Messages

Frank: You have identified her correctly! She was married to the ginger moron, but that is now over!

Doug

Last night I was enjoying the audio delights of listening to music while in the 'Focus 12' state; that state of 3d blackness some people are familiar with. Not everyone knows about the properties of the 3d blackness state so i thought I would point out that you don't just have to float in a peaceful black abyss, although that is also nice sometimes.

Next time, just imagine a nice piece of music... absolutely anything you want, classical music or whatever. You will notice that very quickly it goes from just a thought to a reality! You will start to hear it all around you.. focus more and the music increases in quality and clarity until it is booming all around you in glorious dolby 50000000000000000.1 surround sound... forget your hi-fi.. in fact forget even the Albert Hall.. here music sounds even better than its does rendered in the physical world, don't ask me how I can tell, just experience it for yourself.
As i said, it doesnt just have to be classical music either.. the duke box is only as large as your imagination! Last night I thought of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.... Now THAT was something worth hearing!

This time I modified it with a visual. I tried to imagine somewhere where this music might come from and an 'astral window' appeared in front of me that seemed to show some kind of bar/club area with a band on stage, I was viewing from the vantage point of the audiance but I wasnt actually 'in ' the scene, ie i hadnt actually 'phased' into it.. i was just observing from the window of my Focus 12 state. Event so the quality of the image never fails to amaze me.. forget your plasma screen tvs too. This has led me to come up with another idea.. if you can remember your favourite film well enough then you can play it in this state and enjoy it with audio and picture quality even better than the original picture! I might try that... also eventialy I might think what the hell and jump into the scene and take part myself!

Ok some might accuses me of mundane use of the greater reality.. but as well as exploring it on a wider level, I don't see any harm in a bit of useless fun now and again..  thats right.. fun... its not illegal you know!

Doug  

Darkquest_
Your description of what Monroe says in his book is a gross distortion. You should go back and read it again. nobody is 'banished' to 'demonic' realms. People make their own heavens and hells, both of which are false, made from their own religous beliefs or as a result of their characters, as 'like attracts like'. Eventially they 'rise above it' as it were and leave, although this can take a long time, depending on the individual. You are reinterpreting his work to fit in with your christian model of 'divine judgement', which means a gross distortion of his model.

However I DO agree with you that the Christian model shares similarities if only slighty, and it can be moulded to fit, but thats the problem with religions, they contain the essense of the reality but are covered over wth layers and layers of crud which causes all kinds of distortions.

Also, you don't have to wait 'until death'. You can do your best to become great at 'projecting' and find out for yourself now! not just sit back and believe what me or others have to say.. you can find out for yourself.. This is the problem with religions, they want you to learn the creed but not to go and find out yourself. This results in people spouting off about heaven hell et etc who have absolutely no experience of the wider reality.. over time these teachings are distorted more and more until they only contain a distorted vision of the reality.

Doug

That may account for some if not most of these accounts.
However there are others in which the craft has been photographed and/or registered on Radar. So i have another theory for these cases.
i actually don't buy the idea that they are aliens in the ET sense, but I do think its possible that they may be people from an alternative universe, perhaps a parallel one, of which there may be an insane amount. In some of these universes, people might have found a means of traveling between universes, perhaps using some kind of machine. This is what some of these ufos are. In which case isnt it natural that they might want to check out some of the inhabitants here?

Doug

I agree with you ,but the idea of 'just using 'he' as a convention but not thinking of him as 'he'  doesnt, in my view, actually work, as your everyday conception of god, providing you dont stop to think about it to much, is going to be male. I actually think that those who say they dont conceive of god as male most of the time are deceiving themselves. I think from a psychological view its pretty much impossible not to. Sure you can say that god isnt male, and this is fine in theory but what about the reality.

As for Hinduism and other forms of faith, I WOULD classify them as religions, but religions that place a high emphases on philosophy. But thats my view. I dont view religion as being only a faith system which believes in one monotheistic creator. Go to India. There you wil find that there is FAR more to hinduism than mere 'philosophies'. It is very much a full on religion, with many different aspects, not just the philosophic aspect that westerners think they are familiar with. In fact religion plays far higher a factor in peoples lives than in the west; it permeates everything. In fact to even make a distinction between everyday life and religious lfe is mistaken, they are one and the same over there.

