were collected in his mental consciousness as a child and that have probably been reinforced many times since.  When the dream-partner – who is wholly a projection of the man's mind – provokes him, his reaction is aversion, just as when he was a child.  The aversion that he feels in the dream is the new action that creates a new seed.  When he wakes he is stuck in the negative emotions that are the fruit of prior karmas; he feels estranged and withdrawn from his partner.  To complicate matters further, the partner reacts from her karmically determined habitual tendencies, perhaps becoming short-tempered, withdrawn, apologetic, or subservient, and the man again reacts negatively, sowing yet another karmic seed.
   Any reaction to any situation – external or internal, waking or dreaming – that is rooted in grasping or aversion, leaves a trace in the mind.  As karma dictates reactions, the reactions sow further karmic seeds, which further dictate reactions, and so on.  This is how karma leads to more of itself.  It is the wheel of samsara, the ceaseless cycle of action and reaction.
   Although this example focuses on karma on the psychological level, karma determines every dimension of existence.  It shapes the emotional and mental phenomena in an individual's life as well as the perception and interpretation of existence, the functioning of the body, and the cause and effect dynamism of the external world.  Every aspect of experience, however small or large, is governed by karma.
   The karmic traces let in the mind are like seeds.  And like seeds, they require certain conditions in order to manifest.  Just as a seed needs the right combination of moisture and light and nutrients and temperature in order to sprout and grow, the karmic trace manifests when the right situation is encountered.  The elements of the situation that support the manifestation of the karma are known as the secondary causes and conditions.
   It is helpful to think of karma as the process of cause and effect, because this leads to the recognition that the choices made in responding to any situation, internal or external, have consequences.  Once we really understand that each karmic trace is a seed for further karmically governed action, we can use that understanding to avoid creating negativity in our life, and instead create conditions that will influence our lives in a positive direction.  Or, if we know how, we can allow the emotion to self-liberate as it arises, in which case no new karma is created.

NEGATIVE KARMA
If we react to a situation with negative emotion, the trace left in the mind will eventually ripen and influence a situation in life negatively.  For example, if someone is angry with us and we in turn react with anger, we leave a trace that makes it more likely for us to encounter the secondary situations which allow our habitual anger to arise.  This is easy to see if we have a great deal of anger in our lives or if we know someone who does.  Angry people continually encounter situations that seem to justify their anger, while people with less anger do not.  The external situations may be similar but the different karmic inclinations create different subjective worlds.
   If an emotion is expressed impulsively it can generate strong results and reactions.  Anger can lead to a fight or some other kind of destruction.  People can be harmed physically or emotionally.  This is not true just of anger; if fear is acted out it too can create great stress for the person who suffers it, can alienate that person from others, and so on.  It is not too difficult to see how this leads to negative traces that influence the future negatively.
   If we suppress emotion, there is still a negative trace.  Suppression is a manifestation of aversion.  It occurs through tightening something inside ourselves, putting something behind a door and locking it, forcing part of our experience into the dark where it waits, seemingly hostile, until the appropriate secondary cause calls it out.  This may manifest in many ways.  For example, if we suppress our jealousy of others, it may eventually manifest in an emotional outburst, or it may be present in the harsh judgment of others of whom we are secretly jealous, even if we deny this jealousy to ourselves.  Mental judgment is also an action, based on aversion, that creates negative karmic seeds.

POSITIVE KARMA
   Instead of either of these negative responses – being driven in our behavior by the karmic tendency or suppressing it – we can take a moment to stop and communicate with ourselves and choose to produce the antidote to the negative emotion.  If someone is angry with us and our own anger arises, the antidote is compassion.  Inducing it may feel forced and inauthentic at first, but if we realize that the person irritating us is being pushed around by his own conditioning, and further realize that he is suffering a constriction of consciousness because he is trapped in his own negative karma, we feel some compassion and can start to let go of our negative reactions.  As we do, we begin to shape our future positively. 
   This new response, which is still based on desire – in this case for virtue or peace or spiritual growth – produces a karmic trace that is positive; we have planted the seed of compassion.  The next time we encounter anger we are a little more likely to respond with compassion, which is much more comfortable and spacious than the narrowness of self-protective anger.  In this way, the practice of virtue cumulatively retrains our response to the world and we find ourselves, for instance, encountering less and less anger both internally and externally.  If we continue in this practice, compassion will eventually arise spontaneously and without effort.  Using the understanding of karma, we can retrain our minds to use all experience, even the most private and fleeting daydreams, to support our spiritual practice.

