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THE ABSENCE OF CHRISTMAS
By Rev. David Strickler
Crisp and cold ‘twas the evening of the traditional tour of surrounding neighborhoods Christmas light display. I walked outside to meet Goldfern who was graciously piloting the vehicle and chauffeuring all embarking on our seasonal exploration of lighting designs. It really makes for an evening to see the creativity of those who celebrate the Christmas season here in the Southwest where there is no snow with temperatures to remind one of their snowy origins from back east in northern Ohio, at least in my particular history. Without the least warning, an absence had emerged within the horizontal plane.
Horizontal events are activities of response that occur in this 3 dimensional world, what used to be named the mundane world as opposed to the coexisting least recognized vertical plane of consciousness which has at its essence causal properties of Soul, Spirit or Higher functions of beingness within consciousness. Horizontal events as such are not Spiritual events, but are more the shadows that are formed by the physical senses that are a more or less accurate of a response and/or reaction toward the presence of the vertical nature (causal) of consciousness initiated by its realm of Spirit. This Causal is not to be confused with the phenomena of cause and effect within the mundane physical world.
The Solar plexus chakra, which in the human nervous system is reflected in the region known as the abdominal brain or as some prefer to call it, the living instinctual mind, is where ‘gut reactions’ seem to swallow the attention that our heads are able to focus and thereby blot out any reasoning or higher thought functions of the brain temporarily. This is the arena within that part of the function of our personality and human ego uses to assume protective custody of our physical bodies by it remarkable power of attention limitation. This is a rough description of the arena of Horizontal consciousness. In some circles we see this area of consciousness well exposed by fixations of sexual activity, as an example, in politics where political commentary seems to predominate at times in primarily dialog about genital issues: looks, sexual preference, fidelity and the rest of the useless rot of diatribe by shallow people.
It is a luxury for me, to have someone drive, since I can’t drive for long periods of time due to the limitations created by the ongoing presence of visual and auditory disturbance from my stroke. I relish being able to sit in the car, converse with friends, laugh and without failure always move inward into a process of contemplation which ignites my level of discernment to my surrounding environment for receptivity and analysis. My ongoing summation of this year’s contemplative perusal always shows in the ghost of Christmas present and this year is by no means an exception, other than I am going to share a part of it with you this holiday, wherein in most years I do not.
Absence is the closest word to describe this season of articulation emerging from the horizontal plane of human consciousness, barren and void of some kind of indescribable quality usually present within human consciousness as it expresses itself on the physical plane. To put it simply, something is missing and it is being made so blaringly evident by the paradoxical description of the overwhelming ‘presence’ and lack; absence. One fair way to describe this absence is in using the Platonic cave as a model to lend it substance for the possibility of understanding. The unenlightened horizontal person’s mind is locked in the cave of Plato, watching the shadows being cast on the walls of the cave and mistaking the shadows for reality instead of a perception which points toward that which casts the shadows.
But here I must diverge in order to show events that promulgate this adherence to creating mass chaos in order to give you some means to apprehend what this absence is or is not and that brings us to 83-161 A.D. of Ptolemaic theory and Claudius Ptolemy’s intentional or unintentional hoax. Ptolemy got caught in those perceptions and mistook them for reality and used linear mathematics and flawed approach with statistical analysis to convince himself and others as to prove that the Sun revolved around the earth. This demonstration of the incompetence of the statistical method employed for mapping observations of the orbits, by Ptolemy and later Copernicus is still showing up redressed as incomplete, simplistic modern global warming theories and you can tell that I derive my view by those scientists in the tens of thousands of dissenting against the anthropogenic Co2 theory and that consensus is not science.
The Oregon Petition is one such gathering of dissent; Signed by more than 19,000 professional persons including 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists, and 5,017 scientists from other disciplines, includes, inter alia, the statement; “Not only has the global warming hypothesis failed the experimental test; it is theoretically flawed as well”. The Peer Reviewed research paper provided in the next link is entitled: Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide This is a "review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge." (re: http://www.oism.org/pproject/ ). Here is a video presentation of: Dr. Noah Robinson, Ph.D. Chemistry, California Institute of Technology, Professor, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine on The Global Warming Myth.
