Friday, December 5, 2008

4000

Just reached 4000 downloads on my podcast!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

SHERPA pale ale - homebrew or Alchemy in homebrew

I've had the chance to taste the fruits of my labor tonight. It is good. I'm not so sure it is a pale ale, but maybe a brown ale. IMO it could have used more hops, and this is my fault for not going crazy with them. The cracked grains certainly make an appearance in the flavor as well.

So overall it is good and should get some people right and roudy next weekend.

Check out these glorious pics of "SHERPA pale ale" beer. (coming soon)

My podcast + SHERPA


I'm up to 3889 downloads on my podcast, with a few Sherpa downloads mixed in. This is pretty huge. Beats out 1000 by a long shot. I have a few more guests lined up in the near future, so who knows what the end result will be.

www.occultsentinel.com

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Malkuth - My first experience with Enochian magick




On 10/28 I attended an Enochian class at the Knights Templar Oasis (OTO) in Salem, MA.

Before the class I had a meal and a stout at a local restaurant. Then I drank a red bull very quickly before getting to the class so I would stay awake. I hid the red bull when I entered the temple, because I thought they would get nervous about my heart blowing up, then I realized I could play it off as if I was a hardcore soft drink drinker, and this would work as a cover if they confronted me. This is one expression of my paranoia. :O)

Two guys ran the class, and did a pretty good job. It was fun to get together with 13 people to do a group working with the Enochian aethers. The class leaders explained that their original plan to skry all the elemental aspects of all the aethers, but that this would take a decade. So the plan now is to skry all of the aspects of the spheres on the tree of life on the lowest of the Enochian aethers, TEX. This is something that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, about ten months if there is a class once a month.

This was an interesting thought, as I previously thought that Kaballah and the enochian system did not have anything to do with each other. The class leaders explained that many commentators on the kaballah suggest that the tree of life can be used as a classification system
for just about anything. This appears to be the case after thinking about it further. No mention was made of other groups who had done this in the past. If there were, it would be interesting to compare the results of this series of classes to other classes.

We skipped over introducing ourselves and cut right to instruction after wine was passed around. The wine seemed pretty funny to me, especially because of the danger
that some people suspect they are in when they start to practice enochian magick. When I was offered wine, I said, no thanks, I drank before I came. This got a small laugh from a few people. One lady said I was already 'fortified' if I drank before I came.

The event started with a banishing ritual I had not seen before. It was certainly a thelemic ritual as those were the god names used.

We began a chant together as a group. It lasted for about 4 minutes. The person leading the class recited the call, we stopped chanting, he recited it again. The chant used was designed by Lon Milo Duquette and published in his new book Enochian Vision Magick.

At this point we began to skry. For those who may not know, the simplest and most basic method for this is to close one’s eyes and use that dark surface to see if anything manifests.

For the first couple minutes I had no visuals, but I had some other sensations.

Momentarily I was fairly sure that nothing was going to happen, and that I was putting hope and energy in the wrong direction. This was soon appeared to be a naïve perspective. The first sensation I had was a pressure sensation on the front of my body. It was fairly large in terms of surface area, but the pressure was mild. The sensation or feeling I noticed in regards to the pressure was one of pregnant void, or what appeared to be a highly energetic void. After this, my focus was lost, and I had to come back to this sensation and to the skrying surface. In my visual range, I saw lots of lights moving in rhythmic patterns, and I thought some one was playing a joke on me with a flashlight, but I opened my eyes and nothing was there. Colors continued to move around as if it was some sort of psychedelic experience. This was quite interesting, and I'm not sure what this means. One observations was that the colors were not like a 60s type bright color moving, but more of a dark one. The colors I remember were black red and yellow. A slight pressure on my third eye began to come into my attention. The pressure seemed to increase slightly the more I focused on skrying visually. This was interesting, as I have had this sensation a number of times while in meditative states.

After the skrying was finished, we recorded our observations in journals. This took a few minutesl, and we began to share. Some of the people's visions in the room were far more vivid than mine. I suspect this may be because they are more open, or that they are more advanced in an initiatory sense. Some visions had similarities, others didn't. Two people had visions like mine that were very abstract. One vision was about 90% similar to mine. No one reported the same body sensations.