LIBERATING EMOTIONS
   The best response to negative emotion is to allow it to self-liberate by remaining in non-dual awareness, free of grasping and aversion.  If we can do this, the emotion passes through us like a bird flying through space; no trace of its passage remains.  The emotion arises and then spontaneously dissolves into emptiness.
   In this case, the karmic seed is manifesting – as emotion or thought or bodily sensation or an impulse toward particular behaviors – but because we do not respond with grasping or aversion, no seed of future karma is generated.  Every time that envy, for example, is allowed to arise and dissolve in awareness without our becoming caught by it or trying to repress it, the strength of the karmic tendency toward envy weakens.  There is no new action to reinforce it.  Liberating emotion in this way cuts karma at its root.  It is as if we burn the karmic seeds before they have an opportunity to grow into trouble in our life.
   You may ask why it is better to liberate emotion rather than to generate positive karma.  The answer is that all karmic traces act to constrain us, to restrict us to particular identities.  The goal of the path is complete liberation from all conditioning.  This does not mean that, once one is liberated, positive traits such as compassion are not present.  They are.  But when we are no longer driven by karmic tendencies we can see our situation clearly and respond spontaneously and appropriately, rather than being pushed in one direction or pulled in another.  The relative compassion that arises from positive karmic tendencies is very good, but better is the absolute compassion that arises effortlessly and perfectly in the individual liberated from karmic conditioning.  It is more spacious and inclusive, more effective, and free of the delusions of dualism.
   Although allowing emotion to self-liberate is the best response, it is difficult to do before our practice is developed and stable.  But however our practice is now, all of us can determine to stop for a moment when emotion arises, check in with ourselves, and choose to act as skillfully as possible.  We can all learn to blunt the force of impulse, of karmic habits.  We can use a conceptual process, reminding ourselves that the emotion we are experiencing is simply the fruition of previous karmic traces.  Then we may be able to relax our identification with the emotion or point of view, and let go of our defensiveness.  As the knot of emotion loosens, the identity relaxes and grows more spacious.  We can choose a more positive response, planting seeds of positive karma.  Again, it is important to do this without repressing emotion.  We should relax as we generate compassion, no rigidly suppress the anger in our body while trying to think good thoughts.
   The spiritual journey is not meant to benefit only the far future or our next life.  As we practice training ourselves to react more positively to situations, we change our karmic traces and develop qualities that effect positive changes in the lives we are leading right now.  As we see more clearly that every experience, however small and private, has a result, we can use this understanding to change our lives and our dreams.

OBSCURATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
   Karmic traces remain with us as psychic remnants of actions performed with grasping or aversion.  They are obscurations of consciousness stored in the base consciousness of the individual, in the kunzhi namshe.  Although it is spoken of as a container, the kunzhi namshe actually is equivalent to the obscuration of consciousness: when there are no obscurations of consciousness there is no kunzhi namshe.  It is not a thing or a place; it is the dynamic that underlies the organization of dualistic experience.  It is as insubstantial as a collection of habits, and as powerful as the habits that allow language to make sense, forms to resolve into objects, and existence to appear to us as something meaningful that we can navigate and understand.
   The common metaphor for the kunzhi namshe is of a storehouse or repository that cannot be destroyed.  We can think of the kunzhi namshe storing a collection of patterns or schematics.  It is a grammar of experience that is affected to a greater or lesser extent by each action that we take externally or internally, physically or cognitively.  As long as habitual tendencies exist in the mind of the individual, the kunzhi namshe exists.  When one dies and the body deteriorates, the kunzhi namshe does not.  The karmic traces continue in the mental consciousness until they are purified.  When they are completely purified, there is no longer a kunzhi namshe and the individual is a buddha.

KARMIC TRACES AND DREAM
   All samsaric experience is shaped by karmic traces.  Moods, thoughts, emotions, mental images, perceptions, instinctive reactions, "common sense," and even our sense of identity are all governed by the workings of karma.  For example, you may wake up feeling depressed.  You have breakfast, everything seems to be all right, but there is a sense of depression that cannot be accounted for.  We say in this case that some karma is ripening.  The causes and conditions have come together in such a way that the depression manifests.  There may be a hundred reasons for this depression to occur on this particular morning, and it may manifest in a myriad of ways.  It may also manifest during the night as a dream.
   In dream, the karmic traces manifest in consciousness unfettered by the rational mind with which we so often rationalize away a feeling or a fleeting mental image.  We can think of the process like this: during the day the consciousness illuminates the senses and we experience the world, weaving sensory and psychic experiences into the meaningful whole of our life.  At night the consciousness withdraws from the senses and resides in the base.  If we have developed a strong practice of presence with much experience of the empty, luminous nature of mind, then we will be aware of and in this pure lucid awareness.  But for most of us the consciousness illuminates the obscurations, the karmic traces and these manifest as a dream.
   The karmic traces are like photographs that we take of each experience.  Any reaction of grasping or aversion to any experience – to memories, feelings, sense perceptions, or thoughts – is like snapping a photo.  In the darkroom of our sleep we develop the film.  Which images are developed on a particular night will be determined by the secondary conditions recently encountered.  Some images or traces are burned deeply into us by powerful reactions while others, resulting from superficial experiences, leave only a faint residue.  Our consciousness, like the light of a projector, illuminates the traces that have been stimulated and they manifest as the images and experiences of the dream.  We string them together like a film, as this is the way our psyches work to make meaning, resulting in a narrative constructed from conditioned tendencies and habitual identities: the dream.
   The same process continually occurs while we are awake, making us what we commonly think of as "our experience."  The dynamics are easier to understand in dream, because they can be observed free of the limitations of the physical world and the rational consciousness.  During the day, although still engaged in the same dream-making process, we project this inner activity of the mind onto the world and think that our experiences are "real" and external to our own mind.
   In dream yoga, this understanding of karma is used to train the mind to react differently to experience, resulting in new karmic traces from which are generated dreams more conducive to spiritual practice.  It is not about force, about the consciousness acting imperially to oppress the unconscious.  Dream yoga relies instead upon increased awareness and insight to allow us to make positive choices in life.  Understanding the dynamic structure of experience and the consequences of actions leads to the recognition that every experience of any kind is an opportunity for spiritual practice.
   Dream practice also gives us a method of burning the seeds of future karma during the dream.  If we abide in awareness during a dream, we can allow the karmic traces to self-liberate as they arise and they will not continue on to manifest in our life as negative states.  As in waking life, this will only happen if we can remain in the non-dual awareness of rigpa, the clear light of the mind.  If this is not possible for us, we can still develop tendencies to choose spiritually positive behavior even in our dream until we can go beyond preferences and dualism altogether.
   Ultimately, when we purify the obscurations until none remain, there is no film, no hidden karmic influences that color and shape the light of our consciousness.  Because karmic traces are the roots of dreams, when they are entirely exhausted only the pure light of awareness remains: no movie, no story, no dreamer and no dream, only the luminous fundamental nature that is absolute reality.  This is why enlightenment is the end of dreams and is known as "awakening."

