All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

The Magician

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ROOMS THAT DREAM:

APT. 35

  You enter Apt. 35 and see a long hallway with more doors than you can possibly count. You enter the first door on your right. The room is full of unwashed dishes and littered with wrappers and newspapers. Since you are exhausted, you stretch out on the unmade bed. The room is dark, but suddenly it blossoms with the memory of a day spent at the park with your son. As he played in a sandbox with a Matchbox truck, you stood by the monkey bars, anxious and a little bored. As you experience the memory, which quickly becomes more real than the room, your consciousness balloons, and you experience a kind of bliss that you never imagined possible. You experience another memory of when you were washing dishes. Again, the memory is more real than the dark room, and you feel a joy that you did not experience when the event actually occurred. No matter what memories you have--pumping gass, grocery shopping, taking the cat to the veterinarian--you feel as if you are moving from glory to glory--as if all memories, no matter how mundane, can be experienced in superconscious bliss. You move to the next room and experience powerful intuitions and hear voices predicting the future. In the next room, you somehow know what people have thought and felt about you. In the next room, you meditate and envision golden symbols that reveal spiritual principles. In the next room, you encounter an Archangel: your personality disappears and you experience a profound sense of eternity, and you understand that your personality is transitory and your soul is eternal. In the next room, you are engulfed in brilliant light as if you had just stepped into the sun. In the next room, you experience all memories as if God were experiencing Its own creation through you, as if your consciousness and your memories have always been part of one Universal Consciousness....

(You realize that you are still on the right path because you find a story by Justin C. in the second room....)

Strength

PENDULUM DREAMS:

The Infinity Symbol

   Like many other sixth graders in California, I toured the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose. I was only mildly interested in the mummies and the other Egyptian artifacts, but for some reason the excursion triggered in me a feeling of absolute bliss, a “ballooning” of consciousness that I had never experienced before. As the bus was pulling away from the museum, for a moment I also realized with sadness that I might never feel that kind of euphoria again. On the way home the joy eventually subsided, and I soon became obsessed with Rosicrucianism after reading a brochure from the museum--I even wrote an eleven page letter asking to be accepted as a member. The symbols and artifacts had resonated with my subconscious mind in a way that I didn't understand. I just knew then that I wanted to experience that blissful resonance again.

   I received a letter stating that I was too young to be a member but that I could order a book containing background information about Rosicrucianism. I begged my parents to order it, and about a month later I received a book with a bright pink cover. Most of the information was over my head, but I eagerly devoured the book. As my zeal grew, my parents became more and more suspicious of Rosicrucianism and stated several times that I was too young to be concerned about such topics.
   Eventually my enthusiasm waned. I forgot about Rosicrucianism as I began focusing more and more on satisfying social needs in middle school. I graduated from high school, went to college, became an agnostic, and equated mythology with superstition. Eventually I didn't give a second thought to religion or spiritual development.
   Thirty years after that sixth grade field trip, I started meditating to alleviate stress. After a period of mental purification, I unexpectedly envisioned archetypal symbols in my mind’s eye, including a gray figure-eight on its side, an equal-armed cross, a golden crown, and a brilliant, many petaled lotus, each of which seemed as real as anything that I have ever witnessed with my physical eyes.
   One of the first symbols I envisioned was an infinity symbol, which is a symbol of harmony within eternity. After an hour and a half of deep meditation, I saw the walls of my room and a gray figure-eight directly over my head so clearly that I thought I had opened my eyes. When I did open my eyes only the walls remained.
   I eventually discovered that many of the archetypes I envisioned can be found on the Tree of Life and in the Tarot, which, coincidentally, are symbol systems employed by the Golden Dawn, a mystical secret society whose inner order is essentially Rosicrucian. I also found that the Tarot and the Tree of Life contain a symbolic landscape that can be read in a way similar to the way that one reads the subtle disturbances of the terrain of the physical world.
   Immediately after I first opened a pack of Tarot cards, I found four cards containing the symbol of the lemniscate, the first of which was The Magician, a card that for me remains the key to understanding essential spiritual principles of the Tarot and the Tree of Life. In the Magician, the infinity symbol, besides being the mathematical symbol of infinity, is a type of wavy halo that forms a number eight on its side--a number associated with the primal forces of creation and the essential order and harmony behind and within the cosmos.
   Legend has it that at one point The Book of Thoth, which contained powerful spells and great wisdom, was hidden in many boxes, the keys to which were spread throughout ancient Egypt. Eventually the mysteries in this lost book found their way into the Tarot, which is now in one case at least referred to as the ‘Book of Thoth.’ The God of wisdom and magic, Thoth is associated with the Greek Hermes and the Roman Mercury, so the planet Mercury is assigned to "The Magician" Tarot card, which represents a path on the Tree of Life between Kether, the Crown, and the third Emanation known as Binah, the primal womb of creation. Thoth is the great God of magic and communication associated with the Logos, the Word that begins the process of creation. The word "logos" denotes meaning--in this case, the meaning at the heart of creation. The Hebrew letter Beth, also associated with this path, is the first letter of the bible, suggesting, since it is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, that a first cause or prime mover exists before the primal act of creation. Beth means ‘house,’ which suggests form enclosing force. In terms of the Tree of Life the twelfth path connects Kether, the Source of manifestation, with Binah, the primal sphere of form, so in The Magician we see the first act of creation, which is echoed in all other acts of creation.
   The Magician holds up a wand with one hand and points toward the earth with the other, signifying her intention to bring harmonious spiritual energy into manifestation. On the table in front of her are the symbols of the four subtle elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, elements that are reflected in the triplicities of the zodiac. In other words, three astrological signs of the zodiac are Earth signs, three are Water signs, three are Air signs, and three are Fire signs, suggesting that, like Thoth, the magus uses all subtle elemental energies within creation to establish divine harmony in her sphere of influence.

Tarot Cards with Lemniscates

   In Egyptian mythology, the number eight is associated with the primal forces of creation. The Ogdoad (Greek, meaning “the eightfold”) were eight deities worshipped during the Old Kingdom, from about 2650 to 2100 BC. The eight deities consist of four female and male pairs, the females associated with snakes and the males with frogs. Each pair represents the female and male aspect of one of four concepts, namely the primordial waters (Naunet and Nu), air or invisibility (Amunet and Amun), darkness (Kauket and Kuk), and eternity or infinite space (Hauhet and Huh). More than a mere tenuous connection exists between these four basic concepts and the four Elements, Water, Air, Earth, and Fire: the element of Earth is associated with darkness and the element of Fire with the sun and the stars in infinite space (1).
   The four concepts represent the primal forces of the Beginning. In the myth, their interaction proved to be unbalanced, causing Ra, the fiery source of all life, to arise. The infinity symbol, as the number 8, represents these primal forces of creation behind manifestation--as well as a knowledge of the infinitude within.
   The number 8 in some esoteric traditions, such as Martinism, represents the Christ force. According L.W. de Laurence, 8 is the number of the Christ, associated with the fall of the first man, the state of privation from the divine Source, and the process of his return. In Gnostic traditions it also represents the essential harmony, both immanent and transcendent, within creation, with God as the "Sun behind the sun." The infinity symbol and its connection with the number 8 evokes the Christian Gnostic belief in the rebirth in Christ as a change "unto the Ogdoad." The early Christian symbolism of the Christ as the Spiritual Sun that harmonizes the Ogdoad represents the harmonious spirit behind creation manifesting within nature and within the human mind (2). The symbol of the sun is associated on the Tree of Life with Tiphareth (Beauty), the center of equilibrium, the Christ-center.
   The Christ is a cosmic force, not a man, and The Magician as a human being manifests this force. Through the Christ force, the cosmos and the individual maintain balance and harmony, which results in sublime beauty, represented symbolically by the lilies and the roses that surround the Magician. Jesus was a man who manifested the Christ force to re-establish spiritual balance through sacrifice, taking upon himself the negative energies of the collective consciousness for the good of all. The Magician reveals that all human beings have the potential to manifest the Christ-force, eliminating negative, destructive energies and establishing harmony in his or her own sphere of influence.
   Gnostics believe that the vast majority of people see physical manifestation, take it at face value, and assume that a spiritual reality does not exist, but through the faculty of intuition, the higher mind can discern the existence of a greater reality. The Cosmic Christ, the Sun behind the sun which harmonizes the Ogdoad, is both a symbol and an expression of this higher knowledge. Like the human magician, those with the spark of the higher intuition or gnosis catch an occasional glimpse of the higher pattern--the perfect model and the perfect mold of order and harmony that informs all of existence (3).
   The Magician reveals the integration of the individual being on all planes through the energy of Mercury--the capacity of thought-- represented by the bright yellow atmosphere. Since the path connects the Source of all Creation with Binah, the primal Emanation of the feminine, The Magician is the feminine power of creation who acts through conscious willpower and desire, drawing divine power down from the heavens through her white wand, molding it with the energy of thought, and manifesting it in the physical plane. This is the most primal magic of consciousness to make real what is imagined, such as when God said, "'Let there be Light!' and there was Light," and it manifests on both a human and a cosmic level.
   In more modern scientific language: nonlocal consciousness is embedded in local consciousness. The term "local consciousness" or "local reality" refers to human consciousness within its specific place and time. "Nonlocal consciousness" refers to the One Mind, or the "universal consciousness" encompassing all of time and space and all dimensions of creation. The universal consciousness is embedded within the personal energy field, which is why the individual human psyche can experience gnosis and in the process transcend space and time and experience other dimensions revealed by the glyph of the Tree of Life.
   In my visions of spiritual symbols, for instance, I experience the archetypal dimension. As I mentioned in a previous post, in my current daily ritual, I experience the archetypal sacrifice of crucifixion, which transforms negativity within the collective consciousness of humanity into harmony and light. When the negativity that I experience in a particular ritual is transformed, I am engulfed in pure white light; in other words, my consciousness at that moment moves from the archetypal dimension to the spiritual dimension, or in terms of the Tree of Life, from Yesod (The Foundation) to Tiphareth (Beauty)--the Christ Center. Nonlocal consciousness, which can be experienced through powerful rituals such as the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, enables the individual psyche to tap into Universal Consciousness and move from one dimension to another, in other words.
   The Magician’s white gown symbolizes the purity of her devotion and her intention, the red over-garment revealing her passion and power. Her gown is belted by an uroboros, symbolizing the endless cycle of energy, death and rebirth--also reflected in the infinity symbol. The white headband, itself a circle, represents the effort and sacrifice involved in the process. Around the Magician, white lilies and red roses grow in abundance, representing the pure creative thought behind the Great Work and the beauty of harmonious spirit manifested in the physical world.

