Becoming a Man

Norah Vincent, a lesbian writer, goes undercover as Ned, a working class man, to discover the inner workings of male behaviour. Her 18 month experiment, written about in the 2006 book Self-Made Man, ended with mental distress and depression. She discovered that male privilege is a myth, that women have all the power and are cold, distant, and cruel, and that being a man is a whole lot more difficult than anyone in modern politically correct society is allowed to think.


Here is a 19 minute television feature.

Scrying

For those few who may remember, the title and topic of my first ever post on The Urban Mystic, in February 2006, was on scrying, a term used to describe a variety of divination methods involving staring at reflective surfaces. Today, I experimented again, gazing into a mirror which reflected a featureless white surface in a dimly lit room. I gazed until no more light remained (about thirty minutes), at which time an image did begin to appear, but it vanished very quickly, and with it all visible light, ending the experiment. I liked the results, and will, in the future, continue this practice. As always, I will keep you updated.

The End of the World

In the great film Alexander, Hephaestion, Alexander's life long companion, asks Alexander "What would you do if you ever reached the end of the world?" At the other end of the world, near the International Date Line it is already 2 PM on Friday. Friday, 21 December 2012, the end of the world. According to some people, tomorrow (or today in some places that are already tomorrow) will be the last day ever, or something. To be fair, I had my own story "The L", which I began writing in 2006, have the end of the world begin tomorrow, when The Pinnacle Research Group initiated a global disaster from Bouvet Island. In my story the 21st is only the beginning of the end of the world, with the world not ending completely until fifteen years later after great tribulations have claimed five billion lives and ravaged the surface of the Earth.



It has been six years since I began my mystical career in January 2006, and started writing The Urban Mystic in February that same year (on AOL, which no longer exits, so you cannot access past archives which I have saved). It has been five years since I had my first taste of radical Freedom, One Taste, in January 2007, when the world was on the inside and my eyes were on the outside and my self was blasted across the face of the Kosmos. It has been four years since Christmas 2008 when I had a dream about the end of the world, 21 December 2012, where balls of light came to Earth and began erasing everything they touched. It has been nearly two years since I discovered My Little Pony, something that has really touched me and helped affect my life for the better. I have made predictions: the "Arab Spring", genetically modified viruses that mimic psychotropic drugs, the "Great Winter of 2010", among others. These past six years have been full of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade them for the life I lived before.



Now, it seems like it is the end of the world. This year I was told that I need to make sacrifices to enter the next phase of my mystical career. The choice is mine, but it is a choice between being a mystic and living a normal life, and it is the greatest choice of my life, and the most difficult. A mirror reflects everything that falls on it, without altering the thing it is reflecting or becoming attached to it. A mirror mind, the mind of enlightenment, is the same. Cutting the fetters of attachment is necessary for enlightenment, and there are a few that seem too well entrenched in my psyche to be cut loose. If I go down this path farther I must deal with the death of the small self and all the little things it has accumulated over the years. What's really interesting is, I was told this would happen in the beginning! I was told in 2006 I would have these choices to make in 2012. I was told what to expect and when to expect it, and I failed to notice until most of the signs already passed and it was too late to prepare, just yesterday. Regardless of what happens in the external world tomorrow, it may well be the end of the world for my little self.



Come what may, it will be for the best. It has been a wonderful time, dear couple of readers (actually about 20 a day). I love you all.



Always Love.

The Bible Code II

Michael Drosnin wrote two sequels to his book The Bible Code, one of which I have read, one of which I will never read. You might remember Mr. Drosnin from other posts.



If you have read the first Bible Code book but have not read the second, please do not. The two are worlds apart. Here is a brief synopsis:



Michael Drosnin, a hard-nosed journalist and ardent atheist, having proven the existence of a code in the Bible, he now has morphed into a combination of Indiana Jones and James Bond. Drosnin writes powerful men (Clinton, Bush, Arafat, Sharon, etc.) letters about the code and the end of the world, but he always leaves out the key details, because "no one would believe them," until his books are published. He wrote to Ehud Barak that the code said he would be the next Prime Minister of Israel in an early election in 1999, but he did not think Barak would believe him if he included the date, so he conveniently left that detail out of his letter but included it in the book. Drosnin conveniently leaves us no records for which to prove any of his stories. Two pictures of code tables appear on each page, taking up about 100 pages total.