In the words of Georg W. Kreutzberg, the former Director of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany, “Preventing scientific misconduct is the responsibility of all scientists.” This admonition should be branded onto Economic Speculative Theorists by Economic Scientists as well. Complex systems described by a linear mathematics in a non-linear universe usually retain the vesture of my skeptical inquiries and include a caveat that science is not peer review (Albert Einstein being a case in point, re: Physical Review, 1936), alongside the caution that science is not ‘statistics’.
"Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us. As my high-school physics teacher admonished us in those we-shall-conquer-the-world-with-a-slide-rule days, "Begin all of your scientific pronouncements with ‘At our present level of ignorance, we think we know . . .’ Good advice for the IPCC, and all of us." ~ John R Christy is Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, US. He has contributed to all four major IPCC assessments, including acting as a Lead Author in 2001 and a Contributing Author in 2007.
The aroma of human ignorance in history as it repeats itself through the gambling institutions and betting matrices used by current Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms to affirm the existence of almost anything – as long as the Black-Scholes Derivative formula for which Robert Merton and Myron C. Scholes won the Nobel Prize for economics, in 1997, confirms any form of phantasmagoric financial manifestation that could produce cash from large scale ‘betting’. This ‘Las Vegas Casino Style’ appears to have emerged from the work of Robert Merton, PH.D. In 1973 Merton published a paper, "The Theory of Rational Options Pricing," in the Bell Journal of Economics and Management can adroitly snatch any cash flow and produce double digit short term yields. Has science, as in other fields, succumbed to ‘newspeak’ by allowing themselves to be funded by nothing more than modern day bookies disguised as investment gamblers called Hedge Funds and Private Equity firms?
It would be amiss to not mention prior individuals which consummately cultivated the current field of mathematical finance wherein a interwoven dance of gaming theory, information theory and statistical probability theory (think—Ptolemy, Copernicus, anthropogenic Co2 is the sole cause of global warming) with the help of such earlier bastions of human dialog as Bertrand Russell, Norbert Wiener, and John von Neumann and other such applied lunacy being allowed to damage and terrorize the lives of the citizens of this nation as well as the health of our great nation and the world as is seen in the well engineered subprime loan crisis. My bet is the the CDP (carbon disclosure project) is the great Hedge Fund/Private Equity Firm hiring quantz to create ‘virtual machinery’ and ‘virtual jobs’ to foster agreement reality through a coordinating secretariat for institutional investors with a combined $41 trillion of assets under management. Therein is your clue for the direct interwoven dance of gaming theory, information theory and statistical probability theory. The amount of assets under management will cause affirmation some form of certainty toward anthropogenic Co2 as being the sole cause of global warming, never mind the science. Absence of sanity. My bet is that 41 Trillion dollars controls what type of policy is gambled on and engineered into public consent-whether or not it is true.
Please pay very close attention to my next statement: not all Hedge Funds or Private Equity Firms nor the people who work or own them are Economic Terrorists or are corrupt; what I am pointing toward is the existence within this Republic of corrupt individuals from all walks of life in such area as Religious, Political or Business who don’t give a second thought creating damage through unscrupulous profiteering and the expropriation of the citizens of this great nation. That being stated, I find it hard to accept Alan Greenspan’s denial that he couldn’t see the subprime loan debacle coming, when the fact of the matter that any self respecting economist functioning on the evidence of economic history (such as Dr. Michael Hudson) instead of Wall Street supported ‘Walt Disney-ish’ Speculative Theory of Economics as taught by the good-old-boys unit at the University of Chicago school of Economic (non) thought. By the way, where was any evidence of oversight and participation with insight toward regulatory effort from any responsible politician’s years before this Highly Visible collapse occurred?
‘The notion that the economy could regulate itself Hamilton called a ‘wild speculative paradox.”— The Cycles of American History, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986, p. 220-221.
