On Spiritual Research – Practical Guidelines

To understand and validate the esoteric knowledge there are other ways than clairvoyant faculties, and in the following I will list the things that I and others have found useful, with links to related texts.

Framework and Theories

• The primary thing is to build a consistent framework around ones knowledge, extending it when new knowledge comes to. Don’t make the structure bigger than you can hold it consistent, that is, if too many loose ends are floating around it’s too difficult to handle. I started with the Akasha Chronicles by Steiner, which is the Rosicrucian Cosmic History. More in Esoteric History of Man and Creation of the Sun System and the Zodiac
• If I didn’t have a theory, even if it was wrong, I couldn’t extend my knowledge. In research you will constantly be wrong on some points, but you will extend the area you are right all the time.
• Find a good consistent vocabulary to build the framework around. I use Steiner’s as no other esoteric language is as consistent and connected to our time. In the The Rosicrucian Cross I have relations between Kabbalah, esoteric and traditional names of the hierarchies/spiritual powers and in The Bodies of Man I have relations between the names of the layers of man in many spiritual traditions.
• Find a good structure to hang your knowledge on. I use the Kabbalah Tree of Life as no other structure is so clear, and every other major religion or spiritual tradition relates to the tree! More on the tree and it’s relations to other traditions here: The Rosicrucian Cross, Tao – The Equilibrium of Yin and Yang and Changing Hierarchies through Time.
• Follow your own inspiration, don’t let anyone put your thinking behind bars, let your results logic speak for you. There are people who have no scientific understanding who try to limit the thinking of others for pseudo religious reasons, meaning they can’t give a logical explanation for their view.
• Remember Sherlock Holmes: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Here a number of quotes on thinking that may be usable: Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it – on Thinking

Sources

• Never rely on one source. Whatever you find it should be consistent with other sources and/or it’s inherent logic should be impeccable. Findings without supporting evidence or inconsistencies should be saved until further evidence for or against is found. As a teenager I was somewhat fascinated with UFOs but then decided to have no meaning about them as it lacked both hard evidence, logical support, and relevance for my life.
• When you read a text and feels confused it may not be your problem, not all authors know what they write about. A person who don’t know his topic have a tendency to write large texts where the one who understand it fully only need few lines.
• Everything are usable as sources: science, religion, esoteric literature, fairy tales, films, your every day life, observance of your own thinking, dreams, and so forth.
• Use Retrospect Inquiry before sleep to find and think through the important events of the day, our mind is the best crucible we have to learn how the mind functions. One way is to think it through backwards, but after a time they pop up by themselves. In  The Bodies of Man I have a comparison between the three soul components of man in various religious, esoteric and psychoanalytic systems. In steiners vocabulary they are Sentient soul, Intellectual soul, and Conscious soul and in physical they are known as Limbic brain, left brain hemisphere and right brain hemisphere, where the last is the least developed.
• Use your dreams to explore both your own consciousness but also other aspects of the physical and spiritual world. I have more on this in Dream Interpretation in Esoteric Work and Esoteric Aspects of the Isis figure
• If you find a seemingly inconsistency or lack of explanations, note it for future study, a puzzle piece that may be of future use.
• Another possibility to collect spiritual knowledge without spiritual faculties are Astrology, which both have helped me get a clearer knowledge about myself, but also given me the astrologers clear and precise language, which no other psychological or spiritual tradition have. This opens for understanding of different kinds of esoteric literature which is indecipherable for non astrologers. An example in The Sons of Jacob and the Zodiac
• All this relates back to spiritual knowledge, the Framework, otherwise it would be atomic knowledge without a unifying framework.

Areas of Research

• Understanding the physical laws of the universe, from the biggest to the smallest, “The Second Law of Thermodynamics”, This is Ahriman/Yin, Lucifer/Yang, and Christ/Tao in their most physical representation. Chaos or Order? No, Life!
• Understanding consciousness, starting with your own thinking. Is it possible to make Intelligent Machines?
• Understanding the laws behind the society of man. The Trap of Materialism
• Understanding the spiritual laws behind the physical life on Earth, the interaction between the physical and the spiritual, Ahriman and Lucifer, or Yin and Yang. Serpents of the Kundalini Fire and The Crucible
• Beware of conspiracy theories.  Hanlon’s Razor 

Love of Truth

The search for truth is foremost in esoteric science, not that there is a TRUTH, but everybody should strive to find truth. Truth is not relative, nor is it political, and neither can it build on feelings alone. Truth is like a diamond, each human soul have it’s own facet of this diamond describing it’s view on the reality.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth. Mohandas Gandhi

To find truth we need logic to find the way through the cacophony of information. Logic is valid on all planes, not only in the physical world, so it’s a vital tool wherever our search brings us:

“Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics. He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not… only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.” ( — Maimonides)  Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it

Life itself will force people to learn logic, each time we make an error and recognize it, we are forced to think and understand the Why behind, and with time and enough incarnations we begin to see the logic behind existence.

Contemplative Inquiry

One way to think is Contemplative Inquiry, where the person sits with vertical back and open eyes and fully conscious, but letting the thoughts free on esoteric ideas, and in this way invite the higher I down into the thinking process. Thoughts on the physical world or closed eyes moves the focus to the physical noise, the background noise of the sentient soul.

Knowledge resides in the brain that is filled with thoughts of others, but wisdom resides in the souls of those who attentively listens to their own thoughts. Eli Wamberg

The search for knowledge will in itself change your life. The Eightfold Path 

The goal is to reach the shared wisdom of humanity, what all esoteric teachers tell about, and here some quotes by Steiner Soul, Love and Heart Thinking

Esoteric Picture Collections with References and Texts

I believe that one picture replaces many words, so I have made some picture collections where I try to show the relationship between different religious and esoteric traditions. The following collages are entries into these collections. Most pictures both contains texts and references.

