Mystic Board

Spirit, I do not say that I "believe" what I have written: I have deduced this from my researches. In simple terms: it's just a theory and like all theories, it must be proven before it becomes fact. At the moment it seems tenable to me ... but that is where it stops. I cannot afford to believe anyt...

Come here, little Spirit, let me put my arms around you. Close your eyes, relax and feel me. Can you feel my cheek against yours? Good.
Change is not bad, darling: it’s your attitude that makes the difference.
Love, Old Fart.

Evie, how about us incorporating the "weirdest", most side-ways thinking minds we can find to establish a "problem-solving club"? I'm not "mystic" in any way, but I have practical, down-to-earth, "alternative" knowledge about more subjects than I care to mention. I would love to start a commune that...

I'm not only weird, I even spelled "weird" wrongly!

Hello baby, I don't know what an indigo is, so I can't offer any help. I heard about it somewhere along the line, but was probably too busy with something else to pay much attention. I'm not sure what I am, but whatever it is, it's different ... very different. I don't allow it to get me down, howev...

Hi Markus,               I live in Groblersdal, in what used to be die ou Transvaal, then it became Mpumalanga, now they want to change it to Limpopo. As ons weer kyk, sal ons seker Zimbabwe-suid wees, of miskien Aambei, omrede dat ons die gat-kant van die wereld i...