It is revealing to hear such lunacy as the ‘market can regulate itself’ when according to economists who use the evidence prevailing in economic history know that to be false. It appears as though flights of fancy are still the functional norm and explication from some of the mouths of politicians, could this be a political form of Oxycotin? In my opinion and view, the subprime loan debacle and the philosophical cancer it represents spreading world wide is a financially engineered act of economic terrorism by bad apples whose behavior is predictable when they get support of their fantasy in being unregulated. These videos: Hedge Funds – Paul Solman, Voice of America on Hedge Funds and Adam Hewison on SEC Rule Change should give you the basic operational understanding of how Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms work in the market place. I would also recommend reading Bill Fleckenstein’s Contrarian Chronicles.
This brings me to the great absence of sanity in our current human experience largely in part, in my view, due to the absence of genuine connectivity to human reality between people and the spiritual principles that are removed from a blocked view when such connectivity is brought into the realm of human action. Truth is not subjective—human beings may be subjective in their perception and cognition of a truth. Truth is absolute and human subjectivity is absolutely prone to misperception.
Human connectivity is coming at odds (no pun intended) with mathematical matrices designed to quantify all human activity and interaction as a monetary value. No matter how trite this flawed ideology is it remains a force to be reckoned with as a splinter or a muscle spasm making its presence known in the form of intense pain to justify the monetary goals of whatever individual or form of corporatism and institution has as its objective.
The absence of sanity is the presence I spoke of in the opening of my commentary I see in part is making itself known in the world of our human experience and conditions. Our senses as human beings recognize this absence somewhat like a huge wall blocking the source of light that creates the shadows on the Platonic cave wall of our senses.
From a Spiritual standpoint there is now shining a light from the vertical column of our consciousness coming directly from its source and this light is so brilliant that it cannot be seen with our ordinary senses, just as the universal principle of gravity cannot be “seen” directly by the senses. This spiritual light is so bright it renders any landscape within the human internal experience absent of any shadows or images and in the unenlightened individual the senses will create an affect (shadow) to the best of its ability; the summation of an ongoing growing sensation of something missing, something absent, something very wrong. What is wrong is the absence of true human encounter, touch, and dialogue in a one on one physical experience being replaced instead by synthetic forms of virtual reality and communication.
The irony is that the same technology being subjected to human perversion under the guise of “innovation”, “connectivity” and the likes of “social networks” can also, if properly used, give us some greater range of freedom, speed, and expedite concerns thus bringing people together to the ever present underlying realization that the world is okay, but there are some human beings who are down right criminal in their gluttony for gain no matter what that gain may be: power, money, and control to name a few.
Let me cite a few examples of factual human stories and experiences that have taken notice of the absence of sanity in human connectivity in this world. There are many to cite, but I will only give a few that have truly made this a rekindling of Christmas in my world view.
I am deeply moved by the courage displayed by a former KBR-Halliburton employee Jamie Leigh Jones for her appearance and testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary about her heinous experiences while employed by an American Corporation overseas in Iraq. Her testimony was held on Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 10:15 AM at 2141 Rayburn House Office Building to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Hearing on: Enforcement of Federal Criminal Law to Protect Americans Working for U.S. Contractors in Iraq.
In lieu of her experience she founded The Jamie Leigh Foundation which “is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping United States citizens and legal residents who are victims of sexual harassment, rape and sexual abuse while working abroad for federal contractors, corporations, or government entities.” She appears to have incredible support from her family as she continues to recover. Her organization is said to provide a safe area for other women to come forward who have suffered similar experiences. Here at Spiritual Climate Newsletter, our continued prayers for your healing as well as those whose unnamed voices you represent, for ongoing healing, recovery and resolution go out to you.
In a different area, where the ‘out of media coverage, out of mind behavior rationalization’ bears some comment is the continual recovery process of mass disaster of mega proportions-the leftover devastation of lives from hurricane Katrina, yet it appears strongly some politicians have directed their attention and energies to the ‘Big Dig’ going on in Washington D.C. with the massive Capitol Visitors Center project whose price tag is coming in, at least so far, at about $600 million dollars. There is quite enough room for some well deserved cynical irony about this and I would be amiss in my duty as a citizen of this great Republic not to point it out.