Variations around the Trinities

In all religions and esoteric traditions we have the three creative powers of the Trinity more or less hidden. These three powers are also known through their colors, with Red for the Father, Blue for the Mother, and typically Yellow for the Son, symbolizing all colors. The picture and label link to the collection:

See Variations around the Trinities

This is the main theme of this blog, and the most central texts are:

• Tao – The Equilibrium of Yin and Yang
  This symbol is known all over the world, from the old Celts, to the Romans, the Greeks, and so forth. The philosophy behind we find in all later religions and traditions, but of course extended with the understanding new cultures added.
• The Caduceus staff and the Tree of Life
  The Caduceus staff is the same as we know as the Indian Kundalini, Pinga, and Pengala, and the Kabbalah Tree of Life.
• Serpents of the Kundalini Fire
  The human body is a microcosmic version of macrocosmos, and it’s underlying spiritual structures are described in all religions, esoteric traditions, and healing systems, and I show these relations here.
• Chaos or Order? No, Life!
  We see the physical world as totally separate from the spiritual world, but the rules the physical world follows are based on the spiritual world, keywords are Chaos Theory and Second Law of Thermodynamics.
• The Three Crosses of Golgotha
  The three crosses on Golgotha has deep connotations to the spiritual background of our reality.
• The Rosicrucian Cross
  The Rosicrucian Cross is man incarnated in the physical world.
• Changing Hierarchies through Time
  Most understand God as an unchanging entity, but the godly evolve just as man does, or more correctly, we evolve together. This change are also reflected in the Kabbalah Tree of Life.
• The Art of Asha, an Analysis
  “The Art of Asha” are the origin of chess and was introduced by Zarathustra as a kind of teaching aid describing the spiritual powers or hierarchies behind the physical world. But the spiritual background was lost, and here I regain it.
  Johfra’s Libra – an Analysis
  I had some years ago an inspiring idea exchange on Johfra’s beautiful picture
  Libra, and I bring it here as it was very illuminating, and a good example showing that it is possible to work together, instead of the usual fights between different opinions.

The World Egg and the Zodiac

The World Egg is the most universal symbol we have, and the Zodiac is the most developed form of it, but it’s everywhere, we just don’t recognize it as representing the world egg.

We can find the history of the zodiac in the four heavenly beasts, Eagle, Lion, Ox and Man; they were the first members of the Zodiac, first later came the Cardinal signs, and later again the mutable, they came when man began developing these qualities, just as the outer planets first became visible when they became influential. In the bible we find it in The Sons of Jacob and the Zodiac.

I have made a collection of pictures with text and references:

See The World Egg and the Zodiac

I have made “Creation of the Sun System and the Zodiac” for an illustrated overview of what was created, with the following extract as basis:

“The egg of Amma was closed, but made of four parts called ‘clavicules,’ themselves ovoid and joined as if they had extruded one from the others. Amma is four joined clavicules; it is only these four clavicles.” (Marcel Griaule & Germaine Dieterlen, Le renard pâle)

The sun system is ‘Amma’s Egg’ [the Zodiac], not the whole universe. Within his egg, Amma began spinning around, forming the po seed. The po is the smallest invisible seed at the center.

Amma then placed seven ‘words’ [Planets] in the po, which began to vibrate strongly within the seed. The spiraling vibrations caused four clavicles to grow forth from the po. These were the four heavenly beasts, the fixed star signs. These four Androgyne beings split into four male and four female, the cardinal and fixed star signs.

The Dogon call these beings the Nommo Anagonno, ‘The Word (Nommo) that Became Fish-Man’ (Anagonno). The male and female got a son, and the mutable star signs was created.

There are two levels of understanding, the macrocosmic, as mentioned above, but also the microcosmic:
“Hence, the eight ancestors were taken to heaven with the Nummo to learn the skills of civilisation. Later, each was given one of the eight grains of heaven, with which they returned to live with men, civilising them. They thus became the “civilising deities”, the Dogon equivalent of the Apkallu, or Seven Sages.” See The Old Granary.

This description of the Earth creation is only part of another greater history, the creation of man, which started long before Earth. In Esoteric History of Man I give a short overview of the path man has followed since the initial seed of man was created.

Nidanas and the Zodiac

I have looked at the Nidanas in relation to the Zodiac. The twelve Nidanas are the karmic powers keeping man reincarnating on the Earth. The twelve Nidanas consists of three groups, the first group of four is the Cardinal signs, the next group are the Mutable and the last group are the Fixed star signs. In the following tables and zodiac I have placed the Nidanas on the zodiac following these principles. See Astrology, Karma & Nidanas

Lucifer – Shiva and Krishna

Another entry into the history of humanity is through Lucifer, the lightbringer, see The Origin of Lucifer – Shiva

The Earth evolution started within the existing universe, with center in the sun, and on the planet Earth was constructed a crucible where the seed to the new universe was constructed.

Shiva, the Luciferic powers, were the creators of the old universe; together with Brahma and Vishnu they were the old universe. See also The Origin of Lucifer – Shiva.

In the crucible the new began to take form, Krishna, the transformed Lucifer, became stronger and stronger and the old Lucifer, Shiva became smaller and smaller, through the development of man. See Krishna as Teacher of Love

When the new universe was developed far enough, the transformed gods died in the old universe, and they resurrected/incarnated into the new universe, from being outside the physical body of man, they became soul and spirit in man, what we see outside is the dead body of the gods, the new universe is inside man.  See Krishna and the Holy Spirit

Francis Bacon and the American Project

What happens in the world have always been prepared from the spiritual world through highly developed people. In the time before Christ it was kings and priests who led the development, after Christ it was more incognito, but they were great personalities within all aspects of the society ingeniously infusing new ideas and changing the power structures from country to country op through Europe as the point of focus changed.

The American adventure wasn’t just a random thing, it was prepared through hundreds of years, but now the ideas behind have worn down, something new is needed.

I have collected some material behind the American project here, includes many pictures, texts, and references:

See Francis Bacon and the American Project

The driving force of history have always been a pair, the Hero and the Teacher as Alexander the Great and Aristotle. Was Francis Bacon the Teacher and King James I the Hero? Benjamin Franklin the Teacher and George Washington the Hero.

Description of the work done under the auspices of Francis Bacon:

1. To develop and improve the English language for future use so it could become an instrument for a new world of universal values across national borders, with America as a pilot project.
2. To formulate a renewed spiritually grounded whole philosophy of the future, uniting the physical, mental and spiritual, and built bridges between faith and enlightenment.
3. Providing for publication of books in England and in continental Europe, and in general to stimulate learning, study, individual discernment and human integrity.
4. To use theater and art as cultural and spiritual tool and through entertaining creativity to promote the formation, life-insight and consciousness transformation.
5. To launch scientific research on a group basis, with special focus on promoting new, empirical discovery methods, the reader universe laws.
6. Working in a ritual community for spiritual elevation, as has occurred in the helmet or the Knights of Solomon House, the Rosicrucian, Masonic work.
7. To tell about it for posterity and hide it in cryptographic codes, so it little by little would be possible for people to see and understand the work and be encouraged to continue development.

From Søren Hauge: Shakespeare Mysteriet

Pythagoras et al

Much of modern esoteric knowledge goes back to Pythagoras, but what we know about his teachings are mostly through indirect sources.