Overall, a very good experience, and I will be going back for more, and learning the Enochian System on my own.

Monday, September 8, 2008

The Physics of Extraterrestrial Civilizations



http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=246
I read this great article recently titled "The Physics of Extraterrestrial Civilizations" by Dr. Michio Kaku. It had a very interesting perspective on advanced physics, based on the possibilities + limitations known to modern physics.

Power and engineering seem to be the things that define where this hypothesis goes.

Some of the interesting points classify types of advanced civilizations.
How to explore the Galaxy.
How soon it could be. If we avoid extinction, we should reach advanced status within a few hundred years.

All these things together made for some very interesting reading.

Riopelle


Sunday, July 27, 2008

Furries are back again




I haven't spoken to anyone about Furries lately. One of my friends sent me a great Youtube video tonight and then for some reason I found a ton of videos on Youtube related to furries.


Great stuff. Gives you some insight into who the man behind the mask is some times.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

This machine kills fascists


One of my favorite bands is Anti-Flag. They have a song called this machine kills fascists. Apparently, they got it from Woodie Guthrie.

Monday, July 21, 2008

aspartame




After reading a newsletter from a health activist website, I got the following few links. I have never been a fan of these sweeteners. They always kind of put me in an unsettled state, then I looked into it and found out that the Bush crime family + Dick Cheney had his fingers in making these kinds of substances Legal + profitable.

Here is the blurb that I read that made me interested in new health risks related to these artificial sweeteners that are known neurotoxins.

"To date, there have only been around 385 human cases identified worldwide (if those identifications are trustworthy, of course), with only 243 (avian flu)deaths. To put the absurdity of this effort into perspective, Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD), which researchers believe is heavily associated with aspartame consumption, is a leading cause of death which, according to the CDC, for example, killed 460,000 Americans in 1999 and the numbers keep rising (
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5106a3.htm). but Aspartame is not under the gun. Instead, Avian Flu is."

The CDC article did not reference the aspartame at all, it made me wonder.
The newsletter and article did not cite this supposed link with aspartame and SCD, I needed to verify if these people were full of it or not.

A quick google search led me to this article.
http://www.wnho.net/scdandaspartame.htm

It has an interesting list of facts of what aspartame does to the body.

Even more reason for me to poo poo my friends and loved ones not to use this shit.

More dangerous than booze and nicotine.... why would you?

I have found stevia a great natural zero calorie sweetener, and in light of the dangerous nature of these sweeteners, why not just use sugar!


Monday, July 14, 2008

A good article on the history of the Necronomicon


http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/11nov/occultnecronomicon.html

Check 'er out. Its a pretty cool article.

Makes mention of K.Grant, P.Levanda, and the Manhattan occult scene of the 70s and 80s.

Monday, July 7, 2008

principia discordia


So, I've been reading the pimary Discordian documents lately. They are very funny things. I highly suggest you check out the Principia Discordia. Once you get past the intro and acknowledgements, it is a gem.

If anyone reads it, let me know what you think.

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/

Raves?

I'll be attending my first rave in a couple weeks. It should be a fairly legit one. Its at an American Legion in Cambridge.

What if we took raves and breathwork into churches? This would take advantage of these buildings that are soon to be all but abandoned.

I think I'm going to start shopping around for some beautiful locations and see if I can have some workshops at them. This could solve a few problems with one action. Recycling buildings, low rent, more beauty in the workshop space, good locations all over the place. Overall, I'm pretty excited about this concept.

Now the bigger problem would be, how to get a rave inside of a church. I think that would be quite an amazing experience. The priests would have to be sure no one would break shit, and it would be clean in the morning. More thoughts on this soon. Maybe a Unitarian church would be the best place to start??


**Update** This was canceled because the Legion lied to the organizer about them having a beer license + the ability to have events like this. Oh well.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

How to non-violently embarrass your international competition (shhhh. I mean "enemies"), especially if they call themselves a world super power, and you can't.

How to non-violently embarrass your international competition (shhhh. I mean "enemies"), especially if they call themselves a world super power, and you can't.