Basically all major religions worship the same God, they just bicker about the small stuff.

the problem here is that this comes across as a bit monotheistic-centric view. in that you are really only refering to the three middle-eastern originated monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are all variations of each other.

however these do not represent all the worlds faiths. What about Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Sikhism, Taosim, Shintoism, never mind all the smaller faith froups like natve american, neo-pagans etc.

Although you are right *from an outside objective viewpoint*  in that all the three varients of the monotheistic faiths worship and recognise the same god,
however the woshippers of these three varients of monotheism do not really recognise the validity of each others religious practice, and in many cases even view the other's god as 'not their god'.

eg all accept the 'God' figure but many disagree about his characteristics. and Judaism does not accept jesus as son of /part of god, and christianity thinks judaism should convert to the 'updated' version. Actually islam is the most inclusive believe it or not, as it accepts the validity of both judaism and christianity (apart from the divinity of jesus), although naturally it believes that it is the latest version and therefore the correct one and encourages everyone to convert to itself.

Also although the monotheistic version of god is meant to be non-gender specific (or is that a pc name for a transvestite!) and to be non culture specific, in reality it is quite clear that perceptions of god are very much based on cultural perceptions. The islamic conception of god is very eastern, very arabic. christianity and esp. jesus is so blue eyed and aryan its unbelievable how he is portrayed in some churches. As for the genderless concept, although god is 'in theory' genderless, in reality this is completely untrue. There is absolutely no doubt about it, god is conceived of as being male, even if you dont realise your doing it most of the time.

Try it yourself, how long will it be before you say 'he' or 'him' when refering to god. now you can say this is just convention, i have heard this excuse before, but its far more than that in reality, the use of 'he' and him' psychologically means non other than your inbuilt conception of god is male. For example, just try using the female terminology instead, your mind doesnt like it, even although its the same difference, but you are just trained to conceive of god as male. The islamic god is perhaps the most male of them all. i dont think it is possible after all this time to ever drop the 'maleness' of the term 'god'; its been ingrained for far too long. You will notice many believers who will deny the 'maleness' of god, but this is due to the fact that they are SO used to thinking of god this way, they cant even see it!
It is no suprise that there is such a rise in neo-paganism, wicca and interest in hinduism and so on, as many people now, especially women, just dont connect with this male-centred view of divinity; they see this skewed vision, to the bewilderment of the devout who do not appear to understand what the fuss is about. However, once you become aware of this maleness, it is very difficult to see past it, and you do wish for a more gender balanced version that actually appeals to women directly, as well as men.


Doug

I'm not an expert on the mystery traditions, but i do know that the Jews received the origins of their mystery traditions from their exile in Babylon in the 6th century bc, a most productive period actually, as it was here that the jews came into contact with the Chaldean Magi and the Babylonian preisthood and there was a lot of dialogue and exchange of ideas. After the Persian conquest the jews were allowed back (although many decided to remain in Babylon) and they took these mysteries back with them to Judea.. these ideas were further developed over the centuries developing into a fully fledged jewish mystical tradition.. the zohar. The Kaballah is part of this. So it has its roots going back to Babylon yes, but the jews developed this and after a few centuries it became a distinctive system in its own right.

I mention the stay in Babylon being productive, because it was here, with the jews exposure to the Babylonian priesthood and the chaldean Magi, that the jews took up the idea of fomulating a hereditary priesthood, like they had seen in Babylon. Before this they had none.

It was also in Babylon that the jews were first exposed to the Zoroastian concept of judgement and an afterlife of heaven (Pardes) or hell.
Before this, jews only had a vague notion of afterlife that was not based on judgement in any form. All souls went to 'Sheol' a vague afterlife location that was little different from the 'Hades' model followed by most cultures of the time.
It was also from Zoroastianism that the concept of  'Religious Duelism' forst entered Jewish thought, that the world was a battleground of opposite forces of light and dark. Before this there was no  never-ending battle between supernatural forces of good and evil, rather Yaweh was good and evil actions were down to men. The concept of this supernatural evil was developed and allowed the jews to explain  later misfortunes and this development also paved the way for the concept of Messiahs and such like.

