Welcome to new visitors from Jacob Gossel's Awake, Aware, Alive podcast! (and to returning friends)

Big thank-you to Jacob Gossel for inviting me over to his Awake, Aware, Alive podcast for a memorable conversation and exploration of the connections between the myths, the stars, and our Self!

This interview was recorded on September 16, 2020.

Here is a link to the page on Jacob's site with all the information about the interview, and here is a link to the video where you can watch the video version of the interview and see the visual aspects and star charts that go along with the conversation.

I hope that everyone who watches will find something positive in our discussion (and leave aside anything negative they might find), and give Jacob some feedback through YouTube, or Instagram, or his website.

In this discussion, I decided to use some different ways of illustrating the connections between the myths and the stars than examples that I've used on other podcasts, and opened up an examination of the Pylos Combat Agate, the evidence that this amazing ancient gem and its masterful artwork have celestial foundations, and the evidence that the ancient myths of the world have as a central focus the recovery of Self, from whom we become alienated in this life.

For those wishing to explore some of our conversation's subjects a little further, here are links to previous posts related to those topics:

• "The Pylos Combat Agate among the Infinite Realms" 

• "Geology, mythology, cataclysms, and the world's ancient wisdom"

• "Star Myths of the World: Beyond any Doubt"

• "Important interview with Dr. Richard Schwartz and Dr. Frank Anderson of Internal Family Systems Therapy"

• "The Self: the Hidden Treasure"

• "The crossing of the Red Sea"

• "Let me disclose, O Gilgamesh, a matter most secret: The Mystery of the Flood"

• "Artwork of the Maya demolishes the conventional historical paradigm!"

• "Birthday of Leonard Cohen -- and the celestial foundations of David's Harp"

• "Here it has reached the turning point -- the celestial map of the soul's spiritual trek"

• "September Equinox 2020: the Two Mothers in Ancient Myth"

Also, during the early part of this interview, I accidentally mis-spoke and referred to the important researcher Richard Cassaro as "Robert" Cassaro -- apologies for that! Don't know what I was thinking at that point (apparently wasn't thinking).

Please support independent media and podcasters as much as possible, and I hope you will enjoy my first-ever visit to Jacob Gossel's Awake, Aware, Alive podcast!

September Equinox 2020: the Two Mothers in Ancient Myth

 

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

This year, we arrive at the point of September equinox at 0630 on 22 September for those in the Pacific time zone of North America, or 0930 for those in the Eastern time zone, and 1330 Greenwich time for those in England (from these references, you should be able to calculate the time in your particular geography anywhere on our earth).

The stations of the heavenly cycles, including the four great annual markers of the two solstices and two equinoxes, carry tremendous significance in the esoteric "language" of the world's ancient myths, and understanding the way the myths use these points on the cycle help us to understand what particular stories and figures are trying to tell us and show us.

In this regard, the explanations of the indispensable Alvin Boyd Kuhn are particularly helpful. His analysis argues that the cycles of the year figure the descent of the soul from the realm of pure spirit (the upper elements of air and fire) into the material realm of earth and water at the point of the fall or autumnal equinox, which is the point we reach on this day (the September equinox being the fall equinox for the northern hemisphere of our planet).

The fall equinox is representative of the plunge from spirit into matter, which the ancient philosophers sometimes described as an immersion of fire into water. Kuhn notes that the mysterious pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus, declares: "Man is a portion of cosmic fire, imprisoned in a body of earth and water" (see Kuhn, Lost Light, page 6).

This plunge into the body, this submersion of cosmic fire into the lower elements of earth and water, is seen in the motions of the stars and other heavenly bodies, which can be observed to rise up in the east (due to the rotation of our earth) and cross the heavenly realm from the east to the west, sinking back down again into the west, where they plunge into either earth or water (depending upon where you are standing as you watch them). 

And on the annual cycle of the year, we plunge into the "lower realm" at the point of fall equinox, when we cross from the "upper half" of the year (when hours of daylight prevail over hours of darkness) to the "lower half" (when darkness dominates, and each day contains more hours of darkness than of daylight).

