A Thought

Perhaps it’s simply too painful for me to think about these as past lives any more.

Perhaps that’s why I’d rather think this was the memory of some spirit other than my own.

Truth be told, though, of late I’ve been repressing thoughts of past lives.  I’ve been avoiding thinking about it.  I’ve especially been keeping my thoughts about the war to a minimum.

I think right now though, the most painful thing for me is that in the last 250 years I have only known two countries as my home, and now I feel I hardly know either of them.  The rise of the right wing in the US and UK has turned the countries I thought I knew into a parody of their former selves.  Hypocritical attitudes toward the sacrifices of those who made our two countries are reaching nauseating pitch.  Modern ideology masquerading as tradition invades and corrupts minds at the highest levels of power.  The poor and the underprivileged are swept aside to line the pockets of rich bigots.  The dominoes have all fallen, and my two homelands have fallen into a new dark age.

And yet, these dominoes were set up centuries ago.  They were set up during events I took part in.  Things I made and did contributed to these problems.

I’d rather not believe in past lives.  I’d rather not believe just how much of the world I now live in was something I helped make.

I’m going to take a hiatus from updating here for a while.

 

Possible Breakthrough

The mid-19th Century life I saw flashes of included a name that wafted into my consciousness, “Clyde Star(r).”  This led me to discover the Clyde steamers, including one in the 1850s which I think was called the “Star,” but didn’t turn up much else.

I have now found a link between the Clyde steamers and the American coast in the mid-19th Century: Civil War Blockade Runners.  Apparently, something like 40 percent of the ships were Scottish and I’ve found a book that might answer some of my questions:

https://books.google.com/books?id=iIvfAAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

I may try to see if any of the local libraries has a copy of this book.  I am increasingly convinced that “Clyde Star” is the name of a ship and if I find out that there was such a ship used as a blockade runner, then my whereabouts in the mid-19th century will make much more sense.  It’s quite likely I was involved in delivering one of these ships to a third party in one of the northern states since I have memories of being in the Northeastern US but not in the Southeast.

Thoughts On Our Current Situation

Since I’m under no pressure to not come off as a crank here, and because shy of abusing WordPress’s TOS I can pretty much say what I damned well want, I suppose this is as good a space to say it as any.

At any rate, I’m accustomed to being a cassandra.  Nobody believed me when I said that Bush’s case for war in Iraq was extremely sketchy, and nobody believed me when I said that Russia was covertly influencing the American right wing.  I’ve been proved right on both points.

Here’s my latest bit of insight: I believe that what we’re witnessing is a slow burn civil war between factions within our government, where alliances are mercurial and the exact number and nature of the parties involved is extremely murky.  Something big is going on, with those who influence the flow of information and intelligence somehow pulling the strings, working in a series of complex maneuvers to gradually steer this country toward plutocracy.

It isn’t clear who is involved, but we can find some glimmers of possible intrigue if we look closely at the last 50 years.

We have, for instance, this article in the L.A. Times that exposes the fact that factions in Iraq and Syria armed by the Pentagon have been fighting factions armed by the CIA.  On its own this sounds like a procedural fuckup, but consider that the factions fighting in that part of the world are all proxies for world powers.  Why would a world power fight against itself?

Second, there’s the probable collusion of the FBI in Trump’s election victory.  This has been well-documented in the press of late.

Third, there’s the historic role of the FBI as a sort of force above and beyond the bounds of regular law enforcement, particularly for the enforcement of social norms and prohibitionism.  They became a de facto secret police under J. Edgar Hoover, especially during the Nixon administration, when they launched programs like COINTELPRO to break up activist groups within the US.  The Nixon years also gave us the War on Drugs, and the intelligence community in particular seems keen on preserving the status quo when it comes to that particular effort.

It’s worth noting that no president will touch the expensive and disastrous war on drugs despite it being, in all objective measure, a failure and a human rights catastrophe.  Obama probably came the closest, but his entire approach has been to wash his hands of the matter rather than become directly involved.