The World

   The woman in Strength, who is taming a lion, is another version of the Magician, except that she embodies spiritual power and manifests it harmoniously through a knowledge of polarity. She is Sekhmet, who protects the divine order of Maat, Goddess of balance and the consort of Thoth. In the bright yellow atmosphere of Mercury, representing purposeful thought, she tames the wild beast, the red roses wrapped around her waist seemingly merging with the lion’s mane. The sweat band has been replaced by a wreath and the red overcoat has disappeared, revealing a pure, white gown, the passion reflected instead in the roses wrapped around her waist. She literally holds the power of the Magician gently in her hands.
   The strength suggested by the title is not physical strength but the mental strength that the higher self manifests. In terms of the Tree of Life, the 19th path is a horizontal path connecting spheres that are essentially opposite. Chesed, the sphere of Jupiter, represents creative, up building, organizing forces and is associated with mercy, abundance, and order. Geburah, the sphere of Mars, represents destructive, restricting, disciplining forces and is associated with severity, power, and justice. Essentially, Chesed and Geburah are the primary creative and destructive forces of the manifested cosmos. The 19th path balances the spectacular primal energies with the perfect discipline of Geburah and the perfect order of Chesed, and that harmony is reflected in the sphere of Tiphareth,  the Christ Center, below Chesed and Geburah on the Tree of Life.

   The three horizontal paths on the Tree of Life connect spheres that are essentially opposite in nature. Understanding the law of polarity is the key to understanding how to handle the forces--the key, really, to spiritual development and basic survival. Obvious examples of polarity are hot and cold, masculine and feminine, love and hate, spiritual and physical. In fact, you can find examples of polarity on all levels of being, and you can always move from one pole to the other by degree. For instance, you can move by degree from hot to cold or from love to hate, or vice versa. The universe is not caught in an eternal conflict between good and evil, God and the Devil. One pole is not absolutely evil and the other absolutely good. The spiritual is not better than the physical, just like cold water is not better than hot water. They are simply two poles of one thing, and everything is relative in context.
   Hot water is better than cold in some contexts. Severity is better than mercy in some contexts. Knowing what is needed and having the ability to polarize to the required state is the true strength. If you develop the discipline, you should ideally be able to move by degrees emotionally, mentally, or spiritually for the highest good in each situation, maintaining balance the way a person on a bicycle maintains balance. The hill of attainment in the background stands behind the woman: Attaining that level of knowledge is no easier than climbing a mountain.

Two of Pentacles

   Two other cards reveal the infinity symbol in a more subtle fashion: the Two of Pentacles, representing the Earth element in Chokmah, the second Emanation on the Tree of Life, and The World, path 32, between the ninth and tenth Emanations on the Tree. I like to call them the Lord and Lady of the Dance, for they are both caught up in the eternal dance of spirit and matter represented in the archetypal symbol of the infinity symbol.

Go on a different adventure.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogdoad_(Egyptian)
(2) de Laurence,L.W. The Illustrated Key of the Tarot. (Chicago: Scott & Co., 1916) 40.
(3) http://www.plotinus.com/gnostic_jesus_copy.htm
Tarot Cards by Pamela Colman Smith (in public domain)

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

After the Rough Fire: Lupine and Poppies

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ROOMS THAT DREAM:

APT. 34

  In Apt. 34, you are an emperor with a golden throne and a golden toilet. You have more wealth than half the people in the world. In order to achieve your exalted status, you have had to depress wages and crush unions and blackball (and even kill) activists who fight for justice and strive to create sustainable communities for future generations. You have had to buy off politicians in the political parties so that they allow your lobbyists to write legislation that benefits you, politicians who will cut funding for social programs for children and seniors and veterans and the homeless and anyone else who might need help. Your handmaidens also gut or eliminate any regulations that might keep the wealth from flowing in your direction. As a master of mankind, you follow the vile maxim: All for me, and nothing for you. You throw poor people who have not committed violent crimes into for-profit prisons, modern concentration camps that treat prisoners as slave labor. You take over smaller businesses and crush the competition to create monopolies, a practice the government allows because of your influence. Also, unfortunately, many people have to die in order for you to maintain this system. For instance, nine million people, one third of whom are children, die of causes associated with starvation every year. Untold millions of people die unnecessarily from viruses and curable diseases because you demand a for-profit health care system that is twice as expensive but far less effective than a universal health care system. You don't even provide adequate testing or protective gear in a pandemic for front-line workers and the population in general. Unfortunately, numerous people also keep dying because you have gutted food and safety regulations. The climate is becoming weirder and weirder, but you don't allow your environmental protection agency to regulate carbon dioxide or anything else that might interfere with your business interests. In fact, people keep dying unnecessarily for economic and environmental reasons, but that is the price of maintaining a free market capitalistic system where anyone can succeed as long as they are intelligent and work hard. That is truly the price of freedom.

   But one day you wake up and realize that you can no longer assess all of the damage you have caused.

   Knowing that the tax rate was once over 90% for the wealthiest people in society, you decree the following:

           Any company that has raised prices by more than 0.01% since the health and economic crisis began will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund a universal health care system and social programs for the poor.

          All funds currently allocated for the military will be shifted to education, health care, and programs that eliminate poverty.        

          Any company responsible for global warming or for polluting the environment will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund renewable resources, health care, and environmental protection.

          Any company that sells weapons of war, such as the AR-15, to the public will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund health care, education, and programs that support families of the victims of gun violence.

          All credit card companies will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to supporting job creation and education.

          Any company that has established a monopoly or that exists as part of an oligopoly will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will support the creation of new businesses and educational programs.

          Any company with a minimum wage of less than twenty dollars per hour will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund health care, education, and the arts.

          Any company that does not meet safety regulations will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund health care and education.

          Any company that runs a for-profit prison will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund prisoner rehabilitation programs, education, and health care.

          All profits gained through the stock market will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund health care, education, and the arts.

          Any company that sells an addictive substance that has harmed one or more people will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund drug treatment programs and other health care programs that help people overcome addiction.

          Any company that has busted a union or fired labor activists will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund a universal health care system, job creation programs, and social programs for the poor.

          All income above five hundred thousand dollars a year will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund a universal health care system, education, environmental protection, and social programs for the poor.

          All companies that employ lobbyists will be taxed at a rate of 92%, and all of the taxes will go to fund health care, education, and the arts.

          Any person responsible for raising interest rates during a health and economic crisis will be fined a million dollars and imprisoned for a minimum of five years.