I have collected a number of pictures, texts and references here:

See Pythagoras et al

One of the most interesting topics, but least understood, is the Golden Mean which Plato said was the key to the universe: “Golden Mean, Key to the Universe?“.

I have written a note on “Origin of the usage of Left Path and Right Path“, as it has been misused in various discussions, but it goes at least back to Pythagoras.

Who are Gilgamesh and Enkidu

There are at least two levels or stories in this epos. There are the story about two human beings and their endeavors, and there is the story about mankind, where Enkidu symbolizes the sentient soul and Gilgamesh the Mind soul, the Ego.

On the personal plane we learn through Enkidu the descent into the physical plane and through Gilgamesh the ascent up from the physical plane.

I will here try to find the deeper aspects of these beings in the esoteric history of man, looking at them as persons and as symbols. The first part will mainly build on Rudolf Steiner’s “Occult History” lectures 1 and 2, concentrating on the persons of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, or Eabani as Steiner calls him. In the second part I will look at the events on the spiritual plane to show their symbolic nature.

Gilgamesh, Louvre

From Occult History by Rudolf Steiner

In Occult History Rudolf Steiner tells:

The picture I want to call up in your minds is that behind the whole evolutionary and historical process, through the millennia up to our own times, spiritual Beings, spiritual Individualities, stand as guides and leaders behind all human evolution and human happenings, and that in the greatest, most significant events in history, this or that human being appears with his whole soul, his whole being, as an instrument of spiritual Individualities standing and working with set purpose behind him. [1]

These beings are the highest developed persons within the human wave, and already on the old Moon were they selected for their part in the development of Earth. We know them as the twelve Bodhisattvas, the seven Sages, and as Christian Saints.

In the start of the second lecture RS elaborates on this theme:

We must realise that these Beings cannot take direct hold of the physical facts of our existence because, on account of the present stage of their development, they cannot incarnate in a physical Body which draws its constituents from the physical world. If, therefore, they desire to work within our physical world, they must make use of the physical human being — of his deeds, but also of his intellect, his powers of understanding. We find the influence and penetration of such Beings of the higher world the more clearly in evidence the farther back we go in the ages of the evolution of humanity. But it must not be imagined that this downpouring of forces and activities from the higher worlds into the physical world through human beings has ever ceased; it continues even into our own time. [2]

This is the definition of the Bodhisattvas and their helpers, who are guiding the human history through the recurring crises caused by the powers of resistance.

The Gilgamesh epic is a remarkable myth, describing the esoteric path as it is until our time and written as it was written for us.

By way of introduction, I want to draw your attention to how one of the most important happenings of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch is presented to us in a significant myth, and how this event is reflected, but at a lower stage, in the Greco-Latin epoch. [1]

The myth describes the development until the initiation, which first became possible later.

Gilgamish, then, was a personality who, owing to his particular condition of soul, participated in the most progressive spiritual elements and spiritual factors of the age — in everything that threw light far into the future and at that time could be attained only if such a personality went through a kind of initiation. Through the imparting of something that can be received only through a certain initiation, Gilgamish was to be enabled to provide a kind of leaven for the Babylonian culture. He had to experience an initiation up to a certain degree. [2]

Who are Gilgamesh?

As the previous quote says, Gilgamesh is a being with enormous potential.

Now Gilgamish was a personality who had many incarnations behind him and may therefore be called an “old” soul within the evolution of humanity…The souls who came down early have therefore more incarnations behind them in earth-evolution than those who came down later; hence we can call these latter, in contrast to the former, “younger” souls — souls who have taken less into themselves…

In the case of Gilgamish, the Being who was to reveal himself through him, and who could do so only by leading him presently to a kind of initiation, kept a guiding hand upon him from the outset and set him at the place where he came to recognise his own position in the history of the world…

The whole nature of an old soul will enable it early in life to grasp not only the essential element, the essential factor, in the existing culture, but also that which strikes into it as a new impulse, opening up a wide vista into the future. [2]

Gilgamesh incarnated back in Lemuria, maybe as the first of the development wave of man. Through his many incarnation he had reached a stage about where man were at  the time of the Maid of Orleans. 2 This is one of the reasons why RS uses the word personality about him, he has developed the Ego as no other person have at this time in history, he have lost all connections to the spiritual world, and is as Ahrimanic as a man can be, as the son of Adam, Cain. His task is to form the development of the Earth, he is the archetypal Hero.

The account begins: Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third human, is the greatest king on earth and the strongest super-human that ever existed; [3]

It could be understood as nephesch (sentient soul) and ruach (mind soul) are full developed, but that n’schamah (consciousness soul) is not, two out of three.

Gilgamesh – The Archetypal Hero

Who are Enkidu?

Enkidu (Eabani) is a diametrical different being; Enkidu is a being with few incarnation, ego-less and without karma, he lives in innocence with the animals. Through Enkidu’s encounter with a woman he acquires karma and becomes part of humanity, becomes part of civilization.

Eabani is a kind of human being who, in comparison with Gilgamish, seems to be of an inferior nature, for we are told that he was clothed in the skins of animals, was covered with hair, was like a wild man. Nevertheless in his wild nature there was divine Inspiration, ancient clairvoyance, clairvoyant knowledge, clairvoyant perception.
…
Eabani is depicted as being clothed in skins of animals. This is an indication of his wild nature; but because of this very wildness he is still endowed with ancient clairvoyance an the one hand, and an the other hand he is a young soul who has lived through far, far fewer incarnations than other souls who have reached a high level of development. Thus Gilgamish represents a being who was ready for initiation but was not able to attain it, for the journey to the West is the journey to an initiation that was not carried through to the end.  [1]

In contrast to Gilgamesh, Enkidu is a young soul, without Ego, but with highly developed spiritual faculties, which Gilgamesh have lost. It can be said that Enkidu is the most Luciferic being born on Earth.

Enkidu’s task is to give Earth the Heavenly Wisdom to help man form the future. He is the archetypal Seer or Priest, as the son of Adam, Seth, the last born.

Enkidu letting wisdom stream out over the world

As it were through supersensible events, presented to us in the pictures of the myth I outlined to you yesterday, a friend was placed at the side of Gilgamish, a friend whose barbarity and uncivilised nature are indicated by the statement that his outer form was half animal. It is said that this friend had skins of animals on his body, which means that he was still covered with hair like the men of primeval times, that his soul was so young that it built for itself a body which showed the human being still in a savage state. Thus the more advanced Gilgamish had in Eabani a man at his side who, because of his young soul and the bodily Organisation conditioned by it, still possessed ancient clairvoyance. This friend was given to Gilgamish in order that he might find his own bearings in life. [2]

Here we see Enkidu placed as a helper for Gilgamesh, where the Luciferic Enkidu should bring equilibrium with the Ahrimanian Gilgamesh, helping him to purify humanity.