Thus, this point of fall equinox was equated to the physical birth -- the point of our own plunge from the realm of air and fire (the realm of spirit) into this body of "clay" (the body of earth and water -- and note that many ancient traditions describe men and women as being fashioned out of clay by the divine powers).

But the ancient myths teach that there is another birth -- a birth which is distinct from the physical birth. At our physical birth, the divine spark is submerged in the lower physical elements, but there is a point at which we become aware of this submerged Higher Self, and this awareness or reconnection is described in ancient myth using a variety of metaphors -- including the metaphor of a second birth, a spiritual birth which follows after the physical birth.

And when we understand this esoteric message, then we begin to grasp the meaning of the prevalent pattern of the two mothers in ancient myths and sacred traditions around the world!

Alvin Boyd Kuhn explains this concept in Lost Light (published in 1940):

The exposition must begin with the puzzling and hitherto unexplained item of ancient religious myth, that the Christs, the Sun-Gods, the Messiahs, all were depicted as having two mothers. How, one asks, could there possibly be rational significance in this? It has been put aside as just some more of the mythical rubbish and nonsense of early Paganism. The profundity of pagan intelligence, hiding sublime cosmic truth under glyph and symbol, has not been dreamed of.

The depiction should not have created incredulity, seeing that the Gospel Jesus himself, dramatic figure of the divine principle in man, announced it categorically in declaring to Nicodemus that "ye must be born again." 5

That encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus is dramatized in the Gospel according to John, chapter 3.

Thus, Kuhn explains, this pattern of the two mothers in ancient myth points us to the concept of the two births -- and is seen in the Gospel stories, for example, in the presence of two Marys. In other myths, we see two mothers described in the Mahabharata of ancient India, in the two mothers of the five Pandavas (whose fathers are divine, another frequent pattern in ancient myth). And, as Alvin Boyd Kuhn explains, we also see this pattern in the story of Osiris and Isis and the child Horus:

The ancient books always grouped the two mothers in pairs. They were called "the two mothers" or sometimes "the two divine sisters." Or they were the wife and sister of the God, under the names of Juno, Venus, Isis, Ishtar, Cybele or Mylitta. In old Egypt they were first Apt and Neither; and later Isis and Nephthys. Massey relates Neith to "net," i.e., fish-net! Clues to their functions were picked up in the great Book of the Dead: "Isis conceived him; Nephthys gave him birth." Or: "Isis bore him; Nephthys suckled him," or reared him. [. . .] So divine spirit is conceived in the womb of Isis, the first universal mother, and brought to birth in the womb of Nephthys, the second mother, the immediate incubator and gestator of its manifest expression." 8 - 9

Above we see an image containing detail from an ancient Egyptian stela dated to around 1250 BC and showing the god Osiris in between the two goddesses of Isis (to the right as we face the image) and Nephthys (to the left as we face the image).

Kuhn also points out that the epistles attributed to Paul are conveying very much the same message when they declare: "That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual" (1 Corinthians 15: 46, cited by Kuhn on page 6 of Lost Light).

Now, when we note that Osiris is the god who is buried (as is Jesus in the Gospel accounts), this pattern of two mothers and two births comes home to us and to our situation in this life and in this very moment in a new way, because as I argue in my most-recent book Myth and Trauma, this pattern of the buried divinity, or the god or goddess who must go down into the Underworld, very much has to do with the suppression or "burial" of our own Essential or Higher Self, from whom we become alienated in this life through a variety of forces, often without our even knowing it!

The good news, dramatized for our understanding in countless different ways in the ancient myths given to all of the cultures around our earth, on every inhabited continent and island, is that our Self, although buried, is not lost -- in fact, it cannot even be damaged! Our Self is always available to us -- and has never actually left us. And I am convinced that this powerful message is conveyed to us through the esoteric symbolism of the two mothers and the two births.

And so as we reach this point of equinox, it is my hope that you will become aware of the existence of this buried and suppressed Self, and of the fact that the Self is available and that our relationship with Self can be restored. And the ancient myths point us towards that restoration and that recovery: indeed, this message must be considered to be one of the most central purposes of the myths, and among the most important to us, in this life and in this present moment.