...

BLIND HORSE, LAME RIDER
   At night, when we go to sleep, we generally do so with little sense of what is happening.  We just feel tired, shut our eyes, and drift away.  We may have an idea about sleep – blood in the brain, hormones, or something like that – but the actual process of falling asleep remains mysterious and unexplored.
   The Tibetan tradition explains the process of falling asleep using a metaphor for the mind and prana*.  Often prana is compared to a blind horse and the mind to a person unable to walk.  Separately they are helpless, but together they begin to run, generally with little control over where they go.  We know this from our own experience: we can "put" the mind into a chakra by placing our attention there, but it is not easy to keep the mind in any one place.  The mind is always moving our attention, going to this or that.  Normally, in samsaric beings, the horse and rider run blindly through one of the six dimensions of consciousness**, one of the six negative emotional states.
   For example, as we fall asleep, awareness of the sensory world is lost.  The mind is carried here and there on the blind horse of karmic prana until it becomes focused in a particular chakra where it is influenced by a particular dimension of consciousness.  Perhaps you had an argument with your partner and that situation (secondary condition) activates a karmic trace associated with the heart chakra, which pulls your mind to that location in the body.  The subsequent activity of the mind and prana manifests in the particular images and stories of the dream.
   The mind is not driven randomly to one chakra or another, but rather is drawn to the places in the body and the situations in life that need attention and healing.  In the example, it is as if the heart chakra is crying out for help.  The disturbing trace will be healed by manifesting in the dream and thereby being exhausted.  However, unless the manifestation takes place while the dreamer is centered and aware, the reactions to it will be dictated by habitual karmic tendencies and will create more karmic seeds.
   We can think of a computer as an analogy.  The chakras are like different files.  Click on the directory "Prana and Mind," and then open the file of the heart chakra.  The information in the file – the karmic traces associated with the heart chakra – is displayed on the screen of awareness.  This is like the dream manifesting.
   Then perhaps a situation in the dream elicits another response that energizes a different emotion.  The dream now becomes the secondary cause that allows another karmic trace to manifest.  Now the mind travels down to the navel center and enters a different realm of experience.  The character of the dream changes.  You are not jealous anymore; instead you are on a street without signs or somewhere very dark.  You are lost.  You try to go somewhere but you cannot find your way.
   Basically, this is how the content of the dream is shaped.  The mind and prana are drawn to different chakras in the body; affected by the associated karmic traces, experiences of the various dimensions of experience arise in the mind as the character and content of the dream.  We can use this understanding to look at our dreams differently, to notice which emotion and realm is connected to the dream.  It is also helpful to understand that every dream offers us an opportunity for healing and spiritual practice.
   Ultimately, we wish to stabilize the mind and the prana in the central channel rather than allowing the mind to be drawn to a particular chakra.  The central channel is the energetic basis of experiences of rigpa (non-dual awareness), and the practices that we do in dream yoga are meant to bring mind and prana into the central channel.  When this occurs, we remain in clear awareness and strong presence.  To dream in the central channel is to dream free of strong influences from the negative emotions.  It is a balanced situation that allows dreams of knowledge and clarity to manifest.

*(All experience, waking and dreaming, has and energetic basis.  This vital energy is called prana.  The content of dream is formed by the mind, but the basis of the vitality and animation of the dream is the prana.) 

**(According to the teachings, there are six realms [loka] of existence in which all deluded beings exist.  Fundamentally, the realms are six dimensions of consciousness, six dimensions of possible experience.  They manifest in us individually as the six negative emotions: anger, greed, ignorance, jealousy, pride and pleasurable distraction.  The six realms are not, however, only categories of emotional experience but are also actual realms into which beings are born...)

I thought NoY might find this interesting, seeing as how he believes the 2012 olympics to be a giant ritual (to what ends, I won't speculate, I'll let him say what he thinks).  Perhaps others might as well.

Some of you may know that today is the day of the Venus Transit across the sun.  This is a fairly rare event.  I wanna say it happened in the 80's, but before that it was the 1800's and the next time it will happen will be in something like the 2120's.  Point is, it's rare.  It also held great significance to ancient cultures for one reason or another, and has held great importance to modern science for many reasons (one of which was that it allowed us to properly measure the distances of the planets from the sun).  On the east coast of the US, this can be seen from about 6:10 to 9:00 pm, I don't know about the rest of the world.  You do need either special glasses (with filters) or special filters on a telescope to see the transit, or you could burn the retinas out of your skull.  So don't just go looking at the sun.

Anyway, I found it interesting to notice that today is also the day of the queen's diamond jubilee over there in England.  Is there a reason they picked today?  is this event usually on this date or something?  I don't know the details of all that, but it seems rather significant to me that the queen's diamond jubilee happens to fall on the same day as one of the more rare astronomical events that we know of, an event that no one alive today will be alive to see again (unless medical science makes our kids live for hundreds of years).

What do you guys think?  Conspiracy?  Ritual?  Crazy people doing crazy things?  Or just coincidence?

Fun, Fun.

Lol, there's nothing triumphant about it really.

You have all been supportive of me over the years and never judged me for my problems, so I feel that if there is anywhere I can be honest, it's here.  And truthfully, I need to get this out because I've been quite isolated for a long time.

You may have noticed that I haven't been around the pulse in a long time.  Let me fill you in.

As many of you know, I've had a drug problem for years.  I was a heroin addict off and on for the better part of 8 years now.  I got sober 4 years ago.  I was on a medication called suboxone (kind of like methadone) for 2 years at a clinic in Richmond, VA in the states.  I got off the suboxone and was completely sober for a year (well i still smoked pot, but i don't consider pot a drug, though i'm not condoning the use of drugs on this forum at all.  be clear about that please). 

