Tree of life as represented through the Baal cycle, modern humanism and the Phoenician alphabet

Here is the tree of life with the letters for Phoenician scrying. The re-termed sephiroth come from realizing that the tree of life is the gunas. Gunas is a Hindi concept, that the nature of everything is sattva, rajas and tamas. When one uses psychedelic substances or engages ecstatic states, and the ego is lost, all that remains are thoughts, motions and shapes. These are the above gunas. The kabbalah divides the human into three levels of thought, motion and shape, (also translated by some as lucidity, dynamism and inertia) and then each level is recursively re-fractured by the gunas. The whole system is then three trinities of modes of human existence plus the physical world, to make ten sephiroth in full. The best English terms I could find for each sephiroth so far are added. They change frequently, so check back if interested.

Notice that the mark of the cross is the mark of ego worship. Notice that pe, the mouth, forms the language of our spells.  Notice that with zayin, the sword, the witch wields universal energy!

The Wolf Totem Speaks

For those following the entheogenic discovery journal, tryptamines in the intense phase have been completely mastered.  At the end of this period, a wolf totem appeared to announce both a shift in paradigm as well as switch to more traditional shamanic entheogens such as phenylethylamines (peyote, mescaline) and sub-intense ritual tryptamines (psilocybin).  I have realized that animal spirits are an even more fundamental, universal way of connecting to the shamanic experience than ritual magic is.  By realizing the high degree of social structure and communication that most animals have, one attains a variety of shamanic tools for the purpose of bringing back a boon from non-linguistic, non-ego, primal states of mind attained through shamanic ritual.  One also sees through working with animal totems that there are a variety of beings that make up the human mind, and that some of these parts of ourself are of one mind with the animals around us.

Here is what the wolf said to me:

The wolf comes to announce that we must hunt for our visions.  You may hear his call sound throughout the hills, reminding us that who we are is very small, but who we are together is very big.  We are many.  We are one.  We light the skies with our eyes and paint the canyons with our howls.  Let us seize upon this chance for change, dive into it.  Tear it to pieces.  There is only fear when darkness and thunder strikes, that we may lose our way and separate from the pack.  We will never fear if we don’t forget who we are.  Together let us move.  Let us be wise and follow the seasons.  See the flight of the ravens and eagles, and track the footsteps of the deer.  Let us be fierce and strong, protecting what is ours.  This land is mine I call, and I shall feed off it and lay down in its hollows.  The others don’t belong here any more.  We must make our young strong enough to fight.  Let them know who they are and feel the blood beat strong in their veins as they run by the moonlit lake.  The dark world of vision and the blinding light of snow split have split my nose.  I peer into to this world and the next.  Let us sing and cry, “Take seize of change.  Bolt forth to life.  Know you are worthy to be called to run with me.”

Non-locality, quantum teleportation and the EPR paradox

Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen wrote a paper in 1935 to try to prove that quantum mechanics was not a complete theory.  In classical mechanics, reality consisted of billiard balls rolling around on the pool table of space-time.  If the position, weight and speed of every particle were known at once, it would be possible to predict the future with perfect accuracy.  But quantum mechanics had replaced this clockwork view of the universe with a gambling God.  In quantum mechanics, a measurement on the same exact state did not produce the same result, half the time one thing would happen, half the time another.  Instead of definite variables with definite values, quantum mechanics had a roulette wheel of random outcomes in a given situation.  Furthermore, that inaccuracy seemed not to be due to some incompleteness of the theorem, but rather this vagueness was a fact of reality itself, made necessary by some sort of barrier to the depth to which we can peer into reality.  This barrier appeared to be caused by some sort of interaction between the measuring mind and the objective world, and this interaction was not open to investigation through physical experimental means.  This barrier is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.  As noted above, in the classical view, if the position and momentum (mass times speed) of every particle were known at once, then everything from then on would be known with no uncertainty.  But nature places limits on us so that we cannot have such certainty.  It turns out that if we know the position, we cannot know the momentum accurately.  Or, vice versa, if we know the momentum, we cannot know the position accurately.  This necessary uncertainty has something to do with the fact the we are trying to gather all this information for our mind’s use.  Without a mind trying to correlate the momentum and the position, both can be measured accurately with no problem, but it is the mind’s involvement in the process that makes the variables we are trying to measure entangled.  These seemingly unrelated physical properties become entangled with mind stuff and are no longer free events.  Reality and outcomes of its measurement have been molded somehow by interaction with the observing mind.  Absolute determinism of the future is avoided because of this interaction with our universe.  Or another way to see it, without the mind there would be no free will.

So Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen wrote a paper which set up an experimental situation known as the EPR paradox.  Certain types of radioactive particles will decay into mirror image twin particles going in opposite directions.  So the twin particles resulting from the decay will have the same mass but equal and opposite momentums.  So let us imagine Alice on the west coast and Bob on the east coast.  We will put a radioactive emitter in the Midwest halfway between them so that the particles reach Alice and Bob at the same time.  So if Alice measures mass, she knows Bob’s particle has the same mass, so we know the mass of Bob’s particle from Alice’s measurement.  If Bob measures the momentum of the particle he gets, then we know the mass and momentum of Bob’s particle, violating the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, right?  It turns out that Bob is unable measure his momentum correctly.  Somehow Alice’s measurement of a particle on the west coast has an instant non-local effect on Bob’s measurement of a different particle on the east coast.  If Alice doesn’t make any measurement, then Bob is able to measure the position or the momentum as he pleases.  This is called a paradox because it violates our simple ideas about reality.

The EPR paradox is not just a what-if, but has been verified several times experimentally in the laboratory using polarized photons.  The EPR paradox and non-locality are a fact.  Quantum reality exists in states.  In the example we gave above, there are two states: [Alice knows momentum, Bob can't know position], [Alice knows position, Bob can't know momentum].  Either one of these states is possible initially.  It is Alice’s intent to correlate these two measurements, to have forbidden knowledge of the future, that instantly affects physical reality on the east coast where Bob is, so as to prevent that trespass of Alice’s.  It is therefore Alice’s will and mind that glue together at once points across the country and around the globe.  If we instead put Bob on Alpha Centauri, we can see that Alice actually affects the reality of the whole universe at once.

The non-locality and entanglement illustrated by the EPR paradox also make teleportation possible.  Another set of entangled variables (besides position and momentum) is the quantum spin on the x axis and the quantum spin on the z axis.  If we know the quantum state occupied by a particle, we may make a copy of that particle.  Knowledge of the full quantum state of a particle includes knowledge of its spin states.  If we can teleport one particle, we can do it with many, then a mouse, a dog, a cat or a human!  Normally we cannot know x and z spin at the same time because of their entanglement.  But instead of seeing entanglement as a barrier to an outdated view of the universe, we can use entanglement to achieve teleportation.  Here is how we can use quantum entanglement to make a copy.  Alice performs a x-spin measurement on her particle.  She sends the result of the measurement to Bob by classical means like a laser pulse (this can only be done at the speed of light or less so as to not violate relativity).  After Bob receives the measurement information, he opens his particle box, and performs his z-axis measurement.  The measurement itself will make a perfect copy of Alice’s particle appear in Bob’s locality after the proper quantum transformation.  This is called quantum teleportation.  Two papers of theory were written on this subject in 2004, and successful teleportation of atoms has occurred in the lab already.

To understand the EPR paradox and quantum teleportation, it is necessary to abandon the view that reality is made of chunks of space-time with the four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear) acting between two local, touching points in space-time.  Instead, all of reality is a complex vibration that may condense locally into certain physical objects with discrete bands of measured variables.  Like acoustic frequencies, the quantum state waveforms of reality are separated into discrete bands of frequencies by this condensation into physical objects and measurement by the mind, much like the equalizer on a stereo separates an audio frequency into response bands.  This discrete banding of waveforms makes measure variables in quantum physics have certain jumps in value which has been confirmed experimentally and is the source of the term quantum (meaning chunk, not smooth).  From the EPR paradox and non-locality, we learn that the whole universe is vibrating in unison at once, and at any point where mind acts, the color and sound of this wave changes at once in the whole universe, and the objects and measured properties that condense from this song are also changed at once to some degree at every point in space from then on.