His name, moreover, implies a special relation with Enki, Lord of Earth and Wisdom, and may be translated “Enki’s knees” or “Enki’s creation.”  [4]

Enkidu represent wisdom.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu

These two are born again and again through history, as the bringer of Wisdom and of Form, as Teacher and Hero, as Aristotle and Alexander, or Aquinas and Christian Rosenkreutz.

In Gilgamish and Eabani, whose respective gifts differed so greatly, we see the same kind of co-operation transformed into the spiritual. In the historical facts of ancient times we find this at every turn. And it is important to understand it, for only then do we realise why it is that myths and sagas so often tell of friends who have to achieve something together — friends who are generally as unlike in their nature of soul as were Gilgamish and Eabani. [2]

In the bible we see them showing the shift from the old clairvoyance to the knew, for example as Esau (red and hairy hunter) and Jacob, or as Solomon and Hiram Abiff [Temple Legend]

The spiritual strength of these two are shown through

And on the very same day when a man, merely in order that his name might go down to posterity, throws the burning brand into the sanctuary of Ephesus, there is born the man who has achieved more than all others for the culture of personality — and on the very soil where the culture of were personality was meant to be overcome. Herostratus flings the burning torch on the day when Alexander the Great is born — the man who is all personality! Alexander the Great stands there as the shadow-image of Gilgamish. A profound truth lies behind this. In the Greco-Latin epoch, Alexander the Great stands there as the shadow image of Gilgamish, as a projection of the spiritual on to the physical plane. And Eabani, projected on to the physical plane, is Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great. [1]

These great ‘personalities’ incarnates each hundred years, as Steiner describes in connection with Christian Rosenkreutz and Master Jesus, and it’s naive to believe that these big human beings only have been incarnated the few times as some seems to believe. If you read the Occult History and look for the word ‘personality’ it will point to further incarnations of these persons.

From the Gilgamesh Epic

Steiner tells that this epic describes physical reflections of the spiritual, and that should be considered in the mentioning of Ahriman and Lucifer in the following. I try here to show the two companions relation to the Ahrimanian and Luciferic, to explain their physical roles described in the previous chapter.

Gilgamesh is described as a man with all knowledge, showing him as a highly developed human being, with full control of the physical world, a doer:

This great hero who had all knowledge [nemequ ], Gilgamesh, built the great city of Uruk; the tablet invites us to look around and view the greatness of this city, its high walls, its masonwork, and here at the base of its gates, as the foundation of the city walls, a stone of lapis lazuli on which is carved Gilgamesh’s account of his exploits, the story you are about to hear. [3]

The text on the stone states that he is two third god and one third human, king and super human, but he oppresses his people harshly, uses his power egoistically for his own satisfaction.

The people call out to the sky-god Anu, the chief god of the city, to help them. In response, Anu creates a wild man, Enkidu, out in the harsh and wild forests surrounding Gilgamesh’s lands. This brute, Enkidu, has the strength of dozens of wild animals; he is to serve as the subhuman rival to the superhuman Gilgamesh.A trapper’s son, while checking on traps in the forest, discovers Enkidu running naked with the wild animals; he rushes to his father with the news. The father advises him to go into the city and take one of the temple harlots, Shamhat, with him to the forest; when she sees Enkidu, she is to offer herself sexually to the wild man. If he submits to her, the trapper says, he will lose his strength and his wildness.

Shamhat meets Enkidu at the watering-hole where all the wild animals gather; she offers herself to him and he submits, instantly losing his strength and wildness, but he gains understanding and knowledge. He laments for his lost state, but the harlot offers to take him into the city where all the joys of civilization shine in their resplendence; she offers to show him Gilgamesh, the only man worthy of Enkidu’s friendship. [3]

Here Enkidu incarnates to be the helper and companion of Gilgamesh. He is shown in his pre-human state running wild with the animals, and how he becomes human through creating karma, through lust for living.

“Ask him to give you a temple courtesan, so that the wild man may be subdued by a woman’s power. When next he comes down to drink at the watering place he will embrace her, and then the wild beasts will reject him.” And so it came to pass — six days and seven nights, joined with the courtesan.  [4]

The woman Shamhats power is thinking and forming where Enkidu lived in wisdom. Six dayes and seven nights hints at the seven chakras who are prepared for the life on Earth.

Enkidu turned to the courtesan. She spoke; and as she spoke, he heard (with awareness and understanding): “You have become beautiful, like a god, Enkidu. Let me therefore lead you to the heart of Uruk, to the temple of Anu and Ishtar, where Gilgamesh is.” Enkidu agreed, though he boasted that he would cry out in Uruk that he alone is powerful; that he is the one who changes fates. The courtesan cautioned him that Gilgamesh is the stronger, he is “the joy-woe man, . . . ceaselessly active day and night.”  [4]

He is like a good now, he have become a sentient being, conscious of his own I. He wants to rule over Gilgamesh, but the courtesan told him that Gilgamesh, the Ego, the mind soul, was stronger than Enkidu, the sentient soul. These two soul-bodies are joined together, and even to this day they fight each other, only the day that they don’t fight each other, are they released.

Separation of the sexes – Twin Soul Aspects – Dual’s

He enters the Earth fully:

Back in the mountain wilderness, at the same moment that Ninsun is enlightening Gilgamesh, the courtesan does the same for Enkidu: “When I look at you, you have become like a god. Why do you yearn to run wild again with the beasts in the hills? Get up from the ground, up from the bed of a shepherd.” The advice of the woman came into Enkidu’s heart. She divided her clothing and covered him, and kept the other part for herself (an allusion to the separation of the sexes). She brought him to a shepherd’s house and taught him to eat cooked food, including bread, which he had not known. He drank wine, seven goblets, which made his mind loose and his heart light (intoxicated by material life). [4]

Cooked food, bread, and wine all weight the physical body down, binding the etheric body to the physical body.

