Finding New Energy

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the A reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

My first real introduction to the true energy possibilities that now exist came in 1990 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was at a Whole Life Expo and because I was a little flush at the time I had purchased a VIP ticket that allowed me to attend 5 seminars of my choice. I chose:

1) Chris Griscom, a resident of New Mexico from Galisteo. Chris had written some interesting books on energy and healing and was perhaps best known at the time as the person who had guided Shirley MacLaine in past-life regression. Although this seminar had the biggest turnout (SRO) of those I attended, I personally found it to be the least satisfying.

2) Dr. Timothy Leary, the 60’s drug guru was doing a multimedia presentation on the events of the 1960s. Tim, who was tragically misunderstood and mislabeled by the media and their sycophant surrogates, was a former Harvard professor and PhD whose goal in life was to study the human psyche and to discover techniques whereby people could psychoanalyze themselves, thus foregoing the necessity of a shrink while working out their own psychological problems or other anomalies. Tim was an accomplished showman and his presentation was enjoyable.

3) Richard Hoagland, perhaps best known for his study of the face on Mars and the mathematics that is associated with its geometrical location. I was somewhat skeptical, though part way through a slide show of an alleged 3 mile high glass dome on the moon, in the haze of the slides that were being projected, I began to detect geometric shapes that implied the possibility of deliberate conscious construction. Richard can be found at the Enterprise Mission and lives in Placitas, New Mexico where I also lived at one time. Of course when I lived there it was in a 700 sq ft cabin with no electricity. Did that for 2 and a half years. I’m sure Richard has electricity.

4) Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, quantum physicist, prolific writer, former professor, and the inspiration for Dr. Quantum in the movie “Down The Rabbit Hole,” which is an expanded sequel to “What The Bleep Do We Know?” Fred has written about quantum physics and shamanism (“The Eagle’s Quest”), parallel universes (“Parallel Universes”), the quantum physics of spirituality (“The Spiritual Universe”), an excellent introduction to the basics of quantum physics (“Taking The Quantum Leap”), and about the idea of the entire universe being a dream (“The Dreaming Universe”), which was his topic in 1990. I was first introduced to Fred through some tapes of him speaking at the annual Association of Unity Churches Conference at Unity School of Christianity. I admit that I originally refused to listen to the tapes (after all, my mother had given them to me and insisted that I would like it), but I finally gave in and was entranced by what he had to say. At that time, one of the things that caught my attention was his interest in the work of Carlo Suares, a French Cabalist, who had written a fascinating book entitled, “Cipher Of Genesis.”

5) Finally, but certainly not least, was Dr. Brian O’Leary, former astronaut, MIT professor and promoter of green science. He had actually brought attention to the face on Mars before Richard Hoagland got so involved with it. Brian and his wife, Meredith, have recently moved to Ecuador, South America and begun what is a retreat house of sorts. Anyway, in 1990 he was coordinator of a group of engineers, scientists, and inventors around the world who were working in a generalized area, though through a number of different approaches. Of all the talks I attended at the Expo, this one drew the fewest number of people. However, once the question/answer session began at the close of Brian’s talk it became quite obvious that those in attendance were almost all engineers and scientists from Los Alamos and Sandia Labs, and it became obvious from their questions what they were doing there. Our government was interested in, and working on, the same thing as the people that Brian was working with.

The group that Brian was fronting met once a year in Estes Park, Colorado. That meeting was followed by a public conference in Denver or Fort Collins. Oh, and what was the research that brought them together? Well, the physicist Richard Feynman, once made the claim that there was enough energy in a cup of water to boil all of the oceans on the planet. Energy in a cup of water? Well, of course, he was taking Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and expanding it to the maximum possibility. I’m sure that you are familiar with Einstein’s theory: E = mc2 In case you ever wondered, that translates into Energy equals matter expanding omnidirectionally at the speed of light.

It’s funny, but years ago (the 1930’s) Bucky Fuller wrote a book entitled, “Nine Chains To The Moon.” In the book was a chapter titled, “E = mc2 = Mrs. Murphy’s Horsepower.” Well, Bucky’s publisher said that they could not publish that chapter. It seems that there was a list of people who were qualified to comment upon Einstein’s theory and Bucky’s name was not on the list. Well, Dr. Fuller’s response was to suggest that the publisher ask Dr. Einstein what he thought of the chapter. Surprisingly, the publisher did just that and Einstein asked to meet Fuller. When the two of them came together, Einstein said, “Young man, I had no idea that my theory had any practical applications.” Even the great Einstein was not fully aware of all of the implications of what he had discovered.

So the equation is saying that if you take what we call matter and break the bonds that hold it together, that it will expand explosively in all directions at the speed of light as the energy that is trapped in the patterns that created that matter is released. So people realized that there might be some, as yet undiscovered, way to release the energy that is trapped in matter and to do it in such a way that it could be controlled and channeled to perform work. You may recall that earlier I mentioned what all is going on in the “emptiness that surrounds us.” Well, what would happen if one could figure out a way to extract the energy that comprises some of that floating matter that we can’t even see? It turns out that this wasn’t a totally new idea, because it is claimed that Tesla had figured out how to tap energy anywhere on the planet, but that J.P. Morgan wasn’t interested in backing it because there was no way he could make any money from it.

One of the first things that happens when an idea like this is floated is that many notable, knowledgeable scientists and engineers jump up and down and yell about the Laws of Thermodynamics, specifically the First Law that states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, therefore any energy that one might imagine accessing is going to cost the same amount of energy to access, therefore making the whole process a wash. “Ha, ha, ha,” they say, “there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. You’re just wasting your time.”

That’s a viewpoint, with valid backup. But here’s another viewpoint: what if there were other laws of physics that we have yet to discover that apply to this new kind of energy transfer that can be valid while not negating the common laws of thermodynamics because they deal with matter in ways that we have yet to identify? That kind of thinking, that kind of inquiry is what drives scientific discovery. The previous “ha, ha” kind of thinking is what slows discovery and keeps us locked in outdated and outmoded systems.

So, in 1990, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a room largely populated by government scientists and engineers, I listened to Brian tell the stories of people that he was working with. And what were they working on? Free energy. And the reason you seldom hear anything about it is because just like in the days of J.P. Morgan and Nicola Tesla, there is no money to be made by the big powerbrokers, so there is no reason for anyone to give it a second thought. Free energy. Zero Point Field. Google “free energy” and you get over 80 million hits and yet you don’t hear a damn positive thing about it from the government or big business or the media.

Now, maybe you have a friend who’s an engineer and you go and ask him or her about “free energy” and after they pooh pooh it you decide that I’m nuts. I mean, I know how that is. I have a very good friend that I used to work for, a brilliant telecommunications engineer. And, although we talked about this regularly when we worked together, he doesn’t take any of this very seriously. But I don’t rely upon him for intelligent input where free energy is concerned. I mean, he’s a telecommunications engineer.

Here’s one of the people I look to for validation of this “new” energy source. Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Sadly, Dr. Clarke just passed on this year. He had stated that he was staying alive until “free energy” hits the streets. When it did, he said, all forms of pollution would be overcome, except one, and that was the heat generated by the use of this energy. Although, he went on to say that this might be a savior for humankind if the renowned historian Will Durant was right when he said that “civilization is an interval between ice ages."

If you’re not sure who I am talking about, then think about the Stanley Kubrick movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Dr. Clarke was the one who wrote that picture and it was based upon an earlier short story of his entitled, “The Sentinel.” Oh, “okay,” you say, “you are relying upon a science fiction writer.” Well, not quite, for you see, in addition to a prolific output of science fiction, Dr. Clarke was also a renowned scientist and hard science writer. Did you ever wonder how they figured out that you could put a satellite in orbit above the planet in such a way that as it orbited the planet it would actually stay in the same place in the sky. Think communications satellite. Dr. Clarke was the one who figured out how to do that, how to place satellites in geosynchronous orbit. He was the one who got the patent for the idea. No shabby accomplishment.