Then I moved back to northern VA where I'm from and things started to go bad.  In June last year I fell while hiking and hurt my back.  I had a slightly herniated disc in my back already, but the fall exacerbated it.  Naturally the hospital put me on pain meds, which I never should have accepted because it just started my hunger for opiates again.  Things were relatively okay for the summer, though my need to use was increasing daily.  In September I hurt my back again lifting something at work and this time it was really bad.  I herniated my L5/S1 disc, which is way down at the bottom, really bad.  It didn't rupture, but it was pushing really hard on my sciatic nerve on my right side.  Subsequently, I lost most of the feeling in my right leg.  I had had to walk with a cane for 6 months.  I started seeing an orthopod and a neurologist.  We tried everything short of surgery, even steroid shots in my back.  None of it worked.  The whole time though, they were all supplying me with tons of pain meds, 90 every 15 days (and i'm talking 8mg dilaudid for breakthrough pain and 30mg oxycodone for the overall pain).  This was bad, because those drugs are highly abused on the street and can be used intravenously, and me being an ex-heroin addict, it was only a short time before i started shooting up my pills.  Soon the pills weren't enough.  I'd go through my script in 4 days and would start going into withdrawals, so I started using heroin again.  I'll spare you the gritty details, but needless to say, it was bad.  Then I had back surgery in February, which thankfully relieved my back pain and brought all the feeling back in my leg.  But, with the blessing of my repaired back, I was still a heroin addict again.  It took it's toll on my life.  I quit my job, my fiance almost left me (we're starting to do better now), my parents nearly disowned me, things were bad.  So i started trying to get clean.  I'd detox for a few days, but the withdrawals would get to be to much and I'd go use.  I did this throughout March and April.  But at the end of March I was hit with a tragedy that helped cause me to spiral into even more ever use than before, my grandfather died very suddenly.  Long story short, he had a mild heart attack last year and it threw a blood clot to his intestines and slowly over the next 8 months his intestines died.  By the time he finally went to the hospital and the doctors opened him up to see what was going on it was too late, his entire bowel was dead and there was nothing they could do.  He died a week later.  It hit me really hard as I was very close to him.  I was the only grandchild that got to see him because I lived nearby and after he found out he was dying he didn't want any of the grandkids to see him like that.  The messed up part was that the last time i saw him, I was on more morphine than him.   A man dying, in horrible pain, on a morphine drip, and i was still higher than him. 

After that I gave up and started using to a degree that would make most junkies blush.  But finally, after some serious personal revelations, I made the decision to quit.  That was 7 days ago.  I'm still in some pain, but I'm nearly through it. 

While it was bad, the experience was necessary.  I wasn't on the pulse because I turned my back on my spirituality in favor of the drugs.  I had decided that I'd rather be high than enlightened, though I deluded myself into believing that by getting high I was getting enlightened.  That's the thing about heroin, there really are spiritual lessons to be learned through it, namely detachment, but the price is just too high.  But, after talking to some friends, Xanth included, I saw a glimmer of my true self and I felt that bliss of self-realization again and decided that that was what I wanted. 

Anyway, I'm coming around now.  My mind is still foggy and I'm not thinking so clearly, I'm out of practice.  So, I may not post a lot, but soon enough I'll be back with my usual nihilistic approach to that which we are all seeking. 

I love you all and can't wait until I'm back in full force.

[you will get sick]

I'm putting this in chat because I'm not recommending that anyone just get nicotine patches to try it out. 

So, i'm trying to quit smoking and my lady has been buying us nicotine patches.  There is a "warning label" (which bothers me that they call it a warning) on the box talking about extremely vivid dreams along with sleep disturbance.  They aren't kidding.

I've even started putting my patches on at night before bed to get the most effect.  I've been having the most vivid and surreal/realistic dreams i've ever had.  more real than even a lucid dream or AP.  it's like dreaming on LSD or tripping on DMT.  what's more is the sleep disturbance bit.  for me at least, i have been waking up like every couple of hours throughout the night.  it might sound like a bad thing, but truthfully it's cool because that means i'm remembering several amazing dreams a night.  unfortunately for me, i've just been too frickin tired to write any of them down as they happen (because i'm also on some medication that makes me really tired) so i don't have a journal of them.  if i can motivate myself to start writing them down i would have at least 4-6+ dreams per night in my journal!

so, firstly, DO NOT BUY NICOTINE PATCHES AND TRY THIS IF YOU DON'T SMOKE.  IT WILL MAKE YOU SICK.  i'm not kidding.  your body isn't used to nicotine in your system and you will get sick (headache, nausea, insomnia, chills, grossness all around).  i'm really serious about that. 

but, if you are a smoker, try buying the 21mg nicotine patch (you can't smoke when you wear it or you will also get sick) and putting it on before bed.  it may prove to be an interesting night.  and hey, since you already bought the patches, why don't you quit smoking too?   

again, if you're not a smoker, DO NOT DO THIS.  but if you are and you wanna quit, this is a really interesting side effect to the nicotine patch.

I don't know if any of you are funny junkers or not, but admin (who normally sucks....he's like one person trying to moderate an entire forum.....lol, jk) gave me a total feel this morning and I want to share.  You may have seen this before, if not, check this out, but watch the movie also.

The Great Dictator

I shed a manly tear this morning, the most manly of tears of course.

oh, the music is that song from inception...hans zimm somebody, it's called time.

Hi all,

Many of you know that I make music, mostly experimental type electronic stuff, often downtempo, chill, hip-hop/r&b/jazzy influenced,etc. (long story short, not electronic music as in dance/club/techno).