The Babylonian impact on judaism should not be underestimated in the formulation of late judaism, esp. seeing the role this would play in later christianity and of course islam.

Doug

PS I see where you get the Egyptian connection from. This is due to later mystery traditions, many of which are based on Hermeticism, which developed from the 3rd century bc  and reached its height around the 2nd century ad. This was made use of various earlier traditions, including jewish mystical traditions.. There was probably a fair amount of mutual development with ideas passing between Hellenised egyptian mysteries and jewish ones.

There're enough false notions on this board already (it's the same with any other forum community involving religion/new age).


True, but there's plenty of crazed and frankly obnoxious notions that frequently appear on mainstream religious forums. It a discussion board and therfore will contain a wide range of views from a great many people, some reasonable, some wild. That's not 'new age' thats human. Also I would be careful with blatant stereotyping of the term 'new age'. You will find plenty people here who most certainly do not feel themselves to come under the term 'new age', if by that you refer to the 'fluffy bunny, peace and love' brigade. Some of the people here are very serious indeed and have no time for lecturing from people who come here with stereotyped notions.

Well, yes but it does imply a common cultural origin as well so that many 'semitic' peoples, like Arabs, jews 'phonecians' and so on share a similar history and cultural heritage, allthough i agree with you technically!

For this reason I find the term 'anti-semitic' to be a bit inexact, because Arabs are also classed as 'semitic' as well as jews. And both these groups share a common heritage in that they both conquered the older Sumerian kingdoms and adopted many of their cultural traits from them over the course of the 2nd millenium bc.

Doug

Quite right. Members are reminded to adhere to a decent standard of courtesy when posting to the boards; its not that difficult to be polite, even when you disagree with someone.

Doug

But like I was saying you can have it both ways. The believers can view the OT as god's rendition of these ancient events as *they really occured* so there's no problem. They view the older myths as a distorted version which god has straightened out for people to read.. so there's no problem.
As for the rest of us who obviously don't believe that, we can see through the later hebrew reinterpretation/additions and enjoy the ancient mesopotanian stories in all their glory.

Remember that the semitic peoples, of which the hebrews were but one tribe, along with arabs and others people under the 'semitic' grouping, they conqured the older sumerian civilisation over the course of the 2nd millenium bc and inherited many of the mesopotamian traditions and culture.. civilising them to a great extent. the Hebrews, among other peoples, later incorporated many of the ancient myths into their own culture.. which was later preserved in the OT.

The jewish compilers have still done us a great service by preserving these old myths and it doesnt take much work to seperate the hebrew alterations out from the older stories underneath. In many cases you can simply transplant 'God' for 'the gods' for example, some sections really are that similar. Without the OT our other sources are very limited, the epic of Gilgamesh is our only other big source for mesopotamian myths. so armed with a critical eye for the OT and the epic of gilgamesh you have a very good resource for the creation myths and epic tales of ancient Mesopotamia and its peoples.

Doug

i already mentioned Ishtar, as well as Eostre, the anglo-saxon goddess of spring and fertility, as I have just being saying Tyciol. Do you not read other's posts?

Doug

I tried reading it but fell asleep half way through... what a load of twoddle!

Doug

Ok it comes down to the final point: get a sense of humour people!

If you dont have a sense of humour or are so dogmatic that you find a simple joke offensive then by all means don't look at it. The rest of us can have a laugh!

End of discussion!

Doug

I understand the humour people may find in it but if someone truly understands what Jesus did (it's not as simple as giving his life, as the son of god, for all our sins) there is no way they could busrt out laughing.