Just as Uruk is the earthly reflection of its heavenly archetype, Enkidu, sometimes called Gilgamesh’s second self, is portrayed here as a reverse image or physical counterpart of Gilgamesh: the human-animal vehicle of spirit, soul, and higher mind. His name, moreover, implies a special relation with Enki, Lord of Earth and Wisdom, and may be translated “Enki’s knees” or “Enki’s creation.” Note also Enkidu’s transformation and evolution from an asexual, unselfconscious protohuman formed in the image of Anu to hermaphrodite (“joined with the courtesan”), followed by separation, final physicalization, and the awakening of understanding or self-conscious mind through “love” — in the Platonic sense of Eros (cf. Symposium, Diotima’s speech, §§202-4). [4]

Enki. About 2,500 BCE. Note the image of planets revolving around the Sun!

The sentient soul were the connection to the spiritual world, and wisdom, at that time. Here we also see the descent into the physical.

The fury suddenly died and Enkidu addressed Gilgamesh: “There is not another like you in the world . . . Enlil has given you the kingship, for your head is elevated above all other men. [4]

Here Enkidu gave tribute to Gilgamesh, representing the mind soul. The next tells about the sacred marriage between the sentient and mind soul, or the etheric and physical body:

The language of Gilgamesh, from his prophetic dreams (“I loved [Enkidu] and embraced [him] as a wife”) to the bridal bed in Uruk — Enkidu’s in retrospect — clearly refers to a “sacred marriage“: the spiritual union or blending of the inner and outer man. None of the extant material names a victor, but the Old Babylonian story given above suggests that the initial strife or “wrestling” is brought to an abrupt end by mutual recognition: Gilgamesh “bent his knees” (to Enkidu’s stature) and “planted his foot in the ground.” Both phrases are apparent wordplays on Enkidu’s name, indicating a successful (or “victorious”) bonding and assimilation. Enkidu’s subsequent acknowledgment and friendly embrace with Gilgamesh confirm their acceptance of the relationship.Up to this point the story has been prologue — an allegory about the evolution and creation both of mankind and of a truly human individual. From here on Gilgamesh and Enkidu go as one, faithful to each other until death. In the Sumerian stories, Enkidu remains the servant of Gilgamesh; in the Babylonian version, Gilgamesh’s mother adopts Enkidu — he becomes not only the servant, companion, and friend of Gilgamesh, but also his younger “brother.” Viewed as a single composite character, Gilgamesh-Enkidu represents the conjoining of heaven and earth, of spirit, soul(s), and body, in a full sevenfold partnership (5) necessary for one to succeed in the hero’s quest. [4]

The one tells that the sentient soul (Enkidu) is below (sevant of) the mind soul (Gilgamish), where he is a younger brother in the other tradition.

Both Enkidu and Gilgamesh gradually weaken and grow lazy living in the city, so Gilgamesh proposes a great adventure: they are to journey to the great Cedar Forest in southern Iran and cut down all the cedar trees. To do this, they will need to kill the Guardian of the Cedar Forest, the great demon, Humbaba the Terrible. Enkidu knows about Humbaba from his days running wild in the forest; he tries in vain to convince Gilgamesh not to undertake this folly. [3]

With Humbaba the terrible we are in Eden and he is known by Enkidu, which means they are related, and he guards the trees of wisdom and life. Enkidu, representing the Luciferic wisdom, is not ready to fight the Ahrimanic spirits, so he works against Gilgamesh.

This is part of the life of man, going through the twelve signs of the Zodiac:

At this point the story reveals a deeper motive which Gilgamesh feels but cannot fully comprehend, for he still lacks the maturity and perception to recognize its source. Woven into the Babylonian version of Gilgamesh is a rich thread of astronomical symbolism which here connects Gilgamesh’s journey with the twelve-day New Year festival of the Spring Equinox (Akitu), implying initiatory significance. This is confirmed when his mother Ninsun prays to Shamash (man’s solar and solarizing principle), asking why he gave Gilgamesh such a restless heart: “Now you push him to go on a long journey to the place of Humbaba, to face a battle he cannot know about, and travel a road he cannot know. . . . May your consort commend him to the watchmen of the night.” [4]

Gilgamesh and Enkidu with Humbaba

After receiving counsel from his mother, Gilgamesh and Enkidu set off (with seven warriors and fifty unmarried men in the Sumerian version) on an arduous journey to Enlil’s forest where they plan to destroy its seven-terrored guardian and to fell the Great Cedar. Enkidu led the way, for he knew the road to the forest, had seen Humbaba, and was experienced in battles.
…
As Gilgamesh and Enkidu approached the forest, their trepidation grew. Shamash sent a message from the sky: “Humbaba has removed six of his seven cloaks. … They saw the height of the Great Cedar. Where Humbaba walked, a path was made. The road was good… [4]

The seven is connected to the chakras, and the seven-terrored was the chakras to clean. The path is the path of Karma.

On the six days travel (and seven nights?) Enkidu interprets the dreams of Gilgamesh, demonstrating that he is closer to the spiritual world. On the entrance to the Cedar Forrest:

Enkidu loses his courage and turns back; Gilgamesh falls on him and they have a great fight. Hearing the crash of their fighting, Humbaba comes stalking out of the Cedar Forest to challenge the intruders. A large part of the tablet is missing here. On the one part of the tablet still remaining, Gilgamesh convinces Enkidu that they should stand together against the demon.  [3]

Gilgamesh wins over Lucifer/Enkidu and they work together against Ahriman.

Humbaba, who knows Gilgamesh is a king, taunts the king for taking orders from a nobody like Enkidu. [3]

Here the Ahrimanic Humbaba tries to split the two, but Enkidu now inspires Gilgamesh with courage. When man has won his fight with Lucifer, he works as helper for man, as a holy spirit.

On his knees, with Gilgamesh’s sword at his throat, Humbaba begs for his life and offers Gilgamesh all the trees in the forest and his eternal servitude. While Gilgamesh is thinking this over, Enkidu intervenes, telling Gilgamesh to kill Humbaba before any of the gods arrive and stop him from doing so. Should he kill Humbaba, he will achieve widespread fame for all the times to come. Gilgamesh, with a great sweep of his sword, removes Humbaba’s head. But before he dies, Humbaba screams out a curse on Enkidu: “Of you two, may Enkidu not live the longer, may Enkidu not find any peace in this world!” [3]

Here again Enkidu/Lucifer helps Gilgamesh against the Ahrimanic, which on it’s side bans the Luciferic from the physical plane. Enkidu dies, separates man from the spiritual, which introduces death, as man no longer remember his previous lives. The Sentient soul looses it’s sight into the spiritual world, the end of the old clairvoyance.