Anyway, I'm starting to promote myself a little more.  I'm not really trying to like "make it big" or anything, but I like my music and I like to share it with others.  So I made a facebook for my music the other day and wanted to share the link with you guys.

http://listn.to/MrCosmos

(the music app i use gives me a shorter URL, but it's still facebook)

so come on by, take a listen and become a fan.

you can also hear my music on my soundcloud page at

www.soundcloud.com/mrcosmos

Thank you for indulging my use of the pulse to non AP related activities.   

Firstly, anyone in the central east coast US region, i hope you're ok.

Secondly, I felt my first earthquake today!  it was awesome.  it was apparently a 5.8 and the epicenter was about 40 miles from where I was in Central VA (it was between Charlottesville and Richmond, I am now in Northern VA). 

I was in my work truck at a drive-thru and all of a sudden the truck started rocking really hard and then I realized the cars around me were rocking as well.  Apparently it wasn't as exciting for the people back at my work.  They said stuff fell off the walls and the whole building shook. 

Anyway, I thought it was cool.  To feel the sheer power that the earth is capable of producing. Awesomeness.  Again, I hope everyone in the east is ok and no one got hurt!

Just wanted to say hey and that I'm still here even though I haven't been very active lately.

As some of you know, I recently moved and I just got a new job that is very demanding.

On top of that I am taking some summer classes to finish out my psych degree.

Bottom line.  I have ZERO free time lately.  But I will be back soon and I will let everyone know how my AP/etc. practice is progressing.

I've been doing some interesting hypnagogic stuff that came about because of a prescription that I've been having to take lately.

Anyway, I'll be settled into my new job in about a week or two and then I'll be able to pop back in a little more.  Then once summer classes are over I'll be back regularly.

Best wishes to all,

PR

As per request by Rudolph, a thread dedicated to the exploration of AP as a magical practice.


I'll refer loosely to Arthur C. Clarke, the sci-fi author.

One of his three laws is something to the effect of, any sufficiently advanced technology appears as magic.

That in mind, magic is a scientific/technological understanding of reality and how to manipulate it.  We, as ones who chase the mystery, are indeed aspiring magicians.  we seek to understand reality and how our perception interacts with it.  that's all magic is.  nothing supernatural about it.  it's just a technological understanding that "modern science" is either unaware of, or unable to acknowledge.  we are still systematic in the way we approach this stuff.  and the techniques are repeatable by other people with similar results.  of course, because of the nature of the topic (subjective as it is), the results won't be identical, but results are rarely identical, even in the most well designed experiment.  bottom line, magic is nothing more than an ability to use our will and intention to direct our attention in a manner that shows results in our reality.  astral projection then is the pinnacle because it requires the utmost control of attention in order to completely disassociate from the body and explore the otherworlds.  with proper training, AP is the most effective manner in which to manipulate physical reality.  it is literally a "graphic user interface" for the mind.  go into your mind, move things around, change some, remove others and your physical reality changes, beliefs are altered and reality moves in kind.

If anyone is interested I just finished a new album.

Free Download @ mrcosmos.bandcamp.com

or just listen @ www.soundcloud.com/mrcosmos

Enjoy if you like this sort of music.

Got this link from another forum.  Thought I'd share it since so many of you are obsessed with sleep paralysis.

http://www.esotericonline.net/video/video/show?id=3204576%3AVideo%3A202440&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_video

For real, not even a joke.

http://www.naturalnews.com/032454_zombie_apocalypse_CDC.html

This was a weird experience so I thought I'd share it.

I'll preface by saying that I've been very "loose" today, not all the way in either world.

I went to work to get my paycheck and some boxes and I got a strong energy sensation when I got near my boss' piece of Lapis we keep on the counter (it's probably a foot and a half tall, 6 inches wide and 3 inches deep - it's pretty big).  I stopped and soaked up the feel goods from the lapis and then went on my way.

While I was driving home a song popped up in shuffle on my ipod that i made strong emotional connection to when I was at the beach this summer (Byrdshot & Bye - Dimlite; the connection was made between the beach and the song, ie, the song reminded me of the beach).  A combination of a cool breeze, a sky full of big puffy clouds and this song illicited a very strong emotional reaction in me.  Instantly I was at the beach.  The road I was driving on was exactly the same, and the cars driving around me were the same cars, but the landscape around the highway was suddenly the landscape around the area where we stayed last summer.  I was driving in the middle of the city but I saw the ocean on my right and a small boardwalk on my left, just like the road in front of the beach house we stayed it.  This lasted for nearly a minute.  I couldn't believe it.

A few important things that I want to point out are brought up in this story.

1. EMOTION EMOTION EMOTION!  I've been talking about emotional memory around here for a long time, especially in the context of magic.  This was proof positive of my theories on emotion.  With the right stimuli I was able to phase to the beach with very little effort.  I wasn't trying to phase, but I was trying to really feel the emotion and familiarize myself with it so that I could use it later in ritual because it was such a strong feeling and a feeling of serenity. 

2. The emotional memory was stored in my body more than my mind.  I felt a rush through my body and an intense urge to cry (happy tears).  That is what needs to be recalled, not necessarily the images that my mind associates with the feeling, but the physical sensation itself; that was what I was trying to enhance and remember.

3.  When you put all this together, there is a very good phasing technique hiding right in front of us.  If you combine a very emotional event (like my beach trip - which was a very joyful feeling, the ocean holds much power and i can always feel it.  the beach wakes up my subtle self and makes it stand at attention) with good control of the emotion in the body, it is only a matter of filling your mind with the sensation.  When I tried to enhance the emotion to make it more tangible and thus more memorable for use in later ritual, I actually identified with it so much that i went there.  That reality became my reality.

I don't recommend trying this while driving.  I was pulled back because I got scared when I finally let go of the beach emotion and felt the fear of the fact that I was seeing a different place than where I was driving.  Nevertheless, this was a valuable experience chock full of lessons to be learned.