In 1976, Dr. Clarke published a book entitled “Imperial Earth.” The story was set 300 years in the future on the 500th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. As part of the publicity tour for the book, Dr. Clarke appeared on Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show (it was on about the same time as Conan O’Brien but with more of a slant towards thought provoking guests and topics. So Snyder asks Clarke, “Well, Dr. Clarke, what is the earth going to be like in 300 years?” And Dr. Clarke says, “Well, Tom, as you might imagine I have a lot of friends who are scientists and also who are science fiction writers, and we talk about that all of the time, and the only thing that we can agree upon is that within the next 75 to 100 years we will have accomplished everything presently imaginable.” Now, my friends, that was 32 years ago. That would mean that we are now down to 43 – 68 years to go before accomplishing everything presently imaginable, or, to be fair, everything that was imaginable in 1976. Beyond that, he said, our imaginations have yet to develop.

With that introduction, let me share with you what Dr. Clarke had to say about “free energy.” In his 1997 book, “3001: The Final Odyssey,” he speaks of free energy. And in the notes under the Sources and Acknowledgements part of the book he says, “even as I write this, many competent engineers, in laboratories all over the world, claim to be tapping this new energy source.” Dr. Clarke made that claim over a decade ago. But we can’t do anything about it because we have to protect the markets, “The Market.” Well, “The Market” has imploded after raping us with exorbitant gasoline prices and the false belief that everyone should live in a McMansion. The world’s economic systems are on an unprecedented precipice and part of the reason is that we insist on clinging to outmoded ways. At the risk of you thinking that I am screaming, I assure you that I am not yelling, but a large part of our problem is that too damn many of us cling to OUTMODED WAYS.

But the story doesn’t end here. When I saw Brian O’Leary in 1990, one of the things that he said was, “I don’t fully understand what this means, but I’ve been told that when free energy hits the street, there will be a 3 trillion dollar shift in the world’s economy.” Afterwards I talked with him and explained that what that meant was that those countries whose economies were oil based would go belly up almost overnight as financial and power options shifted dramatically. We’re seeing a hint of that kind of thing right now.

Brian also shared with us that one of the people that he was working with at the time was a Canadian who was known as the modern day Tesla. This guy was concentrating on an interesting discovery made while tapping free energy. And here, I’d better give you an “in a nutshell” of my meager understanding of what is going on in tapping this energy. First, you need to understand that there are a lot of approaches to determining how to “tap” this new energy source. And it was obvious from the questions from Brian’s audience that the government engineers were using an approach that was different from that of many of the people with whom Brian was associated. However, here’s my meager understanding. It appears that when one rotates different magnetic fields at a high speed in close proximity to one another, that a dimension warp (for want of a better term) opens in space time and the energy just bleeds through. Now, if I am out to lunch, please don’t waste my time with making a big deal about it. I’m not an engineer. I’m just some guy running for President of the United States, so what the hell do I know.

However, by whatever means, when people are able to tap this energy source, to their surprise, that was not all that they tapped. There was something else there. Something that bled through into this dimension of experience. What was it? Anti-gravity. The aforementioned Canadian Tesla discovered that when he “zapped” objects with this new energy that sometimes they would take off (go up) and never come down. Whoops, another law bites the dust. What goes up apparently doesn’t always come down. This can also be verified in the notes of “3001.” So, what does anti-gravity mean? What’s the big deal? Well, that is what is going to take us to the stars. You’ve seen the warp drive on Star Trek? Welcome to the future, baby. As Dr. Clarke said, “To give you an idea what it would allow us to do, you could go from New York City to Los Angeles in the time it takes to snap your fingers and never feel a thing.”

Clarke wrote about this a decade ago. Tesla was experimenting with this a century ago. Why the hell don’t we know more about it and why the hell aren’t we doing something about it? Greed? Hunger for power and domination? Clinging to outmoded ways because they pad the pocket? If you’re interested in more information on what many of these engineers are working with, try the website Keeleynet.

If you’ve already clicked on the link that I gave you for Dr. O’Leary, then you might have discovered that he is pretty disgusted with the politicians in this country. He had written to Al Gore and others and they all have backed away from free energy. But Brian points out that all of the other “alternatives” that one hears about all come with a hidden energy cost that cancels their effectiveness. They just manage to perpetuate the same old crap under a different guise. Profit, profit, profit; keep the money machine on track, no matter the eventual price.

Do you realize how powerful the people are in this world who have power? Do you really? Do you know that they only have one God, and that God is world domination. Am AI over the top? Fine, prove me wrong!

Well, free energy may upset their apple cart. And one of the reasons that I am running for President is to use this as a platform to spread the word. I honestly believe that there is a critical point at which when enough people know about something, no one can keep it from coming to fruition.

Energy, Earth And Everyone

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

One of the things that Bucky Fuller is remembered for is the creation of the World Game. The World Game was originally a 2-week session in which anyone could participate if they had a few hundred dollars to cover registration. One of the results that I’ve always found fascinating and helpful are the Worldometers. Nowadays the World Game can be downloaded from the internet as a free software program. Anyway, the original game consisted of a week of getting to know the tools and aspects of the research systems that were available to the participants, principles of game theory, listening to world experts speak in regard to the session’s topic, and getting to know other participants who might be housewives, students, business people, laborers, professionals, or whatever.

The group would then dive in to answering the world challenge for that particular session of the game. It might be a question having to do with world health care, world food supply, or world communication. The session I want to highlight, however, was confronted with the question: “what would it take, and how long would it take, to provide everyone in the world with enough energy so that everyone could live at a higher standard of living than anyone has experienced before, without using an non-replenishable fuel and without anyone taking away from anyone else.”

The results of that session of the World Game were soon published as a book entitled: “Energy, Earth and Everyone” by Medard Gabel. Medard was a coworker with Bucky and had helped coordinate the sessions. Free copies of the book were mailed to all of the major world leaders of the time. The book reported that the participants of that World Game session had determined that the goal could be achieved in ten years. The book then proceeded to explain, with tables, charts and graphs, how this could be accomplished using solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and biomass as sources of energy. No wood, no coal, no nuclear, no petroleum products. And all in just 10 years. Hurrah!

Oh, and did I mention when this happened? It was 1972. That means this could have been achieved by as soon as 1982. So, what the hell happened? We’re 25 years overdue for completion of this project. Oh, I also forgot to mention that there was one minor problem: this scenario would require world cooperation in building a world-encompassing international energy grid for the sharing of all of the energy that these plans would generate. I mean, really, that is asking a little too much. World cooperation? And this was 1972. It’s hard enough to get 2 people to agree on what’s for lunch, not to mention agreeing to share the world’s energy.

But, be that as it may, stranger things, I’m sure, have happened. However, here we are, 35 years later, deeper in servitude to the energy monster, possibly destroying the ecosystems of our planet and even jeopardizing the very existence of humanity, and we’re just getting around to paying some attention to these issues and proposals from 3 ½ decades ago. And now we’re hearing that these “alternatives” may not be sufficiently cost effective and pollution free in their own creation to be much of a fix.

I remember 30 years ago hearing people say that solar energy costs too much. But I never heard any ideas about how to correct that imbalance. Well, actually I did near one reasonable, intelligent suggestion on how to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of solar power while lowering the price of same. Part of the industrial cycle is that new products cost a lot. The reason is that development costs beg for reimbursement. This stems from our desire to have everything now. Quick return on investment trumps intelligent long term residuals any day. For example, I remember early VCR’s selling for over $800 each and the quality couldn’t begin to stand up to an $80 VCR today (if you can even find one anymore). Why did the price come down? A demand was created that caused an increase in sales, which, in turn, generated an increase in production and more competition and the market rules say that the price therefore goes down.

My recommendation was that the Federal Government mandate that in a 5 year period of time, all government buildings be converted to 100% solar power as the source of their energy. That would create a demand and spark new research that would result in higher quality and lower prices. So, in this scenario, we have the government setting the example through its own action, and, in the process, inspiring new technological advances and a reduction in prices, thereby bringing solar energy within the reach of the average citizen. We haven’t had to mess with subsidies and all of the government intervention in the market that they entail. The government’s energy utility bills drop to nothing, thereby recouping the initial investment and then requiring less taxes to be paid by tax payers who are able to take advantage of this new technology.