Gilgamesh allows his life to fall apart; he does not bathe, does not shave, does not take care of himself, not so much out of grief for his friend, but because he now realizes that he too must die and the thought sends him into a panic.  [3]

Shamash (the Sun) between Mashu’s Twin Peaks,
Akkadian, 3rd millennium BC (British Museum)

He now starts his journey on the pure physical plane incarnating through the twelve star signs:

He arrives at Mount Mashu, which guards the rising and the setting of the sun, and encounters two large scorpions who guard the way past Mount Mashu. They try to convince him that his journey is futile and fraught with danger, but still they allow him to pass. Past Mount Mashu is the land of Night, where no light ever appears. Gilgamesh journeys eleven leagues before the light begins to glimmer, after twelve leagues he has emerged into day. He enters into a brilliant garden of gems, where every tree bears precious stones. [3]

Ziggurat in the Eanna Sector at Uruk (Andre Parrot, Sumer)

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References

1. Rudolf Steiner: Occult History, Lecture 1;

2. Rudolf Steiner Occult History, Lecture 2;

3.  Richard Hooker Mesopotamia Gilgamesh Summary, Washington State University;

4. W. T. S. Thackara The Epic of Gilgamesh: A Spiritual Biography

Full text of Gilgamesh Epic, Gilgameš, Enkidu and the nether world.

Temple Legend

• The Temple Legend by Rudolf Steiner
• The Masonic Legend by Max Heindel
• The Hiramic Legend by Manly P. Hall

Gilgamesh and Enkido in different traditions

The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the University of Oxford.

Ancient Mesopotamia

Use back-button to go back to text!

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Map

The Trap of Materialism

The Materialistic society we are living in have some build in dangers, which will draw our society in a direction of less faith or trust in man, giving more inhuman conditions for all, and the problem is that we may see it as inevitable.

Centralization is the problem, both politically, of public institutions, of companies and of capital. The mantra ‘Big is Beautiful’ is wrong, the productivity per employee drops with the increasing size of the organisation, and that’s because the single employee have less space to influence his own work, too bound by rules, and because the large organizations are difficult to manage.

In the following paragraphs I will look at its implications, which will be seen through greater aggressiveness, less social skills, and decreasing possibilities to control our future, less possibility to make decisions both in grand scale and in our own lives, both at home and job.

The Trap works through various mechanisms, as

• Materialism, a purely physical view of the universe,
• Pervasive Politics, proliferation of the political system in daily life,
• Groupings, emphasis on group, race, and ethnicity, us and them,
• Orthodoxy, literal and “simple” interpretation of the Gospels,
• Superstition, esoteric beliefs without foundation in thinking skills,
• Abstract Thinking, cultivating abstract theorization,
• Quantitative Thinking, purely quantitative (statistical) observation.

These combined with a Dualistic world view, where everything is Black and White, will increase the strife between people all over the world.

Dualism sees everything in opposites,

and this is one of the greatest dangers today: If you are not with me, you are against me. That is a widespread sickness, especially on the Internet where you can hide under anonymity, but orthodoxy of any kind: religious, atheistic, or political, moves our future in a dangerous direction. What makes it so dangerous are that both sides believe that they fight on the side of good, but the reality is that they both fight for extremism, truth is always somewhere in between.

The deception is not to see the full picture, to understand both sides in any relation!

The challenge is to find the Golden Mean between the extremes.

The following paragraphs will look into different areas where Dualism endangers our society.

Materialism

Science is seen as the absolute truth against black superstition represented by religion. It’s not seen as different and complementing views on the same reality. It has started the Atheistic religion, attacking spirituality and moral values. Darwin is their prime god, and their Messiah are the Sentient Robots they hope will come and save the world. The problem are that most of the Atheists don’t really understand what they are preaching, and they don’t accept scientific results if it’s against their own beliefs. See Is it possible to make Intelligent Machines?

Science can’t make decisions or take responsibility, as Science in itself have no moral. Science is always used by others, more dynamic groups of society, by players on the market or in politics, whose moral aren’t better than the Courts or the Voters.

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” Martin Luther King Jr.

“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.” Richard Feynman

“As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.” Noam Chomsky

Pervasive Politics

You see Dualism in politics, especially in two-party systems, where there is no space for other views. Politics dominates today everybody’s life, in contrast to forty years ago, where politics was talked about at the elections every fourth year. The laws gave then rules for the relation between the citizens, today the laws regulate the relation between state and citizens.

The politics invasion of the private sphere destroys the natural equilibrium of the society. The economic system today is an example of this, the equilibrium of that system ends regularly in chaos as the system is made for the speculators, not for the companies, nor for the country and its citizens. Today the decisions are taken by regulations or laws on behalf of groups, where prior the decisions were taken by those who knew about the concrete cases on behalf of persons. Wrong decisions had only small consequences then, where wrong decisions today have far heavier consequences as more people are dependent on these decisions.

“Justice without mercy is unjust.” Eli Wamberg

This is a problem all over the world, and it gets worse the more laws and rules people have to follow.

One of the biggest lies of today: We need more regulations as a result of the society’s complexity. Wrong, it’s more complex as a result of all those regulations. Computers takes the complexity out of complex tasks, and prefabricated goods takes the complexity out of manual work, so what is complex today, except the laws?

Groupings

There is a tendency to split up in groups, instead of seeing mankind as one; people split up after race, religion, language, land, locality, sex, or whatever. There are lots of hate in this, not least on the Internet.

“Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

Orthodoxy

There is a tendency to read religious text’s to narrowly, as Jehovah Witnesses, and other religious groups who take their holy books too literally. Durban Two, where the Islāmic countries tries to prohibit any critic of  religion, is a typical example showing that discussions of religious content is unwanted. New religious movements like Scientology, Atheism, the Moonies, and so on, are also too rigid.

“Beware the man of one book.”  Saint Thomas Aquinas

Superstition

Another trap is to accept the words of religious, esoteric, and scientific origin without thoughts. Spiritual inclined are in danger of reading spiritual literature without conscious understanding, but that includes also Atheists reading scientific texts without understanding.

“One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.”  Malcolm Muggeridge

Abstract Thinking

in contrast to real understanding. It’s seen everywhere, and is also part of the previous areas. Man is seen as a thing not as a being. The reality is not abstract, and every decision based on abstract thinking is wrong, especially if living beings are involved.

Quantitative Thinking

and Statistics without understanding. Let’s say a politician want to make a law, and it will make 0.123% of all families go bankrupt, but as the percent is low nobody sees it as a problem. Nobody understands that there are real people behind those figures. Quantitative thinking always works through abstractions.

