Happy Hallowe'en and All Hallow's Day! 2020

 image: Wikimedia commons (link to background, link to wolf).

Tonight is All Hallow's Evening, or Hallowe'en: the evening before All Hallow's Day, and one of the most important festivals of the year according to the indispensable Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880 - 1963).

As we arrive at this special station on the annual cycle, I highly recommend re-reading Kuhn's essay entitled "Hallowe'en: A Festival of Lost Meanings," which is available in its entirety to read on the web at archive.org.

Kuhn's meditation on the esoteric significance of Hallowe'en and the subsequent All Hallow's Day (or All Souls Day) contains a wealth of valuable material worthy of deep consideration, even if we do not agree with every single assertion he makes. More important than any single conclusion or suggestion offered by that writer is the overall approach he takes in perceiving the presence of an ancient symbolic system designed to convey profound truths through a kind of code or language connected to the heavenly cycles of sun and moon, and preserved in the world's ancient myths and festivals.

These festivals invite us to participate in these cycles and to experience and internalize the ancient message on a level that goes beyond the intellectual (and thus bypasses the complex web of filters and firewalls which develop in our thinking intellect and which serve a helpful purpose but which can also prevent us from hearing or seeing truths which the defense mechanism of the mind would prefer we filter out).

Kuhn's essay can easily be read in its entirety in a single sitting: I actually read through it every year on this day, and find new thoughts to meditate on each time that I do. 

In it you will find:

• Kuhn's analysis of the reason that All Hallow's Eve and All Hallow's Day fall when they do, forty days after the point of the September Equinox,
• Kuhn's thoughts on the connections between Hallowe'en and the ancient festival of Saturnalia, and his intriguing suggestion regarding that festival's start on December 17 (and the possibility that it may have lasted for seven days, culminating on the night of December 24 and the morning of renewal on December 25),
• Kuhn's analysis of the importance of the number six, which in Greek was "hex," and its connection with the physical world and the cross -- and to the esoteric significance of the number seven which is one beyond that,
• Kuhn's thoughts on the connection between the concept of six and "hex" and the goddess Hekate or Hecate, as well as to other ancient goddesses,
• Kuhn's analysis of the reason for the wearing of masks and costumes during these festivals (Hallowe'en and Saturnalia), as well as the symbolism of the candle within the pumpkin, the indulgence in sexual suggestiveness and license, and other familiar Hallowe'en traditions,
• And many other valuable topics related to the holiday which he calls "Autumn's Mysterious Revel."

While Kuhn's analysis may seem at first glance to be related to heady and perhaps impractical subjects (or at least not directly applicable to our day-to-day life most of the time), with much discussion of the soul plunging down into the material realm and the necessity of that experience, I am convinced that these ancient teachings have incredible practical application virtually every minute of our day, and that the discoveries of some of the most cutting-edge healers and therapists can help us to understand Kuhn's essay -- and the message of the ancient myths and traditions preserved in cultures around the world -- in new ways.

If you read Kuhn's essay on Hallowe'en for yourself, you will see that his central thesis proposes that the symbolism of that festival depicts the incarnation of the divine spark within the "animal" nature of the human body, and the plunge of that higher nature into the "underworld" of darkness, illusion, deception, folly, and division -- including alienation from our own Self.

Kuhn explains that the word persona is the original Latin word for "a mask," and that the word itself derives from the prefix per- meaning "through" and the word sonum meaning "sound," thus indicating "to sound through" or something that the actor "speaks through." 

When in Rome the actors donned the mask (which was all the "costume" they affected for their parts), their voices sounded through the mask. This was to convey the idea that though the voice was that of the actor himself, yet in sounding through the mask it became the voice of the character he personated. And still further light breaks in upon our minds when we apply all this to the Hallowe'en representation. We then realize that this animal form which our soul tenants is the personality through which our god's voice issues carrying the force and form of his divine being out to expression in our entire life. The god in us can only speak out through the lips of our animal selves. It is for us now to wonder with how much distortion they reach expression in our outer world. 31

As I have explained more fully in my most-recent book, Myth and Trauma, I am convinced that when the ancient myths depict a god or goddess going down into the underworld (a pattern found in myths around the world), they are not only teaching about the plunge of the human soul into the incarnate body -- although they are certainly talking about that, as Kuhn elucidates in this essay and in his many other writings -- they are also talking about the "burial" and suppression of the Self, from whom we become alienated by a variety of forces in this incarnate life, but most particularly by trauma.