I've been in a dry spell with AP for a little more than a year now.  This is purely because I haven't been trying.  My personal path required something different for a bit, so I've been pursuing the path of gnosis lately (wisdom).  Recently I have started to look at AP from a different perspective than what is commonly taught here and in the mainstream. 

I felt that in the past AP was my goal (naturally I wanted to explore and what not, but AP was the end, not the means).  From my new perspective I have found that AP is just a tool, along with many other tools, to find the wisdom that I seek.  Beyond traditional OBE, I've also found that there are many varying degrees of otherworldly experience that are just as valid as AP.  A good example would be visualization meditations or shamanic journeying.  These are "imagination based" journeys in which you don't have to completely disconnect from your physical body.  The feeling isn't the same, but the wisdom gleaned is just as valuable.  In fact, while I haven't been projecting in over a year, I do pathworking on a near daily basis, which basically allows me to assume the role of a mythological character.  This is a common initiation experience for occult initiates. 

What I have found is that personal work must be done before complex skills such as AP are undertaken.  You can achieve AP anytime, as I have.  But the experience will not be stable or as valuable if you have a lot of personal emotional turmoil that has yet to be handled.  If you are unstable in your daily life in the mundane world, how can you expect to keep a cool head in a place where your slightest whim can manifest right before your eyes. 

Long story short, I am starting to understand that AP is not just a fun exploration experience, nor is it just a spiritual growth experience.  Walking between the worlds is part of a divine interchange between the mundane and the spiritual.  Both sides enhance eachother, and when one side is weak, so it the other.  I feel that this new path creates a better equipped projector, one who has the control that they need to really grow from otherworldly experience.  I highly recommend that anyone who wants a little more than just being able to project, or who is having difficulty projecting, so instead try to start at the beginning rather than jumping into the advanced stuff straight away.  Read some occult books, study some mystery schools and some shamanism.  All of these things are ripe with journeys to the otherworlds and you'd be surprised how much out there really is Astral Projection by a different name.  Don't be afraid to cast your net out a little further.  Nothing out there will hurt you, you won't get sucked into some black magic cult, you will honestly be better for the experience.  So, in summary, try something new.  It helps.

I haven't even finished this book yet, so this isn't a review necessarily.  However, I was talking to a friend of mine who has been a Wiccan Priest since the 60's and was instrumental in starting the Christo-Pagan movement in the late 80's - early 90's (he wrote a book that became something of a cult classic and now sells on ebay and amazon for as much as $200 - good book), and he told me that this book was required reading in a lot of the covens he met over the years, as well as many occult groups. 

Originally this book was published in 1985 and 1986 as two books, "The Native Tradition" and "The Hermetic Tradition" respectively.  Now they have been combined in one book called "Walkers Between The Worlds".  If you are interested in OBE/Astral Projection/Phasing or just general knowledge and experience of the otherworlds, then you HAVE to read this book.  I have read a lot of books on this topic.  Unlike many of the modern students however, I ventured out past the so-called "new age" realm of AP studies and have also studied AP from numerous traditions around the world (occult, shamanism, psychology, pagan, etc.).  Branching out like that has given me such a large perspective on what AP is and the variations practiced by people since the beginning of human civilization and earlier.  With that in mind, this book is a must read.  It provides a fantastic explanation of what travel to the otherworlds is all about, especially in relative to the processes that are taking place.  On nearly every page in this book I encounter a statement that is just beyond profound and such a beautifully succinct way of answering questions common to between world travel. 

I will warn you, those who are overly sensitive to religious material approach this book with an open mind.  The authors describe the experience of between world travels from the perspective of the celtic and norse traditions because that's what they know.  However, they clearly state that any tradition can be used and even spend time getting the reader to think about their own ancestral and current traditions (where your people are from and where you are from respectively).  But more importantly they stress that you need to find/create your own metaphor for these experiences, your own paradigm to lay over the fundamental traditions.  This brings an interesting point to light.  Many people in modern AP are trying to do the exact opposite.  They are trying to remove all tradition from the practice and make it a benign, neutral and mechanistic process.  The authors of this book oppose such a view and they provide ample explanation.  The language of the otherworlds is myth, metaphor and symbolism, so it would make sense to practice in that same language.

When I compare the teachings presented in this book it makes one thing glaringly obvious.  Modern AP techniques are essentially a short circuit of the process, cheating basically.  Phasing is excluded in this statement because phasing involves training and mental tempering, which is basically one of the main skills taught in this book (indirectly).  Modern OBE technique bypasses the discipline in favor of a quick fix by teaching people to catch themselves before sleep in order to experience the other worlds.  The more I've learned, the less safe I feel this method is.  Traditional OBE techniques throw you out of your body with no personal preparation which forces many people into hellish realms (manifestations of their own inner turmoil).

One more thing, for those of you seeking a modern OBE interpretation and technique, this book is not for you.  In this book you will find a very serious (but light-hearted)  guide to the otherworlds and the people who walk between them.  There are over 20 practical exercises and if you stick to it you will learn to AP by reading this book.  But more than that, you will be reconnected with the old religion that first began journeys between worlds.  You will be taken through a progressive journey that starts with visualization journeys and that eventually progress into full phasing experiences.  More than that, following the practices in this book will provide what many of you seek, a spiritual experience in the otherworlds.  There have always been posts on this forum to the effect of "how can i have more spiritual experiences OOB?", and this book provides you with that.  You will learn what your personal myth is, your life's narrative and the themes of your life.  You will meet guides, gather your seal/totem that will be your passport between worlds, meet ancestral energies, and whatever else you want to do.  Bottom line, if you are really serious about AP being your chosen spiritual path, then this book is for you.  If you can look past the Celtic/British Paganism, there are jewels here that are invaluable and in my opinion, this book should be required reading for any serious AP student.

http://www.projectworldawareness.com/2010/10/terrifying-scientific-discovery-strange-emissions-by-sun-are-suddenly-mutating-matter/

for the 2012ers out there.