          Any politician who lies more than twice or tries to cut social programs instead of raising taxes on the wealthy will be taxed at a rate of 92% and will be barred from running for office again.

          As your new government implements these laws, you smile. It's a start.

(You realize that you are still on the right path because you find a story by Justin C. in your kitchen....)

Wind Poppies after the Rough Fire

PENDULUM DREAMS:

After the Rough Fire

   California has experienced many devastating wildfires in recent years and will no doubt experience more conflagrations this summer. The Rough Fire in 2015 blackened 151,623 acres (61,360 ha), a season record in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but nature quickly recovered. The Creek Fire, in 2020, incinerated 379,895 acres (153,738 ha), leaving nothing but rocks and dirt and ashes in a once densely forested region. The Rough Fire reveals regeneration; the Creek Fire reveals negation caused by a terrible natural imbalance.
   The Rough Fire finally halted on the east side of Vomac Road. When I drove to the North Fork of the Kings River a few days after fire crews had extinguished the inferno, the hillsides were so blackened that I couldn’t help but believe that the fire had blotted out the entire ecosystem forever. The blaze had reduced the best memories of my childhood to ashes: I had spent many hours by the river with my family as I was growing up. As I stepped out of my car to survey the devastation, I searched for any sign of life, and I felt suddenly like I was going to vomit due to the smoke that still hung in the air, so, discouraged, I drove home. I returned many months later and discovered that most of the oaks had miraculously survived, the hillsides glowing with poppies and other wildflowers. Fire had regenerated the region, the earth bearing the most stunning profusion of wildflowers that I have ever witnessed in that area before or since.
   On the other hand, the region devastated by the Creek Fire will take decades, if not centuries, to recover. Due to a rise in temperature caused by greenhouse gases, most of the trees in the area had been weakened by a lack of water. Before the fire, many of the trees had already died due to an assault by the bark beetle: without an adequate amount of water, the trees could not produce enough sap to drown the burrowing beetles. Due to this imbalance, almost nothing in the area was left but scorched earth after the fire.
   In this capitalistic society, for most people it is almost impossible to avoid a similar kind of devastation physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Cumulatively, over many decades, this society blackens our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls. We can regenerate ourselves, but how long regeneration takes depends on the level of devastation.
   Physically. I have lived my entire life in the Los Angeles area and in California's Central Valley, two of the most polluted areas in the nation. Both areas are famous (or infamous) for their persistent air pollution. Occasionally, in both places, I could barely breath due to the smog, and my lungs hurt so badly that I thought I was going to pass out and die. The water in both places has sickened me. In Fresno especially, I have often felt nauseated for hours after drinking tap-water. On top of that, the American diet was literally killing me. Gluten is pervasive in the food supply. An indigestible protein in gluten breaks apart the tight junctures in the small intestines, and food particles and waste escape through these holes into the blood stream, overwhelming the immune system and causing inflammation in different parts of the body. Eventually I experienced atrial fibrillation (which can cause heart attack or stroke) when I ate even a small amount of gluten, and I experienced digestive issues that would occasionally cause me to black out. No one in this society can escape the contaminants in the food and air and water unless they are extremely careful and are fortunate enough to live in a pristine area. Also, of course, the pandemic, which has killed over one million people in this country, leaves many people in a black whole of grief, vulnerability and fear.
   Emotionally. When you are grieving or ill, people tend to avoid you. A month after I turned seventeen, my father died at the age of fifty-five from a heart attack. At the time, I was terribly ill from gluten and chemical sensitivities. I was overwhelmed by grief for my father, and my friends abandoned me. My family members avoided expressing their emotions, and we tended to avoid each other as well. No one I knew could deal in a caring way with my experiences of death and illness. Everyone, it seemed, remained in avoidance mode and denial, so I ended up suffering from extreme depression. One day I was startled to see that my aura was black, and I believed people could, due to the survival instinct, sense my emotional negativity, but I couldn't find my way out of the black hole I was in. Avoidance by other people of emotional pain can have a devastating effect for many years on someone experiencing depression. No one can escape grief or suffering, so many people in this society, unless lucky enough to have caring friends or family members, can end up unexpectedly in an emotional black hole like I did.
   Mentally. Ever since I can remember, I have experienced an assault on social values such as truth and beauty and justice, so I have often found myself in limbo on the mental level as well. In this society we are inundated with lies and propaganda and alternative realities. Many in this society have no compunction about telling lies or half-truths in order to gain or maintain power and wealth and status. Some people, like our former president, pile on one lie after another so that we become overwhelmed and throw up our hands. If you are paying attention at all, you can find one lie after another in advertising and social media and political discourse. Mentally, if we are paying attention at all to the political and economic and environmental realities in this society, we can quickly find ourselves in a state of mental confusion and despair due to all the lies, a black hole that is difficult to escape. This of course benefits the elites who perpetuate corporate tyranny: the elites in the media constantly lie to us so that we remain in a state of confusion. The elites intentionally cause divisiveness so that we direct our anger at each other, not at them.
   Spiritually. In this country, we are vulnerable physically and emotionally and mentally. That vulnerability sometimes causes an overwhelming sense of frustration or paralysis or panic that makes us want to lash out at other people. Racism and antisemitism and ethnocentrism and political tribalism and lies divide our country, causing us to fear and hate each other. Hatred is a spiritual toxin that can also leave us in a black hole. Unfortunately, other people like white supremacists and neo-Nazis want us to join them in their black hole; hatred gives them power. Sometimes even people you might admire or respect provide little or no guidance. For instance, when I was in college, my professors were either atheists or existentialists. Most of them believed that a spiritual dimension does not exist and that life is meaningless and absurd. If I wanted to fit in and succeed academically, I felt like I had to remain in a spiritual black hole.
   Regeneration occurs periodically in the evolution of the soul, enabling the soul to spiral higher and wider. When I began meditating in my early forties, I saw in my mind’s eye that negativity over the years had indeed blackened my energy field physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, but I eventually released the dark energies through a process of mental purification, and a miracle occurred: I became a new man. The darkness in my circumscribed, fragmented personality vanished, and I felt whole again. I connected profoundly with the earth and experienced nonlocal consciousness more and more often. And now I know this in my core: Regeneration is possible on all levels of being—though it may be the hardest process a person ever experiences because it entails the renewal of the psyche after what has usually been a long process of devastating negativity on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels.
   Around the time of the Rough Fire, I had a dream in which I had climbed a flight of stairs, and when I reached the top, I turned around and encountered a double of myself directly behind me, dressed in shiny black clothes. I felt so terrified that I whipped around and pushed my double over the railing. When I peeked over the side, I didn’t see my double at the bottom, but I heard groaning and cries for help and realized that the sounds were coming out of my own mouth as I stood at the top of the stairs. Nobody came to help me, perhaps because my double below was invisible to them, and my cries became fainter and fainter. Just as I recognized that I was dying, I woke up. As I contemplated the dream, I understood that I had pushed my etheric double over the edge because I was too afraid to deal with the black energies that had accumulated in my aura from my disease and related personal woes. I couldn’t see my etheric double on the floor below because it had also become invisible to me: I had focused so much on basic survival that I had ignored my health--physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. My double had only showed itself to me in the dream as a warning about the extent of my illness, but I was in so much denial that I panicked and pushed it away, which in the dream resulted in the destruction of my body as well, for emotional, mental, and spiritual health is the foundation for health of the physical body.
   Around the time of the Rough Fire, I had become so busy with work and so fatigued by my chronic illness that I had ignored my spiritual practices. I was no longer meditating or performing spiritual rituals; instead, I was taking a two hour nap every afternoon after work. As my dream suggested, I had allowed negative energies to swamp me, and I was suffering the consequences: I was again experiencing atrial fibrillation, and I couldn't identify the cause. I was feeling pain in my esophagus from inflammation, which worried me because inflammation can lead to gastrointestinal cancers of the esophagus and the small intestine. Inflammation caused by gluten also damages the villi, the small, finger-like extensions that line the small intestine. The villi flatten out and no longer effectively absorb nutrients. Eventually, other health problems associated with inflammation and poor nutrient absorption include iron and vitamin deficiencies, low bone mineral density, skin rashes, defects in the enamel of the teeth, chronic fatigue, joint pain, and severe digestive problems, among other things. Unfortunately for me, the most miniscule amount of gluten in my system causes inflammation and atrial fibrillation, which can make my heart go haywire for hours. I couldn't allow any gluten in my diet whatsoever, but removing it entirely required a Herculean effort because gluten is so pervasive in the typical American diet, and I couldn't examine each bit of food under a microscope; I had had to resort to a time-consuming process of elimination, which placed me in continuous jeopardy of a heart attack or a stroke.

