Serenity

 

March 7, 2022

We began this fantastic grail journey by learning about the chaos that was my early years. We spent quite a bit of time there because it taught us about how the universe works, the whys and hows of the shit we go through. As we continued our quest we further learned about a wandering exoplanet that joined our solar system and seeded our earth with life, then it's lifeforms from there, jump started our evolution. We have since learned something about their character, the arrogance they displayed when dealing with us, and treating us as fodder in their wars with each other. We too, have learned that our creation and the reasons for it are very different from those that we have been taught. And it's those learned explanations that have caused no end of trouble, because they disappoint, and fail to answer the question honestly or completely.

As I have related numerous times, there was a fundamental change in how we were taught about the universe and how it works. This took place about 300 years after the mis-adventures of Jesus Christ. With the hijacking of Jesus's, then James's Church of Jerusalem, our then-known concepts of spiritualism and astronomy, and just about everything else took a long frightening trip into darkness. If you want to split hairs, some say the dark ages only lasted about 400 years. Technically this is correct but, if you want to include the backwardness, and ignorance of the church, the dark ages lasted well into the reformation and well into the 1500s A.D. when it became possible to separate the church and science.

Separation of Church and Science. The Concept of Separating Church and State (or Religion and Science)

The idea of separating church and state—or more broadly, religion and science—suggests that these two domains of human experience should operate independently, each with its own sphere of influence and authority. The goal of this separation is to prevent either realm from exerting undue control over the other, thereby fostering a society where both religious freedom and scientific inquiry can thrive.

1. Distinct Domains

Religion:
Primarily concerns itself with matters of faith, spirituality, morality, and the supernatural. It is often grounded in revealed truths, tradition, and personal belief.

Science:
Seeks to understand the natural world through empirical observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.

2. Historical Context

Throughout history, there have been periods of tension and conflict between religious institutions and scientific progress—particularly when religious doctrines were treated as scientific facts or when scientific discoveries challenged established religious beliefs.
The modern concept of a clear separation between the two began to take shape during the Enlightenment and has gained prominence in contemporary discourse.

3. Arguments for Separation

• Protecting religious freedom:
  A clear separation prevents the state from imposing religious beliefs on its citizens and ensures that individuals are free to practice their faith without interference.

• Safeguarding science:
  It shields scientific inquiry from religious dogma, allowing for open exploration and the advancement of knowledge based on evidence.

• Promoting pluralism:
  Separation creates space for a diversity of beliefs and perspectives to coexist, fostering a more inclusive and tolerant society.

4. Different Perspectives

• Strict separation:
  Some argue that religion and science are fundamentally different in method and purpose and should remain entirely distinct.

• Dialogue and interaction:
  Others advocate for a more integrated approach, suggesting that collaboration between religious and scientific communities—especially in areas like ethics and social responsibility—can be beneficial.

• Compatibility:
  Some believe that certain religious worldviews can align with scientific understanding and that the two together can offer a more holistic view of reality.

5. Ongoing Debate

The question of how religion and science should relate remains a subject of ongoing debate. Discussions continue around where to draw the line between the two, and whether their interaction leads to conflict or constructive engagement.
In practice, the separation of church and state—or religion and science—is rarely absolute. Its application often varies across cultures and societies, reflecting differing historical and philosophical contexts.

After the Christian church's creation when Emperor Constantine appointed himself the first pope, the church has spent the last 1,700 years tweaking what it believes, how it should be taught, and who is worthy for it to be taught to. This became most problematic because it caused the church to splinter into Protestants, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, and god only knows how many other sects. Each of these denominations teach the bible a little differently, a comma here instead of there, this word could mean this but we prefer it to mean that instead. And what we end up with is, a mish-mash of belief systems that does not please anyone.

As I have said elsewhere, throughout my teens, and well into my twenties, I struggled hard to find something to believe in as a higher power. Because of the chaos that I found in the bible, most sermons to me were no God thing but white noise. It was not just that it was a case of this book chapter and verse went with that book, chapter and verse, it was the stories, parables and meanings assigned to them that did not make sense. Then there was the basic question of numbers. The bible was about god, why was it that after 1,300 years of our 5005 year history does He disappear out of the book, then reappear as himself as a fucked up trilogy with an entirely different character? In the Old Testament, is mean, cruel even, the New Testament has Him all about love and turning the other cheek, something his old self would never have done. This thing called the Bible was some piece of messed up work, and for a long time that is where I left it.

So, what does all of this have to do with serenity? In a word, everything, because it left me in a position where I was open-minded enough to consider other possibilities. The bible tells us that god is a jealous god, all that really says is that He does not want us worshipping other gods. In no way does that say that we can not, or should not try to find out more about him. In our article “El Shaddai Is Enlil” Read Here we found out who god is, but what about the other god, the lovey dovey god? For 1,645 years crucial information about Jesus was hidden in earthen jars, the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a remarkable collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956 in caves near Qumran, along the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the scrolls include fragments from every book of the Hebrew Bible—except Esther—as well as a variety of non-biblical writings such as commentaries, prayers, and community rules.