Big Mother

The development moves in a direction where we can expect that our personal ‘I’ is assimilated by the masses, the collective. In the western world we are talking about freedom, that nobody shall tell us what to do, and we are fighting (Duality problem) against conspiracies, against CO2 pollution, against many other things, but we don’t define and work consistently for a world worth living in. At the same time our capabilities to decide our own destiny are diminishing, regulated by law, organizations, computers, and infrastructure. The result may be that everybody just follow the route with least resistance, which are built through directives, regulations, computer capabilities, ending in a situation where nobody thinks or makes decisions any more. And it’s all made for the good of the citizens by the Big Mother.

“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” Noam Chomsky

Political Correctness

Political Correctness is sneaking in everywhere, without any conscious effort by any conspiratorial agency, but because of the path of least resistance.

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” Noam Chomsky

No Childhood

Many of the restrictions and laws are made because of lacking parenting, children no longer learn to live in a community, they are each and all small kings and princesses, who don’t understand that others don’t see them as such. Their understanding of scientific, historic or creative endeavors is as small as it has ever been. The children learned more at the camp fire than the children of today. As they don’t know how to behave, more and more laws are created to remedy the lacking parenting.

The central problem are that Children aren’t allowed to be children any longer, or as Michael Jackson says:

“Childhood has become the great casualty of modern-day living. All around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy, who have not been accorded the right, who have not been allowed the freedom, or knowing what it’s like to be a kid.

Today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster, as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage, to be endured and ushered through, as swiftly as possible.”
…
“Love, ladies and gentlemen, is the human family’s most precious legacy, its richest bequest, its golden inheritance. And it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another. Previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy. Their houses may have lacked electricity, and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating. But those homes had no darkness, nor were they cold. They were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart. Parents, undistracted by the lust for luxury and status, accorded their children primacy in their lives.” Michael Jackson, Speech at Oxford University(2001)

Complicated Structures

You can’t make tax-systems as complicated as they are today without computers, and you can’t control the many citizens or employees, as we can today, without computers; the amount of data are enormous. They make it possible to create structures which are difficult to manage without using computers, and computers don’t know HR.

GM and the American Automobile Industry are good examples of these gigantic Companies, who would be impossible to manage without stiff administrative structures and computers, and it’s extremely difficult to change these structures if needed. But modern software organizations have the same problems, with their software base, as Microsoft with their operating system, and their Office System, Yahoo with it’s big software base and reductions in labor have their problems, and new organizations as Google with it’s extreme growth will quickly get into the same problems, the only way out are to regularly rebuild old systems from the ground without any application reuse, and keeping different applications separated on application level, and using methods who makes the programming as simple and cost effective as possible.

These big organizations are extremely susceptible to the Peters Principle:

“In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

I believe computers can be a boon to mankind, but we have to control how and what they are used for, not letting their possibilities decide our future, as their strength can be used both for the good and the bad.

Management and Computers

You can use computers to many things, they can plan routes for transport to decrease energy consumption, and many other useful things. This sounds good, but if we don’t take care, it could mean that it makes the knowledge and experience of man superfluous or even dangerous; man’s role degraded to a machine.

The need for knowledge is diminishing everywhere in the society, except within the computer world. Many jobs who needed educated Craftsmen can now be done by unskilled labor, as building materials don’t need special skills any more, and the computer has taken over a lot of paper work and decision-making. This makes everybody to secretaries except the secretaries, even executives writes their own letters and calculating sheets on their computers, instead of using secretaries, so they could do what they were hired and paid for: Manage.

The term “Human Resources” is in itself a degradation, people are not individuals any longer, they are a kind of commodity. See “Human Resources” by Scott Noble.

Large Structures

The physicist Geoffrey B. West studies large structures like cities and corporate organisations, and has found that cities increases it’s productivity and also it’s problems, while corporate organisations decreases their productivity as they grow.

“Bettencourt and West discovered that corporate productivity, unlike urban productivity, was entirely sublinear. As the number of employees grows, the amount of profit per employee shrinks. “

“The graph reflects the bleak reality of corporate growth, in which efficiencies of scale are almost always outweighed by the burdens of bureaucracy. “When a company starts out, it’s all about the new idea,” West says. “And then, if the company gets lucky, the idea takes off. Everybody is happy and rich. But then management starts worrying about the bottom line, and so all these people are hired to keep track of the paper clips. This is the beginning of the end.”

“The danger, West says, is that the inevitable decline in profit per employee makes large companies increasingly vulnerable to market volatility. Since the company now has to support an expensive staff — overhead costs increase with size — even a minor disturbance can lead to significant losses. As West puts it, “Companies are killed by their need to keep on getting bigger.”

The New York Times

Public organisations have of course the same problems as the corporate companies, they don’t trust their employees.

Cities are good examples on how the unstructured principles works, how the size of the city increases the production per citizen.

“According to the data, whenever a city doubles in size, every measure of economic activity, from construction spending to the amount of bank deposits, increases by approximately 15 percent per capita. It doesn’t matter how big the city is; the law remains the same. “This remarkable equation is why people move to the big city,” West says. “Because you can take the same person, and if you just move them to a city that’s twice as big, then all of a sudden they’ll do 15 percent more of everything that we can measure.”

“When Bettencourt and West analyzed the negative variables of urban life, like crime and disease, they discovered that the exact same mathematical equation applied.”

“For West, the impermanence of the corporation illuminates the real strength of the metropolis. Unlike companies, which are managed in a top-down fashion by a team of highly paid executives, cities are unruly places, largely immune to the desires of politicians and planners. “Think about how powerless a mayor is,” West says. “They can’t tell people where to live or what to do or who to talk to. Cities can’t be managed, and that’s what keeps them so vibrant. They’re just these insane masses of people, bumping into each other and maybe sharing an idea or two. It’s the freedom of the city that keeps it alive.”

The New York Times

No Competent Leaders

What makes it so frustratingly absurd is that we are giving our independence to a system, a network of directives and conventions, without any persons being in charge. There is nowhere you can go saying that it’s wrong and it should be otherwise, everybody will tell you, that’s how it is and it has always been that way, and it can’t be in any other way, as it’s too costly to change the computers programming just because of you! Of cause, we have leaders in the top of the state or the corporate companies, but as the decision-making are moved up through the hierarchy (following automatic rules,) it becomes more and more difficult to manage the big organizations, as everything becomes dependent on one decision maker alone, and few know how to or can change the course. It’s more difficult to change the direction of a State, Organization, or a Company than a Super Tanker. The organizations becomes automatons, and the companies go down in case of unanticipated events which craves structural changes.