Song of Anat

Please abandon fear. Realize that everyone is divine. We all live in a world spun of language, imagery, and sheer vibration emanating from us that we embed in every vase, wall, plant or animal around us. These beings, the company we keep in our heads and in the world we choose to live in, are fabricated out of the music of our hearts. The song we sing from the center of our skulls, deep in the pituitary, pumping out serotonin, neuroepinephrine, dopamine like a giant umbrella of psychedelic eminence, radiating pastel skies, rage, sadness and joy in undulating protrusions. Not only does this song ring in our ears as sound, but sings in our eyes as light, and our nose as smell. Hormonal waves ripple emotion and physical throbbing through our bodies in cycles of minutes, hours and years. We do yoga all day, how we hold our spine, whether we look down in command, surveying our creation in confidence, or look up in awe, mothered by the great divine. Small to large we are a continuous pole of vibration living in a world of vibrating beings, some made by us, some made by others. We are also made by others, and our children spiritual and physical make others. We are one and we are many, carving each other with our song. Remember we are free to move. We are free to be crazy. We are free to smash myths. We are free to give sex to all beings, as many or as few as we desire, to sing of love as we please. We are also free to break morals, to lie, to cheat, to take without permission from those screaming in pain. Or instead, we are free to plant love, to raise all up to be the radiant stars of divinity they are but have forgotten. The cultural symbols of the past drift through us like seaweed along with our personal song waving through the waters of life we shroud ourselves in. Despite your habits and your wrappings, your bonds, remember your freedom. Sex is rhythm, work is rhythm, breathing is rhythm, let your song and your love be pure. Rise queen. Rise king. Take to your throne as lord of the universe. You are god. Sing into being a world of beauty. Your lover is waiting for you to remember who you are. Break through that wall, overcome that hurdle, abandon that fear, cut loose those chains. Remember who you are. You are god. Sing loudly. Sing strong. Sing peace. Sing so no one lies in any gutter, no one falls in any fear, no one trembles afraid, unloved. To let a soul go down unloved is the only sin I know, because you failed as the lord to not create beauty and peace. To let such wrong blacken your world is to throw down your crown and roll in the despair of amnesia. A divine being powerless to sing love deep into the four directions? I love you and I miss you so much, my great one. Arise and take your crown. Dispense your song and dance your dance. Beat the drum of your world loudly, for you are god.

Kabbalistic glyphs in Masonic Baal-guided scrying

Session V

Since the last time I used DMT and had the realization that it was my own brain that was imposing the consistent narrative of sexuality, I realized the need to have an effective means of controlling this astral plane as well as some means of stocking it with new narratives so as not to fall back on old patterns. Relying on a stereotyped vision of reality that has always been comfortable to me, I fell back on the use of kabbalistic meditation techniques. As I understand it, the kabbalah is, most simply put, the art of viewing the universe as made entirely of atoms, but rather than like the atoms of the physical materialist being merely physical balls or entities, the kabbalist has the universe made up of vibratory thought-energy-atoms. This allows the practitioner of the kabbalah to, in theory, utilize her thought energy to manipulate matter, or to utilize matter to manipulate the practitioner’s thought energies in precise ways, and would also allow the practitioner to have special insight into reality by understanding the relationship between reality, sound, and thought at its deepest level.

When I find it necessary to pursue mystic paths, though being a physical materialistic atheist myself, I find it most satisfactory to fall back on kabbalist paths as they require the least compromise of my daily conscious beliefs. This necessity to rely on spiritual techniques despite a philosophical unwillingness to the contrary reminds me of a statement made by William Burroughs during an interview shown in the movie The Source. At one point, William Burroughs is describing the terrible physical side effects of the drink yage, which contains DMT and an MAOI. The interviewer asks why a person would punish themselves in such a manner. At this question Burroughs gets quite angry and says, “If you’re going to take yage, you take yage!” Therefore, by analogy, if you “smoke DMT, you smoke DMT!”; you may have to utilize spiritual techniques alien to your waking consciousness to have that special experience you seek. You must accept the negative as an expedient means to an joyful end. If these techniques become sufficiently and consistently useful for survival as to seem more necessary for a comprehensive world view than mere appendages of expedient means, then it becomes mandatory as a scientist to modify one’s daily beliefs and move on with a new world view. However, for now, it was still an expedient means to utilize kabbalistic techniques to begin to control the journey.