Yasser Arafat is a very pious, kind-hearted man and all Israelis are war mongerers. And God does not exist, and here is an irrelevant code table.



Oh, and Michael Drosnin doesn't believe in God.



1998, Drosnin puts forward his ET "theory".





He finds references to DNA being "brought in a vehicle" and immediately jumps to the conclusion "when I found that encoded in the Bible, I couldn't believe it... DNA, the molecule of life, sent to Earth in a spaceship." (p. 144) It didn't say that. Just as every time he reads the word "computer" in the code when the actual Hebrew word says "thought", Drosnin reads "vehicle" as "spaceship" when it does not say that. A virus could be a vehicle to introduce a new gene into a cell, why should we believe that the word "vehicle" means "spaceship" when nothing indicates that it does? And what is the code for DNA itself? DNA is just letters, unlike the words and names used in other codes, so it might mean something completely different. It might just be nonsense. Just in case, here are four more code tables with useless words that can't be checked to mean anything.



Drosnin then says he had to call many nameless scientists to find out what they thought and just so happens to call Francis Crick, who wrote about the same idea decades before, and surprise, Crick agrees! Who would have guessed? Until you check out the back of the book, where Drosnin says he interviewed Crick years before about panspermia and he just crafted the story of trying to find reputable scientists who agree with his ET "theory" to make the book more interesting. Yes, someone who time and time again talks about being a "just the facts" hard-nosed journalist lied to make his story more interesting.



Michael Drosnin, by the way, does not believe in God. And Yasser Arafat was the nicest man he ever met, and he really, really wants peace, but religious people will kill him if he makes peace with the war mongering Israelis.



2001, Drosnin is in Israel trying to reach the Israeli PM because he has vitally important information from the Bible code about nuclear war in 2006. When an advisor asks what that information is, Drosnin says "I need to meet with the PM, because the code says if peace is not reached there will be nuclear war." The advisor replies, "tell me something I don't know," to which Drosnin drones on and on "You don't understand, I have to tell the PM face to face that the world will end if peace is not made!" "Okay, we all know that, what else?" "Damn you by the God you believe in, the world will end if you don't make peace and I must see the PM to tell him this!" Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.



1998 Drosnin must look for an "obilisk" and a "steel ark" in the area near the Dead Sea called Lisan, because it contains the key to understanding the Bible code, which was created by aliens who seeded the Earth 4 billion years ago, because Michael Drosnin does not believe God exists. He tries to get the Jordanians to let him dig, but they refuse.



2001, Drosnin confronts Colin Powell. He asks to see President Bush because the world will end if peace is not made and he must tell the President. See above. Drosnin must save the world from religion and nuclear war, because he does not believe in God, but the code is real, and created by ET, and warns of nuclear war in 2006.


1998, I think, who knows, the book keeps skipping around for no reason. Drosnin is back playing Indy again, talking about how it is vital to find this ark, or maybe it is a tomb of the original alien who brought DNA to earth, who the hell knows. Whatever it means, here are six more code tables, many are repeats from other pages. In case you were wondering, ET made the code, because Drosnin doesn't believe in God.



2001? Drosnin tells people in Israel and the US where bin Laden is hiding. He leaves that out of the book in case bin Laden buys a copy and then runs away. He hints pretty hard that it may be in Libya. Anyway, nuclear war will happen in 2006, and we have to find that thing that is still hiding in Lisan, maybe.



There is a nice appendix that describes the original rabbi experiment and its paper in Statistical Science, a refutation that was published without anyone reading it, a rebuttal of the refutation that was refused publication because codes a priori cannot exist, and there can be no evidence for something that cannot exist, and the opinions of some credible scientists who tried to debunk the code but ended up proving it exists who think refusing to publish any response is anti-science.

Maitreya - A New Perspective (Repost - 25 July 2006)

For centuries hundreds of people have claimed to be Maitreya, the next Buddha to enter into our world. So far none of them have shown any reason for us to believe their claim. They have never exhibited any of the Buddha's transcendental powers or boundless wisdom. Claimants include the laughable, such as L. Ron Hubbard, some guy (he has no name aside from Maitreya) from Share International, Suma Ching Hai, and a whole host of others.