How to creatively and non-violently redefine life as we know it.

So... Here it is.

First step for the undefined country.

1 Find out what they want.
2 Find out what you want.
3 Fund a "manhattan project" for energy research.
     3.1 Make different teams, with very different projects.
     3.2 Make sure the funding is deep.
     3.3 Don't let existing industry get their greasy fingers into this pot.
4 Have the researchers get lots of credit for their discovery.
5 License this newly developed technology to industry.
6 Make lots of money and gain new power.

If this strategy were carried out by any country that had a solid base of engineers and scientists, this could work.

I would be very happy if the US france UK russia, etc would all have their own, but these nations seem to be pre-occupied with oil/gas wars. If they are involved with the resolution of these issues, it is being done by private industry. IMO this is not enough.

I could see this working wonders in about 3 years tops if the project was launched now. If it takes much longer, I could see a few technologies come out of some small engineering groups that may take up a few niches.

So, step it up please (other countries) for the sake of the world. This could end our need for oil, and
greatly democratize life.

Thoughts?



Monday, June 23, 2008

1000 downloads

Wicked. I'm at 1000 downloads on my podcast.
Time to step 'er up.

podcast

Wow, I'm at 1000 downloads on my podcast.
Pretty intense.

Last night some forum posts and blog posts found there way to me, and I had a good chuckle that people were interested in what I was doing.

A new podcast was posted last night and another should be going up before I head off to Acadia National Park for a week.

www.occultsentinel.com


Hopefully when I get back I can dedicate some time to some more Sherpa songs.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Substrate

I was discussing spirit with a friend recently, and he proposed the following as a "maybe". After a couple months, I still think this is an interesting thing to ponder.

This is how I remember his propsition. "What if Spirit needs consciousness in matter as fungi needs a substrate"

This has a lot of interesting implications that at the very least give you some good food for thought.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

911 resources

So I've never posted on 9/11 before.

Here is a great detailed resource list for those interested in the 9/11 conspiracy.

There are some fantastic videos that have been created on this as well as a free peer reviewed journal, and many other great things.

The primary jist is that the official 9/11 story makes no sense, in fact even "cock and balled" stories make more sense.

There was a boat load of censorship that took place making it look even more dicey.

Here is the link. Happy hunting.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/comprehensive_911_resource_and_research_list

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

telcos are assholes lloyd

http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html

Check out that link. It'll prove to you that you are being fucked by txt rates.

I'm soon to cancel my existing phone and ditch sms until or if it becomes sensibly priced.

This is just to help you become more angry with the big utility companies that you can do little about.

Coming clean

I'd like to come clean on the blog. Not like many people read it, but I've been tying to live multiple lives on the internet.

Living one life over at the Zoo blog, one on my podcast site, and some various other ones in the video game worlds.

This was due to paranoia about people finding out who I am, lol.

Soo here on this blog for the first time, I will be posting a link to my podcast.

http://www.occultsentinel.com

Its a strange world we live in when even Joe Moore is paranoid, lol.

If you enjoy or hate anything on the blog or the podcast, let me know via comment or email.

Peace

Friday, May 9, 2008

Plastic bottles

With all the hype in the last month about plastic bottles, I wanted to throw my two cents in the pot.

Sigg bottles from Switzerland is going to make a killing on this, because they are the best but expensive alternative to Lexan(no7) Nalgene bottles. I just bought one to replace my Nalgene, and it is good enough for now.

Other aluminum bottle companies can also make huge inroads here, if they take advantage of the current plastic phobias that are running wild. Kleen Kantene is one competitor in the market, maybe its time to have more competition? Some US based manufacturers?

Nalgene's soft plastic bottles that were not victim of this scrutiny suck. I've used them for years, and they make the water taste gross, just like a leeching plastic bottle would. I don't think this is a good route going forward either.

Maybe bio-plastics, or other substances could be made into bottles? Plastics engineers get yo shit together. I (maybe we) need something new, so I can be free of plastic paranoia.

Do the permaculture + organic types have any thoughts on this?