It disturbs me that I don’t detect this kind of clear thinking from most of our elected government representatives. I’m further concerned for I feel that this kind of thinking is deliberately discouraged under the current federal administration.

Back in the 1970’s when we first began having energy problems, we should have become proactive and begun doing something about it. President Jimmy Carter knew this and for his efforts to help us set a new course he was drawn and quartered by the namby pamby press and their sponsors, those who thrive on sucking energy sources into their own pockets and the rest of humanity be damned. President Carter took steps to improve the performance of internal combustion engines only to have those gains reversed in the last decade by the power hungry idiots that, unfortunately, people whom I actually know helped to put in power to allow them to rape this country and its potential. And look at what we’ve got to show for it.

Well, my friends, for as bleak as things have become through the efforts of the past decade to castrate this great country’s government, there is still hope. And even though every once in awhile I will be moved to share some of my disgust with people who have tried to destroy my country, stick with me, for my run for the Presidency is going to be perhaps one of the most unique political runs you’ll ever see with a gathering of solutions beyond what any politician has the guts to offer.

Energy Enters The Matrix

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

Before I tell you about the amazing thing that happened in the early part of the 20th century, we ought to talk about a few other aspects of life on this amazing spaceship that we call earth. What I intend to tell you about are some deep secrets about the economy that are going to bring new insight into what is going on with the economy right now, and what has actually been taking place within the world economy for most of the last 100 years. And I guarantee that it has nothing to do with any of the crap that you have heard from anybody else. It’s a secret, not because anyone has deliberately been hush hush about it, but because it is hard for many people to understand, much less believe. However, that’s why I am writing all of these posts, in order to give the reader some background material in better understanding that reality can be more than just one narrow viewpoint. So before I spring the big surprise on you, I want you to have some time to digest information about other aspects of our social and governmental functioning from other perspectives. This will help to prepare you for what is to come. So let’s continue.

Up until the Industrial Revolution things were essentially created by a craft person using their knowledge and their tools. Much of the work that was required in order to produce a product was provided by the physical ability of the crafts person. At times, they might require the use of fire, which, in turn necessitated a fuel like wood or coal. As manufacturing evolved new forms of energy were sought out to fuel the creation of light, of heat in the winter, and the automatic movement of various parts of the manufacturing process.

Let there be oil. Yes, oil and its derivatives raised their heads and began to provide the energy needed to drive the growing needs of the Industrial Revolution. Gradually, energy took over as king. An interesting story has to do with a decade-long battle between the transmission of Direct Current electricity versus Alternating Current electricity. The man who is credited in American educational curriculum with being the major motivating force behind the development of electricity is Thomas Edison. This is misleading, to say the least.

For years, Thomas Edison promoted the use of direct current electricity. This was not very efficient, for direct current cannot be transmitted over great distances without losing a good deal of power. It would, therefore, be necessary to build electricity generating plants every few blocks. A tremendous overhead expense. Edison’s major competition was Nicola Tesla. Tesla had discovered alternating current, held the patent on it, and was working with it. AC had a much lower overhead since it could be transmitted very long distances, thereby requiring far fewer generating plants.

The story is that, in an effort to discredit Tesla, Edison would schedule press conferences at which he would take stray cats and dogs and place them upon a metal plate wired with alternating current. The animals were prompt electrocuted as Edison would pronounce the life threatening danger accompanying the use of alternating current electricity. What he failed to point out is that the animals would have also been fried if the electricity had been direct current. Minor point.

Why would Edison do this? Perhaps it had something to do with his chief financial “backer” being J.P. Morgan, the big Wall Street banker and financier. Morgan had dreams of “cleaning up” by being paid to build all of the power plants that direct current would require. Fortunately, AC won out over DC and Edison finally admitted that he’d always known that AC was the wiser, more efficient, more cost effective way to go. AC may have triumphed but the credit went not to its founder, Tesla, but to its founder’s competitor, Edison. If you’re interested in more detail, read the fascinating book: “Tesla: Man Out Of Time” by Margaret Cheney.

All the while oil was waiting in the background while people began experimenting to see what all they could do with this gooey, smelly mess that would become known as “black gold.” As its uses became more apparent, then the quest to find more sources for it escalated. As oil was processed into gasoline and used to drive the internal combustion engine, the automobile came into existence and a new afore-undreamed-of world of mobility allowed the age-old small villages of people around the world to begin to interact. To give you an idea of what life was like before this massive growth in transportation drove into humanity’s lifestyle, back in the 1700’s, Benjamin Franklin was in France (1776-1785) as the United States’ Ambassador to that country. Reportedly, one day, George Washington said, “We haven’t heard from Ben Franklin this year. Perhaps we should send him a letter.”

Oil and industrialization changed all of that. Oil allowed for all kinds of new opportunities to open up for millions of people. In the 19th Century there was a saying that “cotton is king.” Well, in the 20th Century oil had become emperor and the entire world was its empire.

There have been some problems, however, with oil and its byproducts. First is the fact that it’s not replenishable. That means that when it’s all gone, there is no more. And we have absolutely no plans to replace it. Replace it? Now there’s an interesting idea. What would it take to “create” oil from scratch instead of just pumping it out of the ground. Well, the way that oil came into being is that millions of years ago, massive amounts of organic matter (that means dead stuff) got covered up by increasingly tremendous amounts of dirt and rock until it was compressed under incredible pressure for millions or years, ultimately resulting in that familiar black goo and gas. That’s gaseous gas, not gasoline gas.

So here’s a question for you. What do you suppose it would take, how long do you suppose it would take, and what do you think it would cost to create, from scratch, a gallon of gasoline? Perhaps as much as a billion dollars. Now you know why oil is considered to be non-replenishable. It’s because it would require too much effort, take far too much time, and cost way too much to replenish just one barrel of oil. When I was a kid, I remember gas at 19.9 cents a gallon. Now we have seen it as high as $5/gallon, but that’s just a spit in the bucket compared to what it would cost if we had to create it, rather than simply find it, steal it, and refine it.

From time to time our wonderful economy has brought us an energy crisis, a time when supply dwindles and price rises. Yet nowhere have any of those crises begun to approach the cost and inconvenience that would result from creating oil ourselves.

Of course another problem with oil is how to handle all of its byproducts, and particularly those created by its refining and combustion. We now find ourselves forced into considering and dealing with these issues because of their possible impact upon our planet’s weather. Is carbon pollution causing global warming? Hard to say. Is carbon pollution contributing to global warming? Without a doubt.

There must be some better way to obtain the energy that we need. Turns out that there are a number of better, more efficient, more cost effective ways of generating energy. So let’s take a look at some of those so-called alternative fuels.

How I Think It All Began

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

A long, long time ago in a place and time beyond memory, for whatever reasons people began to create systems by which everyone was expected to live their lives. This probably developed because they discovered that there was safety in numbers, but numbers dictated close proximity and interaction. So a call goes out to organize. I’ve always thought that a great explanation of what happened “back then” was presented by Lenny Bruce. If you have never listened to any of his routines, you’d do well to lend an ear. He had a very clear, logical way of cutting through to the meat of issues such as religion, the economy, and, of course, the legal/judicial system with which he was so personally familiar.

As I recall Lenny’s take on the origins of the law and law enforcement, I have to chuckle as I realize that I know chronologically-aged adults who would be offended, even today, by some of the words that Lenny used. For instance, he would say that one of the early systemic agreements presented to people was that everyone would sleep in area A, eat in area B, and throw a crap in area C. Wait a minute, did he just say “crap?” If that bothers you, let me tell you a quick story.

I was visiting an online chat group once when a new person joined the conversation. In a very short time he was able to upset quite a few of the regular participants by some of the things that he said. I mean they were calling for his immediate expulsion from the group. Yet his contributions were very intelligent, though sometimes forceful. Finally one day he said, “why are you people so upset? It is only words on a screen.”

Same thing with Lenny. It’s only words, but each of us has the choice of whether or not we will feel offended by those words. The words have no power. The power is in our choices. If it is more important to us to feel offended, rather than to possibly become enlightened, well, the choice is ours and ours alone. Own it, but please don’t complain to me about it.