Prof and Spirit, thanks for the “prof-etic” and “spirited” replies: I thrive on these interactions!
Spirit, you cannot describe colour, either the concept or the hue, to a person who was born blind. This makes it indescribable. The Gods cannot be described because no-one has seen any of them (not lately, anyway). You cannot undertake to describe anything that you have never perceived or experienced.
Now before anyone displays their scintillatingly brilliant mental acuity by informing me that there are “Holy Books” to go by, there are always some crucial elements missing. To illustrate: I can send you a detailed description of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) in a language that you understand perfectly. I can go farther than the Biblical authors did by sending you photographs of the tree - and even close-ups of the leaves, flowers, bark and fruits. I can give you recipes in which the fruits are used and tell you that the tree is related to the cashew nut and the mango. The problem is that, if you have never eaten a marula fruit and never will, your fertile imagination notwithstanding, you will forever be in the dark about it. All that information will thus be worthless to you. You may substitute cashew nuts or mango in the recipes, but that’s a bit little like using potatoes or brinjals (egg plants; aubergines) or tobacco to make tomato sauce (ketchup). They all belong to the same family, but it’s really not going to work, is it? Thus it is with the “Holy Books”: they leave a great deal to be desired. Using the Bible as an example, half the time we don’t know what the authors are talking about. If we did, there would only be one Christian church, but since nobody really does understand the Bible, everybody thinks that only the members of his church will go to heaven.  
Spirit, I am in any event not trying to describe the Gods: all I have done is present to you the different types of entities that have been - and some still are being - regarded as “gods” by various peoples. I do not decide upon their attributes: their followers and the defenders of their “faiths” do that. The real Gods are a different matter altogether.
Samson, I do not know what “truth” ultimately is. I know which truths work for me, but most of them go so completely against the flow of modern “knowledge” that, when I air them, most people regard me as being shy of a few tons of marbles. Ultimately, you are the judge: you will decide what you want to believe. Once you arrive at that station, however, no-one but you will ever change your mind.
I have no space in my life for dogma, so that I regard most of the “truths” with which we are bombarded as propaganda. Modern medicine will give you a better quality of life; dieticians and nutritionists know exactly what you should eat to keep you healthy; everyone in the world will die without petroleum; disinfectants; sugar; vitamin and mineral supplements; fluoride-enriched toothpastes and water; insecticides; artificial fertilizers; margarine or any of a billion other products. These and many more such ideas are disposable truths. Some are downright deadly. The messages conveyed by the advertisements make it abundantly clear that the human race could not possibly have survived for so many thousands of years without these products and services, therefore we cannot be here, but since we are here, we cannot be human, because our race must have died out millennia ago. It is all, as the Americans put it, “a crock”.
There are natural truths and fabricated truths, but most people are unable to distinguish between the two. So, in answer to your question, Samson: I don’t know if what I have written is the truth. I have simply set down my own, personal deductions. You will decide what you think is truth.
eliosduck, Man is a sexual mammal: he was built for sex. Besides some of the cetaceans, he is the only creature that has the capacity to use sex for purposes other than procreation, so your perception about a heaven without sex is quite apt when applied to us.
Prof, Zoroaster introduced (invented?) one of the first “dualistic” religions, in which Ahura Mazda (Ormazd), signifying the aspect of “good”, has an arch-enemy in the form of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), who represents “evil”. This concept was “stolen” and incorporated into other religions, including, but not restricted to, the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
I do not know why it became so important for certain people to perceive their gods as being much more powerful than those of all the other peoples in their regions. It went something like this:
1st tribe: “Just watch it, you guys: our god is so tall that he can see over the top of Mount Ararat!”
2nd tribe: “Then we have nothing to be afraid of. Our god is so tall that when he puts his hand up, he can feel a chasm in the sky!”
3rd tribe: “Oh man! Is your god in trouble for sticking his fingers up our god’s *&&*V&*^!”
If this appears irreverent, too bad, because that was the puerile attitude that prevailed at the time … and it has been carried through to this day.
If we all adhered to other peoples’ rules as you suggest we do Prof, we would still believe that if you go too far in any direction you will donder (Afrikaans word, pronounced (short and sharp) “dawner”, meaning “thunder”) off the edge of the Earth, which is quite flat and is the centre of the universe. Furthermore, the sky is akin to an inverted rice colander and the stars are holes through which God and the angels peer down in order to monitor our transgressions to use them in evidence against us when Gabriel blows the Final Trump.
You insist that it is necessary to stay within “their” terms of reference when discussing God. I suppose you know that the Catholic Church officially adopted the concept that Earth revolves around the sun, i.e. that ours is a heliocentric solar system and not a Gaia-centric planetary system  in 1999? When engaging dimwits such as these, I subscribe to W. C. Fields’ advice and “never give a sucker an even break”. Prof, in any adversarial situation my tactics include never letting my enemies choose the battle-field; never allowing them to occupy the high ground and never permitting them to make the rules. I go so far out at a tangent that the poor suckers don’t know what hit them or from which direction it came. Some of you may regard this as ignominious. To me it’s an exercise in pragmatism.
Did the Israelites (Hebrews), Christians and Islamists have your consideration in mind when they rammed the worship of their vindictive, implacable gods down the unwilling throats of their conquered, sometimes naked, heathen “converts”, while infecting them with diseases against which they had no immunity and for which they had no cures? There is absolutely no reason that I should pander to them and stay within their parameters.
As far as Paul’s arguments are concerned, he was doing nothing more than seeking an excuse to “keep the women in their places”, so he twisted things a bit. This is nothing new in the arsenal of zealots and is regarded as perfectly legitimate behaviour when they are selling their particular slants.
When I consider the degradation and devastation that have been caused in the names of the various gods, it is unquestionably apparent to me that they have the whole damned thing all wrong. We need another look-out point so that we can view it all from an entirely different perspective. To do this it is necessary to ignore accepted ideas and definitions and start from scratch.
Did the Israelites (Hebrews), Christians and Islamists have your consideration in mind when they rammed the worship of their vindictive, implacable gods down the unwilling throats of their conquered, sometimes naked, heathen “converts”, while infecting them with diseases against which they had no immunity and for which they had no cures? There is absolutely no reason that I should pander to them and stay within their parameters.