The critical importance of our alienation from and suppression of Self is a subject treated by leading experts on trauma and healing such as Dr. Gabor Maté and Dr. Richard Schwartz. One of the concepts which Dr. Schwartz has discovered seems particularly applicable to the discussion of Hallowe'en and the distortion of the divine voice through the "mask" of the various personas we don in this life, a concept Dr. Schwartz describes as "blending."

In his book entitled Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition, Dr. Schwartz defines "blending" as:

The act in which a part takes over a person's seat of consciousness, or Self. Blending occurs along a continuum, so that the Self can remain present with some blending or be obscured with full blending. 281

For more discussion of what Internal Family Systems Therapy means by "parts," I recommend checking out the IFS website here, as well as the book linked above, and also the many interviews with Dr. Schwartz available on the web and in podcasts, one of which can be found here.  

Elsewhere in the same book, Dr. Schwartz expands on this phenomenon of blending, by which the inherent and unbreakable Self can be obscured or distorted by parts (which should ideally be led by our essential Self, and should trust and accept the leadership of that Self), saying:

We are all born with a Self. It does not develop through stages or borrow strength and wisdom from the therapist, and it cannot be damaged. It can, however, be occluded or overwhelmed by parts. We call this blending. When a part blends fully, we see the world through its eyes. When a part blends partially, its perspective influences us. When polarized parts blend, we live in the midst of an ongoing debate and have no peace of mind. But when parts unblend, the Self is immediately present and available. When the Self accepts and loves parts -- perhaps a child who was terrorized into submission, or an angry teenager who was exiled for standing up to persecution -- those parts transform back into who they were meant to be. The Self-led mind is self-righting and has plenty of room for all feelings, views, and parts. 43

Can you see how this understanding of the concept of the blending of Self with parts sheds a whole new light on Kuhn's illumination of the ancient festivals of Hallowe'en and All Hallow's Day? In the most simplified terms, the symbolism of Hallowe'en can be seen as dramatizing the force of "blending" and the distortion of Self, which we all experience during this incarnate life, while the symbolism of All Hallow's Day (and other ancient patterns, including the hallowing of the seventh day following the preceding six) is intended to dramatize to our deeper understanding the wholeness and restoration of what Dr. Schwartz calls "unblending," in which the parts "transform back into who they were meant to be," the Self is present and available, and assumes its intended role of leading, a role which Self is eminently capable of fulfilling and is in fact designed to fulfill.

I would in fact suggest that reading Alvin Boyd Kuhn's essay on Hallowe'en in light of the concept of blending introduced by Dr. Schwartz and Internal Family Systems would be an extremely valuable exercise, and especially pertinent at this time of year.

Indeed, I am more and more convinced that the ancient wisdom given to the cultures of the world in their original myths, scriptures, and sacred traditions has as one of its most central purposes the healing of trauma, the recovery of Self, and the understanding of the very concepts which cutting-edge modern healers are elucidating through their extremely helpful and therapeutic paradigms, such as IFS.

I would like to personally wish you a very happy and meaningful Hallowe'en, and a blessed All Hallow's Day!  

A Conversation with Cometan!

Big thank-you to "the lads" over at the Amish Inquisition podcast (you can also find their YouTube channel here) for introducing me to the intriguing young philosopher and scholar who goes by the name of Cometan, and who has written his dissertation for his Masters thesis on the evidence that rock art around the world is based on the stars!

Cometan has been a guest on the Amish Inquisition twice, and you can hear those interviews here (part one) and here (part two).

After his second appearance on the show, when host Amish Phil asked him if he were familiar with my work (answer: not yet), Cometan reached out to introduce himself to me and invite me to have a conversation with him about the stars and their relationship to humanity's ancient worship and wisdom. 

We decided to record our conversation so we could share it with you and preserve it for future reference as desired, and so . . . here it is!

