Download prophecy04.zip (~500 kb)

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     Before I post the feedback I thought I should clear something up that I mentioned in an essay yesterday. I used the 'hippies' of the 60s an example of intolerance on the part of the church that also spread into the rest of society. I should point out here that some of those hippies were doing things that I don't agree with, such as taking far to many drugs. So maybe I could find another example to make things clear. (And it just so happens, in a remarkable example of synchronicity, that I received an email from a Gnostic this morning, which is another perfect example of the same sort of thing). Even using that hippy example there is still a point to be made here. A lot of those people began dressing strangely, growing their hair long, 'dropping out' of society, disposed of their possessions and then went to live on communal farms (just like Luke's church, in the book of Acts, by the way). From the pulpit came endless complaining about 'long haired men' being utterly disgraceful (including, one must wonder, the perpetually long haired Jesus Christ of iconography, the Nazarites, who were never, ever to cut their hair, and thus, probably looked worse than any hippy ever did after about 20 or 30 years of not cutting their hair, and who could forget the flowing locks of Samson, who was also never, ever to cut his hair, but never mind. That church just complained and complained about those strange clothes and especially about that long hair, and the rest of society just complained and complained, so the point I was making yesterday remains the same.

     I also got paid a second visit by that same hacker I mentioned yesterday, who, apparently being angered by my posting of his IP address, proceeded to 'jackhammer' against my firewall, a smart strategy by the way, rendering my computer almost useless by tying up my resources in the firewall. So I pulled the plug out from the modem for a while which solved the problem.

     Somehow a Gnostic Christian managed to find my site and sent some feedback. The author began by quoting my driver's licence number, which I mentioned on my story page (and blamed on a devil, as well as that house haunting in that 'devil story', among other things). I believe that what then followed was a 'reinterpretation', and this was followed a gnostic link.

9066606
'96-a great transition
666 anyway ya do it=18 the 18th letter of the Hebrew alphabet=life

http://www.scitec.auckland.ac.nz/~king/Preprints/book/genesis.htm

     The above link leads to a feminist Gnostic site. Gnoticism was an early mystical tradition in the church, which, unfortunately, was destroyed by the rising power of the monolithic authoritarian church which would tolerate no rivals. Fortunately, although the church completely destroyed gnostic texts, they were rediscovered in this century in much the same way as the Dead Sea scrolls were rediscovered, preserved by dry desert air in a cave (and it was fortunate they were discovered in modern times, when they would not be subjected to a second round of destruction, but rather studied and rediscovered. I call this divine justice, myself, and even though it took almost two thousand years, divine dispensation and justice was finally done to the persecuted and destroyed Gnostic churches of the early part of the first millenia.)

     Gnosticism often gets a bad rap, and I have found this to be the case even on university campuses, where certain very conservative professors more or less parrot the condemnations of the Gnostics first delivered by the early church fathers. Gnosticism was extremely diverse and the ridiculing of Gnostics you might hear, and the over simplication of their tradition by holding up just a few foolish sounding examples, while it is in keeping with the traditions of the church fathers, is out of place in the modern world where an examination of the actual texts is now possible, and which reveal a diverse tradition.

     Gnosticism was a form of mystical religion, and as such it emphasized personal experience and the attainment of personal knowledge (the term 'gnosis' means 'to know'). As such it was not popular with the rising powers of the church as it moved steadily towards an intolerant, centralized, authoritarian structure. (Those gnostics had to go, and they were removed, which is not surprising. True mysticism and authoritarian religion mix as well as oil and water).

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." ---Buddha

     Yes that mystical tradition, particularly that eastern mysticism, was roundly condemned by the church, and still is by fundamentalists today, and you can see how incompatible mysticism is with authoritarianism, so this is understandable. It is nice to see that Gnostics are still around, and it is nice to see that somehow a Gnostic found my site. They remain as mystical as they ever were, in the words of this particular site, it "is a cross-cultural synthesis of religious tradition in both its deeper cultural origins in the shamanistic stream of consciousness, and the wider ancient religions of the Near East..." This particular group emphasized the "millennial vigil from the Amazon to Jerusalem to reflower the Tree of Life." In actual practice this turns out to be a blend of mystical spirituality and enviromental concern, including "cosmological biogenesis, evolution, nuclear disarmament, biodiversity, and genetic technology...a drawing together of the threads of ecofeminist and feminine spirituality visions of natural transformation of the planet."