Getting back to Katrina, my opinion and comment is likely of little difference to actor Brad Pitt, but I would like to publicly give him a ‘hat’s off’ for his ongoing activism in the participation of helping to rebuild the lives of those who suffered incredible damage and trauma from Katrina. Watching Charlie Rose having A Conversation with Brad Pitt, I listened and watched intently as Brad Pitt shared his views and some of what his Make It Right foundation is doing and pursuing. My comment is that Brad Pitt as an actor first caught my attention in the movie: Meet Joe Black, where he played alongside the incredible Anthony Hopkins. Brad Pitt as a genuine human being first caught my attention in the above interview with Charlie Rose. Not to at all imply here that a comment from me would mean anything to Brad Pitt, but I do have to say Thank-you Brad Pitt for adding to my personal experience of Christmas in your bearing forth of genuine humanity and that expression of the true human spirit that resides with us all.
What does any or all of this have to do with Qabalah? Plenty, because true qabalists are scientists who work in being receptive to truth and the reality of invisible non physical principles that emanate from the not-thing-ness of consciousness which determine the fabric and nature of creation much like physical scientists who work to seek the understanding of the invisible universal principles such as gravity that determine how elliptical orbits come about in the mundane world. This is part of the great discovery astronomer Johannes Kepler accomplished to rid the world of the errors of Ptolemy and Copernicus’s use of statistical methodology for mapping observations of orbits; Kepler was and still is correct to this day; Qabalists seek to further understand the invisible footprint of the principles consciousness that is behind the veil of the visible material universe. These principles are the font through which the aperture of the material universe renders itself manifest. These principles can be used and applied in a physical universe during our temporal sojourn in a vehicle of flesh and bones.
It may be our gift of learning that saves us from ignorance if we can ever learn to imbue ourselves with due diligence, for it is from our flaws and limitations that we have the opportunity to discover gems of truth and pearls of Wisdom and Understanding and continue to grow even when we discard the use of the physical body that we use to explore the earth which is nothing more than the microcosmic finite physical universe and the macrocosmic non physical universe emanating from the soundless sound produced by a No-Thing-Ness which brought forth Light.
Christmas is only a pagan holiday to those whose discernment is lacking in the skill to see beyond the veil of the materialist view of the physical universe. Christmas is not a worship of the physical Sun, it is the reverence that is held to the Eternal Principle of the Life Power that is veiled behind the Sun that is worshiped, not the libelous slander presented by those who wish to justify whatever image they have created their god in their own image and likeness based on whatever feeling or venue of hermeneutics being used at their disposal.
Take heed from the great One, Jesus who admonished his disciples in the parable of the "Ten Maidens" and their lamps. Jesus (YHSVH) described "five who were foolish and five who were wise." All ten had lamps, but the wise had plenty of oil to make their lamps do what they were created for, while the unwise ones had nearly-empty lamps that did almost nothing to overcome their personal darkness that they found within the world.
This is found in Matthew 25:1-13 (King James Version) The Parable Of The Ten Maidens King James Version (KJV) Public Domain
Matthew 25:1. Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 2. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: 4. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 6. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. 7. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 8. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 9. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 10. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. 11. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. 12. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. 13. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. ~ end quote ~
Let me share with you a small view through the eyes of this Qabalist. If one were to strip all systems from the human body except the physical nervous system and then invert it, upright it, one would then see the Unadorned Christmas Tree. Further, if one had eye to see this tree animated by the invisible non physical principle of the Life Power via the agency of consciousness, one would witness a spectacular twinkling of lights that would be similar to an adorned Christmas tree but would make the adorned tree pale by contrast to the Living Principle of Life manifesting through the human tree in terms of light and sound. Those who have eyes and ears take hint!
I wish to thank Goldfern for driving me around in the surrounding area to see some of the homes of the wonderful people who creatively decorated their ‘trees’, their home, their BETH (hebrew: bayt, house). I was blessed that night to share this gift of life with those friends who were able to attend as I was gifted to bear witness to the dance of the Life Power behind the physical house of those who live in this world and to see an incredible non physical light that Lights all Worlds.
May you find within your tree the living gift that is lit with the Light of Wisdom and Understanding,
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all
Rev. David Strickler, Ph.D.
Qabalistic Minister
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