Anyway, as Lenny’s story continued, one day someone woke up with a face full of crap. This resulted in the creation of laws and law enforcement and penalties, including incarceration and torture, and that whole complex legal arcanery continues to expand to this very day. The same thing has happened to sex and relationships, to business and to the economy. The more time that humanity has to tinker with a system, the more complex it seem to become.

For thousands of years most people didn’t know about the other people on the planet. Often what little they did hear about the rest of the world came in stories told by merchants. These stories often included tales of monsters and sea dragons. That may have been a deliberate attempt at keeping potential competitors from venturing into the unknown.

The merchants traveled widely in search of goods that they might sell to profit themselves and their financial backers. Over time, some of these merchants and their backers became very wealthy. Through ownership of land and ships and goods and the ability to distribute them, many of the more astute among this small extremely wealthy group discovered that one of the greatest protections for them and for their wealth was anonymity. Unfortunately, over the centuries this has resulted in many of them becoming so insulated from the rest of the world that they have lost touch with understanding what the rest of the world is like. They are out of touch with the changes that have taken place within the growth of the human family.

It’s like the concept of royalty. What the hell is that? The idea that someone, by mere happenstance of birth, is better than everyone else and born to “rule” over others. The reason people believe unrealistic ideas such as that is because their parents believed and taught it to them and so the royals are brought up to believe that they are better and the rest of the population is generally brought up to believe that the royals are right. Now pause a minute to digest what I am saying. This whole concept of royalty exists because people believe in it. Dr. Fred Alan Wolf has said that “reality is nothing more than a whole lot of agreement.” Don’t forget that, because we’re going to be looking at it again.

With wealth comes power and some are seduced by the dark side to wield that power over others, thereby dominating them with their power. A gap between the haves and the have-nots developed and has fueled battles for thousands of years. Although these conflicts have contributed greatly to the gruesomeness of the death of billions of people, there has, nevertheless, been sort of an indirect upside to this organized human conflagration. That upside has come in the new inventions and new discoveries that are fueled with the advent of war. That’s right, for thousands of years, most of the advances in human civilization owe their development to being the result of preparation for, and the practice of, war.

The root cause behind this anomaly, where destruction sparks new growth, has largely been due to the laziness of humankind. Now, that’s not a very fair thing to say, for most human beings are far from lazy, at least in the sense of doing what they need to do. But that is precisely where the line is drawn; what needs to be done versus what could be done. Bucky Fuller defined this phenomenon as “emergence through emergency.” In other words, when forced to, we will usually rise to the occasion. In the meantime, we do whatever is necessary to maintain the status quo.

This has been one of the problems between the dominators and the liberators of whom I spoke earlier. Liberators somehow appear not to have the drive necessary to do what it takes to manifest their dreams when those dreams exceed the status quo. Dominators, on the other hand, will do whatever it takes to make their dreams reality, no matter the cost. It’s obvious, therefore, that the dominators will usually win. Get this straight, friends, liberators don’t liberate anyone other than themselves without running the risk of slipping into domination. So we’re locked in an ongoing battle of trying hard not to have to do battle in order to achieve our liberation. And our opponents in this battle are only so happy to do battle with us.

Does that make sense? It’s like everyone works for a small group of bosses. The bosses would like to keep things the way they are with the employees being employees. They are therefore concerned that too much competition could either bump them from their lofty position or create too many bosses, thereby leading to infighting. So what do they do? They see to it that the workers, the overwhelming majority, gets just enough to keep them complacent. Don’t want too many people to get too hungry or they might upset the apple cart. This is why the “middle class” is currently being championed, so that they will rally for the right to remain middle class and not challenge the more privileged in our society.

So life has slowly evolved with the elite few always having the best of what’s available while the vast majority of those remaining scramble for a piece of whatever is left over. The quality and quantity of what is “left over” has slowly improved, but it has always remained far behind what could be.

When I spoke earlier of the merchants being the only real world savvy people, I find myself returning to the term that Bucky Fuller used in referring to these people. He called them “The Great Pirates.” This was because they traveled the world seeking resources and products that they could exploit and then did everything that they possibly could to obtain these goods, even if it required theft, deception and bloodshed. They were often the agents of royalty and therefore would even precipitate wars and other conflicts if it served their purposes. Bucky’s book, “Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth” is an excellent introduction to the Great Pirate story. The movie “Burn,” starring Marlon Brando, does a very good job of exploring the behind-the-scenes gyrations that make these events come into being.

The Great Pirates essentially ruled the world for thousands of years. The wealth that was generated through their activities was based upon ownership of land and goods. And this design served them well for many centuries.

Then in the later half of the last millennia a number of brilliant individuals began making discoveries through observation and experimentation that slowly compounded to lay the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. An excellent resource for who did what and when is Isaac Asimov’s “Biographical Encyclopedia of Science And Technology.” It covers 1510 scientists/inventors/discoverers from ancient times (3,000 BC) to the late 20th Century. One can start with any entry and by following all of the links, ultimately digest the entire book, because the path of discovery and growth is one that connects the entire human family.

Up until the advent of the Industrial Revolution, goods were items, objects, that could be created, or produced, by a single individual. These individuals who made things were known as craftsmen. Great organizations, or guilds, have grown up over time as an organized means of protecting and passing the knowledge, techniques and tools that allowed one to produce a good on to the next generations of craft people.

As new discoveries of more complex products precipitated breaking their creation process into separate components, each of which could still be accomplished by a single individual, the results of this “group” effort in creating a product began a huge transition into the manufacturing model that evolved into the Industrial Age. This was a period that has evolved into extremely complex modes of construction. For example, an airplane is constructed of millions of parts. To keep track of the design and construction of one single plane requires the work of thousands of people. This could not have even have been imagined as little as a hundred years ago. Yet today it is second nature.

But this was merely the beginning of humanity’s discovery of its possibilities. What happened next was so phenomenal that, to this day, very few people are aware of what transpired and the impact that it has had upon the entire world.

Outlaw Revelations

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

I’ve heard it said that one can tell when politicians are lying because their lips move. Since I am running for President, some people might think of me as being a politician. However, since 99% of my “campaign” is through this Blog, you can’t tell whether or not my lips are moving.

Lately, I’ve heard the word “maverick” thrown around a lot. Personally, whenever I hear the word I flash back to images of "Top Gun" and then I remember Tom Cruise jumping around on Oprah’s couch, and I think “not in the White House.” I have a good friend who says that “The Maverick” is also a “top gun.” And that makes me even more nervous.

Last night I could stand it no longer and I pulled up a dictionary to recheck the definition of “maverick.” Turns out its origin has to do with a cattleman rancher named Samuel Maverick who had the habit of not branding his cows. So when a calf or young heifer got separated from its mother and would turn up in somebody else’s herd, they would say, “It must be Maverick’s.” I swear that that is what the dictionary said. Of course, what it didn’t say was that whenever someone else’s young cow showed up in Maverick’s herd without a brand, he assumed that it must be his. Oh, those shrewd Texas cattlemen.

Then the dictionary goes on to say that a maverick is “a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.” I guess that’s what these politicians are talking about. Of course, some of the “maverick’s” problems have been a result of his own maverick ways. That’s the price for being different. For example, when the first plane he went in down in crashed in Pensacola Bay and sank to the bottom, he practically drowned because he couldn’t get the cockpit canopy to open. It turns out that he hadn’t bothered to read the training manual. What a maverick. It’s amazing what a boost to the self image it is when we “don’t” fit in so we find a positive descriptive label to apply to ourselves to signify what it is that we do that makes us look special after all.

I’ve already told you that I am a self-proclaimed Synergeticist. That’s one of my own self-labels. In addition to that, I am also an outlaw. Now, before you grab your AK-47 or your Uzi and call homeland security, allow me to explain what I mean when I claim to be an outlaw.