Birthday of Leonard Cohen -- and the celestial foundations of David's Harp

 

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

September 21 is the birthdate of Leonard Cohen (1934 - 2016), born this day in 1934.

His music and poetry defies easy categorization and explores the breadth and depth of experience and emotion. I would recommend listening to all of it. His most well-known song, of course, is "Hallelujah," which has been covered by over three hundred other artists over the years since it was first released.

"Hallelujah" contains numerous biblical allusions -- and applies them to the present moment with such immediacy and power that the song by itself demonstrates beyond any doubt that the stories of ancient myth are not about ancient kings and queens and heroes who lived in a far-off time and a far-off place but rather they are about us: about each and every man and woman, as Alvin Boyd Kuhn famously declared in his 1940 masterpiece, Lost Light.

People can argue about Leonard Cohen himself or about the meaning of this particular song, but the figures referenced in the song itself can be shown beyond any argument to be based upon celestial metaphor.

David who plays the secret chord is of course a reference to the singer and psalmist David, who can be convincingly shown through an abundance of evidence to be associated with the constellation Hercules in the heavens -- and the constellation Hercules is located immediately adjacent to the celestial harp or lyre, Lyra, as seen in the star-chart shown below:

If you look at it carefully, you can envision Hercules whirling a sling around his head, as David does in his encounter with the giant Goliath, recorded in the text of 1 Samuel. Of course, that same outline can be envisioned as a mighty sword or other weapon, as we see in many other myths involving the constellation Hercules from around the world -- including later in the battle between David and Goliath. After felling the giant with a stone from his sling, the text of 1 Samuel 17: 51 tells us that David takes the sword of Goliath and severs the giant's head. 

Below is a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640) showing David using the sword of Goliath and preparing to cut off Goliath's head:

image: Wikimedia commons (link). 

Note that the artist, working in the early 1600s, has clearly incorporated the outline of the constellation Hercules into his depiction of David raising the giant's sword over his head. He has also placed the forward foot of David upon the temple of Goliath's head -- exactly as the forward foot of the constellation Hercules can be envisioned to be standing upon the side of the head of the constellation Ophiuchus in the heavens! And note that this is no mere act of artistic license: the text of the ancient scripture itself tells us that in this act of taking the sword to slay Goliath, David ran forward and "stood upon" the fallen giant (see 1 Samuel 17: 51).

At the top of this post is a depiction of David playing upon his stringed instrument, painted by Giacomo del Po (1654 - 1726). Note that once again, the artist has chosen to depict David in the general outline associated with the constellation Hercules. 

Later in the song "Hallelujah," after describing David's playing of the chord, the lyrics make reference to the encounter with Bathsheba, saying: "Your faith was strong, but you needed proof / You saw her bathing on the roof / Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you." The story of David and Bathsheba begins in 2 Samuel 11, in which we read:

And it came to pass in an eventide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.

As I explore in my 2016 book Star Myths of the Bible, and again in my 2020 book Myth and Trauma, this encounter with Bathsheba has abundant clues to show us that it too is based upon the stars. David once again is associated with the constellation Hercules, which can be envisioned as standing upon the "roof" of the house-shaped central section of the constellation Ophiuchus. Refer again to the star-chart above in order to see that outline.

From there, David gazes down and sees the beautiful form of Bathsheba, engaged in the act of bathing. The constellation Sagittarius plays the role of a woman bathing (or the role of a goddess bathing) in numerous myths -- some of these are explored in my book Star Myths of the World, Volume Two: Myths of Ancient Greece. The constellation Sagittarius is positioned beside the brightest and widest part of the Milky Way galaxy, the part we now believe to be the Galactic Core or Galactic Center -- and as the Milky Way often plays the role of a mighty river or other body of water in the world's ancient myths, this widest portion of the stream often plays the role of a pool or grotto in which a character associated with Sagittarius will bathe.

Below is an artist's depiction of David seeing Bathsheba in the act of bathing, from around the year 1520:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

In the artist's depiction, note that the king (David) is positioned above an arched portico in a colonnade, which is a common feature in depictions of this scene from the 1500s, and suggests the outline of Ophiuchus, above which we find the figure of Hercules, gazing downwards. To the left of that arched portico we see Bathsheba at her bath, located just where we would expect to find Sagittarius in relation to the constellations Ophiuchus and Hercules.