   Eventually I completely eliminated gluten from my diet. I also survived for another reason: after I performed a thorough purification process, both physically and mentally, I began to experience nonlocal consciousness regularly. The higher self can transcend space and time and also perceive with the "soul senses" as well as the physical senses. In other words, I could scan my energy field with my mind's eye and "see" black streaks in my etheric body, which signaled the onset of physical disease. In this society, many people have great difficulty understanding the concept of nonlocal consciousness because we tend to get locked into the material conditions and specific circumstances of our space and time, in other words, "local consciousness." We are conditioned to believe that transcendence of the physical senses and material existence is impossible. Most of us remain unaware that in addition to the physical body, each individual aura contains subtle levels of energy, sometimes known as energy "bodies," that can be vehicles of consciousness: the etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual bodies. This is well-known in some Eastern spiritual traditions and in occult circles, the word occult meaning "hidden."
   A person experiences nonlocal consciousness when working with great spiritual powers known as Gods and Archangels and Angels because those awesome spiritual beings exist in other dimensions. I continue to perform the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, which involves Archangels, Angels, and Elementals, every day for the purpose of healing. For instance, during the climax of a ritual, I saw, in my mind’s eye my etheric double behind me again, this time without the black clothes. As a body of light, it joined with my physical body. The next day I felt much better, and the atrial fibrillation had all but disappeared. During the next ritual, I had a clear vision of myself with a golden crown on my head and a golden, equal-armed cross in my heart. I was sitting in front of a table with a brilliant white tablecloth, on which rested a golden plate and chalice, a full moon floating above the tablecloth as if the edge of the table were a horizon.
   The next day during the ritual, I invoked the Archangels of the Elements again and asked them to regenerate my etheric body with their powers of harmony. I also asked what sacrifice I needed to make in order to serve them for the highest good. Again, I envisioned the golden crown and equal-armed cross, the golden plate and chalice on the white tablecloth, with the full moon floating just above the edge of the table, but I also envisioned above me a brilliant white sun with a black Calvary Cross at its center. The Calvary Cross, on one level, is an unfolded cube of space and time, a symbol of sacrifice and regeneration, of crucifixion and redemption, of the death of the lower personality and the birth of the higher self. In my vision, the moon, always waxing and waning, represents the incarnated personality on which the Sun of Tiphareth, the Christ center, shines. During the ritual, in that deep state of meditation, my personality vanished: I was Everyman and Everywoman—in front of me a spiritual banquet of abundance, on my head a crown representing magnificence and in my heart the golden equal-armed cross of harmony.
   The next day during my ritual, I had the same vision of the golden symbols, the white tablecloth, the moon, and the sun with the black Calvary Cross. I asked Archangel Michael to reveal my sacrifice, and the black cross suddenly fell from the sun into my heart. I intuited that I must take the blackness from people who had harmed me, or from those whom I had harmed, their negative energy in the form of a black cross entering my heart center. I envisioned a particularly problematic individual from my past and took the black cross containing all the negativity he felt for me into my heart, and then after a while I let it fall out of my aura, down into the magma below the earth, where it burned up. Then I intuited that I should fill that person with light. When I did so, suddenly a golden crown appeared on his head, a golden equal-armed cross over his heart, a golden plate and chalice on a white tablecloth before him. Then I imagined pink energy filling his aura, pink being the color on the Tree of Life corresponding to the highest spiritual love. Then I envisioned another prickly individual, and I performed the same cleansing ritual in my mind. I recognized an important facet of regeneration: In order to cleanse myself completely, I needed to cleanse each person who harbored negativity for me as well, taking his or her blackness into myself as a sacrifice and then releasing it, an act that freed us both and revealed the magnificence, harmony and abundance of the human spirit.

   This vision occurred in nonlocal consciousness on an archetypal level, a level deeper than the personality, in the state of being represented on the Tree of Life as Yesod. Just above Malkuth (the physical universe), on the Tree of Life, Yesod, the Foundation, is the Sephira (Emanation) of etheric energy and The Holy Ghost. During meditation, if you can go deeper than the personality and its personal subconscious content, you can encounter transpersonal symbols that reveal spiritual principle. These symbols can swing you above Yesod across a gulf to the Emanation of the Sun known as Tiphareth (Beauty), a sphere of harmony and healing and spiritual inebriation. On the Tree of Life, the magical symbol representing Tiphareth is a sun with a black Calvary Cross in the center. The Calvary Cross on one level represents the sacrifices needed to establish and maintain harmony within the self and the community and the world, but it also symbolizes death and regeneration, the death of the personality and the birth of the higher self, a psychic state that includes nonlocal consciousness. One spiritual experience assigned to Tiphareth is The Vision of Harmony, where you recognize that you are a thread of consciousness in a vast tapestry of interwoven energy that includes all of life, including the earth and plants and animals and other people. The other spiritual experience assigned to Tiphareth is "The Mysteries of Sacrifice," in which you recognize what is necessary to establish and maintain harmony and regenerate the soul.
   I have experienced hatred for a few people over the years, which, I realize now, had become a deeply ingrained spiritual problem responsible for some of the blackness in my aura. I could only become whole if I changed my hatred into love, recognizing that those people are magnificent spiritual beings who struggle in difficult situations just like I have. I believe that what poet William Blake says is true for all of us: "The Angel who presided at my birth,/ said 'Go and love without the help of anything on earth." Unless the people who harmed me are psychic, of course, they will never realize that I have forgiven them and now know them for what they are spiritually. However, it became clear to me that forgiveness on an archetypal level is a way beyond the negativity that plagues so many of our relationships. When I felt forgiveness, I felt whole again as a spiritual being. I felt a sense of spiritual regeneration and knew that I was completely recovering, and I believed that my former enemies also subconsciously felt less negativity since on the spiritual level we are all connected.

Go on a different adventure.

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pink Fairy Lanterns and Common Madia

(May 9, 2023)

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ROOMS THAT DREAM:

APT. 33

   In Apt. 33, you venture far beyond your society and there you meet your daimon, your higher self, an aspect of your psyche that transcends space and time. Sometimes, for instance, you experience nonlocal consciousness, and you know what is happening in places far from your limited physical perceptions. Your higher self communicates with your conscious mind through voices and visions and intuitions and is your link to Universal Consciousness: sometimes you even become the eyes of God, the Universal Consciousness perceiving Itself through your senses. Sometimes you even perceive the cosmos, a tiny speck of light surrounded by the blackness of space, from the perspective of the Infinite Mind. You know that there is really no distance between your consciousness and the consciousness of other people and the flora and fauna of the natural world. You don't take drugs in Apt. 33. You don't need to take drugs. You know that consciousness is not finite. You know that essence precedes existence. You know that life is not meaningless and absurd. Even though other people might view you as an object to be exploited or oppressed or abused, you can usually avoid or transcend that annoyance. You are in touch with your soul, and you know that the self contains a wide spectrum of energies that connect with a vast tapestry of energies in the world and the cosmos.

(You realize that you are still on the right path because you find a story by Justin C. in your spiritual room....)

Chinese Purple Houses, Common Madia

(May 9, 2023)

PENDULUM DREAMS:

