Sunday, September 28, 2008

Earth's Cries Recorded in Space

The Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.

The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals....

Original article

Hear the sound:

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Laws of Hermetics

1 - The Law of Mentalism: God, or The All is Mind, The Universe is mental and is continuously created and maintained by the Creative Genius.
2 - The Law of Correspondence: As above, so below; as below, so above. Likewise, our outer world is a reflection of our inner world – as within, so without.
3 - The Law of Vibration: Nothing rests, everything is in a constant state of motion, everything vibrates.
4 - The Law of Polarity: Everything is Dual; everything has poles, everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet, all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.
5 - The Law of Rhythm: Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.
6 - The Law of Cause & Effect: Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.
7 - The Law of Gender: Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Self Righteousness

To be truly Innocent we must strive to become unconscious even of our own perceived sense of satisfaction in doing good deeds, as doing good for self-satisfaction is indeed selfish.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Jesus and Barabbas III

Further, it is reasonable to deduct that the Jews may very well have adopted this 'custom' and made it made it to their suiting by masking it with elements of their own history. In the book of Esther we have the origins of the feast of Purim which occurs yearly about 1 month before the Passover. In the story we have Haman (royal vizier to King Ahasuerus/Xerxes) who conspires to kill the Jews and has set up the gallows to execute Mordecai (Esther's Cousin). Ultimately, Mordecai is exonerated and Haman himself is hanged in his stead in the very gallows that he set up.

In accordance with numerous similar antiquitious traditions from that region the Jews seem to have adopted a ceremony which was symbolically used to denote the end or passing of the previous year with the coming of a new, represented in the New Testament by making Jesus as the Haman (passing) and Barabbas as the Mordecai (beginning) of the year.
customs include drinking wine, wearing of masks and costumes, and public celebration.

In Babylon it was called the Feast of the Sakeas, to the Romans it was Saturnalia. It was ostensibly a memorial of the inroad of the Scythian Sakes into Nearer Asia, and was identical with the very ancient new year's festival of the Babylonians, the Zakmuk. A mock king, a criminal condemned to death, was here also the central figure -- an unhappy being, to whom for a few days was given absolute freedom and every kind of pleasure, even to the using of the royal harem, until on the last day he was divested of his borrowed dignity, stripped naked, scourged, and then burnt. The Jews of the Southern Kingdom gained knowledge of this 'custom' during the Babylonian captivity, borrowed it from their oppressors, and Incorporated its traditions shortly before their Pasch under the name of the Feast of Purim.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Jesus and Barabbas II

We see another depiction of the trial of Jesus in John 18:39-40, however this version of the story offers an interesting additional piece of information. Here we see the words of Pilate to the crowd in Jerusalem: "But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber."

To what 'custom' is Pilate here referring? There is no record of any such custom among the Israelites recorded in the books of the Law... Interestingly, the answer to this can be found in the religions of ancient Mesopotamia where the public execution of a prisoner in the role of a divine ruler was connected with the celebration of the new year.

The tradition is said to have begun with Nimrod and his wife Seramisis. Nimrod later came to be worshiped under the personage of Marduk, god of heaven. Essentially the ancients viewed the procession of the seasons as evidence of a 'war' between the forces of good (Marduk) and the forces of evil (Tiamatt). As the Summer months drew to an end leading up to the time of harvest the people rejoiced in the sustenance that their benevolent god had provided them with during the year; as Autumn ensued and lead into winter the people watched as everything seemingly 'died.' They feared that Tiamat the goddess of darkness and chaos would prevail permanently over Marduk, who would not be able to return the earth to its previous state of plentifulness.

As Spring crept in they feared that Marduk needed assistance in his war with the god of darkness so the king, (who was not only a representative of the god to the people, but also a representative of the people before the god) had to go into the underworld to assist him. Of course the only way for him to achieve this would be through his own death, but rather than sacrifice the actual King the people sought a substitute... a prisoner!

This prisoner was now the representative of the king and his people, this sacrifice on his part was viewed as an atonement not only for the sins of the entire population, but his own as well. It was looked upon as an honorable way to repay your debt to society. Now as the representative of both the Babylonian king and of a sinful people as well as the agent of the god, he now had to submit to ritual acts of humiliation: his symbols of power were removed, and the priest (urigallu) hit him in the face and enjoined him to pray for the forgiveness of his sins and the sins of his people.

He was then clothed in royal garb and crowned, paraded around the city (sometimes riding an ass) and eventually killed. His soul was then believed to descend into the underworld where he helped Marduk fight the powers of darkness and prevail. The Israelites would have become familiar with this custom during the Assyrian-Babylonian captivity.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Jesus and Barabbas

Most Bible readers are familiar with Pilate's famous words during the trial of Yehoshua "Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" What most do not realize is that Barabbas' first name was actually Jesus as well.

The name 'Barabbas' is actually a surname or family name in much the same sense as Peter was known as Simon Bar-Jonah (Matthew 16:17) which means Simon 'son of'' Jonah. Bar is a Hebraic or Aramaic rendering of the word 'son,' so Simon (Peter's) Father was named Jonah and he was called Simon the son of Jonah. Now Barabbas actually means Bar-Abba or son of the Father.

So a more accurate rendition of what Pilate actually may have said might be, "Whom will ye that I release unto you? Jesus who is called the son of the Father or Jesus who is called Christ?"

This detail, the fact that Barabbas' first name was actually Jesus, isn't mentioned in the King James version, but it is in the New Revised Standard Version.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

I.N.R.I?

We are all familiar with the initials universally displayed over the head of the image on most crucifixes and art work displaying the same. We have been taught that these initials, this acronym stands for "Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm" Latin uses an "I" instead of the English "J," and a "V" instead of "U," so a modernized rendering would be "Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum." The English translation being "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

There is speculation however that the N could have actually stood for Nazorean rather than Nazarene (meaning someone from the village of Nazareth). The Nazoreans were a sect that is believed to have been an offshoot of the Essenes. In fact, the town of Nazareth is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament, nor is it mentioned in the Talmud (which names 63 towns in Galilee by name). Further there is no archaeological or archival records or evidence that any town called Nazareth even existed before the fourth century A.D.

Nazareth was not included in the list of settlements of the tribes of Zebulon (Joshua 19:10-16) which mentions twelve towns and six villages, and Nazareth is not included among the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus (37AD-100AD), a widely traveled historian who never missed anything and who voluminously describes the region. The name is also missing from the 63 towns of Galilee mentioned in the Talmud.

The first reference to Nazareth is in the New Testament where it can be found 29 different times. However, there is still cause for speculation as to whether or not the city existed at the time of Jesus. It is mentioned only in the Gospels and Acts. These books do refer to Nazareth, but they did not originate at this time, they are later writings. The earlier writings of the NT (Paul etc) mention Jesus 221 times - but never mention Nazareth.

One possibility is that it comes from the Hebrew root nzr in the form of the noun nazir, meaning someone "set apart," "consecrated," and, therefore, "holy," or in the form of the noun nezer, meaning "crown." A second possibility is that it comes from the Hebrew noun netser, meaning "branch" or "flower."