Actually, the realization occurred to me a little over 30 years ago. I had long been aware that I didn’t feel as though I really fit in. And then I was listening to Bob Dylan singing “Absolutely Sweet Marie” when he said “to live outside the law you must be honest.” As I considered what that line might mean I was reminded of all of the laws that humanity has created in an effort to, at the very least, “keep things under control.” Hell, the laws have become so complex that we’ve created a whole profession of “lawyuhs” just to “help” us to sort our way through the legal complexities and ambiguities of life. Were you aware that of the 55 signers of the Declaration Of Independence, that 25 of them were lawyers? When the Articles Of Confederation were signed, 22 of the 48 signers were lawyers and 3 were judges, and in the Constitutional Convention, 33 of the 55 members were lawyers. Of course back in those days one did not have to have graduated from college or law school to practice law or even to sit on the bench as a judge. Ah, for the good old days.

Anyway, we’re brought up to believe that we need all of these laws to tell us what to do so we will know exactly what the limits are and how we should go about living our lives. But what happens if one realizes that one already knows what to do? Then the law is a bit unnecessary. In fact, it’s invasively redundant. But the law is there just the same, even if unnecessary. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God. And he went on to claim that the second commandment, like the first, was to love your neighbor as yourself.

Several days ago I said that if one truly believes that they are one with God that they can do no sin and that evil, therefore, does not exist in their experience. Same thing here. If one believes/obeys those two commandments then all of the laws become redundantly unnecessary. One therefore lives outside the law. And it obviously follows that if one lives outside the law, then one must be honest. I also quickly realized that if one truly was an outlaw, then the intelligent thing to do is to go ahead and abide by the laws. It’s a lot less overhead. So being an outlaw does not automatically imply breaking the law. In fact, it can be exactly the opposite, as my experience will attest.

Anyway, I am an outlaw, and I must, therefore be honest. If you have been reading these posts and wondered why I am always behind in my postings and that when a posting does show up that it’s already a week old, it’s because I’m writing whenever and wherever I find the time (as I compose these very words, I’m at a wedding that I will officiate in less than an hour). Once a post is formatted, I post it with the next available date after the previous post and at one minute before midnight for that day. It is my hope that I’ll catch up with myself before the election. “Yesterday’s” post told what you can do to make that happen. $$$$$

So I just wanted to get that out of the way so that I can honestly say that I am not hiding anything in my Run For The Presidency.

Shameless Plea For Money

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

All of my life has been a learning experience. Yeah, I know, that applies to everyone, though sometimes I wonder if some people ever learn much of anything. Learning implies having to change one’s mind, change one’s perspective, change one’s attitudes, change one’s habits and other actions. Some changes are easy. Others can be more difficult.

One of my biggest changes has to do with money. Money is such a peculiar thing. In and of itself, it has very little intrinsic value. Its value actually comes from our belief in giving it value. Shake that belief and its value can be shaken and lessened. Strengthen that belief and its value can be strengthened and expanded.

Personally, I’ve always had difficulty figuring out value, particularly when it comes to my time and my services. Without any intention of bragging, but merely for the sake of sharing the extremes that I have had to deal with, there was a time in my life when I felt that I was a total failure, that I had not accomplished anything of value and that I never would, for I had no idea what I should do. And certainly, I felt, I was of no value to anyone else. I was a joke, a waste of God-given potential. What’s more, it appeared that my life had never had much value as far as I could recall.

Then one day, while sorting through a bunch of stuff, I came across a box that contained about two dozen medals that my brother, Larry, and I had received from district and state band competitions we had participated in while living in Florida. These were medals awarded for outstanding performance. I played cornet and French horn and my brother played clarinet and bass clarinet. My medals were for performance in a symphonic band, a concert band, a marching band, an ensemble quartet, and for solo performances. As I looked over those medals, I was reminded that I had been elected President of the International Youth of Unity when I was 19. The YOU is the teenage youth group in the church in which I grew up. And then I remembered that I had spoken in churches all over the country and that I had taught classes, and had been a published writer, and had been in National Junior Honor Society and Latin Club in school, and had been on radio and television, and had performed on stage, and on and on. And yet, after all of that, I had slipped into a mindset in which I believed that I had no value and that I had never accomplished anything.

At the other extreme, when my Mother passed away, following her Memorial Service a young woman came up to me and said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is …” I remembered the name, and I very vaguely remembered her. You see, 20 years earlier, while working in my Mother’s church I was teaching a class on Walter Starcke’s book “Ultimate Revolution.” I had three teenage girls attending the class. And one day they said that there was nothing for teenagers to do in the community (we were in what was billed at that time as the largest planned community of brick homes in the United States). They said that they and a group of friends were going to get together and have a meeting to talk about how they might find a way to create activities for young people in the community, and they asked if I would attend. I did.

The story of what transpired from that initial meeting of a dozen teenagers became front page news in the community, for within a month’s time, they had organized into a group with over 300 members and I had become their adult sponsor. That woman, that day, in my Mother’s church, was one of those 300 young people 20 years earlier. They all knew who I was and most of them assumed that I knew all of them. The truth is that I loved them all, but I felt that I knew too few of them.

Anyway, this woman said that she had had a lot of challenges in her life, problems with drugs and alcohol and abusive relationships, but that she was now doing much better. Furthermore, she said that she was so happy to see me because she wanted me to know that in her toughest, most difficult times, she would think about me and think about my brother Larry and about the fact that we always cared about her and all of the other kids and that we helped her be aware of the beauty that was in her. And she said, “I just want to thank you for saving my life.”

It was all I could do to keep from breaking down. Save her life? I wasn’t even very certain who she was. How much value can one put on such an act? To save the life of another human being. And how did that happen? Merely because I treated her with respect. I practiced the “Golden Rule.” How much to our thoughts and actions affect those around us? Needless to say, I was extremely moved.

During my time sorting through my Mother’s effects and belongings I talked with countless people who had known my Mother. And every so often I would talk with one who would say, “I never went to your mother’s church, but I want you to know that just knowing her changed my life.” Knowing my Mother, and how committed she was to living her life in accordance with the principles that she believed and taught, I could understand that. But I wondered if she was fully aware of the positive impact that she had on other people. I’m certain that her influence far exceeded her awareness of it.

How do you place a value upon that? I have no idea. I am at a total loss.

A value appears to be somewhat arbitrary. But, let’s say that I come up with a figure. Now comes the hard part. How does one market oneself? I have become increasingly aware during my life of the overpowering importance of marketing. In business, it’s really no longer important what one has to offer. What’s important is how it is presented, how it is packaged, how it is marketed.

I like to share the following story. Several years ago a friend was turning 60. His wife asked my wife to help with planning his party. In the process I was asked to provide music, to which I replied, “What kind of music.” 1961 was the answer. “Why 1961?” I wondered. Ah, because that’s the year that he graduated from high school. High school graduation is a very pivotal experience in many people’s lives. It is a time of great change. Getting a job. Entering the military. Moving away from home. Getting married. Leaving friendships behind. Going to college. Realizing that we have to begin taking responsibility for our own lives. So many dramatic changes. It’s like life comes up and slaps us upside the head. And the background for all of that traumatic change is the music of the day. And that music, so inextricably entwined with those new experiences, stays with us for the rest of our lives.

So I went on the Internet to find out what was a hit in 1961. After a little bit of searching I found a list of over 250 songs that made the charts in 1961. Well, it took a little bit of doing, but when the day of the birthday party arrived, I gave our friend a CD with over 250 hits from 1961.

The reason I tell this story is because in the process of gathering all of that music, although I was familiar with most of the artists, I came across one that did not ring a bell. What’s more, when listening to his songs, I thought that there was something funny going on. He sounded like Elvis Presley, but his name was Ral Donner. Was this some kind of joke? No. I looked online and found a site dedicated to Ral (short for Ralph), who was from New Jersey, had a kind of Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Elvis look of the day, and had recorded on perhaps as many as a dozen labels. His music was good. So, why, I wondered, did Elvis become the king instead of Ral? The answer, I realized, was Colonel Tom Parker. Parker was the guy who marketed Elvis and turned him into a phenomenon. It was the marketing. And you can yell all you want about Elvis, and I am a longtime fan of his, but I grew up around show business and I know that there is a whole lot of undiscovered talent out there. As far as the “business” of music goes, however, it is marketing first, then attitude, then luck, and finally talent that makes one a success. It’s just the nature of business. And business is generally how we generate money.