The Altar

   Throughout my life, I have experienced numerous paranormal events. I knew I could not tell my family and friends about them, so I tried to dismiss them and forget about them as quickly as possible. In my early forties when I started meditating, the paranormal experiences increased, a few terrifying, but most leading to greater spiritual awareness. One day, I wondered out loud why these paranormal experiences kept happening to me, why I hear voices accurately predicting the future and clarifying my experiences, why I have visions of spiritual symbols, why I have powerful intuitions about people and events. I soon discovered that many people, including Socrates and Gandhi, have experienced an aspect of the psyche known the "daimon" (pronounced "di-mown"). The Romans referred to the daimon as the genius, or guiding spirit, of each individual person and of each organized unit within nature. Qabalists symbolize the daimon as the Holy Guardian Angel to represent a higher aspect of the psyche that transcends space and time (in other words, the soul). I eventually discovered that the daimon and genius and Holy Guardian Angel resemble what scientists nowadays call "nonlocal consciousness."
   The term "local realism" or "local consciousness" refers to the the experience of specific circumstances within the limited space and time experienced by each individual. The concept of nonlocal consciousness, on the other hand, is at the heart of mystical and paranormal experiences: nonlocal consciousness links our personal energy field with Universal Consciousness. The cosmos, which as the Qabalists reveal in the glyph of the Tree of Life and even as some scientists claim, contains at least eleven dimensions. In addition to innumerable types of beings and energies, Universal Consciousness contains holographic "memories" of the past as well as knowledge of the future. In an article published in the National Library of Medicine, an official United States government website, Andrew Lohreya and Bruce Borehamb state, "The interconnected universal consciousness implied by the concept of one mind constitutes the nonlocal, singular implicit reality of a universal consciousness that has embedded within itself the local and explicit conscious mind of each individual (1)." The individual psyche can transcend local consciousness and access other dimensions as well as other times and places by experiencing the "One Mind" (known as God by most people) through nonlocal consciousness--which to me is a perfect explanation for most of my paranormal experiences.
   Over the course of my lifetime, I have employed several techniques to maintain peace of mind, mainly because I was fortunate as a kid. My family would sometimes go camping, and when my parents were busy fishing, my brother would often dash into the woods, and I would do my best to keep up with him until he ditched me in the wilderness. I would cuss him out for a few minutes, but then I would begin to enjoy hanging out with the trees and rocks and water until the deep tranquility of the Earth Soul drenched me with a peace that I have rarely experienced in human society. Alone in the woods, as a boy I experienced powerful intuitions and voices that accurately predicted the future, and I strive now as often as I can to find a path through the woods back to that peace beyond understanding. Everyday I also find my way into a forest of symbols to experience nonlocal consciousness.
   When I was a child, this peace and harmony prepared me for the understanding, much later on in life, that the cosmos, including human thoughts and feelings, is comprised of fields upon fields of energy, all interconnected within Universal Consciousness. And as the core of my being continued to resonate with the Earth, I eventually understood that we experience many vibrations of energy, not just with our physical senses, but with the soul.
   Many obstacles can interfere with our ability to experience nonlocal consciousness. As I grew up, I lived with the fear of failure: the failure to fit in as well as the failure to be myself. I knew that I would never succeed and gain financial independence unless I made the right grades, impressed the right people and always performed well in the right circumstances. I eventually realized that I could not fit into this society and remain who I really am, my quirky, creative self, and I grew sick of the fear of failure, especially since I already had an illness that the people closest to me did not wish to acknowledge. Due to chronic illness, no matter how hard I worked, succeeding in living up to the expectations of others required a Herculean effort that resulted in little or no emotional or spiritual satisfaction. The less I was able to feel satisfaction, the more tired I became of a fear-based life until finally I reached a point where I desired to live, to the greatest extent possible, a creative life free of negativity. 
   In my early forties, paranormal events began occurring on a regular basis. I began having visions of spiritual symbols during meditation and hearing a voice that clarified the visions. At the same time, I lost jobs due to my political activism and ill health. I realized as I was envisioning symbols of harmony that my psyche was out of balance and brimming with negativity. Fortunately, I was able to reestablish harmony is several ways: I found paths back to the peace of the Earth Soul, and my visions of symbols led me to the Tree of Life and a method of spiritual development known as the Qabalah (or Kabbalah).
   I burn myself up in my own mind every night, which I think is one of the main reasons that I have survived the past two decades. At one stage of the banishing ritual, which I perform just before going to bed, I invoke Michael, the Archangel of the element of Fire, and in my mind a golden caduceus wand leaps into me, the central staff extending below my feet and up to the crown chakra above my head. Then in my mind spiritual fire consumes me, and negativity burns away.
   The caduceus wand is not the conventional wand associated with the element of Fire. A symbol used by the medical profession to symbolize health, the caduceus wand on the spiritual level represents the pure life-force moving through the channels of the aura, the balanced Ida and Pingala energies entwined and flowing along the central Sushumna channel without obstruction. When I first performed the banishing ritual, I imagined the wooden staff that represents the element of Fire in the Tarot, but by the twentieth time I performed the ritual, the caduceus wand appeared in my mind’s eye, and that wand has “leaped” into my aura during the ritual ever since.
   Four symbols in the banishing ritual represent the cosmic force of harmony, known in Western civilization as the Christ force, on different levels: the sword, the cup, the wand, the pentagram, each standing for an Element of the Wise known as Air, Water, Fire, Earth, respectively, each element symbolically representing a type of subtle energy “behind” the material plane. An Archangel is associated with each element, Raphael with the element of Air in the eastern quadrant, Michael (Mee-kai-el) with the element of Fire in the southern quadrant, Gabriel with the element of Water in the western quadrant, and Auriel in the northern quadrant. During the ritual, as I invoke the Archangels, the symbols of the sword, wand, cup, pentagram in turn become centered within my psyche. The effect of the sword, caduceus wand, chalice, and pentagram on the heart and mind is hauntingly powerful, like the influence of a dream that only wears off gradually, because the symbols of the elements are links to spiritual realities. Each symbol, in other words, is a channel for the cosmic force of harmony into a different level of the psyche. Each symbol represents a different dimension and moves the practitioner from local consciousness to nonlocal consciousness.
   The Christ is the dominant archetype of harmonizing love and spiritual exultation in Western religion, but the cosmic force of balance and harmony goes by many names and has many faces. Besides Jesus, different Gods and Archangels, from Ra, Ma’at, Thoth, Osiris, Isis, Horus in Egypt, to Apollo and Dionysus and Athena in Greece, to Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel in the Middle East, to name a few, have represented aspects of this force.
   What could be a more powerful symbol of the conscious mind establishing and maintaining harmony than the shining, double-edged sword, oriented straight up and down? What could be a more powerful symbol of health and balance within the psyche than the caduceus wand? The cup as an archetype, which in the esoteric tradition of the Qabalah is a deep bowl on top of a truncated pyramid, symbolizes spirit manifesting harmoniously in matter. And the pentagram, so often mistakenly interpreted as a symbol of the devil, represents the secret name of Christ, representing the higher self manifesting in the incarnated personality and spirit manifesting harmoniously within matter. Used repeatedly for at least forty days, the length of time it takes to make or break a habit, and then continuously afterward to clear away negative energies and protect against malicious spirits, the banishing ritual channels the cosmic force of harmony and balance, what in Western society we call the Christ force, into the psyche.
   The figure of Jesus emphasizes love as the way to manifest the Christ force, the new commandment being, “Love one another.” I’ve discovered that it is difficult to love others if the soul is plagued by negativity and disrupted by chaotic thinking. The banishing ritual is one simple method that aids in the process of mental and physical purification, using symbols that channel the cosmic force of harmony into the soul. This is “practical” spirituality that resolves internal conflicts before they erupt into external conflicts, which within this volatile society can quickly escalate into violence and even war. At this time of planetary crisis, for me the ritual is a simple but powerful way of establishing harmony within my sphere of influence to the greatest extent possible.
   Due to my compulsions, spiritual, artistic, and otherwise, and my chronic illness, I have lived mainly outside the pale, and I am well aware that in this society, by speaking my truth, I lose credibility as a “serious” artist. My work is either an alternative view of sanity or it is insanity--but so, I’ve discovered, is most religion that stems from authentic spiritual experience.
   In retrospect, one experience a few years ago at Tamarack Creek reflects how my work stands in relationship to an audience. Claiming that this actually happened calls into question my sanity and everything I have said, but I will go to my grave insisting that this occurred even if it makes the rest of my work for the average reader collapse in a clatter of postmodern nihilism and obfuscation.
   One day a few years ago, my wife and I hiked along a creek past blue gentian, tiger lilies, lupine, columbine, paint brush and sneezeweed until we reached a beach within a small canyon, where we lounged against rocks near the tranquil creek. My wife began reading a passage out loud from a book in which the writer claims that all time exists at once within the mind of God. A person in physical incarnation, however, must travel through linear time as though through a tunnel and can focus only on a particular part of the tunnel wall. If a person were to go through the same tunnel twice while focusing on a different part of the wall, life could end up being very different. Any two people who go through the same tunnel have a different experience, depending on their perspective. (That is at least what I remember hearing.)
   While my wife was reading out loud, I suddenly heard a male tenor belting out a song a capella on the other side of the creek. The singer was so loud that I sometimes had difficulty understanding what my wife was reading, so I was surprised when I could not see the singer nearby. I thought at first that he was an aspiring opera singer who had chosen a secluded natural area to practice his art, but he sang with a smooth delivery in some other language, without pausing or making any mistakes, each song with a different tempo and tone, each song a masterpiece. After eight or nine of these songs, I realized that I was hearing the work of a consummate artist who was sharing his astonishing voice with the natural world, the way a bird might sing for the sheer joy of it. I shared my amazement with my wife and told her that I wanted to search the area. She stopped reading and smiled. As I hiked down the creek, I looked everywhere but could not find any sign of the singer.
   As I was hiking, I suddenly envisioned a logger from Europe practicing his art by the creek during his time off, but I had the uneasy feeling that such a situation could only have occurred many years ago, possibly even a century before. By the time I returned to the little beach by the creek, the performance was over. I was disappointed because I thought the singer had disappeared into the woods and I had lost my opportunity to meet the artist and share my admiration for his work. My wife and I packed up our belongings, climbed out of the canyon and trekked back to the car.
   My wife and I returned to the beach by the creek several months later, and I mentioned the amazing performance that we had experienced the previous time. My wife looked at me, perplexed. I reminded her that we had heard a song cycle in some other language while she was reading out loud to me. My wife claimed that she had never heard anyone singing by the creek. I couldn’t believe that she had forgotten, especially since the vocalist had belted out each song so ebulliently that I could hardly hear what she was reading. She became nonplussed and insisted that she had never heard anyone singing by this creek or any other creek, ever. She began looking at me like I was a lunatic, both of us becoming more and more frustrated at the other’s insistence on a totally different reality.
   I returned a few months later by myself and explored the other side of the creek. About a quarter of a mile down from the beach I found a heavy iron stove in an area that loggers had clear cut. A logging road led from that area up toward the main highway. I deduced, based on the design of the stove, that the camp had been abandoned many years before and that the loggers had decided to leave the stove behind because it was too heavy to transport.
   I cannot explain in any scientific way why I heard the incredible singer and my wife did not. My wife is not deaf, and she is very sensitive to emotional and spiritual currents.  It’s possible that I was hearing a frequency from a subtle dimension that she could not hear, a frequency which to my consciousness was just as real as the sounds of bird songs or water. In other words, I was experiencing nonlocal consciousness.
   My paranormal experiences over the past two decades suggest that we each have subtle senses  that perceive what the physical senses do not or cannot process. We are capable of experiencing more than just the physical world, and some of us--perhaps all of us at one point or another--tune in to these subtle dimensions, sometimes without even being aware of it. Consciousness is not finite--even though many scientists and existentialists believe it is. When my wife was reading, I had no reason to question whether or not she heard the singer. I expressed my amazement, but she probably thought that I was referring to the passage she was reading.