Update: 5-16-08: I purchased a Sigg bottle and a Camel Back BPA free bottle. Both are nice. Nalgene has responded very responsibly to the problem. You can check it out here. They clarify a few things that help in regards to this problem. http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/

Friday, May 2, 2008

Future topics

How to non-violently embarrass your international competition (shhhh. I mean "enemies"), especially if they call themselves a world super power, and you can't.

How to creatively and non-violently redefine life as we know it.


Most of what I want to write about here at the blog will be about thought experiments related to brainy stuff. I want to try to keep thoughts not worth thinking off of the blog. Not worth thinking will be defined by me. If you want to help me redefine "not worth thinking" let me know and we can talk.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

How to survive huge near earth asteroids.

I just read an article titled "Reporter: Planetary Projection" in the April 2008 issue of SEED and it discussed NEOs (near earth objects) as still being a risk to humanity. It is certainly being overlooked and underfunded, as are all things that could save human lives and future culture.

A while back, discovery channel aired a documentary on the asteroid that hit northern siberia in 1908. Here is a wiki link on that blast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

Apparently according to the article the US funds the majority of the NEO research. Due to funding limitations (war funding takes precedent), NASA is being deprived funding, and a few key observatories are being shut down, thus putting the planet at greater risk of incident. That said, some experts speculate that if one is going to hit us, chances are very slim that we'll see it in time to act.

Other nations are continually stepping up their space programs, so maybe they will see that this does pose a risk to the continuity of governments, commerce, and (most importantly?) humanity as we currently know it.

So, what I'm really trying to get at here, is that this is another problem for us humans to solve. In order to solve it, there needs to be adequate funding and a dedicated international team pushing the initiative. The UN is out there for this purpose, but they are corrupt, broken, and have less funding that the US state of New Hampshire.

Maybe something new?
I'm a libertarian at heart, and the solutions are a problem for me, as it makes me struggle with my political belief system (BS). Governments need to be working towards the survival of the planet from just about all possible risks. What would the anarchist Chomsky have to say on this? Arrest the current political and war criminals, and hope that democracy works itself out? Maybe a new form on government that has yet to be tried in modern society?

Stan Grof and other philosophers like Ken Wilber suggest that in order to survive the current problems on earth, we will need to live differently and with a different awareness of who and what we are, and to understand our relation to others. We are all in this together.

Holotropic states initiated through breath work, spiritual practices, and through proper drug use can help us reach the understandings required to survive and to grow into more enriched beings.
This is one of the primary reasons I facilitate workshops. I feel like it initiates a positive change in people who participate. It helps clear old energy blocks, and some times helps people feel more connected to this spaceship earth that we all depend upon.

To cap of this rant I'd like to point you towards a lecture that Stan Grof did on April 29th. Here is the link. I hope you enjoy it.
http://tinyurl.com/5blr2e

Monday, April 14, 2008

Weekend trip to nyc - I went Saturday night and came back sunday night.

My first trip to the big city. It was big. For pictures of my trip, click here.

P.S. Times Square is like sensory overload if you try to take it all in at once. Try this, but not for too long.

Flying like eagle

Thursday, April 10, 2008

My first float tank experience.

April 9, 2008

Showed up at 8:15pm. Got orientation, for a nice lady who showed us the tanks and how to work them from the inside. Very nice place. Kind of expensive, $60 for the 50 minute session.

This experience was analogous to meditation for me. It seemed to me like a meditation where I was much less bothered by body pains. I hoped to get into a deep meditative state. This didn't happen. My experience in the tank was very surface level. I moved around a lot trying to get comfortable, and couldn't really find a good balance.

I used ear plugs. The facility required this on their consent forms. Mike who I went with, didn't read that particular line, and didn’t use them. He had a couple complaints about not using them, but overall it didn’t seem like that big of a deal for him.

The experience started with me turning off the lights and fidgeting the music controls. My mind started going wild, and I kept trying to reign it back in unskillfully via mantra, or vipassana(awareness) techniques. I didn’t have enough will power to keep returning to the technique, so this didn’t work out too well. It was worth experimenting with, but I need to try harder next time if this is what I want to do.

At about 25 minutes I started to feel strange relaxation/soreness in my calves and other muscle groups. Hard to say if this was the salt acting, relaxation, or the sensory deprivation action at work.