Fourth, I’ve found evidence of the FBI spreading conspiracy theories that have been favored by conservatives; particularly in perpetuating the Satanic Panic.  I found video of former FBI head Ted Gunderson spewing a litany of such conspiracy theories for which there is no proof, only mountains of hearsay in the tabloid press.  I also personally know enough esoteric types to tell you, there is no “Illuminati,” just rich people who’ll cut each other’s throats over a chance to run the world.  They operate more or less in plain sight and the things they do are often more outrageous and shocking than any conspiracy theory.

Now here’s where it gets confusing: why would they prefer Trump over Clinton?  She’s already supported the status quo on the war on drugs, she’s clearly a Nixon acolyte like every president we’ve had since the mid-70s, and seemed to be the establishment favorite.  What happened?

The best I can guess is that the alliances and priorities of the intelligence community have shifted somewhat.  They still want a Nixonesque strongman in charge, and Trump certainly provides that; where Trump differs chiefly and most sharply from Clinton is his policy toward Russia.

It is not uncommon, in a civil war, for one faction or another to side with a foreign power in order to achieve its goals.  If a covert civil war has indeed broken out between various factions within our government, then it may be that the intelligence community has begun to side with Russia in which case, the civilian government will be very easily manipulated into a harder, pro-Russian stand.  It could be because Russia has the upper hand strategically, or it could be because Russia has been more proactive in advancing plutocracy.  It could also be that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, we underestimated the political will and means of the Russian state to infiltrate our republic the way we infiltrated the Soviet Union and, ultimately, overthrew it.

What exactly is happening is unclear but it’s clear that something is very wrong on a profound level.  US intelligence services and the FBI are somehow involved.  Elections are being tampered with, control of people and information seem to be at least part of the stakes involved, and there is something of a thread of continuity going back to the late 1960s that hints at a totalitarian shift in the US government around that time that has remained in play for nearly half a century.

Recording For The Record

Recording the following predictions for the record, probably wrong on all counts, don’t bother too much with all this:

1. Faced with a revolt, Trump will call up the Russian Army for support.  The revolt will be quelled with little effort and peace will be restored, but only through intimidation.
2.  Trump’s real estate and financial dealings in Turkey will have major consequences and force the Turkish government to change its laws.  An Egyptian, probably a businessman, will be the plaintiff in the case.
3. Trump’s pivot toward Israel will provoke some of his more far-right supporters to assassinate someone connected with Israel.  It will have devastating consequences for his presidency and may cause him to turn on people who once supported him.
4. Trump will initially be given the presidency but will eventually be driven out of office.  A portion of his supporters will then prosecute a civil war; people will sell their possessions to buy weapons, food, and supplies and people deemed “enemies” by this faction will be targeted mercilessly.

 

 

First Dissonance

The first dissonance in considering that the memories I saw were the memories of another spirit and not my own come from how much ownership I have of the emotions of these other people.

I have to admit, it’s far stronger with Jack than with Phil.  I feel a much stronger resonance with the old Tommy inasmuch as I can see myself perfectly in his shoes.  The things I saw felt more real and solid and more personal than anything I saw with Phil.

But if these were all memories of a prior spirit that had fused its being with mine, wouldn’t I feel that way anyhow?  But if so, at what point did the spirit come to me?  What about those little things I did while I was in England, those strange feelings that nagged at me all the while?  If I assume that the spirit simply came to me in 2012 then I will have to ignore all the things that happened in 2003-2005.

That leaves me with two possibilities:

*Jack, at least, was a past life of mine regardless of whether or not Phil was, or

*The spirit has been with me a very long time, perhaps all my life, and only recently made itself known.

Similarly Phil had experiences years before he felt as if the spirit had descended upon him.  What do I make of this?

Trying It On

I’ve decided to take the idea that my flashes were not past life memories and were, in fact, the memories of a secondary spirit and try it on for size.

In other words, I’m going to seriously consider things from the framework that I was contacted by the spirit that Philip K. Dick called VALIS.  I want to see how that affects my long-term outlook on things.

I will explore things from that POV over the next few entries, possibly for an extended time.