   I was not on drugs. Someone slipped me a hallucinogen once, many years ago, so I know what it’s like to hallucinate, and I was definitely not experiencing anything that appeared the least bit surreal or even out of the ordinary, except for those songs in the middle of the wilderness.
   My wife still adamantly insists, whenever I mention it, that she has never heard anyone singing in the forest, anywhere.
   I know how long it takes to compose a half-decent piece of music--days, weeks, even years. My brain could not have spontaneously composed and performed eight or nine masterpieces in a language that I did not know--even if I were hallucinating. How could I possibly have gotten all the notes and tempo and tone for each song just right? I cannot imagine how I could have hallucinated a singer who continued at the same pace and volume without making a single mistake for almost an hour. Such masterpieces would have taken me years to compose. I know because I have created a song cycle, which took me many years to complete. While writing music, I typically stop every few notes and check to see if I like what I’ve written. The singer was obviously a trained vocalist, which I am not. In fact, I have a very limited vocal range; I am lucky if I hit more than a few notes in a row. I have never even imagined myself singing so brilliantly up and down the scales.
   And I could not have possibly hallucinated a brilliant singer performing an entire song cycle while at the same time I tried to listen carefully to my wife reading out loud. I am simply not that good at multi-tasking. I was in a relaxed state, concentrating on the writer’s ideas, occasionally annoyed that the singer was so loud and that my wife and I were not alone in the forest.
   Another possibility is that I was hearing a performance from some other time, in what is known as retrocognition, or “timeslip.” In such cases sensitive people can view, hear, taste, touch, or smell aspects of events that have occurred in the past. In some cases, witnesses only hear the event, such as a battle many years after the actual event took place. In other cases, people have fully experienced the past, one of the most famous being the encounter in 1901 with Marie Antoinette by two scholars and early administrators of British university education for women,  Annie Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, as they tried to find their way to Marie Antoinette's private château, the Petit Trianon. Believing that they had become lost, they encountered Marie Antoinette herself. They published an account of their experience in 1911 as An Adventure, describing how they had become convinced, over the following weeks, that persons they saw and even spoke to on that occasion, given certain details of dress, accent, topography and architecture, must have been in the last days of the Queen at Trianon in 1789. Of course, some have attempted to debunk the account of this paranormal event by these two professional women; some who are locked in local consciousness often mock and marginalize nonlocal consciousness.
   Based on my experience, what exists outside the normal limits of our physical senses--and what we are capable of perceiving--is more than science can explain. Events from different times and different dimensions reverberate through consciousness as eternity unfolds, and the boundaries of consciousness continue to elude us.
   I have heard the laughter of women near Native American pounding stones when no one else was in the vicinity. When no one else was around, I have heard voices correctly predicting what would happen many years later. I have heard someone make a rude noise right behind me when no one else was in the house. I have been shaken so hard that I thought my cells were going to fly apart and then nudged hard several times a little later--when no one else was in the room with me. Even though I was alone, I have been tapped hard on the shoulder and other times touched gently on my face. I have experienced visions of spiritual symbols without ever having seen them before, only to encounter them a short time later in the Tarot or in books or on the internet. I have experienced many intuitions that cannot be explained by science, a few of which might have saved my life.
   Through it all I have relied on the banishing ritual to maintain balance and rid myself of negative energies that latch on to me. It is quite possible that I have had at least some of these paranormal experiences because I have gone through a process of self-purification and am therefore more open to subtle vibrations.
   Until two decades ago, I was possibly even more skeptical than you, gentle reader. But an artist, at this stage of history when the fate of humanity is at stake, must speak his truth even if people consider him a lunatic. The artist has no choice, if he wishes to be relevant, but to sacrifice whatever is necessary to help maintain harmony and balance in the world. So for you I have placed my art, my life’s work, on the sacrificial altar.
   True healing takes place on all levels of the psyche, and archetypes help in the cleansing process and in understanding spiritual principle. During meditation, which can occur as an integral part of ritual, I have discovered that if you are in the right state of mind the higher self presents spiritual principle through an association chain of archetypal symbols, much the same way that dreams often present a chain of psychologically meaningful symbols.
   One of the blessings (or curses) of spiritual development is a hyper-sensitivity to the feelings of others. Once recently as I stood in line at a bookstore lightheartedly chatting with my wife, I suddenly felt the most hateful rage directed at me from a man standing nearby. I felt pierced by it and wondered for awhile afterwards why anyone would direct such hatred toward complete strangers who were simply having fun. At the time I was having difficulty letting go of anger and resentment myself--chronic illness over the years as I mentioned has led several times to a failure to realize my potential, and I was well aware that I have on occasion subconsciously projected anger outward at other people. After pondering for several hours, I eventually understood why in the bookstore the stranger’s projection of rage cut me so deeply. I was being reminded that thought forms charged with negative emotion can truly hurt others on a subconscious level. I have experienced similar psychic attacks before, and I redoubled my efforts to face my own demons.
   For several days in ritual, during the Supreme Invoking Ritual, I focused on eliminating the feelings of anger and resentment. During the ritual, I moved from the station representing the element of Air--the conscious mind, what some might call the intellect--to the station representing spiritual Fire. In the ritual, you invoke the energy of each element, Air, Fire, Water, Earth respectively, as a way to cleanse and energize your aura. As a normal part of my ritual, I imagine the symbol associated with the element leaping into my psyche and then the energy of the ruling Archangel flowing toward me and swirling around me and into me.
   In the first two quadrants of the elements (Air and Fire), I felt the energy of each element cleansing my aura. As energized as that made me feel, it wasn’t enough. I needed more than the purification of the active elements. When I moved to the station representing the Water Element, I felt a powerful wave of emotion, which started an association chain associated with the Tarot. I envisioned the card known as The Moon, associated with Pisces, a Water sign, and the Egyptian God Anubis. At that point, I experienced the sensation of going deep into my subconscious mind. Then I envisioned the card known as Death, associated with Scorpio, also a Water sign, a card which signifies dramatic transformation. I envisioned the child holding flowers up for the figure of Death and realized that I needed to become as a little child in the face of change. At that point, I imagined the Element of Water cleansing me deeply as black, negative energy drained out of me into the magma below the earth’s surface. Then in the ritual I moved to the station representing the Earth element, which started another association chain with the card known as The Devil, associated with Capricorn and with the Egyptian God Set.
   The energies of the element of Earth are actually the spiritual background energies of the physical world, what some call “etheric" energy. The pure etheric energies of the element of Earth cleansed me and rejuvenated me until I felt whole, but only after I had consciously experienced a kind of rebirth after releasing the black, negative energies from deep in my subconscious mind and experiencing the cleansing energies of the Element of Water as well.
   In the Major Arcana of the Tarot, twelve of the cards are associated with the zodiac, seven with the planets, and three with the elements (Water, Air, Fire). In order to facilitate the occurrence of association chains, I have laid out the twelve cards associated with the zodiac in the triplicities in their respective quadrants on my central altar, each Tarot card part of a symbolic progression.
   The day after the deep cleansing, I experienced another association chain during ritual. When I invoked the Water element, I envisioned the symbol of Water, the blue head of an eagle, in my heart, and I suddenly felt on the verge of realizing a profound truth. Then I remembered the symbols associated with Scorpio: the scorpion, symbol of primal instincts deep in the subconscious; the snake, symbol of rebirth because it sheds its skin: and the eagle, symbol of the higher self (and nonlocal consciousness) because it flies high and experiences the perspective of eternity. I thought of those three symbols in terms of my progression of Tarot cards. The scorpion resembles the lobster climbing out of the water in the card known as The Moon. I thought of the snake in terms of the second card in my progression, Death. In the card, as I mentioned, a child presents flowers to the skeletal figure of death. The child in the card without fear accepts change and death as a natural process like a snake shedding its skin.
   The association chains during these rituals add up to spiritual principle: The death of the lower personality and rebirth into the higher self opens up an awareness of divine energies within the physical world as well as powerful energies of other dimensions.
   In a state of nonlocal consciousness, we can also contact and work with powerful spiritual beings. During my daily rituals I routinely ask God to send me an angel to provide guidance and keep me focused. It took me awhile to realize that the Archangel Raphael was sending me a powerful Angel from the order of the Melachim, which is associated with "Beauty" (Tiphareth in Hebrew), the Emanation known as the center of equilibrium, or the Christ center, on the Tree of Life. During each ritual, I feel this Angel's energy pressing into my forehead. Recently the angel has guided me to perform a powerful Christian ritual, based on the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram (SIRP), that I probably would not have devised myself.
I had already focused on the purification of three of the main levels of negativity: personal negativity; the negativity of the soul-group, family and friends and ancestors; and the negativity of the culture and society in general. With the guidance of the Angel I am working with the Archangels to purify the collective consciousness of humanity. During the SIRP, with each of the four Archangels of the elements, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Auriel, I am crucified. With each Archangel, at a crucial point in the ritual, I hold up my hands and imagine Almighty Ehyeh driving a large black nail into my palms. Then in each quadrant an aspect of God, Yud Heh, Vau, Heh in the first quadrant (associated with Raphael); Elohim in the second (associated with Michael); El in the third (associated with Gabriel); and Adonai in the fourth (associated with Raphael) in turn pound the nails deeper into my palms and into my feet. Then the Archangel associated with the quadrant finishes driving the nails all the way into my palms and feet. Then members from the order of Angels in each quadrant place a black crown of thorns on my head, and elementals associated with each Archangel collect in cups the blood that is streaming down from my head, hands, feet, and back. When that process is complete, the cross and I fall backward into the magma below the earth's surface and burn up completely, leaving only my soul. As black energy from the collective consciousness of humanity piles upon my soul, I ask the Archangel to work with our beloved Mother Earth to transform the negativity of the collective consciousness of humanity into harmony and light to create balance for the highest good of the planet and humanity as a whole. The black energy passes through me and burns up in the magma and transforms into light while the Archangel above also transforms the negativity into light. At first this process took a long time but generally now it takes less and less time each day. With Raphael, the dark energy feels associated within the negativity in the conscious mind of humanity; with Michael, the black energy feels like pure evil associated with the spiritual level; with Gabriel, the negativity feels like repressed emotions in the subconscious mind; with Auriel, it feels like negativity in the etheric body, where black energies sometimes get stuck before they turn into physical disease. This is risky, I admit, because the dark energies could linger in my aura, but eventually I am engulfed in brilliant light, and all the blood that had flowed down my body turns into gold or white light and a golden equal-armed cross appears, and I hold up my hands again. The black nails and crown of thorns and the blood have turned golden and my hands emanate light against the golden equal-armed cross. When this happens with each Archangel, I know that I have finished my work in that quadrant and move on. Eventually, when I complete the ritual, I am filled with light and bliss and feel compassion for all of humanity. I also often feel free of negativity in a way that I had never imagined possible. (Please do not try this on your own. You must purify and dedicate yourself and perform specific tasks within the ritual to avoid being overwhelmed and destroyed by the negative energies within the collective consciousness of humanity.)
   There are as many paths to God as the breaths of men and women. The divine energies of the Earth can lead to an awareness of the higher self just as much as the spiritual energies of Heaven, and certainly the divine energies of Earth are the most accessible to us while the soul is tabernacled in the flesh. We experience these divine energies through our higher self as our personal consciousness links with Universal Consciousness--as local consciousness expands into nonlocal consciousness. In the process we know that consciousness is not finite, that essence precedes existence and that life is not meaningless and absurd. We know that there is unity underlying all consciousness and that all energy is holy and all life is divine.