This conversation was recorded on Sunday, October 18, 2020. Here is the link to the video, which is also embedded above.

I hope you will enjoy it!

We plan to schedule future conversations and have some more thought-provoking discussions -- next one will probably take place some time in November. 

Do check out the Amish Inquisition if you haven't already (in their most-recent episode, the lads interview Darren and Graham from the Grimerica Show), and also give Cometan some encouragement as he follows his dreams and pursues areas of research in the direction in which his heart and talents are leading him.

Mars over Cetus!

image: Wikimedia commons (link). 

If you are able to make a habit of going out under the night sky on a regular basis, then you probably already know that the planet Mars is absolutely glaring in its brightness in the heavens right now -- perhaps because the planet is closer to us than usual (see discussion of the debate over the mechanics and arrangement of our solar system stretching back to the days of Tycho Brahe and his erstwhile assistant Johannes Kepler, here).

The planet Mars is absolutely unmistakable in the sky, rising in the east in the hours after sunset and making its transit (crossing the highest point of its arc on its journey from east to west, which it crosses when transitioning the celestial meridian line indicating due south, for observers in the northern hemisphere, and due north for observers in the southern) at about midnight during the next few days.

Below is a screenshot of the sky from the free and open-source planetarium app Stellarium, showing the sky at midnight (from the perspective of an observer in the northern hemisphere, at about 35 N latitude) on October 22 to 23 (midnight on October 22nd, just as the date rolls over to October 23rd). Notice Mars near its highest point in its east-to-west arc, crossing just above the line of due south:

Mars happens to be situated in the zodiac constellation of Pisces right now, which is a faint constellation but one that flanks the two "lower edges" of the Great Square of Pegasus, which is a very bright and easily distinguishable asterism. You should be able to identify the Great Square in the night sky above Mars (and just to the west of the Red Planet) even without ideal darkness and viewing conditions.

The Great Square is a very easy landmark to find in the sky, but the Red Planet's current location also gives star-gazers a tremendous opportunity to locate the much more difficult and obscure constellation of Cetus the Whale (or Sea-Monster). 

The location of Mars in the night sky over the next two weeks will provide a fantastic "handrail" to help you find the constellation Cetus, if you have the opportunity to get out under the stars in a reasonably dark location free of light pollution. Mars is almost directly above Cetus, and in fact almost directly above the "eye" of Cetus, as shown in the close-up screenshot below. 

Cetus is a constellation that is fairly low in the sky (for observers in the northern hemisphere), because fairly far south in the celestial sphere, and so the best opportunity to see Cetus is when the constellation is highest on its arcing path from east to west. Since Mars is directly above Cetus right now, that means that the best time to try to locate Cetus is when Mars is also reaching its apex (or transit) from east to west, which takes place around midnight over the next few days. 

Below is a close-up of the same star chart shown above, but this time zoomed-in on Cetus and Mars, with the landmark of the Great Square and the outline of Cetus indicated with bold lines:

In the above star-chart, I have indicated the position of the planet Mars (with a red arrow pointing towards Mars), and I have outlined the constellation Cetus (which is a faint constellation and generally somewhat difficult to find in the night sky). I have taken the liberty of circling the "eye" of the constellation Cetus, which as you can see is almost directly "below" the planet Mars right now (for observers in the northern hemisphere, and "above" for those in the southern).

This alignment makes the next few weeks a wonderful opportunity for finding Cetus! I must admit that I myself usually have trouble finding Cetus, because it is so faint and generally so low to the southern horizon from my latitude, but the present location of Mars makes it relatively easy to find and trace out.

The biggest problem for star-gazers right now is the fact that the Moon is now beginning to wax larger and larger each night, on its way to a Full Moon on the significant date of October 31. The increasing brightness of the Moon, and its nightly motion from the west towards the east, will make it more and more difficult to see Cetus until we get past the Full Moon. 

However, after Full Moon, as the Moon continues to rise later and later each night -- and as the Moon begins to wane towards a crescent again -- we will get another tremendous opportunity to find Cetus underneath Mars.