Key Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

• Discovery: Unearthed in eleven caves near Qumran, beginning in 1947.

• Dating: Most scrolls originate from the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, though the full range spans from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE.

• Content: In addition to biblical fragments, the scrolls include sectarian texts believed to be linked to the Essenes, a Jewish sect thought to have lived in the area.

• Significance: Considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, the scrolls shed light on the religious beliefs, practices, and diversity of ancient Judaism. They also provide critical context for understanding the origins of Christianity and include the oldest known versions of biblical texts.

• Physical Characteristics: Primarily written on parchment and papyrus, with one scroll made of copper.

• Interpretation: Scholars continue to debate the origins and authorship of the scrolls. While many associate them with the Essenes, others propose they were produced by a broader range of Jewish groups in the Second Temple period.

• and the Nag Hammadi codices.

The Nag Hammadi Codices are a collection of 13 ancient books (codices) discovered in 1945 near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. These texts—over 50 in total—include early Christian and Gnostic writings that offer profound insights into the development of early Christianity, especially its more mystical and esoteric branches.

Here’s a closer look at their significance:

• Discovery: The codices were accidentally uncovered by local farmers, buried in a sealed jar near Nag Hammadi.

• Content: They contain a diverse range of texts, including Gnostic gospels, apocalyptic revelations, philosophical discourses, and spiritual treatises.

• Importance: Widely considered one of the most important manuscript discoveries of the 20th century, the codices provide a window into early Christian diversity and the rise of Gnostic thought—perspectives largely suppressed or lost after the institutionalization of orthodoxy.

• Dating: The manuscripts themselves are dated to the mid-4th century CE, though the original compositions likely stem from the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

• Gnostic Gospels: Key texts include the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, and Gospel of Truth—works once thought to be lost or destroyed during the Church’s efforts to define doctrinal orthodoxy.

• Language: The texts are written in Coptic, the Egyptian language of the time, using a script derived from Greek.

• Monastic Connection: Scholars believe the codices may have belonged to a nearby monastic community and were deliberately hidden—possibly in response to a 367 CE Easter letter by Bishop Athanasius, which condemned the reading of non-canonical books.

With their discovery, analyses, and translation they throw an entirely different light on the life of Jesus and it turns out he was not so lovey dovey after all. In fact, we find out that instead of being some hapless sap who gets murdered, he was the Supreme Military Commander of Israel's armed insurrection against Rome! This information all of a sudden clarifies why his descent from the Royal House of David is so important, and why he was of such interest to the politicos of both Israel and Rome. It also sheds light on this “new” god doctrine of love.

Sure it is good advise to love thy neighbour, and to turn the other cheek, and Jesus seriously meant it because he needed his countrymen to unite, to forget their petty squabbles and truly come together as one so they could defeat Rome. In practice this is what we are seeing in Ukraine today. In learning about what Christ really was, we get context, which enables us to dive deeper into exactly what he thought and believed. The church does not give us that option. I mean, they were so unimaginative that they did not even include a single cute little story about Christ as a child god getting mad at mom or dad and say ... levitating them. Something that a child would find endearing and would help a child feel closer to this created deity. Instead for most of us, what a child learns in Sunday School is about fear, David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, Job, and scariest of all, child sacrifice. Speaking for myself, as a child none of that provided any kind of sense of serenity.

Learning to see and understand the New Testament's double speak, the Essene code, it becomes clearthat Jesus was no push over, and his parables are real lessons meant to teach us Lepers a whole new way of seeing the universe and coming to their way and light. The Essenes were well versed in medicine, and in other articles, we will learn how they used those skills to save Christ's life during the crucifixion. Those skills were brought from Egypt which was Enki's realm, and Thoth, who was Enki's second born son, taught Hermetics. As we have discovered, Hermetics is about vibration and frequency, about auras-the light, Jesus's teaching were indeed about him showing us the way to the light.

As you can imagine, and it may be what you are experiencing now, but initially this information was mind blowing, and I was literally jumping up and down in both excitement and fear. Fear - you know, the whole going to hell thing. But that soon subsided to be replaced by a type of quiet confidence An inner surety that I understood something most profound, something that the church, and all of it's followers would be incapable of seeing no matter what evidence was placed before them. And at first realizing this, it made me both angry and sad. As my understanding of what the Catholic Church was increased, I would often go into long anti-catholic tirades while out in public, and I undoubtedly offended more than a few Catholics while I was at it. In many ways it was unfair of me to do so, however, I believed then, as I do now, that the church must be held to account for it's crimes against humanity. However, as our article “Pontific Arrogance” says, this is very unlikely to ever happen.