A Call For A Cosmopolitan Union

I think the only thing that will stop our mass extinction is for the vast majority of people to realize that capitalism will not save us.

People keep getting sold the same lie over and over, that it’s better this way, that it will help us. Never has, never will.  You get a few generations that get in on an early cycle who get nice trinkets, but the lives of later generations always suffer.

There are those who will tell you “but capitalism is defended by reason!”  There cannot be a more wrong-headed statement.  Capitalism is not defended by “reason” because “reason” implies stability and certainty, of which capitalism has none.  Its cycles ebb and flow in a state akin to natural law.  It is merely the Law of the Jungle, enshrined in the quasi-rational trappings of civilization.

But what of our alternatives?  What can we do besides capitalism, if it is so much akin to natural law?

Our present crisis stems from the fact that Marx’s alternative to capitalism proved even less appealing in practice.  It made the error that human nature was inherently rational inasmuch as the need for altruism is greater than the selfish impulse.  Rand attempted to rectify this by saying that the human being was inherently selfish, and instead created a society where antisocial thugs are looked upon as the cream of society because they had the base animal cunning to get rich on the labors of others.  We must therefore embrace the proposition that human nature is not rational per se; the selfish impulse and the altruistic impulse exist, simultaneously, and they cannot be separated from one another, or one nourished at the expense of the other, without producing a mutilated human being.

And so Marxism proves no alternative; neither does Fascism, which is merely capitalism at the end of its life cycle before it either renews itself under the guise of liberal capitalism once more (as we saw at the end of WW2) or collapses into some form of petty autocracy with one lone parasitic despot as head of a ruined, impotent state (as in the case of Zimbabwe).

Herein is the crisis of our generation: we cannot continue the scourge of capitalism, but at this time no alternative exists.

This is where religious fundamentalism becomes a terrifying thing, because it is the only cohesive force in our world that is unaffected by markets.  It is affected only by the willingness of the masses to either believe a message or to obey the orders of those who do.  If capitalism comes to complete ruin in a world where there is no other alternative, theocracies will soon spring up, and these theocracies will begin to fight each other for dominance.  And at this time we are seeing, in the appropriation of crusader identities by fundamentalist Christians and of Caliphate identities by Islamic fundamentalists, the beginnings of a world that may, in a hundred years time, go careening straight into a bloody religious war in which all forces of cosmopolitan values, all people of irreligious alliance, all people of faith who do not revel in fundamentalism, and all institutions which stand in their way will be destroyed.

We cannot let that happen.  The idea of the whole of human history coming down to a war between fundamentalists is a terrifying prospect if you are not a fundamentalist and I, for one, am calling for another way before it’s too late.

What I propose is not an economic philosophy but a social philosophy aimed at uniting as many sane, reasonable, empathetic, intelligent, and enlightened people as possible.  It must be able to reach across lines of race, religion, and nationality and abide by values that are both cosmopolitan and well-defined.  It must give value and dignity to people who are very different from each other, and unite them in reclaiming the world.  It must find some balance between the need for individual rights and self-actualization, and the eternal reality of the survival of the culture through altruism and sacrifice.

More than that, It must be steadfast, resistant to entryism by reactionaries, and have a strong definition of what it considers good leadership rather than an aversion to leaders.  But above all the integrity of its guiding principles should be held far above the dignity of any leader, lest it degenerate into a cult of personality.

I call this movement the Cosmopolitan Union and it may be the only hope for any of the good aspects of liberal values to survive the likely self-destruction of capitalism, should it ever materialize.

Time will tell.

A Gnostic Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel

Saint Michael the Archangel,

defend us in battle,

be our protection against the designs

and deceits of the Archons.

May the Light outshine them we humbly pray;

and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host,

by the power of God, cast asunder

Every obstacle and adversary that lies

Between our souls and the eternal Fullness.

Amen.

Back And Forth

Going back and forth lately on whether these memories are of my own past lives or if they are something else entirely.

In some ways I see a lot of myself in those people, but what does that mean really?  Could it be that I simply have the same traits as these people and that all I share is being of a specific type of person?