Below is another star-chart screenshot from Stellarium, this time showing the situation on the night of November 8, approximately a week after Full Moon. Once again, Mars remains in a perfect location to help us find the constellation Cetus:

Notice that the constellations rise a little earlier each night as we go throughout the year -- thus, by November 8, Cetus is nearing its transit point (the highest place on its arc, as it passes over due south, for observers in the northern hemisphere) around 9:45 pm (or 2145). 

The constellation Cetus plays important roles in many of the world's ancient Star Myths. One important role Cetus plays is the terrible sea-monster sent by the god Poseidon to ravage the kingdom of Aethiopia in order to chastise the pride of Queen Cassiopeia, who boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the divine Nereids of the sea.

In order to appease the wrath of Poseidon and stop the attacks of the Ketos (Cetus), the king and queen were persuaded against their will to chain their beautiful daughter Andromeda to a rock as a sacrifice to the sea-monster. The sea began to boil as the horrifying monster approached the rock where the princess was chained -- but at that moment the hero Perseus was winging his way across the sky on his way home from his successful quest to slay the dreaded Medusa, carrying her severed head in a special sack called the kibesis (loaned to him by the gods, in most accounts by Hermes).

The quick-thinking hero cried out to the beautiful Andromeda to avert her eyes, and then he swooped down and held aloft the terrible head of Medusa. The Ketos was turned to stone by the power of the Gorgon's head, even in death, and Andromeda was saved.

Can you see how Perseus in this particular episode is associated with the constellation Aquarius? Aquarius can be envisioned as holding a pitcher of water, but in many myths this same pitcher becomes a severed head in a sack (see the discussion in my first of two recent conversations with Judith Kwoba of Nightflight -- the second of those conversations can be found here).

I have indicated the location of the constellation Aquarius in the close-up star-chart screenshot above.

There are also two previous posts in which I discuss the connections between the mythical figures in this particular episode -- if you are interested in exploring further, see "Perseus and Andromeda, Revisited!" and "Still more lessons from Andromeda and Perseus."

Those two posts each contain drawings in which I try my hand at depicting the awful moment when the Ketos is approaching the rock where Andromeda is chained, and Perseus flies down to confront the monster while holding the head of Medusa, calling out to Andromeda to look away as he does so. You can see an illustration from William Hogarth done in the 1700s which served as partial inspiration for my efforts, in which the artist clearly positions the sea-monster in the correct location to correspond to the constellation Cetus, Perseus to correspond to the constellation Aquarius, Andromeda to correspond to the constellation Sagittarius, and the mountain-shaped rock to correspond to the constellation Ophiuchus. 

At the top of this post is a painting on a surviving ancient piece of pottery, depicting the same scene, in which Perseus is confronting the Ketos and placing himself between the sea-monster and the princess. Note that in that ancient artwork, the sea-monster is labeled with the name "Ketos" and that its outline corresponds very closely to the outline of the constellation Cetus in the heavens. 

Similarly, Perseus can clearly be seen to correspond to the outline of Aquarius in the heavens in this particular scene, and the ancient artist has depicted the kibesis bag hanging from the lead arm of Perseus, just in front of the enormous head of the Ketos. This corresponds to the fact that the "pitcher" of Aquarius can be seen to be thrust towards the head of Cetus as we look at the constellations in the night sky (look again at the middle of the three star-charts above, which is the "close-up" of the scene, in order to see for yourself).

This famous myth is just one powerful example out of literally thousands which establish beyond any doubt that the world's ancient myths, from virtually every culture on our earth (including the stories in what we call the Bible) are based on celestial metaphor.

I hope that over the next couple of weeks, you will have an opportunity to try to locate the constellation Cetus, if it is at all possible for you to do so. The brilliant planet Mars is presently guiding the way for us to find this important heavenly figure.

Nightflight Conversation with Judith Kwoba, Part 2!

Special thank-you to Judith Kwoba for having me back for a "Part 2" conversation on Nightflight! This interview was recorded on October 11, 2020. Here is the link to the above video, and here is the link to Judith's channel on YouTube.

You can watch Part 1 here if you have not seen it already or if you want to see it again (and this previous blog post associated with that interview, which was recorded on 26 September 2020, contains some links to related content from that conversation).