Well, the thing is, jesus and what  'he did for us' means different things to different people. As example, you assume that the 'dying for our sins' is the only interpretation for christs sacrifice in the biblical story and take it for granted (I take it you mean by that phrase the concept that christ took our sins upon himself and atoned for them, thus saving us). Actually, sacrificial atonement is NOT accepted by all liberal christians today and there are other possible interpretations for the message behind christs dying on the cross. try this: 'eg he knew he would be executed but came down to earth anyway to show by example of his own sacrifice what can happen through violence, hatred and lack of understanding, that is: 'look what happened when i (god) came among you.. you killed me... think about what hatred and intolorance will make you do to each other'.

i have never accepted the sacrificial atonement idea as although it makes you feel for jesus, it certainly doesnt make you like god very much. Look at Mel gibson's movie for example. it makes you feel for jesus but the whole idea of taking all that punishment for sin... like god was insistant on it... even if he redirected it at himself via his own son, makes god out to be a savage. For this reason , i do not accept the atonement interpretation given in the bible. Unfortunatly, literal conservative christians have no way of seeing it any other way, as they believe every word is written in stone as the word of god, allowing no other interpretation, which is sad imo.

Anyway.... now im way off, but the point is jesus means different things to different people, and I respect your view on it, but you have to allow other people theirs.. and adopting a stance of humour sometimes is not wrong nor is it evidence of 'ignorance' as has been said earlier.

Doug

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy chocolate-egg munching Easter!

Have a great weekend!  

For those interested in the pagan origins of Easter (the anglo-saxon goddess 'Eostre'), then check my post in the World Religions section:
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18171

Regards,
Doug

Yes, people shouldnt be offended so easily! I'm sure jesus doesnt mind, does he have no sense of humour?  

As for 'making fun of religion'. Such a light hearted joke in no way constitutes an attack on religion as far as all reasonable individuals are concerned; thats the kind of dogmatic statement one would expect in Iran, not a free-speaking forum.
Of course we do not sanction out and out attacks on any religion, but there is no harm in gentle humour. In fact it is my view that a sense of humour is an *essential balance* to any facet of human endevour, be it religion, politics, relationships or whatever.
It is a well balanced sense of humour that stops religious belief toppling over into fundamentalism. This is not a board for fundamentalists!

One thing people have to remember about these forums, is that a sense of humour is activly promoted! Unfortunatly, some people occasionally appear who seem to have had a humour bypass, but that is no reason to be uptight. There are no 'sacred cows' here and this board is non-religion specific. There is no harm at having a light-hearted religious themed joke and if some people find such things so offensive to their beliefs and can't handle that then i'm afraid they won't enjoy these forums very much.

Doug

How many people know that most of what we associate with the Easter celebrations is actually pagan? (much like halloween and christmas).

The name has two main origins. The 8th century anglo-saxon monk Bede says the name, and the festival comes from the anglo-saxon/germanic fertility goddess 'Eostre' or 'Ostra' who was celebrated at the Spring Equinox to celebrate the growth of spring and fertility.

Many of our Easter customs formed part of the festivities attributed to Eostre. including the 'March Hare' or rabbits, ancient symbols of fertility (later to become the 'easter bunny' in the US), 'hot cross buns', coming from the tradition of baking cakes and buns to honour coming fertility and abundance of Eostre. And painting eggs with bright colours, as eggs were ancient symbols of rebirth, fertility and the coming spring. The painting of them with bright colours celebrated the anticipation of the new colours of spring and the flowering plants. These were given to people as gifts or used in games, such as rolling or hiding the eggs.

However, besided the anglo-saxon origin, the Equinox festival and variations of it were celebrated throughout the ancient world and go back much further than the anglo-saxon goddess 'Eostre', who was but the latest incarnation.

In fact, all these traditions got back further to the ancient near-east such as at Babylon, and the spring rites of the goddess Ishtar (whose name was pronounced 'easter' as we say it!).

She was born in a giant cosmic egg which fell into the Euphrates, therby signalling the coming of Spring. Again, rabbits, baked buns and painted eggs formed  a large part of the festivities.
Later with the cult of the Great Mother, an eastern goddess who became popular in Rome from the 2nd century BC, she had a male consort called Attis, who was born of a virgin and represented vegetation. He was symbolically killed during the equinox festival, on what we call 'black Friday' and ressurected three days later, representing the renewal of Spring... sound familiar?