In particular, could it be that I’m a host to the spirit that Phil called VALIS, and the flashes of his life are simply flashes of its prior host?

Phil certainly believed that his flashes of WWI came from that source, and not a past life.  And my flashes of WWI seem like the most telltale signpost of a connection to Phil.

I had explored this idea before, but it really gained some traction after a remark a very close friend made.  They said something about a character in Star Trek DS 9 who was host to a symbiote who retained the memories of its previous hosts, and so was able to remember the experiences and knowledge of these past hosts as if they were past lives. They said that this character reminded them a great deal of me.

And really, that’s what Phil believed.  He believed that there was a sort of spiritual symbiote that had fused itself with his being.  It changed his thoughts, his attitudes, his actions, and the outcome of his life for the better.

He elaborated on this idea, that it could replicate both through the transmission of Word (Logos) and through direct intervention; that it gathered up the souls of the transcended and delivered so that part of them remained to gather up other souls and part of them ascended to Pleroma (Exegesis, Folder 22-039).

Given the intense parallels between our present times and previous times Phil linked this spirit to, I am beginning to suspect that perhaps I am simply the latest host.  In a sense part of Phil’s spirit may have entered me, but that doesn’t mean I was him in a past life.

This would explain another thing: I have spoken to multiple people who claimed to be contactees.  Some experiences were very basic; others were rather astounding and sublime.  At least one other person has come forward who thought for a time that they were Phil’s reincarnation too.  Perhaps in some way, they are; he believed the homoplasmate was a self-replicating organism.

I think maybe what we understand as reincarnation is oversimplified, at any rate.  I believe I’ve stumbled on something bigger than that.  I believe I may have been among a number of people chosen to witness the coming marvels, both fearful and wondrous.

I’ve mused often lately that perhaps my generation, or the generation to follow, will bring forth the Parousia (the return of the Christ-nature to material being).  But what I see potentially happening is not a single Christ, but many Christs who will emerge from a great generation.  Something cosmic is happening and although I only see it dimly now, it seems to become clearer by the day.

Or perhaps all of these things I’ve said will show, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my descent into madness.  I hardly know if I’m making sense any more.  I hardly care.  I want to be honest about my craziest ideas because at this point, radical honesty is the most certain freedom I can grant myself.

Disappointment

I went back through my old LiveJournal to see if I had anything there that would help unravel the whole past life thing.

No, I didn’t.

I found a couple of posts that reminded me of a detail I forgot, that York and Dover Castle had both been second choices; my first choices had been Iona Abbey (Scotland) and Calais, respectively, which makes me question my interpretation of those stops in the context of Count William’s life.

On the other hand, what I didn’t post was more remarkable.  I didn’t talk much about my emotional landscape except how lonely I was.  At the time, I was 19-20 years old and so fixated on sorting out my sexual orientation and getting a long-term partner that I pretty much excluded everything else for the most part.  Even when I traveled, I was preoccupied with trying to get friends to join me (they never did).

There were so many things- big and small- that were going on in my life that just weren’t there.  I didn’t talk about my forays into theology, though the LGBT-affirming Bible study I co-authored is still around online.  I didn’t talk about many of the things I bought while I was in London.  I didn’t talk about the strange way every English town made me feel, or certain details or items from Victorian/Edwardian times made me feel.

The only lasting proof I had any of this on my mind is in the photographs I took, the sorts of details I captured that showed what I wanted my own personal vision of England to look like.  Only there do I see a place very much like the England I left behind in 1915.

I just wish I’d been able to listen to my own mind and heart instead of being a soppy co-dependent mess who felt like I needed to be in a relationship to be happy.  Being in a relationship doesn’t fix that sense of emptiness; I know, I’ve been in one for eleven years.  I had to spend much of that time focusing largely on myself so that I’d be in a suitable psychological condition to keep that relationship.

I was so confused, so stunted, so immature.  It’s no wonder any memories of past lives lurked below the surface and never rose into conscious thought; I was living in my own world and that world consisted largely of the men (and women) I tried dating unsuccessfully.