Below is another artistic depiction of the same episode, also painted during the 1500s, this time by Paris Bordon (1500 - 1570), and this time the artist has chosen to show the arm position of Bathsheba in a posture which directly evokes the "bow" feature of the constellation Sagittarius:

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Compare the posture of Bathsheba in the above painting to the outline of the constellation Sagittarius from the star-chart included earlier: you should find the similarity to be extremely compelling. If you look closely, you should also be able to spot the far-off figure of the king, gazing down at Bathsheba from high above. Note that Zeus, who is also associated with the constellation Hercules, is also frequently described as becoming enraptured with the beauty of mortal women that he sees on earth, and descending from the heavens to seduce them.

These correspondences should demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that the stories of the Bible, in common with the myths imparted to the other cultures of our earth, are based upon celestial metaphor. They are not about persons and events that took place in distant history, long before our day: they are about us, and they are intended to convey profound truth for us even in this very present moment.

In the case of the amorous affair between David and Bathsheba, in which David also treacherously arranges to murder Bathsheba's husband Uriah (who can be seen in the first illustration riding off to the battlefront with a letter in hand), the love affair produces a son, who becomes King Solomon -- an absolutely pivotal figure in the Bible, and one whose significance is also explored at some length in Myth and Trauma.

Why is this adulterous affair the one that produces David's successor, Solomon? That might seem very difficult to understand, until we begin to become fluent in the celestial language that the myths are speaking, and to start to understand the significance of Sagittarius and its position in the heavenly cycles, including the cycle of the year, where the sun begins to turn back upwards and where the ancient myths often depict the great "turning point" that is sometimes described as a "second birth" (see this previous post on the "Two Mothers" pattern in the world's ancient myths for some further elaboration).

I hope that you will have an opportunity to take the time today to listen to a quality recording of Leonard Cohen's original version of "Hallelujah" if at all possible -- and as you do so to consider the profound ways in which the ancient myths continue to speak to us to this day, if we are willing to listen to them, and to poets such as Leonard Cohen, who bring their words and their power into direct contact with our lives with new and startling perspectives we may not have seen or thought about before.

The Self: the hidden treasure

image: Wikimedia commons (composite of two images, here and here).

I am regularly amazed at the way that the teachings of some of the most cutting-edge healers in the field of trauma recovery describe their discoveries in language that reflects and illuminates the teachings of the ancient myths.

For example, Dr. Richard Schwartz, the founder of the Internal Family Systems paradigm and therapeutic approach -- through his work with thousands of patients -- has discovered that we each have within us a strong and compassionate and courageous and wise Self, but that we become alienated from our own Self through trauma, often to the degree that we are actually unaware of the presence of this Self whom we have suppressed and buried.

In his book Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition, Dr. Schwartz says:

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. [. . .] The Self-led mind is self-righting and has plenty of room for all feelings, views, and parts. In addition, the Self is not a passive observer. Once parts differentiate, the Self is a compassionate, collaborative leader that can be active or still as needed. 

[. . .] Everyone can access the active, compassionate leader we call the Self, which is characterized by clarity, perspective, compassion, and other qualities that constitute effective leadership. This is true no matter how severe their symptoms or how initially polarized their internal system.

[. . .] The one caveat in this process is that it requires at least some willingness to find out if the Self exists and some curiosity when experiencing the Self. 43 - 46

When we are alienated from our Self, we seek to assuage the pain of that disconnection through external distraction (anything to keep us from being alone with our own internal world), external acquisition of "stuff," external addictions to substances or to behaviors -- all of which can be seen as symptoms of the fact that we have lost that connection to the Self which has the actual solution to our problems, and who is present and available to us at all times -- but only if we show "at least some willingness to find out if the Self exists."

We already have within us that which we are seeking everywhere else. I am convinced that the reason that "western" culture in particular seeks external solutions (in wealth, in substances, in other people whether sexual partners or gurus or politicians) is because the original teaching of the ancient myths was deliberately subverted and replaced by a literalistic dogma. 