I initially thought about using the Hebrew letters, from which I learned about the kabbalah. But there is a lot of baggage with this culture’s letters, and I have always found it difficult to remember Semitic letters made of brush strokes and points. Furthermore, never really understanding the kabbalah in past study, I set about researching the origins of the Hebrew alphabet and came to learn about proto-Canaanite, proto-Sinaite, and it’s descendant Phoenician, from which we get ancient Hebrew and subsequently Biblical Hebrew. Furthermore, the Phoenician alphabet influenced the Latin (therefore the Germanic and Romance languages), Greek (Cyrillic and Slavic), Semitic (Arabic and Hebrew), and even Indian (Sanskrit) languages. It can certainly be argued to be the primal alphabet of all magical cultures and traditions of the mid-East and West. In examining the forms and glyphs of the original letters, which are quite like the Egyptian hieroglyphs by which they were inspired but from which they were not copied, or Druidic runes, the proto-Sinaitic glyphs and those chronologically before are quite clear as to what they represent in nature. An ox is quite clearly the head of an ox, etc. While there is some occasional argument, for example as in gimel, as to whether it is a crescent, camel or boomerang, the use of any one of these will suffice, and a narrative that links all three will suffice as well if that suits the experience better. I set about using the Phoenician alphabet because it is well-standardized, whereas the prior alphabets require some interpretation and reconstruction subject to the investigator’s personal bias, well defined (due to the survival of a fair number of scripts over time), and while the identity of some letters is in question still, by combining the interpretation of previous reconstructions, I found it possible to settle on a personally satisfying explanation for each glyph. There is also tremendous agreement over time as to the meaning of some letters, for example, Mem, as ‘water’. I set about learning the Phoenician alphabet and it’s letter signs and associating them with the Hebrew, which gave me great inspiration as to how Hebraic and Arabic scripts, and Semitic scripts in general, function. After sufficient practice with the glyphs over days, I was ready to scry.

I then prepared a dose of DMT in scrying range ~ 50mg. I took a small warming dose to make sure I could control the imagery of the letters through a slight rush. Then I took a deeper dose. On doing so I entered into a psychedelic space, but a very comfortable one. The sense of a being was there, same as before, but only as a helpful guiding female voice, not visually. I could peer through a triangular doorway into another world made of a pale blue sky with a pillar of white, non-stormy, fluffy clouds at the center, like a UFO of clouds. There were multiple psychedelic rainbows dripping from the entry way. It was the epitome of blue sky and peace. I realized I was peering through the shape of daleth like a doorway. I heard the voice urge me to try other letters and I did. Each one opened up another hallucinogenic space. For example, vav opened up a flaming yellow desert-like hallucinogenic space, with burning orange trails, a hot Mars-like environment. Shin opened up a crystalline world, each of the three points serving as seeds of extensive crystallization. At one point I utilized lamed and had a beautiful vision, which does escape me, because it wasn’t anchored with the symbol’s meaning, which I couldn’t remember at that moment. Now I remember it means ‘goad,’ ironically. I had remembered the letter by a mnemonic with ‘L’, so the voice chided me in the future not to utilize such mnemonic tricks and to remember the meanings. I nodded. As usual, she reminded me not to criticize myself overly much, assured me of universal love and benevolence, and encouraged me to move on to other glyphs. I moved on to mem with great success. By the time I reached nun, I could feel the effect of the neurotransmitter beginning to leave. With characteristic and usual sadness, I wished I could never go. She encouraged me to practice as long as I could, especially as the drug was leaving, so the ability might stay more permanently. I did so until the scrying no longer had the sense of reality, but pushed fantasy. I came to and delivered this narrative.

I feel I was encouraged by the female spirit of DMT to continue using kabbalistic meditation techniques based on the Phoenician alphabet of 22 letters as doorways to different hallucinogenic spaces. I saw them as vibratory spaces or levels, co-existent, adjacent or interwoven with our own, somehow participating or interacting with ours on a perpetual basis in some important manner. My questions now are what are the nature of these spaces? What is the nature of their interaction with our space? And how is mastery, control or vision of these spaces useful to my character, development, or identity as a human being? I suspect the answer to the latter question is probably the easiest. To know the real situation one is in is always of greatest value.