I am designing and building my own philosophy. It will not be a religion, because religions divide men: they do not unite them. I am doing this because religion, as such, has done nothing to improve relations between people. It has caused untold suffering in the world and most religions do not respect the natural world or the other creatures on Earth. Instead of a plethora of laws and commandments, my philosophy has but one, single guiding principle that is not subject to interpretation.
Those who have read my original post will have gleaned that deities of the monotheistic religions are partly fabricated and wholly predatory - the “gallimaufry” gods mentioned – upon whose garments their adherents have pinned bits of tissue paper with the legend “I am your Omni-everything God” scribbled on them. These “gods” have “been there; done that; obtained the cap and T-shirt; screwed all the females; wiped out half the population and can show you their bullet wounds”.
I am underwhelmed.  
We now know certain things to which the ancients do not appear to have been privy … but then we will never really be cognizant of the extent of their knowledge, as most of the great libraries have been destroyed by conquering armies and (never let it be forgot!) bigoted zealots of the monotheistic religious persuasions.
I can point you to articles on the Internet in which “maverick” investigators and experimenters have written about discoveries that blow ragged holes in the dogmas of many disciplines. The deciding factor here is your approach: are you willing to duplicate their experiments to get at the truth, or will you dismiss it all, with no further ado, as the ravings of lunatics?
If it is far enough out on a limb for me, I will definitely put it to the test. I have done this in a great many cases. The result is that I have a completely different perspective and understanding of the Scheme of Things to most people. This is why I do not accept everyone’s “rules”. By keeping my eyes – and my mind – open, I have developed a concept of the Gods that is very different from everyone else’s. My Gods simply do not adhere to “their” parameters, therefore I have had to promulgate my own rules. I do not play according to their rules, because I am playing an altogether different game.
Now before you snub me as a pantheist, you must realise that the Roman Catholic Church turned their supposedly monotheistic religion into an infirmary for lost bits of string. They believe that their God, who is identified as Jehovah, and Jesus, who is apparently Jehovah’s son, are one and the same entity. There’s a spook involved in it somewhere. Mary is Jesus’ virgin mother. By extension then, she is Jehovah’s Mother. She is even referred to as “The Mother of God”. Jehovah is thus the offspring of one of his own creations. If this is not confusing enough for you, add all the saints that have been elevated to demi-god status, to whom anyone can pray to act as panders between the supplicant and Jesus, to whom everyone must go in order to obtain a ticket to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The whole thing seems rather involved to me, because this is how it goes: if Jesus will not let you into heaven, you can pray to Mother Mary. She will then act as your defence attorney and approach Jesus on your behalf. If Jesus remains adamant, Mary will expose her breasts to him, the sight of which will make him weak at the knees and cause him to recant his position. This usually does the trick, but if it doesn’t, all is not completely lost: your last ditch approach is to engage the services of the saints. Exactly what they will do in order to obtain your admission is not quite clear, but if they fail, then and only then, it appears, are you hellward bound. Now, if that is not a sub-species of pantheism, then I don’t know what is! Protestants have so many different points of view that it’s impossible to lump them into coherent heaps, so we will forgo the examination of their various contortions.
Most of peoples’ beliefs and concepts about their deities and the laws governing all aspects of their behaviour were prescribed by  priestly brotherhoods. One has to decide for oneself whether these (now archaic, antiquated and completely undemocratic) rules still apply and - probably more importantly - whether they apply to oneself. This is a personal thing that cannot be swayed by “mere” common sense or logic.
If you want to accept their expositions and their terms, then you choose to be stuck in the same rut in which they find themselves – a rut from which there is no hope of escape. There are, after all, none so blind as those who refuse to see.
The Creator Gods have such an extraordinary sense of humour that I often shake my head in wonder at the sheer ingenuity of the clues they left for the observant to find. They are indubitably perspicacious … but are they perfect? Is Supreme God perfect? In order to determine this, it becomes necessary for us to squabble about what constitutes “perfection”, a level to which I will not personally descend as it is a philosophical argument that relies much too heavily upon semantics, terminology and elucidation for it to have any meaning or value.
To my mind “perfection” is untenable, because in order for anything to be perfect it must be in a completely suspended state, so that it can never undergo any kind of change whatsoever. So, in order for a deity to be “perfect” it must be cataleptic … static … perhaps “stagnant” is a better word. It must be constrained in time and space, unable to move in any direction or to change its aspect and in such a position that no outside influence can alter it in any way. The evidence shows that the Creator Gods are far too dynamic for this to be the case with them.
Supreme God makes no comment. He watches with amused interest, like an indulgent father, absorbing all that occurs. Just as the Creator Gods put Nature in charge of Earth, so has Supreme God given the Creator Gods a free hand with their task. “Perfection” is not a criterion, as this is a learning experience for all concerned, which “all” includes all the sentient creatures that are the products of the Creator Gods’ imaginations.
What the Creator Gods have tried to do is strike a balance. Robbie Burns made a keen observation about the best laid plans of mice and men - not that the Gods are either, but the idea is nevertheless applicable.
Look at pictures taken of outer space. There are nebulae, comas, globular clusters, clouds, constellations, and other features that have no appellations, but the salient fact is that rank disorder prevails. The galaxies and certain other conglomerations appear to have a kind of aesthetic appeal, but they are composed of convoluted assemblages of swirling matter. Zoom in closer, to the solar systems. They seem more or less stable, except for the comets and other bits of debris that tear through them and clutter them up. Go down to the planets. On some of them things look quite pretty, barring that there are storms and volcanic eruptions and quakes of various magnitudes that have the nasty habit of mucking things up. The other planets are either obscured by impenetrable cloud masses or are “dead”. The only “perfection” that I can see in our physical universe is “perfect” chaos. Where does that leave us now, when considering the attributes of the Gods?  
I will try to put my writings up on the Internet: I don’t know how to achieve this yet, but I will try. Don’t hold your breaths, though, as I somehow managed to delete them from my computer’s hard drive whilst scanning the disc drives. I was concentrating on something else and not taking note of the “long filename” messages that kept cropping up, so I obviously pressed the wrong buttons. This means that I shall have to start all over again. Please be patient. I will let you know when I post them.
Supreme God appears to be pure consciousness, whatever that is. This is once again an indefinable term, like perfection. The Creator Gods appear to be like Proteus, inthat they can take on the forms of any living creature they choose to be.
Love,
Old Fart.