Literalism, by its very nature, externalizes the teaching of myths that are actually esoteric, metaphorical, and talking about each and every man and woman (but when taken literally, as if talking about literal, historical figures, they are mis-interpreted as being about someone else, someone external to us, someone who lived many thousands of years ago in another place and another time and another culture, and this naturally leads to an externalization of their message -- and thus to the pursuit of external saviors and external solutions, in an inversion of what they can actually be shown to be teaching).

Because external solutions actually turn out to be false solutions, this leads to a great sense of emptiness, which pervades our culture today and which hardly needs to be described, so familiar is it to our modern experience.

Peter Kingsley describes this problem in powerful language in his 1999 book In the Dark Places of Wisdom, where he says:

And there's a great secret: we all have that vast missingness deep inside us. [. . .] the more we feel that nothingness inside us, the more we feel the need to fill the void. So we try to substitute this and that, but nothing lasts. We keep wanting something else, needing some other need to keep us going [. . .]. 

Western culture is a past master at the art of substitution. It offers and never delivers because it can't. It has lost the power even to know what needs to be delivered, so it offers substitutes instead. What's most important is missing, and dazzling in its absence. [. . .]

Even religion and spirituality and humanity's higher aspirations become wonderful substitutes. 34 - 35

But the ancient myths from around the world -- including the stories collected into what we call the Bible -- teach us that the solution we are looking for is not actually external to us: we already have the solution within us, in the person of our Essential Self, from whom we become alienated (often to such a degree that we are completely unaware of the existence of this Self, and even to the degree that we are actively hostile to the suggestion that we have such a Self).

This message can be shown to be present in the stories of the Bible, such as in the story of Doubting Thomas -- in which Jesus himself represents the "divine twin" of the Higher Self, and in which Thomas (who is known as "the Twin," as we learn in the Gospel according to John) is actually resistant to the sudden appearance of the divine twin who had been buried and locked away under the earth.

In the texts of the Nag Hammadi library, which were discovered in the mid-twentieth century after having been buried for centuries (probably because they were outlawed when literalist Christianity began to gain increasing power in the fourth century), Jesus explicitly tells Thomas that he is his twin, and that because Thomas is his twin, it is not right for Thomas to be unaware of his own Self (see for instance the Dialogue between Thomas and the Savior, in the Book of Thomas the Contender).

One of the most powerful parables which teaches us that we already have access to the solution which we are seeking everywhere else can be found in the text of the Gospel of Thomas (also included in the Nag Hammadi library but excluded from the canonical texts selected by the early leaders of the literalist religion). 

There, in section 109, Jesus uses a parable about a field in which a treasure is hidden under the surface, completely unknown to the owner of the field. Unaware of the presence of the treasure, the owner of the field never makes use of this treasure, and when he dies, the field passes to his son, who also remains in complete ignorance of the treasure buried and hidden within the field. The son sells the field -- and the new owner of the field discovers the treasure while plowing the field.

This teaching is remarkably harmonious with everything that Dr. Schwartz is saying in the above-quoted passage from his book Internal Family Systems Therapy! We all are born with a Self -- and this Self knows how to heal, how to repair, how to lead, how to "self-right" our internal disharmony and bring it into balance so that we can express our unique gifts and talents and fulfill our true potential. 

But like the buried treasure in the field, we can go through our entire life without even being aware of the existence of this marvelous Self -- indeed, we can actively suppress our Self for a variety of reasons that have to do with trauma and which Dr. Schwartz describes in his book and in his many resources on his website at ifs-institute.com and in his many interviews on podcasts and elsewhere on the web.

Like the original owner of the field, who did not know about this treasure that he already had, and did not even know how to tell his own son about it, we can be ignorant of the fact that we have within us the buried treasure -- the buried Self -- which can provide the very wholeness for which we often search (in vain) just about everywhere else but the one place it is to be found.

And, although these texts that were buried in at Nag Hammadi in ancient times were excluded from the canon of the literalist church, we can see the outlines of this teaching present in the scriptures which were included in the Bible, such as in the passage in 2 Corinthians which Alvin Boyd Kuhn (on page 47 of his masterpiece, Lost Light, 1940) calls Paul's "almost frantic cry to us: 'Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is within you?'" (quoting 2 Corinthians 13: 5, my emphasis).