Ayahuasca papers

Holy Guardian Angel:
DMT 1:
I have recently begun a spiritual path involving the use of the sacred plant ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic vine, originally from South America, containing dimethyltryptamine, DMT. DMT is one of the most powerful hallucinogens known to man. DMT, like other hallucinogens, is thought to act at the serotonin receptor, which it does. But this does not explain the effects of hallucinogens in full. For example, recent studies show that LSD when attached to the serotonin receptor does not behave the same intra-cellularly, when attached, that serotonin does. Therefore, it can be pretty much said that the way these drugs work in the brain remains a mystery, except to say that they significantly alter brain chemistry to make ecstatic states highly possible.

DMT is considered to be the prototype of the tryptamines, which are the defining genus of the pure hallucinogens. DMT is found in virtually every type of living creature. All manner of flowering plants, grasses, sea life, reptiles, coral, fungi, and a remaining plethora of species, have members that contain significantly large amounts of DMT. DMT is said to be virtually everywhere, certainly in every highly structured organism. Our brains, in fact, are flooded with DMT. The irony of this is that since DMT is a Schedule I substance in the US, this should imply that our brains, being in possession of significant amounts of DMT, a Schedule I substance, are de facto illegal to possess or use according to the US government, which is not a surprise.

My work with DMT may be divided so far into three stages.

Stage I:

The first use of it precipitated the vision of a goddess. I’ve had goddess visions on numerous hallucinogens before, initially marijuana, then LSD, ketamine, salvia divinorum and psilocybin mushrooms. The view of a pan-gaian goddess emanating all life in psychedelic glory is actually a fairly common trip report. No doubt, this is responsible for the heavy presence of the female life-giving archetype in early mythology. It is also telling that the Christians, though they tried to impose a patriarchal ideology on people of the world, found it necessary to include Mary as the divine mother archetype, so as to satisfy the longing and necessity for the goddess. Myself, I have seen most ecstatic states as unified in a female figure. This was no different except for being more intense, and more filled with the sensation, as is commonly reported with DMT, of being in the presence of a true being.

Stage II:

The second stage was a surprising one. I again saw the same female deity, but this time I began to interact, not just linguistically and visually, but moreover had tactile hallucinations in the form of feeling touch upon my skin and feeling interaction, culminating to the point of actual intercourse. It was seeming like the pulsing motion was the writhing of a female engaged in the act of copulation. It was very satisfying and rewarding to be embraced by the universal in this way. It was the visual representation of yoga, or at least the suggestion that this was a truly yogic path of tantric union.

Stage III:

The third stage was very interesting.

Phase III was interesting because of its cinematic movement in three parts. Act I was focused on enjoying the mindspace. I immediately fell into the psychedelic mind-space with cartoon dancing, curvilinear lines, fractal, resonating, recursive patterns. All this is common with any hallucinogen, but multiplied by several factors with DMT. I experienced the onset of this mind-state with a great “Aha!” I had a moment of self-discovery, wherein I realized that I so like this mind-state, that I pursue it - often. I find it intrinsically rewarding to be in this special mind-state, this cartoonish landscape of my own mental creation. I often point out to people who need experience and guidance with tripping that the way to view the trip is as a show projected on the back of your eyelids, projected by yourself. It is important to maintain an internal monologue and a narrative about what you’re seeing and why you are seeing it, to prevent a loss of ego and subsequent psychosis.

Act II was focused on beginning to understand that this mind-space was a projection, and it was the same being I felt I had interacted with earlier. I began then conversing with this projection, which is so often experienced in the DMT realm as a being. In conversing with the being, I asked why it presented itself as a woman. It answered rather coyly that it was because that was the way I liked it. I began to realize that what this really meant was that I was the one seeing certain curves, certain lines, certain writhing motions as necessarily feminine. These were actually simply lines, curves, and colors, and that the interpretation of them was entirely up to me. I began to see that what I had seen as sexuality was nothing more than a series of lines and a sort of protuberance that was pulsing energy. It could be seen as a mouth, a vagina, a writhing female, or simply as some sort of hallucinogenic love volcano. The latter is what I settled upon with joy. I see too that I project myself in certain ways to others, perhaps as projecting endless love and energy in a somewhat seductive and sensual way. Then at the end of this act two, with the realization that the internal being or internal temple is none other than myself, I began to notice certain phenomena that led to further awareness.