Just finished up my latest EP.  You can download it for free (or buy it for whatever amount you choose) on my bandcamp.

mrcosmos.bandcamp.com

The new EP is called "Here-Now".

There are 200 free downloads on my bandcamp, if they run out i will post a link to a megaupload so you can still get a free copy if you want.

You can also keep up with any new tracks I produce at my soundcloud.

www.soundcloud.com/mrcosmos

oh yea, everyone's favorite moderator (stookie) produced the music for one of my tracks ("The Day of The Sun").

Ryan or Stookie, feel free to move this if you feel it needs to be moved, but I think it's ok here.

I haven't been as active on the pulse lately as i have been in the past, i recognize that.  But recently, I started posting more again and I have been shocked by something that has happened quite a few times recently.  I'm not going to share any names, but since I've been back posting, I've gotten numerous PM's from new members who feel completely turned off to the forums.  Something about my posts makes them feel more comfortable with talking to me and nearly every one of them starts out by saying that they feel uncomfortable posting on the forum because they just get bashed and looked down on.  A few of them have even told me that they will not be posting on the forums anymore.

So, take it easy guys.  Not everyone is as well-studied as many of us, but that doesn't make their experiences any less valid.  In fact, I think these members that are untarnished by the rigid systems of belief concerning OBE can probably teach us a thing or two.  If you take anything away from this post, let it be that we are here to help each other, not lock into a belief and proselytize the rest of the form.  Be open minded and accept that different people experience reality in different ways.  Let go of semantics and share in the wonder and mystery of this experience.  We are supposed to be "better than" the religious types who blindly preach their doctrine, yet I see it happening over and over.  By all means, share your experience, but don't tell other people that they are wrong for asking a question.  If you can answer the question from your perspective do so, but don't let it turn into "I'm right and you're wrong" because no you're not and no they aren't.   

Just wanted to say,
Happy Dr. Who Day!

["CYDONIA"]

This is a track I just wrapped up called Cydonia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJ3UwDki-0

I am posting the lyrics and the story that the song is telling.  It was a lot of fun coming up with this story and I really like it.

"CYDONIA"

flying over your salted plains
flying over your salted plains
your salted plains

[never before had so many people been attuned to one event at one time]

on my own
on my own

travelling over your windswept plains
looking for another brother under the cover
with a sweet smile gleaming and i wanna discover
another underground town looking for
subtle wonders on your salted plains
pining for your better days
spyin on your hidden ways

on my own

shutter bug, artifical fuzz on the compound
physical anomalies abound in the down town
eons are bound to the sound of the naysay
vacate once they've had their way

space station alpha, do you copy?
they told me i'd be on my own
so why am i not alone?

END TRANSMISSION.

Ok, so this story is about the first manned mission to Mars (thus the title, Cydonia).  The crew is in orbit around Mars and one astronaut goes out on a solo mission to set the "anchor" for a space elevator type device to send the equipment down to the surface.

This is where the song starts, with our solo astronaut flying over Mars in his lander.  What we don't know is that while our astronaut is flying over the surface he sees artificial structures all over the so-called "salted earth" of Mars (so he sings to himself to try and convince himself that Mars really is dead).  Then the isolation hits him, he suddenly realizes how far from Earth and any kind of rescue that he is.  That, combined with the cabin fever from the trip there  and the artificial structures he sees is beginning to drive him insane.  His muscle memory takes control of the lander and his mind spins off into oblivion just as he passes to the far side of Mars and out of communication range.  At this point he is singing to himself "On my own", in an effort to reassure himself that everything humans have learned about Mars says it's a dead planet and he is definitely alone.  But the reassurance only lasts a moment because that also reminds him of how isolated he is from humanity.  Now that he is out of communication with his crew his psyche is literally being torn apart by what he is experiencing.  Suddenly a transmission comes over his radio.  Which is obviously impossible since he's out of communications range.......

This is where the Martian starts rapping.  He is taunting the astronaut because he knows how unstable a human mind can be when subjected to the stress of space travel and the revelation that there is life on other planets in our solar system.  The Martian is essentially telling him that his people always knew that the martians were there and kept it a secret from him.  They sent him out of sheer curiosity, to see what the Martians would do.  He is expendable.

For a moment our astronaut regains his awareness, he returns to the reality of where he is and what is happening right now.  He makes a desperate plea to his crew to tell him why he's not alone when they told him he would be.

The transmission ends.  All that was recovered was this recording that had been relayed from somewhere on Mars to Space Station Alpha (the orbiting space station with the rest of our astronaut's crew).

The End.

I haven't watched this yet, but the astrologer that I work with (who's really into conspiracy research and new age stuff) told me I should watch it.  I'm actually kind of excited to see it.  If you haven't already heard about it or watched it, it's supposedly about a guy who is a part of something called "The 33" which is like the elite elite group, the heads of each compartment of the "illuminati" pyramid.  Anyway, the guy apparently was assigned to shut down the Project Avalon and Project Camelot shows and had some change of heart?  I don't know, something to that effect.  Or maybe he's like dying of a terminal disease or something. 