After about what felt like 30 minutes in the tank I started experimenting with accelerated deep breathing through my mouth. This was interesting, tetani(misspelled) came on quickly. When I refer to tetani it is a mild to heavy pins and needles sensation occasionally felt all over the body when breathing is accelerated, it dissipates after a few minutes.

After I came down from the tetani, I kept moving around, because I couldn't get entirely comfortable.

Now I was able to really get into my head and think, to try and strategize about the rest of the time I had in the tank. My strategy was unsuccessful, my mind won…I turned my music on and off a few times to see what was better. I tried opening and closing my eyes to see what I could see. About 1 minute from when the lights came on automatically, I started seeing light/dark patterns with my eyes open, I couldn't see any real pattern I could put a name to.

The lights came on, I got out of the tank, showered, and had some nice green tea.

Very nice experience. Refreshing and relaxing after a really psychologically hard day of work. I need to experiment with it further at Driftaway spas. If I happen to be in the vicinity of another float tank facility, I’ll check that out as well.


http://driftawayspas.com/

http://www.floatation.com/wheretofloat.html

Monday, April 7, 2008

HR Geiger and Stan Grof


Last night I stayed up late looking through H.R. Geiger's Necronomicon. It is quite a body of work. Any artist would be proud and horrified of producing this. Geiger describes the process of creating his are as an exorcism.

While looking at the art, my thought process was to reconcile or practice the application of Dr Stanislav Grof's Birth Perinatal Matrices to the art. On a few occasions it was strikingly obvious that a lot of the images in the art were related to the matrices which apply to the peri-natal experiences. After about 20 minutes of looking at his art, I was positive that my dreams would revolve around some negative BPM related experiences. This was not the case. I was 'spared'. In retrospect I wish I was not spared, because these experiences tend to have a holotropic effect.

While I was at the Omega Institute last fall, I was able to listen to a "Darshan" of Dr. Grof's on Geiger's art as it relates to the BPMs as he calls them. This was truly fascinating and they started to come alive for me when looking at the art. The Geiger art is truly disturbing and grotesque, but at the same time beautiful and skillfully crafted. His lecture was done in a very interesting set and setting, because we had all been doing holotropic breathwork, and doing vipassana meditation for about 4 to 5 days at that point, and were really open.

What an experience. I suggest anyone interested in the BPM theory, do some cursory exploring of the theory, and then look at some Geiger art. You can find some lectures by Stan on the internet, so maybe also check those out. Stan also had a great slide show later on related to the political art aspect of BPMs. He said that people knew how to play on these complexes and matricies that we all (most of us) had laid upon us at birth. Octopus, closing in themes, etc.The Psychohistorian Lloyd deMause was a pundit of this idea. Stan discussed his collaboration with deMause at this later slide show presentation.

A member of the
board of the Association of Holotropic Breathwork International told me once that Stan's real discovery for BPMs was the otological origin of Archetypes in the human consciousness. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. That smoked... I don't have enough experience or knowledge or archetypal patterns to say if this is accurate. It is a good theory and is worth looking into further.

CC Mixter

Hi Everyone,
I wanted to share with you this great music website that is totally free and legal.
It is run by the creative commons folks and I think CCMixter is a great project. People create share and openly mix each others work. Its very cross genre, and the editors pick section should be of interest to most people.

Check it out. I borrow songs from the site to use in all my podcasts and in some of my songs.  

Here is an interesting song on the site.
http://ccmixter.org/files/lazztunes07/14385

Friday, April 4, 2008

I just got a new dog. Its so nice

http://zip.4chan.org/an/src/1207187798472.jpg

http://zip.4chan.org/an/src/1207358495789.jpg

These are some funny photoshop jobs that were done on a dog. I thought I would share.

4chan.org is a site that Bill O'Reilly called a far left internet website providing "blank" to "blank".

Check out this image for the exact quote.

http://i14.tinypic.com/8ad5m9v.jpg

Monday, March 24, 2008

Free education resources

Just wanted to share this great resource.
http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/itunesu.html

You are now able to get free lectures from top universities including UCLA + Yale. All sorts of subjects are discussed.