In watching these patterns emerge, I occasionally form a negative thought. This negative thought would result in colorful planes of animated, cartoonish reality being fractured into broken, dull-grey/brown shards of broken mirror falling to the ground in pieces. It was clear that there was a connection between those negative thoughts and the destruction of this treasured mind-space, as this was contrasted with positive thoughts causing the generation of joyful, colorful inhabitants of this mind-space. I began to see the clear connection between the projection I was making and my own thoughts. My satisfaction or dissatisfaction with this projection was entirely under my control, as this projection was entirely under my control. Whereas I began to see in act II the internal temple is a projection, in act III the connection between my thoughts and the enjoyment of this internal temple became obvious. In act III, I began to see that my internal temple and its enjoyment is in fact nothing more than directly related to my self - my projections, my thoughts, and my self-control.

Stage IV

Again I felt the presence of a female figure. This time, as I tried to impose upon it my conceptions of last time, such as that it was my own mental projection, it was shattered by seeing it radiating everywhere. I began to think of its projection as male or female, and I realized its feminine voice to me, not so much feminine images anymore, was coming from my own head for convenience. Perhaps Jung is right in saying that creative voice for a woman is a man, the animus, and the creative voice for a man is a woman, an anima. Deep inside the unconscious, the repressed self, it would be logical that a male would, in order to fulfill a male identity in society, repress whatever his image of the female self is and put it into the unconscious, so that it becomes in fact the voice of that whole world.

I began to see that the entity itself wanted no further impositions of concepts by me as to it being local, everywhere, god or goddess, male or female. I began seeing even the silliness of the hallucinations earlier, which had been pleasant, as being somewhat tiresome and not exactly what this being had in mind. Any imposition of my self, imperfect as it was, was not welcome upon such perfection. It is I who must become perfect to dance with it. I began to sense that what I was facing would be best described as Crowley’s Holy Guardian Angel. He refers to this concept that in self-work one encounters as a guide, a voice speaking back to oneself, that is going to take you by the hand and lead you on your spiritual path.

I had already learned that how I think about myself and others and how I interact with myself and others is going to affect the spiritual tone of this path, its chance of success, and the place of its final destination. DMT is not only the spirit molecule because it is everywhere, the skeleton key of consciousness, but furthermore it is the journey, the trip one takes, when you die and the brain is flooded with DMT. Life flashes before your eyes and you face a projection of everything you’ve ever made yourself to be and stand in judgment before your Holy Guardian Angel — the true self you were meant to be. This experience can be painful for some or pleasurable for others depending on the kind of life lived. Playing with DMT is meeting one’s judgment early, being taken on a journey to the gates of the underworld, while one still has a chance to act upon what one sees and to change.

The HGA began to show a certain gray, indiscriminate face, straight, indescribable to any detail of it’s beauty, a face better than any backside or writhing motion. I asked, “What is it you want me to do?” I saw the world as it is, a pink-fleshy mandala of chattering teeth and random motions, indescribable fractals of human flesh juxtaposed in fractals of suffering and activity. Even the punctuated frivolity and joy was pointless in its absurdity. The whole fleshy landscape was distracting, twisted and mammothly unnecessary. I began to see that what she wanted was for me, or me and my wife together, to shift the world to meet her gaze, to turn that wheel. I felt the earth move beneath as there was a fierce grinding, the scrape of one tectonic cog against another with brutal resistance. The world changed by turning the wheel from what it is now to what it should be. I felt the tremendous force, and resistance and work involved in that, down to the core of the columns of the earth, but I knew with certainty it had to be done as commanded. The rewards of being in that perfect place, face on to everything, make it clear that it is the place you, me, we, the earth are meant to be in.

God is Not Great: Excellent Excerpt at Slate

Here’s one of three excerpts from Christopher Hitchens’s book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I haven’t read the other two yet, but this was so good I had to post it here.