But we cannot make use of this treasure if we are not even aware that it exists, as the parable teaches and as Dr. Schwartz states in his "one caveat." We have to have at least some curiosity and desire to recover our Self -- but the good news is that the world's ancient myths, from every culture on every inhabited continent and island of our globe, have as one of their central themes the recovery of Self.

And, today we have forward-thinking healers and therapists such as Dr. Richard Schwartz, as well as Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Laurence Heller, and others who understand the profound negative impact of alienation from Self and who have devoted their gifts and their talents and their professional careers to helping us learn how we can recover that connection to our birthright, our Self.

Like the owner of the field in the parable, we actually already have access to our Self. And that is a very powerful and very comforting teaching, which we find in the ancient myths and scriptures, as well as in the writings of modern pioneers such as Dr. Schwartz.

Please note that my enthusiastic quoting of Richard Schwartz or Peter Kingsley or anyone else I mention should not be mistaken as implying that they endorse my work or agree with any of my conclusions or assertions.

"When we are willing to act, like people who know SHOULD ACT, then the world will change for the better: not until"

This September 11, please listen to this entire interview with the late great Vincent Salandria, who almost immediately saw through the lies of the official story of President Kennedy in November of 1963 and who clearly perceived and articulated the significance of what took place that day for the world we still inhabit more than fifty years later.

The above interview was recorded in 1994, more than thirty years after the assassination -- and Vince Salandria cuts right to the meaning of what that day in 1963 meant to the world ever after, including the world of 1994, and every single one of his observations and insights remains as accurate today as when this interview was recorded in 1994.

And every single one of his observations can be applied to the catastrophe of September 11, 2001 -- and you can listen to this interview and apply everything that he is saying about the assassination of President Kennedy to the events of September 11.

For example, beginning at 0:27:30, in response to a question regarding whether there should be a special investigator into the murder of President Kennedy (recall that the Oliver Stone film JFK had just come out, reigniting the perception among the people that the official story was clearly a lie), Vince Salandria replies:

Well, if you're asking me whether the government, the murderers of John F. Kennedy, should conduct another investigation, after having given such monumental lies in its first two investigations: heavens no! No more governmental investigation. Should there be further investigation? Sure! We should zero in on the people who did it. Identify them. See them for what they are. Take them on, no matter what their power. But that investigation should not be conducted by governmental circles. It should be conducted by private individuals -- around the world! Because this effects not only this country, but around the world. Perhaps a million South Vietnamese died as a consequence of what happened in Dealey Plaza. That the world, hanging always, between peace and war -- and it's the interest of the people who killed Kennedy to maintain war: to find enemies, to seek them desperately, to manufacture them, to have the American media play them up, so that the weapons business can continue, and that the greed can continue to be satisfied. 

That these words apply not only to the impact of the murder of the elected president in 1963 but also to the events of September 11 in 2001 should be self-evident to all at this point in history.

Beginning at 0:33:02 Vince Salandria declares:

The Dealey Plaza killing of Kennedy did not only kill a president: it effectively killed the presidency. Every president who has had to follow Kennedy -- even one I can think of with very few brain cells -- had to know what happened: had to know therefore what could happen to him, if he did not recognize where the power over the presidency really lay. So I suggest to you that yes, ideally, the president should openly advise the American public -- and the world -- that we had a coup. But that, as a practicable matter, that is not going to happen. And therefore, it's up to the American people to use this politically -- not to divide up the society, and I suggest to you that the people who killed Kennedy have effectively managed to divide up the family -- the country -- in a very effective way: rich against poor, class against class, race against race, ethnic group against ethnic group, shattering old coalitions. That  people must come together, in the knowledge that a more open society will benefit all of us, will improve the quality of life for all of us, will improve the relations in the world, for all the peoples of the world. And therefore all of us have a great stake in knowing the truth of that coup, and reversing it: and organizing politically. One man, one president, won't be able to do it, Dave. Each of us who come to know the truth must join together, organize politically, and struggle -- maybe a long struggle -- to defeat the power -- those rulers -- who took over the presidency in Dealey Plaza. No single president can do it for us. We have to do it.