1)https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7588183/#:~:text=The%20interconnected%20universal%20consciousness%20implied,conscious%20mind%20of%20each%20individual. 

Go on a different adventure.

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

THE LOVERS: GEMINI

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ROOMS THAT DREAM:

APT. 32

   In Apt. 32 you are cloistered in a small room with a single bed and a tiny window, not because you are religiously inclined or disabled or unable to function in the real world, but because you have experienced the blackest evil, the malignant dark forces known as demons as well as the archetypes of negation. You also know the Shining Ones, the forces of light and love known as angels as well as the great powers of harmony, the Archangels. You are cloistered in that tiny room because you are dangerous: your energy burns the consciousness of those around you because they have not experienced the full spectrum of light and darkness in the cosmos. In a way, being cloistered protects you because people turn on you with anger and hatred due to the intensity of your energy, and they can suddenly and unexpectedly harm you in terribly unpleasant ways. Your life, therefore, is dedicated to contemplation and meditation. For a few minutes each day, as you gaze out of your window, you can see the sun, and even though you are tempted, you try not to look at it directly because, of course, it can blind you.

(You realize that you are still on the right path because you find a story by Justin C. near the back door....)

Tiger Lilies

PENDULUM DREAMS:

The Tiger Lily and the Glory

   "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You men of little faith!” Luke 12:27-28.

“It is no great measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Krishna Murti.

   Sometimes when I am hiking in the mountains, I find a tree or a flower that makes me question everything I've learned. Encountering a tiger lily in a high mountain meadow, for instance, I have felt the energies of the sun and the Sun behind the sun within the petals and leaves and in the surrounding plants and trees. I had once, long ago, believed that God was in some far away heaven. Then for many years I believed that God does not exist. Over the years, however, I have kept finding myself before a majestic tree or a flower such as a tiger lily, feeling divinity in all things. Inevitably among the trees and wildflowers, in fresh air and sunshine, I sense light radiating through my solar plexus and feel, as I breathe, the magnificence, harmony, and abundance of Spirit. After numerous encounters with ravishing flowers and awesome trees, after visions of spiritual symbols during meditation, I ended up finding a belief system that reveals the magnificence, harmony, and abundance of both the spiritual and natural worlds.
   Not enough is made these days of the benefits of fresh air and sunshine. Recently, at seven thousand feet in elevation, after escaping the pollution and the negative mental atmosphere of human society, I felt a surge of well-being so powerful that I couldn't help but entertain a horrible thought: Humans have created societies so polluted and so cut off from the energies of the life-force that many people think that the Source is not present in the Earth, the plants and animals, ourselves.
   I had another uneasy feeling: I have formed false beliefs that for most of my life have made me feel less magnificent than the tiger lily, less full of the love, harmony, and abundance that, in the fresh air and sunshine at seven thousand feet, I suddenly recognized as the birthright of all human beings.
   I did not know that the natural world is full of splendor until I began exploring every trail through the mountains that I could find. My wife told me at the beginning of our relationship almost thirty years ago that you must have flowers and trees and birds in your heart to truly see them. I have come to realize the truth in that statement: You have to open your heart in order to truly see anyone or anything. I did not know about paths through spiritual dimensions until I opened my heart and mind during meditation and experienced visions of magnificent symbols: a golden, equal-armed cross with Archangels at each end; a golden plate and chalice on a white tablecloth; a gray infinity symbol over my head; a brilliant thousand-petaled lotus with a diamond in the center; a golden crown; three five-petaled roses; a golden Celtic Cross. Then I found these symbols on the glyph known as the mystical Tree of Life.
   Fresh air and sunshine, I have discovered, give me a much clearer perspective. I realized that to be well-adjusted to a sick society I have had to be sick. And, because the Valley is so full of pollution and negativity, I must struggle continuously with my chronic illness on all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Unfortunately, in my current condition I cannot continue that way and hope to survive to a ripe old age.