Hey, although my Mother was a successful minister, there were lots of churches that were bigger than hers and lots of churches that collected lots more money. And when I took a close look at what was going on, I discovered that a lot of churches marketed fear as a way of generating followers and dollars. Mom’s church didn’t do that. She didn’t believe that it was Jesus’ intent to generate fear within his followers, but instead to inspire faith, hope, and charity. And, after all, which is more powerful. Someone holds out their hand and asks for a donation or someone sticks a gun in your ribs and demands all of your money. Which one is most successful. Simple business, folks. It’s all a matter of marketing.

So now we come to the shameless part. I remember a blog where the writer would try to beat his readers into sending him money by belittling them. Can’t do that. Then there’s your usual marketing tools of trying to glorify what one is doing in order to convince the reader that they “need” what is being offered. Not sure how much I can do that. So I’ll just swallow hard and lay it out on the table.

I have dedicated my life to discovering what is really going on. The reason I have chosen to “throw my hat in the ring” is to use that concept and this blog as a way of sharing much of what I have discovered. I not only believe, but I know that there is tremendous value in what I have to share. In fact, I have ideas that I plan to share with you that have such tremendous potential that were I to just receive .001 percent of the wealth that they can generate, I would be the richest man in the world. In the future we will be looking closer at the value of ideas. But, I am very good at what I do. And what do I do? I turn people on to new ways of viewing reality. I help people better understand what is going on, why it is going on, and ways in which they can directly alter the reality in which they live. What I offer is potentially life changing.

I’m not the only one doing this. Bucky Fuller could actually rewire a person’s whole way of thinking after just one evening of sharing with them. Deepak Chopra has published a number of absolutely life-changing ideas and procedures that can miraculously help one to dramatically alter their life for the better. Same thing for Wayne Dyer. Dr. Fred Alan Wolf has the ability to alter one’s perception right on the spot with a few simple techniques. Dr. Brian O’Leary offers concepts that open entire new vistas of opportunity for many people. I could go on and on and I’m certain that you also know of people who have this kind of ability to inspire others.

I’m helping the aforementioned folks by promoting them. I also support them by buying products from them and donating money to them. Now I’m asking you to do the same for me. Please promote what I am doing. Look, I don’t care whether you agree with me or not, but just think about this. If you have read all of my posts to date, you’ve got to admit that I have talked about things that you were never aware of before reading this blog. Oh, my God, a new idea! Isn’t that what we need right now? More new ideas. That, right there, is sufficient reason to let others know what I am doing. I see emails from time to time that are chains of positive or interesting statements. If you are one who passes that stuff on, please pass me on.

Friends, we only have 40 days until the election. I only have 40 days to explain how we can get out of all of this mess. It is said that the only bad publicity is no publicity. So pass my URL on to everyone that you know. Who knows, you might actually have someone come up to you someday and say “thank you for turning me on to that Blog; you changed my life.” Thank you for caring enough to share the good stuff, the positive stuff.

So that’s the first thing that I am asking for. And time is running out. Please share this blog with everyone that you know today. Secondly, there’s the matter of money. The more money I can get, the more time I have. The more time I have, the more I can discover and the more I can share. Hell, in the process of writing these posts I become aware of things, and share them as they dawn upon me, that I was never aware of before.

Please, send money, now. “And how do I do that?” you ask? Well, go ahead and ask me. Let me know that you are at least reading this. I’ll post a Paypal link as soon as I can. In the meantime, spread the word and put some money aside for me.

Thank you. Inspire me with your action.

The Game Of War

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

In the previous post we talked about what we might call the millennial war, the war between dominators and liberators that has been waged since the dawn of humanity’s appearance upon this planet. Now some folk might say that before human beings walked the earth, the “law of the jungle” was kill or be killed and that was the ultimate reality. It was a matter of survival and it was the strong who survived. And that’s true. For the animal kingdom, that’s true. But human beings are different. Where animals and other living things endeavor to survive, human beings also strive to succeed. In other words, we seem to have an innate drive to excel, to go beyond, to grow more than those who preceded us.

Here, some might claim that that drive is rooted in the desire to dominate, and that may well be partially true. But unbridled domination, while contributing to humankind’s successful achievements in a number of ways, has a price. And that price is a topic that we will be returning to quite regularly during the next month. Suffice it to say, in the long run, the price may be too high.

By and large, most human beings throughout history have chosen to work on positive levels of survival rather than paying the price for exceptional achievement. These are the people that provide the necessities that ensure the ongoing existence of humankind. For many of those who thrive on the “challenge,” these “settlers” are to be looked down upon for “not having what it takes.” But you see, if one is to successfully dominate, succeed, star, excel, or win, then there must, of necessity, be those who are dominated and those who will lose. We can’t all be winners through competition. And that’s what makes winning so appealing to many. To stand out above the crowd.

The so-called “American dream” implies for many, that anybody can win. And there is a good deal of truth to that statement. But, unfortunately, although anybody can win, not everybody can win. In fact, for every winner there are countless losers. There must be losers in order for there to be winners. At least that’s the case in a dominance driven world.

But what about liberation winning. Well, that kind of winning comes when one excels without doing so at the expense of others. It often comes through people helping people. It also is achieved when one is competing with one’s own limits instead of competing “against” others. These are the winners that society most often lauds, those who have striven to be the best that they can be rather than to be identified as better than others. That, I think, is what the American dream idea is probably really about. Unfortunately, the acceptance of the concept of opportunity for everyone has been a fertile ground for sidetracking other with hoping for a better future while those who desire to dominate others run free rein over their fellow human beings. Instill fear, promise hope in the future, and then have your way with them. But what would happen if we skipped the fear part and instead found ways of acting now upon the hope that we profess.

Over the years, it has always amazed me at how quickly people will find reasons to deny the validity of new ideas. Every new idea begins with an individual who is open enough and curious enough to discover that idea and convert it into a form in which it can be communicated to others. Ideas come through individual people, not through corporations, yet, if one were to look closely at the patents and copyrights as they exist today, one would find that the “owners” of these “rights” are all too often not those who were originally inspired to realize the idea that is now legally “owned.” They are people who have money and want more money and collect other people’s ideas in order to make more money. I mean, folks, they teach the kind of stuff that I’m telling you about right now in schools. If you want to make big money, the basic way to do it is through using other people’s money. And that usually comes about through games of domination.

Uh oh, a new word just entered our deliberations here. Did you catch it? The word was “game.” And that takes us into a whole new arena of consideration. One of the problems with the pursuit of domination is that is can be quite ruthless and that can cause groundswells of revolt that result in the dominator becoming the dominated, if not just outright dead. Another problem is how to keep the other domination-driven people busy enough that one does not have to worry about them being a constant challenge. Enter games. Games, the things that we play innocently as children. Cowboys and Indians. As we grow older we get involved in organized games or sports of competition against one another. And nowadays those competitions have become a huge business. Professional Sports.

Then there’s another gaming business. It’s games of chance, and in the past few decades this business has grown to a phenomenal size. I’m not just speaking here about Casinos. There are lotteries, drawings, bingo, and the granddaddy of them all (drum roll) the stock market. This is a game that everybody plays whether they want to or not, for through the shenanigans of various computer wiz’s, “playing” the stock market has come to be an extremely high stakes game that can even topple governments. The stock market is based largely upon speculation. I was once told that the Harvard School of Business had said “You would have better odds if you went to Las Vegas and put on a blindfold and threw your money on the table than you would if you played the stock market.” Friends, I don’t know if that quote is true. Personally, I find it kind of hard to swallow that it came from the Harvard School of Business. However, I do believe that there is some truth in what is being said. The stock market is one big crap shoot. And because anybody can play, it keeps us directly involved with the gaming part of it, the “fun” part of it, while ignoring the underlying belly of it that can be a destroyer of lives.

We’ll get more deeply involved in the economy in days to come, but, for now I just want us to realize how much “games” have become a part of our lives. Competition, competition, competition.

War has become a giant game. Business has become a game. Anymore, one judges how one is doing by reading the stats, by generating reports, words and graphic pictures to represent how the game is progressing regardless of the growing human cost that the game demands.