Beginning at 1:05:50 he reiterates this same theme:

No one man can solve the case. This is a matter for little people -- many little people -- to join together and become a powerful group that seeks the truth, and demands the truth, and knows the truth, and states the truth, and will not tolerate that our cities be denied what they need, that our poor be denied what they need, in favor of providing junk weapons which can't be used, against enemies which don't exist, and have to be manufactured. Only when you get political movement of that kind can you get change. No single president can do it. No single investigator can do it. No special investigator can do it. Nothing from within the government can do it. History has demonstrated that pressure has to be put upon the government for progressive changes to occur. 

And finally, beginning at 1:16:49 he declares: 

We all know, I submit, at some level, what happened in Dealey Plaza. We all know what was behind it. We all know that they are still in power. When we are willing to act, like people who know, should act, as responsible citizens, rising up and not tolerating this abuse of power -- this manipulation of people -- then the world will change for the better: not until.

Note that when he says that we all know at some level what happened (and I would argue that this is true of both the assassination Vince Salandria is directly discussing in the 1994 interview, as well as about the events of September 11), but that we are told something completely different and told we must not entertain any other explanation, even going so far as to disbelieve our own eyes and our own gut, he is describing very precisely the manufacture of trauma: the separation from one's self. And I discuss this in my most-recent book, Myth and Trauma, in relation to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and in relation to the events of September 11.

In the above interview from 1994, Vince Salandria does not specifically use the psychological term "trauma," but he describes this disconnect very vividly in his final remarks, saying (beginning at 1:14:08):

"Forget evidence! We are committed to Oswald, and only Oswald. Forget what you saw. Forget what you heard. Forget what you smelled -- that gunpowder. Forget what your senses tell you. When you get off this plane, you know only one thing: that Lee Harvey Oswald killed your president -- no one else was involved. No one else was involved: it was no conspiracy. Understand that? You also understand what you saw and heard -- but forget that! You're to hold both of those things as true: Oswald did it, and your senses tell you that it was a conspiracy." And now you are gripped in a paralyzed double-think process. George Orwell tells you what you are now: you're nothing. You're our subjects. We are the power. 

Vince Salandria always said that the assassination of President Kennedy was a "false mystery," and when he finally consented to publish his views in a book, this phrase became its title. By that he means that we were actually meant to see that what happened is not what we continue to be told what happened, and that the killing was not a mystery at all. You can access Vince Salandria's book, False Mystery, for free online here.

Vincent Salandria was a towering figure in the subsequent decades of analysis of the lies surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy. He passed from this life just a few weeks ago, in late August. 

Len Osanic of Black Op Radio (dot com), who has published over 1,000 shows and whose program should be part of your regular listening, produced a moving tribute show to Vince Salandria after hearing the news, in which he invites those who knew Vince personally to share their thoughts about who Vince was and what he did for the world in his tireless efforts, usually "behind the scenes."  

You can listen to and download that interview here: it is Black Op Radio show #1006. I highly recommend listening to the entire program, all the way through, even if it take several days to do so (listening in small bites until you go through the entire show), in order to get a real sense of what kind of man Vince Salandria was and why every single person alive today owes him a debt of gratitude. You will also find, in listening to conversations with those who knew him, that he was well aware that the September 11 operation fits into the very same pattern as the JFK assassination.

I would also highly recommend visiting the Black Op Radio archive page and checking out all of the links that Len Osanic has posted in the show notes to show #1006, his memorial tribute to Vince Salandria.

Vincent Salandria very clearly perceived that we have been traumatized, deliberately traumatized, by events such as the murder of President Kennedy, and the September 11 operation. And he very directly explains what we must do, to gain clarity on what is going on, regarding those who want to polarize the people against one another (using every type of dividing tactic possible), and even dividing us as individuals against our own self (as he so vividly describes in the final quotation cited above). 

And once we have clarity, he explains that the only way for us to change the world for the better, and to take on those who did these things and continue to do them, is for us to act together, and to overcome those efforts to polarize us against one another and against our own self.

As he says in one of the quotations cited above: "We have to do it."