Sakina net is the place where you can participate in the transformation of Earth into living paradise ... save biodiversity, or have any questions about the Genesis of Eden ... help conceive Wisdom Earth Democracy, or discuss deep topics from quantum chaos through genetic ethics to the sacred marriage, or participate in apocalypsia the feminine unveiling rite of passage of our coming of age...fulfilling the prophetic tradition by consummating the Fall from Eden in the restoration of biodiversity."

     Notice how strange, how different this sounds when compared to the larger church? This blend of mysticism, normally more characteristic of the Eastern traditions, and Christian imagery and symbolism and thought is something that was characteristic of the early Gnostics, and it remains the same today. I wait to see if those churches are going to get angry again that there are mystical Gnostics around, after all these years. I hope not, because wiping the Gnostic churches out once was bad enough and, as the church descended into the pit of rigid intolerance and authoritarianism, the church became the poorer for it. Nevertheless, it would not surprise me to hear some of those churches calling gnostics devils, and attacking gnostics as well, which shows just how deeply embedded those ancient traditions really are, in that even after two thousand years that church still cannot stop feuding with gnostics.

     I am not a great expert on the Gnostic texts myself, being most familiar with the Gospel of Thomas. This is a very interesting work. There are about 50 parallels between Thomas and the other gospels, which makes one wonder why we have the Gospel of Mark, of Matthew, Luke, and John, but no Gospel of Thomas in the Bible. The answer is that even though Thomas has so many of the same parables as the other gospels, Thomas is a gnostic gospel. It uses the same parables to emphasize personal mystical experience and individual gnosis, rather than the experience and gnosis of authority figures, and thus it had no place in the rising authoritarian church. (the last thing the church wanted was the diversity that would result form mystical experience. If you wanted 'an answer' go ask the bishop, and make sure your answer was the same, because we all know what happened to heretics, and really, what continues to happen to them today - they get called devils, like yours truly, and are condemned for being different by the church. Same point I was making yesterday.) So the Gospel of Thomas had no place reserved for it in the Bible, but it will have a place on my website however, since I find it to be an interesting Gospel, along with a few other Gnostic texts I would like to mirror here and discuss here.

     In response to my updated Navigation tips on my site (where I suggest that those about to 'join the religious right' should read a few pages on my site so as to make an informed choice) I received the following email from a 'recovering Roman Catholic':

I'm in a position where someone I know is heavily into religion. I consider myself a recovering catholic from my childhood RC background. I believe its all part of a grander scheme. You may be interested to read the Biggest Secret by David Icke and also UFO*BC has a great quarterly magazine (a bargain @ $20.00/yr) and website.

     I have been over to UFO BC since I am looking for a copy of a letter that I wrote in 1975 that was published in a small B.C. UFO magazine published in the Okanogan. I can understand how 'a recovering Catholic' might see Catholicism as part of 'a grander scheme'. I include a link to David Icke's website here.Personally, I think that the Catholic church was just the Catholic church being the Catholic Church, and probably not part of a bigger conspiracy, but as I said, your experiences with that tradition do not seem to have been positive so I can understand how you might feel differently. I haven't had the time to really surf his site, other than reading some of his summaries, so I can't say much more about it, other than to note that the Catholic church might have been badly behaved, and you feel it emotionally yourself, so I can understand how you might harbor some suspicions towards them.

     Another reader dropped off a quick note and a URL which I have added to my links page:

I like your ideas, and believe many of them myself.
www.ufoamerica.com.

I also got sent the following link, where you can find great pictures of objects in space (by the thousands it would seem) at SPACE.com.