Oh Prof, you disappoint me! For one with all your experience you are now coming over as a paf! A paf is a rather derogatory South African term for an effusively feminine male homosexual. We also refer to them as “screaming queens”. Perhaps you know the type? Having studied snakes for all...

Why would God, of necessity, be all of these omni-things, Prof? Who said He is? If God were Omniscient, the Human experimentit would not be necessary, would it? Perhaps the popular concept of God is seriously flawed and He is teaching Himself the things He does not know via all His creations. Have y...

This has nothing to do with food, Prof, but why do so many people spell the word "hamster" with a "p" in it? The Americans do it all the time. I imagine that you are here talking about the rotent Cricetus cricetus or the golden hamster Mesocricetus auratus?

Which just goes to prove how fallacious is the idea that "all men are born equal", eh, Prof?

I have a constant battle with people who call themselves "Christians", who blindly accept what they are told by their priests and prelates. They are quite content to occupy the tiny corner of their minds with which they do their "thinking", because they are under the impression that trying to discov...

Thanks for the concern people, much appreciated. Not only did I make it, Angelique, but I saw to it that the cobra went to the reptile area of the local zoological gardens. The medical fraternity here want people, where possible, to bring the snake that bit them (dead or undead) so that it can be id...

Well, the ambulance chappies were in a bit of a panic because they expected me to drop dead at their feet, so they drove like a hat without bells to the hospital, some sixty kilometres (about 32 miles) away. I was more afraid that we'd end up in a car smash, so I could not keep my heart rate down. T...

That's true as far as it goes, spiritalk, but if that is true, then why did God create Man if He doesn't need or want us? Our purpose is to endeavour to use our brains to their fullest extent, not simply to sit here and say: "God is so far above us that we will never understand Him". God will give y...