The one thing that gives me a measure of peace about it all is this, if and when the Annunaki ever return and actually make meaningful contact with us, and the Pope asks them who their God is, I will die from laughter when the Annage representative says to the Pope, we are your god you idiot! That will be a tough day for believers and non believers alike. I would think that the unbelievers would benefit from such an encounter, because then they may find some spiritual hope, that hope may come from what the Annage themselves believe. That took me an awfully long time to figure out, between the church's nonsense about heaven and hell, Egyptian mummies, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the weirder question, do our primates have an afterlife? About that particular question, I do not know if it's answerable, about heaven and hell, well that is relatively easy to answer. Hell is an invented thing that was only introduced to us in second century A.D. The concept of heaven is a borrowed thing, it came from Jame's Church of Jerusalem which was based in Hermetics. So what about mummies, and books of the dead, and coins to pay to get over the River Styx?

Gilgamesh who was a Demi God, (half human and half Annunaki) was obsessed with the Annunaki's seeming immortality, he set himself on a quest to achieve it. What he got instead was a series of mis-adventures that resulted in him living a very long life, but to his great disappointment, he did not achieve immortality. I believe that there was something similar going on with the Pharaohs, as with most men, great power corrupts. Pharaoh wanted the seeming immortality of his god(s), yes he understood the principles of Hermetics, but that was the realm of his priests, he wanted something he could see, smell ,touch and taste. Mummification was a process, and it took quite some time to perfect, making it clear that this was an added thing, an appeasement. If you read “The Egyptian Book of the Dead”, it is an odd mixture of both mumbo jumbo, and principles of Hermetics, equally an added thing.

Serenity, it came with the answers to these mysteries and so many more. This incredible journey allowed my mind to slow, to distract itself from the hell of always being in survival mode. To offer respite from the horrible burning of my resurrection, my rebirth, the one that Jesus taught, not the silliness of what the church teaches where he comes back as some kind of zombie. His teachings do indeed heal the Lepers.

Zombie Jesus. The term "Zombie Jesus" is sometimes used jokingly to refer to Jesus’s resurrection in Christian theology, especially when comparing it to the idea of coming back from the dead like zombies in popular culture. However, Christian theology does not describe Jesus’s resurrection as a zombie-like existence. Instead, it is understood as a unique event where Jesus conquers death and offers new life to believers.

Here’s a breakdown of the concept:

Zombies in Popular Culture:
Zombies are typically portrayed as reanimated corpses driven by a hunger for flesh or brains, lacking consciousness or personality.

Jesus’s Resurrection:
In Christianity, Jesus’s resurrection is seen as a supernatural event where He rises from the dead with a transformed, glorified body—not a decaying one—and then ascends to heaven.

The "Zombie Jesus" Joke:
This term is a lighthearted, sometimes irreverent, comparison between the resurrection and the zombie trope, often used around Easter, when the resurrection is celebrated.

Key Differences:
The main difference is in the nature of the resurrected state. Zombies are depicted as destructive undead beings, whereas Jesus’s resurrection represents victory over death and the promise of eternal life for believers.

Mars/Earth Comparison Table

 

October 16, 2021

Mars is only about half the diameter of Earth, but both planets have roughly the same amount of dry land surface area. This is because over two-thirds of Earth’s surface is covered by oceans, whereas Mars currently has no liquid water on its surface.

While Mars and Earth differ greatly in temperature, size, and atmosphere, their geologic processes are surprisingly similar. On Mars, we observe volcanoes, canyons, and impact basins that resemble those found on Earth.

Many physical land features on Earth also exist on Mars. However, some Martian landforms are far larger than their Earthly counterparts. The table below compares several conditions, specifications, and features of Mars and Earth:

Feature	Mars	Earth
Atmosphere (composition)	Carbon dioxide (95.32%) Nitrogen (2.7%) Argon (1.6%) Oxygen (0.13%) Water vapor (0.03%) Nitric oxide (0.01%)	Nitrogen (77%) Oxygen (21%) Argon (1%) Carbon dioxide (0.038%)
Atmosphere (pressure)	7.5 millibars (average)	1,013 millibars (at sea level)
Deepest Canyon	Valles Marineris 7 km (4.35 miles) deep 4,000 km (2,485 miles) long	Grand Canyon 1.8 km (1.1 miles) deep 400 km (248.5 miles) long
Distance from Sun (average)	227,936,637 km (142,633,260 miles)	149,597,891 km (92,955,820 miles)
Equatorial Radius	3,397 km (2,111 miles)	6,378 km (3,963 miles)
Gravity	0.375 that of Earth	1 g (2.66 times that of Mars)
Largest Volcano	Olympus Mons 26 km (16 miles) high 602 km (374 miles) in diameter	Mauna Loa (Hawaii) 6.3 miles high 121 km (75 miles) in diameter
Length of Day (rotation period)	24 hours, 37 minutes	Just under 24 hours
Length of Year (orbital period)	687 Earth days	365 days
Polar Caps	Carbon dioxide ice mixed with water ice	Permanently covered with water ice
Surface Temperature (average)	–81°F (–63°C)	57°F (14°C)
Tilt of Axis	25 degrees	23.45 degrees
Number of Satellites	2 (Phobos and Deimos)	1 (Moon)

Eugenics: What a Child Does Not Understand

 November 26, 2021

This whole topic of eugenics — it’s big, and it’s ugly. As a society, we have lived with its warped, terribly bad science for the last 138 years. It has come to infect the planetary population as a whole. Francis Galton, who in 1883 coined the term eugenics — meaning “good living” — gave us what is arguably the worst translation of a term in human history. Good living, my ass. Eugenics has brought nothing but misery to untold millions.