Well, I’ve been doing this blog long enough now that I need to pause for a brief aside. It’s time for a little housekeeping, some maintenance to be done. In other words, it’s time for a word from our sponsor. That’ll be tomorrow’s post and then we’ll continue onward.

Eternal War

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

My friends, I am sorry to have to tell you this, but we are at war. Now for a lot of people that’s really no big deal. Just so long as it doesn’t affect their lifestyle too dramatically they can cope with it. Isn’t that amazing? “How come they don’t care?” “They need to support our troops.” Well, maybe they don’t truly feel that it is their war. “But there are terrorists out to get us.” Of course, by definition, the goal of a terrorist is to inspire terror. So if they don’t feel terrorized, then who wins. But, that’s not what I mean when I say that we are at war.

I’m not talking about war in Iraq, or war in Afghanistan, or any of the other half dozen wars that are currently taking place on the planet or the over 2 dozen conflicts currently battling their way across the headlines around the world. I’m not talking about ethnic wars or cultural wars or religious wars or ideological wars or civil wars or racial wars. I’m not talking about cold wars or hot wars. I’m not talking about the little day to day wars that take place between individuals or small groups who are against one another or against some “thing” that is encroaching upon their lives.

What I want to talk about here today is the one war that has been going on since the dawn of mankind, the war that is ultimately at the root of all of the other wars. This is the war that never gets any press coverage, any analysis, any mention. Yet it is the war that has dominated the history of mankind, from simple one-on-one engagements to worldwide conflicts. At the risk of being accused of being simplistic, the bare reality nevertheless is that there are two basic sides in this conflict. On the one side are those people who desire to live a life that brings personal satisfaction and a sense of their own liberation, to strive to be whomever and whatever they can be, while honoring that same freedom in others around them. On the other side of this eternal conflict are those who have a lust to dominate others, through force, through trickery, through deceit, through lying, through misinformation, through pain, through pontification, through mental, physical, and emotional torture, or through trial by combat.

Now we need to understand here that every single one of us has elements of those two sides within us. The drive to dominate and the desire to be free. And those two aspects of our nature have developed a diverse variety of ways of expressing themselves. For those who are more involved in expressing the liberation side of their nature, they may be the person who follows the rules, does their job, provides for the family, and helps their fellow beings in ways that might otherwise go unnoticed. Then again, they may feel a commitment to more openly help other people and the planet in a variety of ways, through a vocation, or volunteer work, or organizing, or otherwise sharing, advertising, and working toward their vision for creating a better world. On the other hand, those who aspire to achieve a sense of domination, power, and accomplishment that sets them apart and above other people, may sometimes seem aloof from close relationships and personal responsibilities. Their drive to succeed is often not intimately shared by those around them, which is natural, for if it were so, there would probably be close personal conflict as they try to dominate one another. But this detachment often causes others to judge them harshly

In the early centuries of humankind, the rules were pretty straightforward. The strong survive and if one was not strong, then it was best to seek the strength of others for protection. Because the strong were not alone in their strength, they competed with others to be the strongest. The spoils from such competition would often escalate with each new combat. A major problem with this “system” was that it was hierarchically a pyramid. Yep, the first pyramid and long before the ones on the planes of Giza. By design, there was only room for one “winner” at the top. And throughout history there have been those who strove to be that one winner.

Since not everyone can be “the” winner, those who are driven to dominate identify various levels of dominant achievement wherein they can succeed with a certain amount of security without facing annihilation. This, of course, meant devising ways and methods of dealing with other dominant winners by designing processes that protected their own dominion without appearing less than dominant, or weak. Ah, the birth of politics, the science of understanding how to deal with other people.

Because we all have aspects of both of these drives/desires for domination and liberation within us, and because we are all so unique and varied in our manifestations as human beings, the varieties of expressions of these aspects has been multitudinous. Nevertheless, the system that self developed around these expressions of humanity adhere to the pyramidical structure, which obviously had the dominators clambering for the top while the overwhelming majority of the liberators settled for trying to find enough room for a little comfort at the bottom levels of evolving society.

Thank God most people are not dominators, or at least that they demonstrate very little of those traits in their everyday affairs. Otherwise, we might be living in a world like that of Mad Max, one in which everyone is competing with everyone else and the beauty of life is completely submerged beneath the continual cries of combat.

Now I’m about to piss some people off, but before you get too ticked at me, if what I’m about to say really bothers you personally, then you’d better think about getting a thicker skin because the people you are going to have to compete against make me look like the babbling corner schizophrenic who hardly warrants a second thought. A major problem with those who are driven to dominate is that they don’t seem to know where or when to slow down. Need I point out how obvious that is with today’s current world financial situation. Along the way, in the scramble for the top, so much can be lost because the heat of combat requires full and undivided attention. I mean, absolute. Ask anyone who competes professionally, in order to win, you must “give it your all.”

Now let’s look at those who live lives that are more directed by a desire for liberation without domination. It is my observation that they are the majority of the people. I mean, for God’s sake, look around you. For all of the crime and corruption and evil which seem to be so rampant in all the world, by and large, most people are doing the best that they can to live and let live, to earn a living, to have a family, to raise children, to show up for work, to endeavor to do good at whatever they do. Next time you are out, look at the people around you, the people who work in the businesses that serve you, the people driving to and from various commitments that they have made regarding family, friends, work, and assorted enjoyments of life.

And it’s not just in this country of America. Did you know that the population of metropolitan Tokyo is over 19 million people? That’s five times as many people as live in greater Atlanta, Georgia. New York City has 26,000 people per square mile. It’s amazing that more people are not killed every day in places with that kind of population density. People seem to have a tremendous capacity for tolerance. Friends, for all of the horrendous murder and pillage that has taken place over the existence of mankind, it is nevertheless a hard cold fact that most people are good. Oh, they may get stressed from time to time, but, by and large, most people are good. My experience is consistently that most people are decent human beings that are no threat to others. Now push someone into a corner and that may well be another story. But most people don’t regularly get pushed into corners. So, most people are generally decent human beings.

So we have this war that has been going on for thousands of years. It is a war between those who desire to dominate their fellow human beings through various means, and those who wish to live lives liberated from the domination of others. And I believe that all other conflict is nothing more than an aspect of this one major war.

The reason that this war has continued for thousands of years is because they liberators are not sufficiently motivated to bring the war to a close if it means dominating the dominators, and the dominators will continue dominating others for as long as they can get away with it, for as long as nobody stops them. It’s the old game of becoming that which you despise in order to overcome it. And so the beat goes on.

With that in mind, let’s move on and begin to delve into areas that are more currently of the utmost importance to our continued survival on this planet and are, of course, hot topics for this year’s American Presidential election.

Nature Of Evil

[NOTE: These posts are an ongoing presentation, meant to be read beginning with the earliest and ending with the most recent. If not read in that order, there is a potential loss for the reader in an overall understanding of what is being presented. You have been warned.]

So this is where we are. 1) God is all there is. 2) God is all good. Therefore! 3) There is no evil.

The foregoing is a quid quo pro. If 1 and 2 are valid, then 3 is the natural result. But how can that be? We all know that evil is real, that it truly exists. We have but to look around us, to open a paper, to turn on the TV to see evidence of evil’s insidious corruption of the very fabric of our existence. Almost every time I explain this to people, they are so shocked by my contention of the nonexistence of evil that they seem to dismiss the idea almost immediately without giving it a second thought. You would think that I had said something like “apple’s aren’t red.” Of course, the fact of the matter is that apples are not red, but I’m sure you know what I mean. If I get the time later, and it fits into what I am talking about, I’ll explain why apples are not red. For now, however, we’re dealing with why there is no evil and how evil seems to exist just the same.

Well, let’s do a quick refresher. When we say that God is all there is, what we are saying is that we are calling the totality of everything that is (that includes past, present, and future) God. God is the name we are giving to that totality. Because there is no evidence of good or bad naturally occurring in all of creation, we therefore say that the total expression of all that is is good. In other words, it is what it is – without judgment. So, therefore, there must be no evil. “Well then, where in the hell does evil come from?” From hell, you say? Ha, ha, ha. Is hell part of the everything that God is? This is the God that, through observation, is all good. “Wait a minute,” you might say. “You’re trying to trick me.” No, I’m not trying to trick you. I’m trying to help you to see reality from a different perspective, a perspective, incidentally, that is just as valid as any other perspective that one might choose to believe.