GM and the American Automobile Industry are good examples of this inability to change, they had known for decades that they should change their models to compete with Japanese and European manufacturers, but they couldn’t.

The incompetence of these organizations will give rise to Conspiracy Theories as Hanlon’s Law warns about:

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

The following video shows many of the tendencies mentioned. Most banks don’t have types as Potter any longer, the bank works and thinks like a machine without any feelings or empathy at all, costumer service is a word not a fact.

From Move Your Money who tries to resist the Corporate Ideology.

Automated Decisions

Buying and selling on the stock market are for a great part based on automated decisions on computers, but as we have seen, it can go terrible wrong when some unanticipated events shows up. What’s worse, the stock market was made to foster strong and sound companies, not for computer controlled gaming, but for intelligent investment.

As fewer and fewer managers can make decisions, these decisions will be automated as rules in computers, and it will be impossible to make decisions based on individual concerns.

Decreasing Social Intercourse

Computers are exceptional for entertainment, you can live your life on the Internet, without any direct social contact. You can play games, make your work through the net if necessary, discuss, hunt sex/ books/ programs/ random data on the net (can be like drugs,) book your food from a local pizzeria, book escort girls, men, and boys, eventually finding mates on the net if you really want to live together with another being:). The film Matrix is a plausible destiny, not by force, but semi freely. It’s not Big Brother, it’s Big Mama.

Less Social Skills

In the old days, children, teenagers, and adults learned by living in a community, and there was room for everybody, also the village idiot. These and other unusual persons were educated by their surrounding who were mostly normal. We are today living more and more on the Internet, learning our social skills through social applications and computer games, the old community’s influence are replaced by the influence of the Internet comrades, and as like seeks likes, they can only increase their phobias or other disorders. Examples are numerous: pedophilia, school killings, terrorists, all kind of surrealistic interests, and so forth. The Law of Sayre’s are relevant in many of these cases:

“In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue.”

No Privacy

Children and teenagers can be reached by mobile and GPS always and everywhere, followed on the Internet through Twitter or Facebook by their parents. No privacy. The same goes for the adults, no privacy, open for state officials, economic institutions, and employers. Password protection, pseudonyms, and like precautions is no hindrance, Cyber-Investigators will find everything, relevant or not. You can not even go to the North Pole or to Himalaya in peace, they can always reach you, and you them.

Where’s the remotest place on Earth?

In our hyper-connected world, getting away from it all is easier said than done. New Scientist.

Conspiracy Theories

The frustration has to go somewhere, and while there are no one responsible for our situation, and no one with enough insight, determination, and power to change the situation, we invent some god-like powerful conspirators who in all secrecy, with hundreds of employees, stands behind all the bad in this world. The truth is, that most leaders are so incompetent that it hurts. Just look at Iraq. The military invasion was well thought out, but the rest was incompetence par excellence. And that is not an exception, it’s the rule. Of cause there are conspiracies and secret operations, but if more than one participant knowing about the conspiracy are alive a year later, it’s just a question of time before the world know. Another reason to use few people are that really competent people are difficult to find, and the more people involved the bigger the risks for failure, and the bigger the consequences of a failure, the less interesting the project becomes. The best way to check if a conspiracy theory is viable or not, isn’t the technical evidence but the psychology and the necessary resources behind, how big is the risk, who gains, what’s their gain, how many participate, and what expertise are necessary.

A sober view on Conspiracy Theories from the left:

Noam Chomsky on Conspiracy Theories
In case the video is not functioning look here

The the Bafta-winning film-maker Adam Curtis:

“I don’t believe in conspiracies. Politicians don’t have the capacity to conspire, except in the most short-term way. [The distorted image of bin Laden] just suited a lot of people’s purposes at that time.”

What’s the mechanism behind the development?

Literature

 

Thomas Piketty

The Independent: The French economist forcing America to wake up to the end of The Dream.
Out of America: Thomas Piketty’s tome which skewers the idea that anyone who works hard can make it in the US seems to have hit a nerve

“Capital In The Twenty-First Century”, all 685 pages of it, is the No 1 best-seller on Amazon – apparently the first time that anything published by the venerable Harvard University Press has attained such dizzying celebrity. No self-regarding dinner party in Washington or New York is worth its salt without a discussion of it. Last Friday, came the ultimate accolade of a multiple coronation on the op-ed page of The New York Times.

The Huffington Post: Economist Thomas Piketty Explains Why Income Inequality Is Just Getting Started

 

Michael Lewis

Wired: Michael Lewis on Exposing Wall Street’s Biggest High-Tech Swindle in the book: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Flash Boys explores the world of high-frequency trading, a scheme in which traders use ultra-fast network connections to sniff out the intentions of other, slower traders, thereby acting before others can respond. Critics of the practice–Lewis chief among them–argue that high-frequency trading creates something akin to insider trading: a predatory environment for less advantaged investors. WIRED spoke with Lewis at an event organized by Live Talks in downtown Los Angeles.

Elizabeth Warren

A Fighting Chance (Apple, Amazon)

An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works—and really doesn’t.

In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class—and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America’s government can and must do better for working families.

New York Times: Book review of A Fighting Chance

A good review, also giving a good idea about who she is.

Allan Bloom

The Closing of the American Mind, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Christopher Lasch

Haven in a Heartless World, 1977, Basic Books, Inc.

In the American political vocabulary, “family” and “family values” no longer simply evoke pictures of harmonious scenes; they also push our buttons (left and right) about what is wrong with society. One of the earliest and sharpest cultural commentators to investigate the twentieth-century American family, Christopher Lasch argues in this book that as social science “experts” intrude more and more into our lives, the family’s vital role as the moral and social cornerstone of society disintegrates – and, left unchecked, so does our political and personal freedom. Haven in a Heartless World is a trenchant analysis of the plight of the family. Lasch takes a clear-eyed look at the institution in which America’s future generations are being raised and finds it faltering.

Geoffrey B. West

A Physicist Turns the City Into an Equation:

A New York Times article on his work.

Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities:

Describes the mathematical background for his work.

Atticannie’s Blog

Why Teacher Drink, the sequel: Natalie Munroe speaks out

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

have written a little book called “Night Flight” which describes man’s fight against the Materialistic docility to keep man competent and responsible.

By Rudolf Steiner

Inkarnation Ahrimans in German/Deutch and in English.

The the Bafta-winning film-maker Adam Curtis:

Philosophy of Materialism

Political Correctness

Political Correctness is sneaking in everywhere, without any conscious effort by any conspiratorial agency, but because of the path of least resistance.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

Noam Chomsky