In our articles “What If,” parts 1 and 2, we give a primary example of eugenics in practice: the Canadian Indian Act. Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald (January 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891), was born in Scotland and, in early Canadian politics, was known as “the sly fox.” He led our government with a firm and discerning hand, serving as Prime Minister from 1867 to 1873. It was the men — and women, too — of Macdonald’s generation who made eugenics what it came to be, taking the principles of the philosophy and making them real.

Lost in the Barrens. As a youth I must have read this book 10 or more times. Mowat has a library of both adult, and children's books, most of which I've read. He's written extensively about the north, and its peoples. His writings more than any other writer, provided the desire for me to go north, and see the beauty of both its people, and the land

For me, discovering the effects of eugenics began in grade five with the events surrounding our article “Someone Is Going to Be Offended.” As I have related elsewhere, that year — and for the following sixty months — was a period of extraordinary isolation. To help combat those feelings of loneliness, I lost myself in books. My interests were broad. I read many of the classics — Moby Dick, Catcher in the Rye, a lot of Poe’s work.

An author whose work I particularly enjoyed was a Canadian, by the name of Farley Mowat. I especially loved his children’s novel Lost in the Barrens,  a story about two teenagers — one white, the other a Chipewyan Native American — who became separated from a hunting party and had to rely on each other for survival as the brutal winter in the Canadian sub-Arctic set in. It’s truly a story of bravery and resilience in the face of long odds. In addition, it is a beautiful example of what cooperation and respect for each other’s culture should be.

As is the case for most of us, when we find an author we like, we tend to read all their work. This was definitely the case with Mr. Mowat and me. Most of his library was very adult-oriented, dealing with the Inuit of Canada’s North and the horrors of their lives. The reasons the Canadian government treated the people the way it did were, of course, way above the head of the twelve-year-old I was — I only knew that they were suffering and needed help.

Reading Mowat’s material had a profound effect on me. I was both incredibly impressed and inspired by the bravery and toughness shown by the explorers of our northern territories, and I developed great sorrow and respect for the peoples of the North. Because of this, I tried to read anything I could get my hands on regarding the North.

For my 13th birthday, my father bought me a copy of Across the Sub-Arctic of Canada: A Journey of 3,200 Miles by Canoe and Snowshoe Through the Barren Lands (1898) by James Williams Tyrrell. The book fascinated me 

Most of Mowat's work is about the Inuit, and being a child when I'd read them, I hadn't been able to connect the dots. That the conditions that he described, would be universal throughout the north. Tyrell's work then, was an eye opener for me, an unpleasant one. In the years after I'd read it, I wondered if it might be possible to actually travel their route, and what it might cost. Maybe if I'd been more serious about it, I might have tried harder to find those answers, but right then, it seemed tht I couldn't find anyone to help. I held on to this dream/hope until well after my marriage ended, and anytime that I'd brought it up with my wife, the whore, she'd scoffed at it.

both because it was filled with information about the actual routes they took and the difficulties they endured. Since I was intensely interested in geology — and the whole effort they were engaged in was on behalf of the Canadian Geological Survey — it matched my interests perfectly. Rare 10/10 score, Dad! As I have said elsewhere, sometimes he understood me very well indeed.

So, what does this have to do with eugenics, you may be asking?

The Tyrrell brothers were educated men. They would have willingly partaken in the “latest” scientific and societal “changes for the better.” When we look at the date of Tyrrell’s journey — 1898 — it would have been right during the upward curve of eugenics becoming intensely popular. Throughout the book, it is liberally peppered with racist slurs — not only toward the voyageurs (the licensed canoe workers transporting furs and trade goods across the interior) and the laborers hauling samples, but also toward the Indigenous populations they encountered over those 3,200 miles.

I was raised to believe that “Indians” were untrustworthy, savage low-lives. The savagery I understood — they had been fighting for their homes and families. The “low-life” part, I began to question as I came to appreciate their socio-economic situation. For far too many years, I could not understand why they simply didn’t assimilate into Canadian-Western culture. I was very wrong in thinking that way, and I offer here a very public apology for that.

We have much to learn from our Indigenous peoples. They are one avenue back to our reintegration with Source.

  

There Is Hope

 

November 7, 2021

Footage shows the 18-year-old at Festival Park in Govan chanting:
"You can shove your climate crisis up your ae, you can shove your climate crisis up your ae!"