While there are undoubtedly many spiritually advanced people on the Earth at this time and even some fully enlightened beings (until someone comes up with at least some kind of evidence that Sai Baba is a fake I won't even entertain the idea; millions of people say he's the real deal but there are only a few "unconfirmed reports" (the actual words used) of his misdeeds), it doesn't seem as if Maitreya has come yet. There is a slim possibility that a Buddhist monk, Palden Dorje, could possibly be Maitreya awaiting to awaken. The prophecies say that Maitreya will come at a time when the oceans have decreased in size, allowing him to travel across the world quicker (could this be an allusion to jet airplanes?) and that he will come as a bodhisattva who will achieve Buddhahood in seven days. Certainly Palden Dorje exhibits the qualities of a bodhisattva. Between 2005 and 2006 he sat in meditation for six months without eating or drinking or using the head. Scientists sent to study him reported that he breaths only three times an hour. He was bitten by a cobra twice and shows no ill effects and once he burst into flames and burnt his clothes off to prove his powers to doubters. Not too long ago (some time in March I think) he left the spot where he was meditating to venture further into the wilderness because a media circus sprouted around him. He said it will take six years to reach Buddhahood, but with all this distraction could it be seven? This is interesting because I'm not well versed in Pali (the language of the Buddhist canon) and have to rely on the English translations. Noting that Biblical English sometimes uses the word "day" in place of "year" it's no stretch that Maitreya could realize enlightenment in seven days where each day is equal to a year and not a literal day. Admitedly this is a stretch but still, it's an interesting potential correlation. Definitely something to write about. Well, I guess the only way to know is wait until 2011 when Palden Dorje returns. Hopefully the world will be ready for the new Buddha by then, though it would have to take a miracle (further proof of Maitreya's arrival?).

The Games We Play

When I was a kid I often thought life was like a video game. Everything seemed contrived and I set out to have fun playing it. Now I spend less time focusing on what, in 2006, I called "The Game of Life," but the thought does periodically come to mind, as it has at this 3 AM listening to the rain outside my window. Now, while I am not suggesting that the purpose of life is a game, that we are here to play, the case can be made that, fundamentally, that statement is accurate. It seems to me that there are many, many levels to the Game of Life.



In 2008 I was drawn to the notion that, like it or not, and most of the time it is not, we are always playing and never living from a position of authenticity. We are never living from a position of the true self, but instead are always putting on masks and hiding from the truth.



We are always lying, all the time, even, and I would say especially, with ourselves about who we are. We create a series of intersubjective rules where certain actions, behaviours, mannerisms, appearances, styles of dress, professions, and patterns of consumption will define us as a "winner" and other actions etc., will define us as a "loser." We are always trying to win this game we are playing with other people and with ourself. It may get us somewhere and there may be some temporary benefits to playing this game, but the real effect is seen in the anxiety it creates; the sense of shame and inadequacy we feel, the depression, the anger, the confusion all from this drive toward inauthenticity. It is no surprise that we are the most heavily medicated people in all of history. We damage ourselves psychologically so much and we are taken to believe, through clever advertising, that the cause to our problems are external to our own minds (be they society, our brain, the 1%, etc.) that we become drug addicts and shell out loads of money to either the cartels or the government's favourite pharmaceutical companies, who are deeply in bed together and working to create a drugged society.



As a result of this game you do not have one self. You create a new persona for every person you interact with. There is the self you present to yourself, the self you present to me, the self you present to persons X, Y, and Z, etc. All of this is a fiction. It is a mechanism of avoiding the truth. Maybe we cannot cope with who we are, cannot accept who we are. We are too damaged and so we play hide and seek with ourself. We erect boundaries and hide everything we cannot stand about who we are and it is this lie that is fundamentally the source of our problems. We invest so heavily in maintaining the lie that the lie consumes us.