The only downside here is that you need iTunes installed on your computer. I'll be checking out the free anthropology, psychology, and other resources. There are tons of other free sites as well. Check them out.

http://www.lecturefox.com/

http://www.freeuniv.com/

MIT - http://ocw.mit.edu/

Podcasts can also be a great educational resource. Check them out to, you may be able to learn astronomy or chemistry during your commute.

Monday, March 17, 2008

McBess

Here is some art that I thought was amazing.
This was designed as a desktop background. I'll probably use it once I
get sick of my current one.

Arresting politicians...



Wow, so this article is a nice Monday read.

It suggests that any person in government ("public servant")trying to pass a retro-active law, should be jailed per the US Constitution. They took the oath to uphold this, so should be held accountable. Making large companies immune to laws that they previously broke.

This reminds me of two funny things I've read recently.

Congressmen should have their terms redefined. 1 year of service, 1 year in jail.
Another is something I can't remember, but it was related to the probability towards "kinks".

We should have weekly meditation sessions and monthly breathwork sessions for all of these guys.

http://www.connorboyack.com/blog/ex-post-facto-law

Terrence McKenna said once that politicians are largely irrelevant based on how quickly technology is growing. It is running so much faster than they can keep up with.

Timothy Leary
once said that modern politics is so slow that it doesn't meet our needs. He posited that the US government should be run from a glass pyramid filled with computers, and that it should be 100% transparent so that we know we are safe from it.

Hopefully some day we can trust government... when? Tomorrow? I hope.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Christopher Hyatt passes away

He was an amazing scholar and if you have any interests in tantra, magick, thelema, or hermetics, he should be checked out.


Alan Miller AKA C.S. Hyatt passed away on February 9, at his home in
Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife Linda and son Michael in
attendance.
He had been bravely waging a long struggle with cancer, but suffered
several strokes in his last week.


From Wikipedia:
Christopher Hyatt's interest in the occult began in his early
twenties. His desire to further pursue his studies in magick
resulted in meeting Israel Regardie in Studio City in the 1970s.
Regardie introduced Hyatt to Reichian therapy, which he insisted
Hyatt learn prior to any magickal pursuits. Regardie further
instructed Hyatt in the magickal system of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn. Hyatt has belonged to such occult organizations as the
Ordo Templi Orientis, and once headed the Thelemic Golden Dawn.

Academic Career
Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D., Adv. M.ED. was trained in experimental
and clinical psychology and practiced as a psychotherapist for many
years. Miller used the 18 units earned fom his military GED towards
his first academic career at Los Angeles City College, where he
studied accounting for two years. He later changed his graduate to
General Psychology, earning Masters Degrees in Experimental
Psychology and Medical Education and Counselling. He was a member of
a Freudian clinic in Southern California. He spent almost a year
studying hypnosis at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in Los
Angeles. He also studied hypnosis at the University of California,
Irvine. Alan Miller has Ph. D.s in both Clinical Psychology and
Human Behavior, finally earning a Post Doctorate in Criminal
Justice. Some of the techniques he employs include a blend of
Reichian physiotherapy and tantric yoga. He also incorporates
hypnosis along side his body work with patients and students.
According to his website: "He left academia and state sponsored
psychology to become an explorer of the human mind."

Hyatt claims on his website that as a research scientist he has
published "numerous" peer-reviewed articles in professional journals
and was a Research Fellow at the University of Toronto and the
University of Southern California. However, his website does not
provide any references or name any of the journals he claims to have
published in, making verification of his academic credentials
difficult.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Iraq war ego trauma pics

If you wanted to damage your ego spend some time trolling these pics. Great collection of photographs taken of Iraqi children. I'm sure most of these were taken after attacks by the usaf designed to catch the bad guys. I scrolled through it at a hard time and had my beliefs firmed up a tad.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20040504_1.htm

Monday, February 4, 2008

McKenna Psychadelics quotes.

Some awesome McKenna quotes. Check out the podcast.

http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=256



Terence McKenna: "But in fact it seems that the ouroboros has taken its tail in its mouth and these two concerns psychedelics and computers] are seen to be simply different approaches to the completion of the same program of knowledge."