The young activist has quickly acquainted herself with the Glaswegian sense of humour as she joins one of the many protests calling out political inaction during the COP26 climate summit in the city. As you can probably tell, Thunberg isn't exactly convinced that politicians are doing enough to protect the planet.

Addressing the crowds gathered across the River Clyde from the COP26 venue, she declared:
"Change is not going to come from inside there — that is not leadership. This is leadership. We say no more blah blah blah, no more exploitation of people and nature and the planet.
No more exploitation. No more blah blah blah. No more whatever the fk they are doing inside there."**

In September, Thunberg mocked Boris Johnson by quoting parts of his speeches on climate change and adding, “blah, blah, blah.”

The Prime Minister himself referenced her remarks during his speech at the COP26 opening session earlier that day (Monday, November 1). He said:
"I was there in Paris six years ago when we agreed to net zero and to try to restrain the rise in the temperature of the planet to 1.5°C. And all those promises will be nothing but blah blah blah — to coin a phrase — and the anger and impatience of the world will be uncontainable unless we make this COP26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change."

Thunberg arrived in Glasgow the previous day (Sunday, October 31) by train and is expected to take part in two large protests through the city later in the week.

Speaking at Festival Park, she added: "This COP26 is so far just like the previous COPs — and they have led us nowhere.Inside COP, they are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously. Pretending to take the present seriously — the present of people already being affected today by the climate crisis." 

The above comes from LAD Bible, a British news source I trust.

As much as I admire Greta Thunberg and her fiery, angry spirit — and I do believe that she and every following generation has a right to be angry — I also consider her to be something of a twit. She seems to be very strong in judgment, and very weak in offering solutions. Sure, she is still young, and like most young people, she’s highly reactive.

Speaking as a concerned Canadian citizen, I am appalled at my government’s track record on climate change. I, too, am deeply concerned that we are approaching the point of no return at break-neck speed — and may have already passed it. Back in the late 1990s, I was trucking through South Dakota and had stopped on an exit ramp to relieve myself. Another truck pulled up behind me to do the same. The other driver and I chatted briefly about the thick layer of bugs on our windshields — it was awful, bugs on top of bugs. He commented that he’d never seen them so bad, and neither had I. At that time, I was starting to become aware of climate change, and beginning to wonder about the phenomenon of the sixth extinction, though I hadn’t yet connected the two.

Now, some 25 years later, I can't help but notice the die-back of insect life I warned that driver about. In Canada, during the summer months from about 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., driving becomes extremely annoying due to the swarms of bugs coating your windshield. But over the last decade, there’s been a notable drop in insect populations. What disturbs me most is the impact on pollinators — particularly bees.

The group of chemicals known as neonicotinoids is devastating to bees, as are many herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides. The obvious solution is to stop using them. However, simply halting their use won’t fix the problem. There is hope, though. In Britain, researchers at the University of York have developed a variety of switch-grass that can detoxify residues of the military explosive RDX. 

This innovation has the potential to be further engineered to neutralize other toxic substances.

Recently, the UN published a report stating that planting trees will not save us. This hit me like a gut punch. The problem is twofold:

1. Newly planted forests cannot absorb the excess CO₂ already in the atmosphere, and

2. The trees themselves are dying due to climate change.Normally, winter freezes protect trees from rot. But as winters warm, trees are no longer freezing properly and are starting to rot from the inside out during the coldest months.

   Although forests are not the "lungs of the planet" as once believed, our oceans are — and they, too, are in serious decline. The overall picture is grim, as Miss Thunberg rightly points out, yet there is still more reason for hope than despair.

   We know the planet’s two ice caps are vital to regulating global temperature because they serve two functions:

   1. They reflect sunlight and heat back into space, and

   2. Sea ice expels salt when it freezes, which creates a churning motion that helps circulate ocean currents and redistribute heat from the equator.

These ocean currents are slowing. Whether the consequences resemble those in the film, The Day After Tomorrow or unfold more gradually remains to be seen. CO² capture and sequestration — combined with some planetary engineering — may buy us enough time to redesign our economies. All three strategies are achievable with today’s technology.

In April 2021, a researcher at Purdue University developed the whitest shade of white ever created — it reflects 95.5% of all light. Originally designed as a passive cooling material, what if we repurposed it to simulate artificial ice caps? What if every balcony, rooftop, and car roof in every city, town, and village worldwide were painted with it? What if tens of thousands of square kilometers of breathable canvas, coated in this paint were laid across the Arctic tundra? Instant ice caps.

Unsurprisingly, the oil industry has tainted the idea of carbon capture. They’re using the technology to trap their emissions and store carbon underground — often in the very wells they’ve been drilling, many of which are neither sealed, nor maintained properly. This approach feels cynical and flawed. On a more hopeful note, a Swedish company, Climeworks AG, operating in Iceland, has developed a method to extract CO² directly from the air, and store it in the island’s porous volcanic basalt. This type of rock is ideal for permanent storage. Though they currently manage only 4,000 tons annually, they are scaling up rapidly.