Whatever the background is, I thought it sounded neat, at the very least it may be fun to hear.  I don't know what kind of authenticity we're looking at here, the guy could be totally full of it, I don't know.  I know some of you aren't down with this kind of stuff, so lay into it with your criticisms.  I'm much too easily overwhelmed by fantastic novelty, so I'm not the best person to gauge how legit this sounds.  Lemme know what you all think.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?10870-Bill-Ryans-50-minute-video-commentary-on-the-Charles-interview-9-1-11&s=cbcdd665efbf4f0faa14a4d95db67272

I just wanted to share my music with you all. 

http://soundcloud.com/cosmic-hart
http://cosmichart.blogspot.com/

Some of you may have heard most of the songs that are up right now, but I have recently started producing again, so new songs will be up soon. 

There is one new song posted on my blog but it's not on my soundcloud.  I need to edit a few things in it, but you're more than welcome to check it out anyway.  When it's done it will be on my soundcloud. 

I just ordered this book on my kindle.  I'm still working on another book, so i probably won't read this for another week or so.  But I wanted to share it because it seems like a neat and novel approach to AP.  As far as I can tell it focuses not on persistent meditative practice, but rather letting crystals do the hard work.  As many here know, I'm a big fan of crystals.  So after I read this and try it out I'll let you know how it is.  In the meantime, feel free to check it out and see if it's worth it.  If you have a kindle it's only like $2.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Magick-Crystals-Mastering-Projection-ebook/dp/B002YNSBZ2/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_2

Has anyone seen this movie?  It's called Frenemy in the US but it seems to have been called "Little Fish, Strange Pond" elsewhere in the world.

Let me preface by saying, I'm a HUGE Zach Galifianakis fan and have been for many years (long before the hangover - his stand-up is brilliant).  So when I saw the cover of this movie,

I thought, "This should be good, an unknown Zach film, it must be a hilarious indie film".  I was very very very wrong in that assumption, it was nothing like what I expected.  If you watch it, you'll understand why the cover of this film is so misleading.  Nevertheless, it was actually a really good (albeit very strange) movie.  Firstly, if you wanna see it for Zach, don't.  He's not a main character (per se) and he's only in one scene (though it is a long scene).

All of that aside, it was actually a really good movie reminiscent of "Coffee & Cigarettes" or "Waking Life" in that most of the movie is two guys talking about the implications of morality and divine will.  But don't let that comparison give you the warm fuzzies, because the movie also has a "Fight Club" & "Seven"  kind of atmosphere.  You really don't know what's happening right up until the end and the best you can really gather is that this movie is about two really crazy people.  To be quite honest, after I finished watching it, the only thought I had was, "man....that was an effed up movie".  It was brilliant though.  The moralistic message felt pretty simplistic, but in a good way.  If you haven't seen this movie, I definitely recommend checking it out, but don't be surprised if you don't get what the cover made you expect.  And don't watch it with children. 

We've had this talk before, but I just found this video and it disgusted me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnsNgOuTazM&feature=player_embedded#!

Hey all.

I hope everyone had a good christmas (or equivalent winter celebration).

I had a relatively good christmas, but some things weren't so great.  Some things happened with my fiancee's family that made me feel really unwelcome and unloved.  I've been with her for 6 1/2 years, engaged for 2 and I really believed that I was a part of the family.  In fact, I have been told numerous times that I was considered part of the family by many of the family members.  But this holiday did not reinforce that sentiment.  I'm not really gonna go into it all, but the end result was me feeling like I wasn't a part of the family.  And it wasn't anything like someone saying "well you're not part of the family", it was worse than that.  It was the subtle, unspoken behavior that really hurts people deep down that i experienced today, those unconscious actions that let you know how people really feel.  And as contented and accepting and open as I normally am, this was apparently too much even for me.  I usually don't take offense about anything.  I mean, what's the point.  Usually you're the only one who suffers when you let yourself feel offended by something.  But today, I was genuinely hurt.  Like deep down in my heart hurt.  I actually cried today, something I haven't done from hurt feelings in a long time.  I really haven't felt hurt like this in a long time. 

I'm not wallowing in it, I'm not getting angry about it, I'm not holding a grudge.  But it still hurts.  I really care about these people and love them like they were my own and that feeling wasn't reciprocated when i thought it would be. 

anyway, i just needed to share my day with someone who isn't involved and even though i don't know any of you in person, i feel like you guys are always supportive of me and all the other members of the pulse.  so, thanks for letting me share.

http://www.wimp.com/cleandesk/

This is actually pretty similar to some articles I've written here on the pulse about AP/OBE and magikal practice.

There's a really good article in the new issue of Atlantis Rising about knowledge filters in the world of science and how politics and money dictate what scientific knowledge is accepted and what is swept under the rug.  The more you look into this stuff (in books like the Forbidden History, Archeology, Religion, etc.) the more astonishing it is.  You really would like to think that all scientific discoveries are accepted and further investigated but that's just not the way things go.  Pretty much all of the main tenets of modern accepted science have been proven wrong by countless discoveries and ridiculous amounts of scientifically legitimate research, but none of this stuff ever sees the light of day.  Various reasons, but it all comes down to the discoveries not supporting what's in the best interest of the status quo and the political/economic elite.  It's pretty sad and pathetic if you ask me.  One example that I thought was really neat was the creation of the first practical steam engine by a guy named "hero of Alexandria" (circa first century AD).  He was stopped in his tracks by the elite because at the time, all manual labor was done by slaves.  If mechanical devices made slaves obsolete, what would the slaves do?  Possibly rebel and topple the regime in power at the time.  Imagine what our world would be like if the steam engine had been invented and put into application nearly 2000 years ago, 2000 years before it's supposed discovery!  What a different timeline we would have!

Anyway, I can't find a free version of this article yet (since it's so new) but you can buy a PDF of this issue for less that $3 i think at

http://www.atlantisrising.com/index.shtml

It's worth checking out.

I've also been reading these 'Forbidden' books and they are really quite good, especially "Forbidden Archeology" by Michael A Cremo and Richard L. Thompson.