Now, let’s go back to “the book.” Incidentally, if you are not into the Bible, then just realize that the “stories” that make up the Bible’s creation stories are similar to stories in countless other cultures throughout the world. Anyway, in Genesis God creates everything, including human beings, to whom God gives dominion over everything else. Right? Well, not quite right. And we’ll deal with that in just a minute. But first, we see that after the creation story of the first chapter the writers and creators of the Book of Genesis take another look at creation with a more individual slant of Adam and Eve being created to live in, and care for, the Garden of Eden.

So humankind gets created twice in Genesis. In the first creation, God creates man in His own image and likeness; male and female creates He them. Got that? God creates male and female human beings and creates them in its own image and likeness. You may have noted that I just used the pronoun “it” when referring to God. I do that because I find the pronoun “He” to be limiting. If God is all there is, then God is neither “he” nor “she.” God is all. So I find that “it” more generally allows us to include all of God when we are referencing God with a pronoun. Now, if that bothers you because you feel that “it” depersonalizes God, get over it. I just got through telling you that we are the image and likeness of God. How much more personal can one get?

In God’s image. After God’s likeness. Male and female. And, God gives this creation dominion over everything. Right? Well, not exactly. Turns out that there is a part of God’s creation that human beings have not been given dominion over. Do you know what it is? I’ll give you a minute to think about it. While you are thinking, I’ll give you a hint. The desire for this type of dominion has created more problems than we can keep up with, at all levels of our lives. Thinking, thinking, thinking.

Okay, here it is. We have not been given dominion over each other. If you don’t believe me, look for yourself. As Johnny Standley used to say, “It’s in the book.” Where in the book? Try Genesis 1:26 and 1:28. Let’s do it together. Now where is my “King James” version? Ah, here it is: “(26) And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. (28) And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

That’s strange: “over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” and “over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Now that’s not exactly the way that I remember it. That is from the copy of the Bible that was given to me when I was 13. Hmmm. American Standard? Same thing. Revised Standard? Same thing. Jerusalem Bible (out of print)? “Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on earth.”

Let’s try the Lamsa Bible: “(26) Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild beasts of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild beasts that move upon the earth.” Now, for those not familiar with the Lamsa Bible, it is a direct translation from Aramaic text, Aramaic being the lingua franca of the people in the Near East (Middle East) where the Bible was written. Aramaic is one of the earliest continuing languages of the people by whom the Bible was written, and a language of the people about whom the Bible was written. The Aramaic to English translation was made by Dr. George Lamsa, who grew up in the Near East, speaking Aramaic and living in a culture that had changed very little in thousands of years. His early life was not very different from that of his Aramaic ancestors who stretched all of the way back to Biblical times.

The key thing that I’m interested in looking at here is what mankind has been given dominion over and what we have not been given dominion over. Dr. Rocco Errico, Dr. Lamsa’s student for many years, in a recent talk at Dr. Barbara King’s Hillside Chapel and Truth Center here in Atlanta, pointed out that God did not give us dominion over one another. Think about that. We do not have the right to dominate other human beings. Every other living thing we have been told we may dominate, but not each other. And if we don’t dominate each other, then what is our relationship with each other? Well, Dr. Errico points out that the opposite of that domination is liberation. Let’s not forget that. In our explorations together here, we should be on the lookout for liberation.

Finally, with that in mind, where, then does evil come from. Well, it is first mentioned in the Bible in reference to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, remember, this is all just a story to help us get a grasp on understanding who we are and the origins of our race. So, it’s not the tree that is important, but rather what it represents. The knowledge of good and evil. It appears that if one does not eat of the tree, then good and evil do not exist, for one has no knowledge of them. However, if one “eats” of the tree, then one has the knowledge of good and evil and good and evil begin to appear to manifest. Furthermore, in the Biblical story we are told that once one partakes of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, one is banished from the Garden of Eden. This is a consciousness thing going on here. If one believes in good and evil, then one can no longer believe in the Garden of Eden. It is banished from one’s consciousness. If one chooses “good and evil” then one banishes oneself from the Garden. And that’s what we have done and that is the dilemma that we are in.

Frank L. Riley, in his book “Bible of Bibles,” in Chapter V, “The Problem of Evil,” says “The Sacred Books inform us that the origin or cause of evil is ignorance, and what is even more important, they declare that evil is ignorance. Since God is omniscient, then mortal, ignorant man must be both the creator and supporter of evil. To more fully define evil, it is an inability on the part of mortal man to comprehend the good; it is mental darkness, a dream, an illusion, a delusion, a lie and a snare. Evil is relative (‘not absolute or existing by itself.’)” Dr. Riley goes on to point out that God doesn’t recognize evil and finds it abhorant. Then Dr. Riley backs it all up with scripture. Just as an aside, Dr. Lamsa has pointed out that Jesus didn’t die for our sins, but because of our sins. Small little matter of poor translation, but a hint as to the distortion of perception that has taken place over the years regarding the state of humanity.

So, if evil is a creation of our fertile imagination, what then is sin? Finally! Let’s hear some trumpets! Drum roll. Here it is, folks, in all of its simplicity. If we are created in the image and after the likeness of God and God is all there is and God is all good, then, by my reckoning, there is only one sin. That’s right. Sorry, Catholic Church, but I believe that there is only one true sin. And what is sin? Sin is missing the mark. It is ignorance. I might add deliberate ignorance. I might add egotistical ignorance. I might add domination-inspired ignorance.

The one sin is the mistaken belief that we are separate and apart from God. That’s it. And yet so powerful. You see, if one honestly believes and understands one’s oneness with God, in other words that they are totally a part of that totality that is God, then they understand that everything that they think, say and do regarding every other part of creation they are doing to themselves. Furthermore, they realize how holy life is and they act accordingly. And, like all of those highly evolved people who have gone before us, they live in what we might call the consciousness of God. And that means that they are living in the Garden of Eden, for the knowledge of good and evil are not a part of God, and therefore not a part of the Garden, but merely an illusion. They live instead in full harmony with God for they are knowingly God in expression.

On the other hand, if one does not believe and understand that one is one with God, then one takes that belief of separation and begins identifying reality through the separation of opposites, of good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad, us and them. And good and evil sure as hell will come to exist in one’s life, with a 100% full-blown reality that is hard to deny. Nevertheless, it is a reality of illusion. It is a reality that is created by us through our ignorance and its only power rests in our belief in it. And if you find that hard to swallow, I’m very sorry, but that is the way that it is. How can I say that? Because that truth is at the core of every religious belief on this planet. What do all of human kind’s religions have in common? Simple. Do to others as you would have others do to you.

You want to be treated well? Then treat others well. You want to be treated as special? Then treat others as special. You want to be treated as though you were a creation of, a child of, God? Then treat others as though they are a creation, a child, of God. Too simple for your tastes? Well, God isn’t really that complex. It’s illusion that is complex. Lies beget lies. And, God help us, that has a way of breeding lawyers. Now don’t you lawyers go getting all huffy with me. Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said we have too many lawyers. I’m merely agreeing with him.

Now, what has all this got to do with me running for President and the policies that I propose for this country to undertake? Well, stick with me, and you’ll find out. I had to lay some groundwork here so we better know who we truly are and where it is that we came from before we begin considering solutions to the many problems that we have created for ourselves. Sorry to lay all of the religiously connected stuff on you, but religious beliefs, convictions, and ideologies run deep throughout all of humankind’s affairs. And particularly in this country, as we shall see.

Separation of church and state does not mean that state can not talk about church or religion and church can not talk about state. It means that they can not dominate one another. The state can’t mandate religion and religion can not attempt to overthrow state. But, my God, we sure as hell can talk. And anyone who objects to that freedom of speech needs to loosen the pucker.

Our next stop is to identify the major battle that is now taking place in the world. And it’s not what you might have thought. Restraining harness secure and in place? Then let’s move on.