In my view, Greta Thunberg and today's youth have every right to be angry. But rather than mourning what may have been taken from them, they should fight like hell for what remains. They must channel their passion into advocating for the technologies and solutions that can turn hope into reality.

Pitfalls

August 16, 2021

With 80 articles written, most of them dealing with information about The Holy Grail, and a few about the conditions that led to my grail quest, the one subject that I have not touched on is, the pitfalls of a spiritual awakening.

When I began this quest back in the late 1990s, I was a wreck of epic proportions. I knew that I had to find a way to change, what that entailed, or how to go about it, I could not have known. Part of the recovery process involved finding A.A. (Alcoholic Anonymous), though I was not an addict, I had been trained since birth to think and act like an addict. While in those rooms, I learned exactly how and why my thinking differed from a "normal person's." What occurred too, was that I was able to better understand what I needed in terms of my spiritual life.

• We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

• Came to believe and to accept that we needed strengths beyond our awareness and resources to restore us to sanity.

• Made a decision to entrust our will and our lives to the care of the collective wisdom and resources of those who have searched before us.

• Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

• Admitted to ourselves without reservation, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

• Were ready to accept help in letting go of all our defects of character.

• With humility and openness sought to eliminate our shortcomings.

• Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

• Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

• Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

• Sought through meditation to improve our spiritual awareness and our understanding of the AA way of life and to discover the power to carry out that way of life.

• Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

  If you are an alcoholic, these 12 steps may seem daunting, they're really not, and when taken one at a time, can change your life.

As I examined my spirituality, I discovered that I was indeed an empty space. The belief system that I had tried so desperately to attach myself to in my mid-teens, was entirely incapable of filling the void that existed in my soul. In too many ways, the damage done to me by my mother completely incapacitated me.

My mother was absolutely ruthless in how she had taught me to suppress any and all of my emotions. This was so she did not have to acknowledge me as a person.

What my soul needed, was to find a place where there was infinite love, beauty, and, purpose. Unfortunately, that sounds a bit like the biblical heaven, a concept that I rejected entirely. So where did this leave me? For quite some time, I thought that I was completely fucked. I could not and did not believe in god, and because I did not, that meant that I was going to hell and I would spend eternity splashing around in a lake of fire or some such.

The problem with that was, the concept of hell to me was overblown. I mean the fire, demons, betrayal, mean evil things that fly, and then there is the guy in charge who has a tail and horns. Really? Think about it though, if god was all that powerful, why had he not put this evil ass down? And, why does he need all the geo-political crap to happen to have the final round at Mt Megiddo in Israel?

Sorry, but a lot of people, including my father, have spent too much time on trying to make current events match up with an almost imaginary time line found in the Book of Revelation. The time line exists, but the only people that it mattered to was, Jesus and his rebellious Essenes. The battle at Mt Megiddo was supposed to have been between a united Israel and the Roman Empire. This final great battle is not the Russians against Americans or Israel vs the world nor even god against the purple polka dot monster.

As I wandered somewhat aimlessly through the following months with my head full of the above, it seemed that there was no other option except to try to realign my belief system with the accepted Christian tradition. Not out of fear of going to hell, I figured that I would take my chances with that; I mean with all of Jesus's parables, their meanings could be twisted just enough to let me squeak through the pearly gates. The problem here was that I was neither an atheist, or an agnostic, nor a Christian believer.

While in those A.A. rooms, I had learned the importance of having a higher power. Not because they proscribe to one, (they do not) but because it became obvious to me that, without some kind of spiritual connection, my soul would continue to feel glacially cold and empty. But still the questions remained, where and what was the connection?

The connection of course was The Holy Grail. When I first discovered that Jesus Christ was a mortal man, who had children, and had been married, this was mind blowing. And it stopped me in my tracks for months. Nowhere in the New Testament is there even a hint of this. This then for me, was the hardest hurdle for me to get over, could I accept that Jesus was an average mortal man, and not a deity? This went against everything that I had been taught or tried to believe.

 That said, accepting the above led to finding answers that were real. Much of it at first seemed intellectual, and I was not sure how it affected me spiritually. It was not easy to discuss with others, they were too afraid of "evil influences" leading them astray. This is funny because, there is nothing about the Holy Grail that is evil. The only thing that could be considered "evil", is that we learn about the occult and the true meanings behind the symbolism, which has been twisted by the church to look evil as they worked incredibly hard to suppress Jesus's Grail bloodline heritage and, supplement it with the lie of the Pauline church.

So again,  how does this intellectual information better me spiritually? The answer was something that my former, now late,  life partner could not understand.  It was something that we would argue about nastily, and she would say that it was impossible for it to help my growth.  What she failed to realize was that it takes time for anyone to heal.  I was in exceptionally poor shape, and it took a long time for the serenity of the Grail to raise my inner vibrational frequencies.  After 20 years of study,  I do not claim to be a master of anything, there is still a lifetime of study in front of me, but the thing that I know for sure is,  she needed to work far harder on her inner self than she ever did; as opposed to trying to criticize and control my spiritual journey. 