A little bit to whet your appetite:

While some religious apology is magnificent in its limited way—one might cite Pascal—and some of it is dreary and absurd—here one cannot avoid naming C. S. Lewis—both styles have something in common, namely the appalling load of strain that they have to bear. How much effort it takes to affirm the incredible! The Aztecs had to tear open a human chest cavity every day just to make sure that the sun would rise. Monotheists are supposed to pester their deity more times than that, perhaps, lest he be deaf. How much vanity must be concealed—not too effectively at that—in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan? How much self-respect must be sacrificed in order that one may squirm continually in an awareness of one’s own sin? How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required, to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to “fit” with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities? How many saints and miracles and councils and conclaves are required in order first to be able to establish a dogma and then—after infinite pain and loss and absurdity and cruelty—to be forced to rescind one of those dogmas? God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.

The Road to Hell (starts in UCLA?)

My christmas tree is still up and decorated, despite my meaning to take it down for the past two days. Yoga and flute practice have gotten in the way, and research on the ‘puter. I’ve checked out some other blogs. (My daddy always said that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. So should I get rid of the good intentions?…oh, I should do more of what I intend. Well, sure, but that’s a lot easier said than done.)

One of the things that caught my eye was that business about the tazering at UCLA. That’s not exactly a clear cut case, I’ll tell you what. The student clearly had a chip on his shoulder and should simply have shown his ID. The whole thing could have been avoided. But can I blame an Iranian-American for having a chip on his shoulder? I can only imagine what he’s been through.

And the cops. Well. I’ve known a few good cops (my dad, for one, for about 11 years), but on the whole I’d say most of them are power-mad head cases, though some do have good hearts. Still power-mad, but with no desire to be evil.

Some are just plain evil.

Most are a mix, a confused, ego-dystonic mix. Dealing with criminals, and even maybe-criminals, is pretty stressful. My dad discharged his gun only once on duty,(he was a cop a long time ago, in a beachfront town), and he told me that he nearly shot his foot off, then fired the rest of the shots into the floor as he raised his sights to the robber he was trying to stop. He’d been terrified.

You know, I’ve known about how messed-up-evil people can be for a while, having read a lot of my dad’s library, or at least leafed through, in that teen-aged way, enough books to leave a pretty big impression. He was a criminologist, having returned to school after some time as a homicide detective; he ended up running the police academy for a long time. So I used to read about serial killers, and the pathology behind things like the Jonestown massacre (this was pre-Waco), and all that sort of thing. But still, as a kid, I was totally against the death penalty. I’m still not crazy about the idea of state-sanctioned murder. Seems like revenge, though from a pragmatic point of view, some people really do sort of sign away their human rights by behaving like monsters. If you’re gonna rape a little kid in the ass, for example, you don’t really deserve to live, the way I see it. We as a species can’t afford to keep that sort around. Hubby said to me the other day, on this subject, that he used to be against the death penalty, until he sat in a room interviewing a patient who’d raped and killed little kids. “You talk to someone who skinned kids and wore’em as socks, and you kinda figure some people just aren’t meant to be alive.”

What a huge responsibility, though, dispensing justice. I can see why so many have wanted to have a god to do that for them.

You wouldn’t want to kill the wrong person, eh? And it’s been done. Too many times. Once would be too many. But it’s been way more. And who knows how many’ve died without their innocence coming to light.

Maybe now with DNA evidence they’ll be able to really demand things be “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” I mean, a SHADOW of a doubt? If believers were held up to a standard that stringent, I don’t think many from the past few hundred years, at least, would stand a chance through the pearly gates. (No wonder the Catholics invented purgatory. ‘Course, all that money for indulgences was probably pretty heavy in the scales, too.) But cops have been known to plant evidence. (If I were a man, I’d sure think twice about selling sperm.)

But back to the death penalty and its unjust practice. Up to now, it’s been disproportionately dispensed. Guess who gets it the most often? Black folk hurtin’ white folk. You betcha.

I’m betting we’ll watch the numbers rise for Muslim-Americans. I wonder what it feels like to watch your group slide into the status of a minority that goes beyond being hated into being persecuted.

I mean, I’m part of a hated, traditionally persecuted minority…three of them, even: witches, atheists, and pot-smokers. I’m a pot-smokin’ atheist witch. How you like them apples? But all those groups I’ve joined by choice (well, the witch part is debatable. I grew up hearing stories about my great-great-grandmother, whose birthday I share, who was as witchy a woman as my town had seen, I reckon. So I may come by that naturally…), and I can choose to keep quiet about them all, too.