Welcome to anyone visiting my blog and website for the first time after watching this latest video, and welcome back to returning friends! I hope you will visit often.

Below are some links to additional material related to concepts that we touched upon during our conversation for those interested in exploring further:

• "The Descent of Inanna and the Lamentation for our Buried Authentic Self"

• "Descending into Darkness"

• "Descent unto Kurukshetra: This Incarnate Life"

• "The Peace of Utter Stillness . . ."

• "The Self: the hidden treasure"

• "The Gospel of Thomas and the Everlasting Spring"

• "End of the World Anxiety?"

• "The three-day pause"

• "Star Myths of the World: The Red Sea Crossing"

• "Las Vegas (01 October 2017) and the Manipulation of History"

• "Follow-up to discussion of the events of Las Vegas and beyond"

• "Money, Credit & Debt: is Debt-Based Money the Root of All Problems in Society?"

• "Simon Shack, Tycho Brahe, Retrograde Mars, and the Vital Importance of our Moon"

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Money, Credit & Debt: Is Debt-Based Money the Root of All Problems in Society?

I've just published a new video, entitled "Money, Credit & Debt: Is Debt-Based Money the Root of All Problems in Society?"

There is a very common trope, proclaimed with great confidence by numerous personalities who appear on podcasts and other independent media outlets, that so-called "debt-based money" is the root of all problems in society. 

Under this explanation, money creation is a form of debt, which comes along with an obligation to pay interest, and thus all money creation automatically creates interest obligations which can never be repaid, because if you try to make more money in order to pay the interest, that new money also comes along with interest obligations, and you can never win. The whole system is a giant trap, according to this argument.

But is it correct?

This video explains why that argument is wrong. There is in fact a problem that is causing increasing impoverishment and unemployment and indebtedness, but the argument that "all money is debt" is not the problem, and it adds to the obscuring of the main problem. The main problem has to do with the difference between money creation by government spending, and money creation by bank lending.

I hope this video will help you understand the mechanics of what is going on with the creation of money, and why oligarchs and their paid collaborators (who can unfortunately be found in all kinds of media) don't want you to understand the distinction between the two types of money creation (one way being through government spending, and one being through bank lending), and why they are typically very much against money creation by government spending.

This video also explains that money creation is connected to the subject of the resources available to a nation -- and that the world's ancient wisdom teaches that those resources are given by the divine realm for the benefit of the men and women of that land.

The most important resources of any nation are the men and women whom the divine realm allows to be born into that land, and the gifts given to each man or woman -- gifts that the ancient myths universally declare to have their source and origin in the realm of the gods.

Economic Trauma

 

Below is an important recent interview with Professor Michael Hudson hosted by Steve Grumbine of Real Progressives and the Macro & Cheese podcast. The interview was published on October 03, 2020.

You can listen to the interview (or download the file to listen anywhere) by using the embedded player below or by going to the following link: https://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/mn4p5mrn

You can also find a fairly accurate transcription of the conversation on the Macro & Cheese website here, as well as at Michael Hudson's website here.

This interview with Professor Hudson touches upon a number of important subjects, all of which are extremely relevant and timely, and upon which I may have occasion to comment further in future posts and videos, but for today I would like to point out in particular a statement which can be found at approximately 31:15 in the conversation. 

Framing the economic struggle of the past 250 years primarily as a struggle against feudalism, and noting that modern forms of feudalism have been increasingly successful against those forces which in previous centuries were making progress in dismantling feudalism, Professor Hudson explains that many of the productive sectors of the economy (talking in particular about the US economy but by extension other western economies which have been captured by the same neoliberal system which prevails in Europe and in the British Commonwealth nations) are shrinking (or being deliberately dismantled) even as this shrinkage is being masked by economic metrics (such as GDP) which categorize counterproductive "rent-seeking" activity (neo-feudal activity) as positive instead of destructive. 

The rise of neo-feudalism means that for the majority of the population, larger and larger portions of their income is beholden to the banks (in the form of debt service) and to monopolies (including privatized services which should be provided by the public sector), creating a situation akin to the serfdom of the medieval period in which all the produce of one's labor (beyond a meager amount sufficient for nothing more than subsistence living) was coughed up to the landlord.