This article is about the pitfalls of a spiritual awakening,  and some of the things that could/can and will be part of it. There is no "right" path,  the information that I present here is meant to open doors,  answer questions that may lead to revelations about things that you need to know about for your own journey.  No one's journey is the same,  and we have the multiverse to thank for that. 

When I first began this journey,  and was introduced to the idea of the silver cord,  and how it descended from what I termed "heaven", I could not begin to comprehend how it was that the things did not get impossibly tangled up in a gargantuan knot. The answer was a long time coming and was,  insanely complicated and yet,  oh so simple.  We are beings of light and energy,  and each of us vibrates on our own frequencies, and it is the differing frequencies that allow these cords of energy that are connected to the kundalini, to pass harmlessly through those who are around us.

String Theory and the multiverse that is hard science.  You may not think that science and spirituality would have a whole lot to do with each other,  but believe it or not,  these three things may be the answer to each other.  To over simplify,  string theory posits that, anything, anytime, anywhere can, does, and will happen.  The multiverse suggests that there is more than one universe.  Spirituality says that we are beings of light and energy and that we are immortal and we will live in limitless dimensions and planes of existence.  (I hate the word AND). What if these differing planes of existence are other universes where physics and evolution work just a little differently? What if the multiverse where science believes that each dimension gets exponentially smaller, is where we live now? Not one life here on earth is the same as another,  which essentially allows string theory to be fact. Science and spirituality are two peas in the same pod,  we just have to learn how they communicate. 

Us, That Pale Blue Dot

 

August 7, 2021

Us from Voyager 1's perspective.

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System.

In the photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight reflected by the camera.

Voyager 1, which had completed its primary mission, was leaving the Solar System. It was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take one last photograph of Earth. Across the great expanse of space, at the request of astronomer and author Carl Sagan, (the phrase "Pale Blue Dot" was coined by Sagan) in his reflections on the photograph's significance, documented in his 1994 book of the same name

In September 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1, a 722-kilogram (1,592 lb.) robotic spacecraft on a mission to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space after the encounter with the Jovian System in 1979 and the Saturian System in 1980, the primary mission was declared complete in November of the same year. Voyager 1 was the first space probe to provide detailed images of the two largest planets and their major moons.

The spacecraft, still travelling at 64,000 km/h (40,000 mph), is the most distant human-made object from Earth and the first one to leave the Solar System. Its mission has been extended and continues to this day, with the aim of investigating the boundaries of The Solar System, including the Kuiper Belt, the Heliosphere and Interstellar Space. Operating for 43 years, 10 months and 28 days as of 2 August 2021, it receives routine commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. Voyager 1 was expected to work only through the Saturn encounter. When the spacecraft passed the planet in 1980, Sagan proposed the idea of the space probe taking one last picture of Earth.^[8] He acknowledged that such a picture would not have had much scientific value, as the Earth would appear too small for Voyager's cameras to make out any detail, but it would be meaningful as a perspective on humanity's place in the universe.

Although many in NASA's Voyager Program were supportive of the idea, there were concerns that taking a picture of Earth so close to the Sun risked damaging the spacecraft's imaging system irreparably. It was not until 1989 that Sagan's idea was put into practice, but then instrument calibrations delayed the operation further, and the personnel who devised and transmitted the radio commands to Voyager 1 were also being laid off or transferred to other projects. Finally, NASA Administrator Richard Trudy interceded to ensure that the photograph was taken. A proposal to continue to photograph Earth as it orbited the Sun was rejected.

Voyager 1's Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) consists of two cameras: a 200 mm focal length, low-resolution wide-angle camera (WA), used for spatially extended imaging, and a 1500 mm high-resolution narrow-angle camera (NA) – the one that took Pale Blue Dot – intended for detailed imaging of specific targets. Both cameras are of the slow-scan vidicon tube type and were fitted with eight colored filters, mounted on a filter wheel placed in front of the tube.

The challenge was that, as the mission progressed, the objects to be photographed would increasingly be farther away and would appear fainter, requiring longer exposures and slewing (panning) of the cameras to achieve acceptable quality. The telecommunication capability also diminished with distance, limiting the number of data modes that could be used by the imaging system.

After taking the Family Portrait series of images, which included Pale Blue Dot, NASA mission managers commanded Voyager 1 to power its cameras down, as the spacecraft was not going to fly near anything else of significance for the rest of its mission, while other instruments that were still collecting data needed power for the long journey to interstellar space

The design of the command sequence to be relayed to the spacecraft and the calculations for each photograph's exposure time were developed by space scientists Candy Hanson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Carolyn Porco of the University of Arizona. The command sequence was then compiled and sent to Voyager 1, with the images taken at 04:48 GMT on February 14, 1990.