Terence McKenna: "The citizen is an interchangeable part in the body politic."

Terence McKenna: "Yes, I mean television certainly has an influence on the mass mind, but on the creative, cutting-edge of the civilization it’s psychedelics. Television influences culture, but if you watch television it’s psychedelics that shape the agenda of television."

Terence McKenna: "As a global society, possessing DNA sequencers and thermonuclear delivery systems and so forth and so on, we cannot have the luxury of an unconscious mind. That’s something that may or may not have some appropriateness if you’re hunting wooly mastedons and that sort of thing, but an integrated global culture cannot have the luxury of a large portion of its mind inaccessible to itself and somehow occluded."

Terence McKenna: "Technology, the evolution of languages and so forth have taken a turn toward ‘outing’ the unconscious. And computers are a wonderful tool for this, as are psychedelic drugs."

Terence McKenna: "High definition TV may give a surprising shot in the arm to the, at this point on-the-ropes linear uniform unitarians, because it’s going to be much more like cinema and photography. And it’s not going to have to be deciphered. It can be looked at, and this will have unexpected consequences on the sense ratios and assumptions operating within society."

Ralph Abraham (in 1991): "Video is doomed not because of a resolution limitation but because it’s not interactive. Interactive computer graphic games where you can watch the soap opera but also play with it to change the script, and so on, is bound to be much more interesting just because of interaction than video or cinema."

Terence McKenna: "So the conclusion is that civilization which welcomes psychedelics is the civilization that will lead and rule the planet."

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Guillermo Del Toro to Direct Peter Jackson's Hobbit Series

http://www.bigpictureradio.com/2008/01/guillermo-del-toro-to-direct-peter.html

It seems natural for Guillermo del Toro to take over where Peter Jackson left off, and now The Hollywood Reporter says a deal for Del Toro to direct back-to-back installments of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit could happen very soon.

In addition to being one of the most in demand directors alive - not to mention on of the very few who so closely resembles Milton from Office Space - Del Toro is also a wise choice sylistically. His work on the Oscar-nominated Pan's Labyrinth revealed his storytelling abilities more than previous efforts, but even in Blade 2 you could tell you were watching the work of someone unique.

Since the December resolution of a bitter lawsuit between New Line and Jackson over residual payments for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Hobbit has been on a fast track. Jackson will produce, but has no time to direct or write, due to other commitments.

As with the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit films will be shot simultaneously, according to the Reporter. It's a $300 million safe bet for New Line, who will see the films go into production next year, assuming the writers strike doesn't drag out another six or eight months, with the films to be released in 2010 and 2011.

And somewhere, there's a guy dressed up in character already waiting in line.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Grof interviewing Albert Hofmann - Two important visionaries

Stanislav Grof interviewing Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, 1984.


Check out this interview from 84. They discuss some great stuff. I have the highest regard for both of these men, and have personally met and worked with Stanislav Grof at a breathwork retreat.

Stop the spying.

Stop the Spying!

This is a campaign designed around the recent proposals that would allow telcoms to not get in trouble for the recent illegal spying they did.

It also would hopefully restrict their ability to do it in the future.

Check it out, Digg it, etc.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

MLK's Bday.


On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?

There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of goodwill to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” This is the challenge facing modern man.



http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002138

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

NH Primary issues.....

Strange happenings in NH yesterday. The infamous e-voting company Diebold is at it again. Check out the top 11 headlines in today's Reddit listing. This was taken at around noon of January 9th 2008. Check out reddit.com and search around for Diebold for more information. Its a tricky situation for a democracy when not many people trust how the vote was taken, and suspect fraud.


Did Diebold rig New Hampshire? [politics] (drunkardslamppost.wordpress.com)
504 points posted 4 hours ago by mahjoun101 comments
2.
291 points posted 4 hours ago by dizzle6714 comments
1064 points posted 14 hours ago by geeeeoffff449 comments
7.
147 points posted 4 hours ago by neoronin48 comments
8.
261 points posted 8 hours ago by ClanPanda162 comments
10.
11.
522 points posted 13 hours ago by ariana333160 comments