Beginning at about 31:15 in the interview, Professor Hudson declares: 

The 90% knows that they're in trouble. That's why they take tranquilizers. They know that they're being squeezed. They know that it's harder and harder to pay the rent. They know that their debts in arrears are mounting up. But they blame themselves -- they don't blame the system. And so what you need is a reality-based economics, that shows them that the problem is in the system: not in themselves.

The dynamic that Professor Hudson is expounding in this short quotation is extremely important to understand, and should not be lightly passed over or dismissed. What he is describing is the tendency (reinforced by certain dogmas which are propagated within the present culture) to assign blame for economic distress to the victim of a system which is in fact deliberately designed to create economic distress, largely by trapping men and women in debt, which benefits the private institutions which have been granted a monopoly on the creation of credit: namely, banks.

The dynamic by which traumatized individuals shift blame to themselves is described by Dr. Laurence Heller (the originator of the NARM model of therapy, which stands for the "NeuroAffective Relationship Model") in an interview conducted by Sarah Buino with Dr. Heller and Dr. Gabor Mate on the Transforming Trauma podcast:

In that interview, beginning at about 07:52, Dr. Mate explains that, because the essential definition of trauma is a disconnect from one's Self, a traumatized individual actually blames and attacks himself or herself, saying: "People who are traumatized, whether you call it 'shock trauma' or 'developmental trauma' -- they have a negative view of themselves: and so they keep attacking themselves."

Adding to our understanding of this dynamic of turning against the Self, Dr. Heller says (beginning at about 08:26 in the interview):

Part of the child's adaptation to trauma is to turn against the Self. It distorts their sense of Self. [. . .] At one stage there is the splitting -- [. . .] basically what that means is that the child splits the parental image into the 'Good Parent' and the 'Bad Parent,' and the self-image into the 'Good Self' and the 'Bad Self.' They identify with the Bad Self in order to protect the image of the parent -- which is more than just an image: it means they're really protecting that there's still the possibility of love in the universe. And so there's a lot invested in seeing the parent as good and them as bad -- because if they're bad, they can make themselves better, or at least they have this idea they can make themselves better, and win love. And they do that, unfortunately, this is part of the paradox, by giving up and disconnecting from parts of themselves -- the parts that they think are going to be welcomed. So it brings this basic paradox into play.

Dr. Mate presents his explanation of the same phenomenon (beginning at 10:40): 

That's exactly what I get people to, is: OK, you're a kid, and you're three years old, and your father was yelling at your mother. Which is safer for you to believe: that your parents are bad, and they don't love you? Or that they're incompetent, and the world isn't safe? Or is it safer for you to believe that there's something wrong with you? That you're not good enough, and that you're to be ashamed of? Obviously, it's unendurable for the child to even entertain the first hypothesis. It's much safer to turn on themselves, and then hope to change themselves, but still believe that, 'If I'm good enough, I'll be loved.'

This interchange powerfully expounds the mechanism by which trauma causes us to turn against our own Self, and to separate from the Self. And it can also be seen to be at play in what we might call the "economic trauma" being described by Professor Michael Hudson in the more recent interview cited above, by which those who are the primary victims of the growing economic neo-feudalism blame themselves rather than the system that is systematically and deliberately burdening them with greater and greater loads of debt (in order to benefit those in position to be creditors). 

It is actually more difficult to face the fact that, as Dr. Mate says above, "the world is not safe" and that the system is actually bad, and predatory, than to believe that there is something wrong with the victims of that system, and that it is their own fault for the situation in which they find themselves.

The economic trauma that Professor Hudson describes has been on the ascendency since the 1980s, and it is accelerating. 

This system of economic trauma is beneficial to creditors, and to industries positioned to collect what the classical economists described as economic rents: landlords and the real estate sector, the financial sector, insurers, and monopolies (including privatized healthcare -- since no one can do without healthcare if they are in need of medical treatment -- as well as privatized infrastructure including higher education and prisons and the infrastructure of modern communication which includes most of the "tech" sector, and which depends upon the electromagnetic spectrum which should be understood to be part of the public domain). 