The data from the camera was stored initially in an on-board tape recorder. Transmission to Earth was also delayed by the Magellan and Galileo missions being given priority use of the Deep Space Network. Then, between March and May 1990, Voyager 1 returned 60 frames back to Earth, with the radio signal travelling at the speed of light for nearly five and a half hours to cover the distance.

Three of the frames received showed the Earth as a tiny point of light in empty space. Each frame had been taken using a different color filter: blue, green and violet, with exposure times of 0.72, 0.48 and 0.72 seconds respectively. The three frames were then recombined to produce the image that became Pale Blue Dot.

 Of the 640,000 individual pixels that compose each frame, Earth takes up less than one (0.12 of a pixel, according to NASA). The light bands across the photograph are an artifact, the result of sunlight reflecting off parts of the camera and its sunshade, due to the relative proximity between the Sun and the Earth. Voyager's point of view was approximately 32° above the ecliptic. Detailed analysis suggested that the camera also detected the Moon, although it is too faint to be visible without special processing.

Pale Blue Dot, which was taken with the narrow-angle camera, was also published as part of a composite picture created from a wide-angle camera photograph showing the Sun and the region of space containing the Earth and Venus. The wide-angle image was inset with two narrow-angle pictures: Pale Blue Dot and a similar photograph of Venus. The wide-angle photograph was taken with the darkest filter (a methane absorption band) and the shortest possible exposure (5 milliseconds), to avoid saturating the camera's vidicon tube with scattered sunlight. Even so, the result was a bright burned-out image with multiple reflections from the optics in the camera and the Sun that appears far larger than the actual dimension of the solar disk. The rays around the Sun are a diffraction pattern of the calibration lamp, which is mounted in front of the wide-angle lens.

Pale blue color

Earth appears as a blue dot in the photograph primarily because of Rayleigh scattering of sunlight in its atmosphere. In Earth's air, short-wavelength visible light such as blue light is scattered to a greater extent than longer wavelength light such as red light, which is the reason why the sky appears blue from Earth. (The ocean also contributes to Earth's blueness, but to a lesser degree than scattering.) Earth is a pale blue dot, rather than dark blue, because white light reflected by clouds combines with the scattered blue light.

Earth's reflectance spectrum from the far ultraviolet, to the near infrared, is unlike that of any other observed planet. And is partially due to the presence of life on Earth Rayleigh scattering, which causes Earth's blueness, is enhanced in an atmosphere that does not substantially absorb visible light, unlike, for example, the orange-brown color of Titan, where organic haze particles absorb strongly at blue visible wavelengths.  Earth's plentiful atmospheric oxygen, which is produced by photosynthetic life forms, causes the atmosphere to be transparent to visible light, which allows for substantial Rayleigh scattering and hence stronger reflectance of blue light.

UAD Voyager is how far away! Position of Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. The vertical bars are spaced one year apart and indicate the probe's distance above the ecliptic.

According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s HORIZONS tool, the distances between Voyager 1 and the Earth on February 14 and May 15, 1990, were as follows:

Distance of Voyager 1 from Earth
Unit of measurement		February 14, 1990
Astronomical Units		40.472229
Kilometers		6,054,587,000
Miles		3,762,146,000

Reflections

In his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan comments on what he sees as the greater significance of the photograph, writes:

Look again at that dot. That is here. That's home. That is us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, human beings who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy, and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines. Every hunter, and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization. Every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturing, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we have ever known.

In 2015, NASA acknowledged the 25th anniversary of the photograph. Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, commented: "Twenty-five years ago, Voyager 1 looked back toward Earth and saw a "pale blue dot", an image that continues to inspire wonderment about the spot we call home."

In 2020, for the image's 30th anniversary, NASA published a new version of the original Voyager photo: Pale Blue Dot Revisited obtained using modern image processing techniques "while attempting to respect the original data and intent of those who planned the images." Brightness levels and colors were rebalanced to enhance the area containing the Earth, and the image was enlarged, appearing brighter and less grainy than the original. The direction of the Sun is toward the bottom, where the image is brightest.

To celebrate the same occasion, the Carl Sagan Institute released a video with several noted astronomers reciting Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" speech.

What is Voyager 1's distance from earth today?

As of early 2026, Voyager 1 is about 162–163 astronomical units (AU) from Earth.

Here’s what that means in more human terms:

• ~24.3 billion kilometers

• ~15.1 billion miles

• ~22.5 light-hours away (radio signals take almost a full day to get back)

Voyager 1 is moving away from the Sun at roughly 17 km/s (~61,000 km/h), so it gains about 3.6 AU per year. That’s why any quoted number is always an approximation—it’s drifting farther every hour.

Context that makes the number hit harder:

• It’s well beyond the heliopause, the boundary where the Sun’s influence gives way to interstellar space.

• No human-made object has ever been farther from Earth.

• The “Pale Blue Dot” image was taken at ~40 AU. Voyager is now 4× farther away than it was then.