The reason these pagan festivals survive in Christian guise is due to the fact that these pagan festivities were far too popular to ban so the early christian leaders, in a stroke of genius, decided that instead of banning them, the answer was to incorporate them! That way people could carry on with celebrating their ancient rites but the christian leaders could incorporate them into the christian message and alter their meaning so as to have christian significance. eg the egg rolling becomes the stone being rolled away from the tomb of christ and so on.

However, although this makes perfect sense in my opinon, and i dont know why pagan festivals cannot be reinterpreted to convey christian meanings, some churches in the US have started a campaign to remove all the fun stuff in easter, ie the bunnies and eggs and even to ditch the name 'Easter'.. they dont like the Eostre/Ishtar origin; They want to call it 'Ressurection Day' instead...

A bit extreme in my opinion!
Anyway, as I am not Christian and therefore enjoy the ancent pagan origins, I am quite happy to celebrate the coming of Spring with eggs and easter bunnies... the celebration of the coming Spring means a lot more to me personally than any grafted on christian message. Each to their own!

Doug

PS I wonder what the anglo-saxon goddess would have thought about *chocolate* eggs though!.... I don't think she'd mind, after all, most women love chocolate!

Then check and read the relevent articles in the FAQ section.

Doug

theres no way in hell that ghostbusters are stronger than Jesus. Jesus is part of the Lord Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth of all that is Seen and Unseen

And since when has that stopped the Ghostbusters?  

Also, they may be the secret branch of the company, known as the *holy-ghost busters*  

Doug

PS nice Roman toga that jesus is wearing! religious artists hardly ever have any idea about authentic clothing, appropriate to the cultures they attempt to depict!

No_leaf_clover:

I just checked and you are right about the calender not being connected with agriculture.

I stand corrected!

Doug

The holywood epics are the main source of blame for this myth, esp. the ones set in Rome, which like to portray all pagan Romans as evil, immoral and decadent, in contrast to the pious christians who do no wrong. The implications of these movies is that with the coming of christianity Roman society became 'more moral'... i dont think so. For a start, ok they banned gladitorial games and such like, but a dislike of gladitioral games was not unique to them; many prominent *pagan* writers, like the Stoic philosopher and Senator Seneca (tutor to Nero), had written of their moral opposition to gladitorial games long before christians got round to it.

Yes eventially once the church got in contol they started enforcing christian teachings on people but by this time, christianity had become a part of the Roman state and was being used  as a form of social control so can we really say this was a good thing? Do such and such, act like such and such.. or you will go to hell.. nice!

Actually I was talking to this guy who does a film course and he told me that the reason the hollywood epics of the 1950's and 1960s are full of the christian vs pagan stuff is to do with the Cold War.
At the height of the cold war and during the McCarthy era etc religion became a big part of the rhetoric.. so it was 'Christian' america vs 'athiest' russia.
This was reflected in the epics with the roman empire being used to symbolise athiest russia (pagan - athiest.. to right wing christians there is no difference).

Now i 'get' what all those great (if now corny) roman epics of the 50's and 60's are all about!
but we should be wary about viewing them as proper history!
Doug

I agree. Whether you like it or not is no reason to ban it. There is freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Once you start banning texts you dont agree with, you start down a dangerous route, and its good to remember that once you start restricting freedom of speech and religion to enforce your own view, that same situation could later be used against you when people start banning things with YOU approve of.

It's so simple: if it offends you then dont buy it. But everyone has a right to read it if they wish. I don't really care about the book itself to be honest, but I'll be damned if I'm going to allow someone else to ban it because they have decided for me that I'm not to read it.... how nice of them....not!

Doug

PS if you're really into banning books and religious texts you don't approve of, you might as well move to Iran!  

I started counting off the things that were on the top of the cupboard. Two pairs of knickers, a blue lacy bra, coat hangers, that sort of thing.

hmmm, I don't know about your lucidity but my visualisation seems to be working just fine!  

Doug

When I first heard of 'the rapture' I thought it was a joke.

When i heard you could by bumper stickers saying 'are you rapture-ready?', I began to despair for the sanity of the human species!  

Who would have believed you could have combined christian 'end time' beliefs with Star Trek? Only in America!

Doug