But the system is profoundly detrimental to those who are not included in the above categories. They look at what is going on and, following a dynamic very similar to that described by Dr. Heller and Dr. Mate in the quotations cited above, find it less threatening to blame themselves than to admit that the economic system as it is structured today has been captured by rent-seekers -- to perceive that in actual fact, the concerted efforts of the classical economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to dismantle the structures of feudalism have been almost entirely reversed during the course of the twentieth century, and that the forces of neo-feudalism (which stand squarely against democracy) are now accelerating.

And so we can see that what is being described by Professor Hudson, in which men and women have not been taught anything at all about the struggle of the classical economists against the structures of rent-seeking and feudalism, and have not been taught anything at all against the backlash against those classical reformers by the forces of neo-feudalism, is a form of economic trauma, in which the people "blame themselves -- they don't blame the system."

And it is obviously very beneficial for those who want to perpetuate this system of economic rents to keep people in a state of trauma, in which they blame themselves, rather than seeking systemic change. 

I would argue that this pattern has been going on for a very long time -- in fact, since the imposition of the original feudal system upon the people of Europe, following the dismantling of the ancient world and the overthrow of the ancient wisdom by literalist Christianity, during the fourth century (AD) and following.

I would highly recommend everyone listen very carefully to the entire interview with Professor Hudson, embedded above. In fact, it is worth multiple listens, because the concepts expressed in that interview are concepts we don't hear explained very often, and it can take hearing them a few times in order to absorb the full impact of what he is saying.  

Welcome to new visitors from Judith Kwoba's Nightflight! (and to returning friends)

Special thank-you to Judith Kwoba for inviting me over to Nightflight for a conversation about myths, stars, trauma, the Judith story, and the recovery of Self!

Welcome to any new visitors checking out the website for the first time after hearing about it through Nightflight (and to returning friends) — I hope you will stop by frequently!

This conversation was recorded on September 26, 2020.

Prior to our talk, Judith requested that I present “a few examples to show that certain stories are celestial stories.” Looking back on the interview, it seems to me that I might have exceeded “a few examples” but I hope that these will help those new to my research to see just how much evidence there is to support the conclusion that the world’s ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories — from virtually every culture on every inhabited continent and island on our earth — have their foundation in a common system of celestial metaphor.

One of the main examples that I chose for this conversation was the story of Judith and Holofernes, found in the ancient text of the Book of Judith. I have never spoken or written about the text of Judith before, but upon examination it shows very clear indications of being based on celestial metaphor, and of having very strong parallels with other more well-known ancient texts and stories, including those from other cultures.

Below are some links to previous blog posts which focus on some of the same subjects we touched upon in this interview, for those wishing to explore further:

• “Fragments of a Lost Whole”

• “The Self: the Hidden Treasure”

• “What lies beneath the scurrying of the superficial mind?”

• “Eros and Psyche”

• “An incredible talk by Dr. Gabor Mate, and the relationship between the egoic mind and our Essential Self”

• “Parallels between the Odyssey and the Gospels”

• “Balaam and the Ass”

• “The Vision of Ezekiel: Wheels within Wheels”

  "The Descent of Inanna and the Lamentation for our Buried Self"

Please note that the blog is fully searchable, so if you want to look for mentions of a certain constellation or a particular deity or a specific keyword, you can easily do so and hopefully there will be at least one previous post with some discussion there.

I very much enjoyed meeting Judith and our conversation, and I hope that you will as well. Please be sure to give her some positive feedback, and “like” the video (if you liked it), and of course please share with anyone you know who is looking for this kind of information.

New conversation coming soon: Sign up to see the Premiere! (or watch replay whenever you want)

Set your timer for just under 12 hours from now if you want to watch the Premiere of my first visit to Judith Kwoba's Nightflight which is set to air at 7am Pacific, 10am Eastern (North America), 1500 Greenwich time, 1600 Central European Summer Time. 

If you choose to sign up to watch the Premiere, you can watch and chat live with other viewers -- or you can wait and watch the replay anytime on YouTube.

This conversation was recorded on Saturday, September 26th, and contains some discussion of celestial aspects of a Bible-era story I've never discussed before!

Hope you will enjoy it. Please give Judith some positive feedback and tell others who might be looking for this information.