Labor Day, 2020: Money Creation vs. Unemployment & Indebtedness

I was hoping to finish this video a little earlier and have it posted in time for the Labor Day weekend, but it got a little behind schedule -- although it is still Labor Day here in the US for a few more hours (or a few more minutes, if you're in the Eastern time zone).

Nevertheless, the subjects discussed in the above newly-published video, entitled "Money Creation vs Unemployment & Indebtedness," are applicable all year around.

In this video, I discuss the connection between commodity money and commodity labor, a subject explored in more depth in a recent article published by Professor Michael Hudson entitled: "Debt, Land and Money, from Polanyi to the New Economic Archaeology."

That article provides a critical discussion by Professor Hudson of the link between money and labor, building on the watershed 1944 publication by Karl Polanyi (1886 - 1964) of The Great Transformation, with the benefit of the knowledge of what has transpired in the 76 years since Polanyi's work was written.

The crucial link between the understanding of the ability of sovereign governments to create money and their ability to eliminate involuntary unemployment (and all the social ills that unemployment entails) was clearly elucidated by Polanyi in that book, and after watching this video you should understand it for yourself.

We are told flat-out lies about the creation of money by agents of a constituency that benefits from restricting the ability of governments to provide for the good of society as a whole -- and who in their arrogance even go so far as to declare that "there is no such thing as society."

Such positions are immoral -- and place those who support such ideas in direct opposition to the teachings of the world's ancient wisdom, preserved in the myths given to every culture on our earth, from every inhabited continent and island.

The unique talents and gifts given to men and women are always depicted as originating in the divine realm, in the world's ancient myths. Disrespecting the source of those gifts always leads to disaster. 

Those who intentionally support policies which create unemployment and under-employment and place severe obstacles in the path of the expression and fulfillment of the gifts and potential given by the gods to individual men and women (and those who spread deception in order to give false "intellectual cover" to such destructive policies) are placing themselves in direct opposition to the ancient wisdom given to humanity, and to the divine realm itself.

And those familiar with the ancient myths know that such a choice is a very ill-advised course of action.

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For previous posts and videos related to this subject, please see also (among many others):

• "Austerity and Rent-Seeking vs. Public Infrastructure and Prosperity"

• "Transforming everyone and everything into commodities"

• "Olive Trees against Austerity"

• "We need to wake up and focus on neoliberalism"

• "Austerity is an affront to the gods"

 

Welcome to new visitors from Lighting the Void! (and to returning friends)

 

Thank you to Joe Rupe and the team for inviting me back to Lighting the Void, and welcome to anyone visiting for the first time after hearing our conversation! And of course, welcome back to returning friends who visit regularly as well!

Our conversation was recorded on Thursday night, September 3rd, 2020. Technically, because the show starts at midnight Eastern time (and 9pm Pacific), the interview could be said to have taken place in the early hours of September 4 for those on the east coast and points further east from there. 

Here is a link to listen to our conversation (or download it to listen whenever you want) via iTunes. You can also find the audio files of this and the other available previous Lighting the Void shows here on iTunes, as well as in other podcast apps which are linked on this page (those apps are listed on the right side of the page, and have names such as Spotify, Stitcher, CastBox and Overcast). And of course, you can always just search the podcast app on your phone or mobile device (if you have one) for "Lighting the Void."

For those wishing to explore blog posts related to some of the topics we discussed, below are a few which come to mind based on the direction of my conversation with Joe:

• "Dhruva and Narayana"

• "Who is Doubting Thomas?"

• "Important interviews with Dr. Richard Schwartz and Dr. Frank Anderson of Internal Family Systems Therapy"

• "Dr. Gabor Mate and the Reconnection with your Authentic Self"

• "The Bible is essentially shamanic"

• "The Judgment of Solomon"

• "The blessing mother, the cursing mother, the dream, and the king"

• "The bad judgment of King Midas, and what it teaches us"

• "The Covid Trojan Horse"

• "The Warriors and the Ten Thousand"

I hope you will find something positive in our discussion from this visit with Joe Rupe and Lighting the Void, and whether you are visiting for the first time or have been here many hundreds of times, I hope you'll be back again soon!