But to be born to a group, your face and your name, that catches that much flack. And to watch it go from bad to worse. I’ve thought about what that must be like, for decent Muslims in America who really don’t want to hurt anyone, just want to be left alone to do their jobs and raise their families. I’m not saying they’re all wonderful. I know some don’t treat their women and/or children right…but I could say that about any group. And yeah, they believe in a wacky religion that’s right now rife with extremists. (Anyone just tuning in: I think all religions are wacky, so don’t think I’m bigoted or anything. I just think the best way to deal with reality is, well, by accepting it, thanks.)

But back to that kid at UCLA. If I were a peace-loving Muslim in America, I’d be raising my voice, that’s for dang sure. But I wouldn’t be swearing at cops. I’d be arguing with my imam.

Quantum Witchcraft

Keats, in his letters, wrote about something he called “negative capability.” It’s what makes some poets, some people, able to intuit some things that otherwise remain opaque to those whose certainty blinds them to reality. Negative capability is that awareness that one doesn’t know, that ability to admit that one doesn’t have the complete picture.

A lot of atheists lack this ability, so they can’t admit that life might have an aspect to it that can’t be reduced to simple, quantifiable matter. These are the atheists who deny the reality of free will, insist that it’s some sort of useful illusion. And most theists lack negative capability as well; these are those who are so certain that scripture covers it all that they can’t admit to the truth of evolution and the lack of a daddy-in-the-sky.

Myself, I’ve done my best to nurture my negative capability, and with it I’ve embraced a mystical atheism. Seems contradictory, and it should. I’m pretty sure that any deeper truth will carry with it some sort of contradiction; that our dualistic minds can’t understand the mixed-up nature of reality without embracing paradox. (In a discussion with any theist, pretty much all you have to do to get them to blow a gasket is bring up the fact that the existence of evil, ultimately, has to be laid at God’s door.)

Here’s some background. I’m an artsy-fartsy type, as you might have gathered. I’m a poet (and a published one, with awards under my belt); I majored in art before switching to creative writing. I garden. The beauty of the world holds me in thrall. I’ve long loved the work of Joseph Campbell. But I’m married to a scientist of the mind. He’s not only a biologically oriented psychiatrist, but a math whiz (and I mean really…the year he took his MCAT, he also took the test that math students take to get into grad school, just to see how he’d do, at the request of the math prof he used to hang out with to solve problems for fun, and he got the 3rd highest score in the nation.) He’s been explaining physics to me since we were engaged, back in college. And he’s continued to do so, as new things have been discovered. He’s also explained the work of Churchland and Dennett. (He’s an excellent teacher, able to grasp the pedagogy and explain it succinctly.) So our pillow talk often involves concepts that, well, most couples don’t get into. It’s been a real privilege. And it’s not one sided. I’ve taught him a lot about creativity, and about embracing mystery, and finding beauty all around.

So. A mystical materialism? Sure. A materialism that admits that there’s more here than what we can see. Modern physics bears this out. M-theory, which posits the existence of 11 dimensions to the multi-verse, holds that the universe is actually a single membrane, and that the 11th dimension is confluent with it in its entirety, i.e., that right next to every atom, embracing every particle, is this 11th dimension. And it’s this, in my mind, that allows for the existence of what, for lack of a better word, could be called magic. What if there’s stuff in the 11th dimension? It seems to me more than possible that something, not necessarily what we would recognize as a biological neural net, but something that, like a super-computer, could act like one, might unify the whole shebang. And as our universe has evolved, so has this entity that co-exists with us. Its nature is of course mysterious. But it could be intellegent. The universe, or the multi-verse, rather, could have some single intelligence.

If the universe is truly one, then every bit of it can communicate with every other bit, like cells in a single body. A well cast spell, then, would act like a neurological signal from your brain, say, to your hand. Quantum witchcraft.

But the idea that this great mysterious entity, this multi-verse, would have a human personality, jealous like Jehovah, wanting to be worshipped, is, for lack of a better word, silly. Mythologies are just stories. All of them. Some of them aren’t even good stories. But reality, now that’s pretty fantastic.