Life is a game and it is one that we play to avoid ourself. Now there are some people who have uprooted this lie and are living from authenticity and there are more who have tricked themselves into believing that they are being authentic, but this is just the smallest percentage of the population. Most people will never even become aware of the lie. They cannot handle the psychological shock. For those of us who are aware that we are playing there is a long road ahead to get out of the game. Meditation cannot free us because it ignores the lie completely. In samadhi there is nothing arising, including the lie, but once we come out we are right back in the same pattern of self-deception (which is why so many great Eastern masters came to the West and became entangled in problems with drugs, money, or sex: they were fine in the ashram where no temptation existed, but back in society where temptation abounds they have no psychological mechanism for dealing with it. It's a lot like the alcoholic who doesn't deal with alcohol, he just avoids it. Avoiding temptation is not the same as overcoming it.). We have a Shadow, and that is what Western psychotherapy works on. We must integrate East and West to uproot the lie and start living from authenticity.

Sai Baba Health Update

According to the Hindustan Times Sai Baba has been in the Super Specialty Hospital since 28 March due to a lung infection. In early April he has had a pacemaker put in, and is on a ventilator and dialysis. Doctors say he is in stable condition and is conscious and responsive, though he cannot speak as he is intubated.



Even Avatars have physical bodies that undergo physical trauma. Buddha died of food poisoning after eating tainted pork, Christ was tortured and crucified, and Ramakrishna had throat cancer. Integral frontman Ken Wilber suffered serious injuries in July 2006 due to his autoimmune disease, injuring his shoulder and spine. He suffered twelve grand mal seizures in December of the same year and flatlined three times (That's also the year Baba broke his hip, an injury which has confined him to a wheelchair, as well as the year where my own trauma started me on the path of the mystic). Since then he has aged rapidly. One must remember, however, that Ken is built like Achilles, whereas Sai Baba is made of something softer.
(UPDATE: Radio Sai has provided a short video of one of Baba's discourses from 2003 in which he says basically the same thing I had written here yesterday. An exerpt reads:


The body is made up of five elements


And is bound to perish sooner or later,


But the Indweller has neither birth nor death.


You can see the video here.)



Dr. A. N. Safaya has put out a 16 minute video detailing Swami's condition and the efforts taken by the doctors to save him. Dr. Safaya says that Swami's condition has improved since he was admitted and he should make a full recovery. I will pray for Baba's swift recovery.



Baba said in 1963 that he will live for 96 years and that eight years later, 2030, he will incarnate for the third and final time as Prema Sai Baba, whose mission is to end the Kali age (according to one source this should happen in 2053).

Great Winter of 2010

During my meditation last night I had a precognitive experience that later proved true (ten minutes later to be exact). This got me thinking about a topic I have wanted to post for a while but never got around to. I had two powerful precogs in February 2006, around the time many miracles were happening and I got involved on the path of the mystics. The first one, 24 February, came to me in hypnonogogic sleep. I saw two men attacking an oil refinery in a desert and on that same day there was just such an attack in Saudi Arabia. At the time I posted it on the original Urban Mystic (now taken down). On 22 February I had another experience that hasn't come true yet, but the time it described is rapidly approaching.



(From my notes) I was reading a book when I saw the Morph strongly on its pages. It was like water sheeting down from the top of the book to the bottom. After a few seconds I felt compelled to close my eyes. Scrolling across from right to left were newspaper headlines. I don't remember the first one but the second one read: "CERN, Great Winter of 2010." What follows is a bit sketchy but it was something like "Discovery - Soul."



What I take from this is at least two things.



1. There will be a big story out of CERN in the Winter of 2010 (December), possibly an important discovery.

2. The Winter will be very bad, so bad in fact it will be called the "Great Winter of 2010."



It's also possible that there's some important discovery regarding the existence of the soul or survival of consciousness. I know there's that AWARE study going on; maybe the results are going to be really good.



-Dee|

Updates

All the entries in the original year of The Urban Mystic have been saved at a mediumly secure location. There are 113 pages of entries for 2006 and I will go through all of them and pick out the best examples of what The Urban Mystic is all about and repost them here as a Best Of series. The same will be done with the 2007 and 2008 entries.

Remember, most of the entries, at least initially, are very poor. They represent the transition between the fully blown fundamaterialist Dee, who died in 2006, to the modern Dee who is still trying to figure everything out. There is a lot of garbage in 2006 and likely in 2007 and all that will not be reposted. I thought I should spare you the horror of having to relive all that.

-Dee