   A few years ago, before the Creek Fire, I hiked alone through a high meadow near Tamarack Creek over fallen branches and tree trunks. Where few people had ventured, I found arrow leaf tansy and tiger lilies and columbine and spent the morning immersed in rivulets and flowers. After I rested on a rock and ate lunch, a few minutes later my heart began beating irregularly. My stomach felt like a stone that had lurched up into my chest. I thought I was dying of a heart attack and plopped down on a large, flat stone. I leaned back against a pine tree as water gurgled peacefully in the nearby stream until the AFib (atrial fibrillation) finally dissipated about forty minutes later. Without knowing it then, I had reached an advanced stage of celiac disease. My small lunch, which had contained gluten, had sent my heart into a frenzy. Many months later, after numerous experiences with AFib, I finally made the connection between gluten and erratic heartbeats, in time to avoid a blood clot or an actual heart attack. After eliminating gluten entirely from my diet, I have not experienced AFib for several years now.
   I returned to Tamarack Creek before the Creek Fire. After a winter of heavy snowfall, the tiger lilies were blooming more profusely than I've ever seen before. Over 7,000 feet above the San Joaquin Valley, where almost every inch of land has been cultivated and urbanized in the last century, over a mile from Highway 168, the meadow has remained pristine. Near the highway, however, ranchers have grazed cattle that have trampled a great many flowers, including some rare ones like gentian and little elephant's head, and logging roads snake down the mountain high above the creek on both sides, yet the meadow has managed to avoid molestation, possibly because of so many fallen trees and branches at its edge.
   Before I returned to the meadow, I had performed a ritual. Afterwards, I became the Fool, the eternal child, resilient within fields of change and adversity, knowing long moments of inner freedom without negativity. As the Fool by the creek, for one day I experienced paradise physically and spiritually. Thanks to my ritual I returned to an Eden not of the id or the ego, but of the daimon, the higher self, which experiences the unity and divinity within all things. Because I also invoked the God Min during my ritual, I felt a surge of well-being and a greater sensitivity to the life-force: I sensed the auras of plants and trees tuned to their surroundings. Tiger lilies, so abundant that their fragrance permeated the meadow, hovered above the rivulets and broken branches near waves of golden arrow-leaf tansy and columbine bobbing in the breeze, all in a self-sustaining community interconnected physically and spiritually. Because of my ritual, I felt the life-force thrilling through me and through all the plants and animals in the forest.
   Back in the city, I realized how little I have experienced the life-force. The life-force can't be found in our electronic devices, but you can't tear those devices out of my hands or the hands of most children and adults these days. The life-force does not exist in movies or TV shows, yet it's extremely hard for me to avert my eyes for even a few moments once I start watching. I began to understand why forests might seem like pure chaos to people who are only used to human order, why so many people have become terrified of the life-force as it manifests in nature, why in the past thirty years I have encountered in the wild only a handful of other people, most of whom were carrying fishing rods or rifles.
   As I stare at my computer screen, I realize that in this information age, it has become so easy to lose the knowledge about how the life-force manifests within ourselves and the creatures of the Earth. So many are obsessed with the body but know nothing about the subtle energies of the aura or the holy chambers of the soul. So many are aware of cartoon super-heroes but are unaware of the Gods that throughout history have personified powerful natural forces.
   After I performed my ritual and returned to the meadow, I realized that the metaphor of rebooting and reformatting my personality that I once used was wrong. I wasn't creating a new identity—I had instead returned to something like the self I had known many years ago—my spiritual life-force, undistorted by social conditioning. I retained the knowledge and wisdom that I have gathered over the past fifty-plus years, but I felt free of decades of negativity.
   It became clear to me why I had never fully discovered the knowledge of the life-force. As a child I was regimented in the public school system for nine months of the year but had three months of freedom every summer. When not playing sports or hanging out at the mall during summer vacation, I was watching TV or going to the movies. Inevitably, during the last half of the summer, I spent less time with friends and more time watching TV. In fact, the TV was on all the time, even during meal-times; I was socialized year-round to become a productive unit of labor and a spendthrift consumer. When I grew up I was going to buy, buy, buy junk food and clothes and cars and furniture and houses. I would go to college just so that I could get a great job and afford so many awesome material objects.
   Money is a type of human energy but does not contain the life-force. Cars have a type of power but not the power of the life-force. Clothes and furniture and houses accommodate our needs and reveal our status in society but do not contain the life-force. For decades, in public schools, at home, at malls and amusement parks, at the movies, in college, I was starving for the life-force.
   When I was growing up, by the end of each summer vacation I was bored to tears. I lived in a comfortable middle-class home, but by the end of summer I felt an incredible emptiness, except when I was reading about art or creating something. My father, fortunately, took the family on camping trips that sometimes lasted a week. Those camping trips exposed me to a completely different order of existence. I at first believed that humans are more special, more intelligent than any other creature, that nature was simply a playground and a kingdom to conquer. Even though over the years I began to recognize the sentience of plants and animals, I had become so brainwashed that I did not even notice the beauty of flowers and trees until my early thirties. As I was growing up my social conditioning slowly disconnected me from the life-force in all of its splendor and diversity, so I could not experience the divinity in nature—I was not even aware that I have a higher self (known also as the soul) because I did not recognize the life-force in myself; I had not experienced my own divine core, so I could not connect with the divine subtle forces within nature and the cosmos.
   I have since my teenage years felt more than a little compelled to escape my social conditioning due to illness and a gnawing sense of emptiness, but since my first experiences with Afib, I have felt an especially keen desire to break free of social constraints and leave my society far behind. I have no desire to “break bad”; on the contrary, I want to be free of negativity, without inner conflicts or chronic physical pain so that I can pursue ideals of beauty, truth, justice, and harmony. Due to my rituals, I may have finally succeeded. I still feel greatly fatigued at times, and negative memories continue to surface now and then (but with far less intensity). I don't claim to have totally healed my mind or my body, but for the past few days, I have felt free the way I sometimes did as a child, except now as an adult, I don't feel an all-encompassing fear of the unknown or the weight of parental and societal expectations. I don't need to maintain even a tenuous connection to the herd. After a long stretch of illness and spiritual dullness, I feel as magnificent as a tiger lily, and I can sometimes glimpse spiritual magnificence in other people as well.
   After my recent rituals, I feel sometimes that I am at a place in consciousness where the soul meets the divine. Some people have made me feel less than worthy, but I realize that the more I let go of negativity in my body and mind, and the more I invoke powerful subtle forces, the more I feel healthy and free. 
   Due to my social conditioning and my chronic illness, I have struggled a long time to achieve health and freedom. Long before my recent rituals, for instance, I chose not to be ruled by a symbol system. I pick and choose the symbols from various cultures that I need in my spiritual work. Identifying with the symbol instead of the spiritual force has led to untold madness, with cultures forcing each other to adopt their symbol systems through oppression and violence. A symbol system does not contain power until people connect with the subtle forces that the symbols represent; people who are forced to worship a symbol are unlikely to connect with its power. This very act of breaking free from the tyranny of symbol systems leads to greater freedom. Connecting with spiritual principle and spiritual forces is essentially what matters, not any symbol system, not Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism or the so-called “dead” religions that we now consider myths. Authentic spirituality for me is about the soul aligning with the divine spark and connecting with the forces of Being. Myth, which is about all that any religion amounts to, is merely one way throughout history that people have used to achieve those ends. The unseen forces do not change, only the symbols.
   Stepping away from the herd does not mean ignoring laws and values. Once I had the Vision of Harmony and understood my own divinity and the divinity within nature, I understood that my soul is a tiny thread of consciousness in one vast tapestry of energy. Everything is connected. I shrink from the thought of harming anyone or anything because I am part of who or what they are; I would be harming myself by harming another. Until every person internalizes that simple spiritual principle, laws that prohibit harming others must remain in place, and we will continue to label unbalanced acts as sins. A person who internalizes spiritual principle would not dream of harming or killing another, except in self-defense. That is why I have said that the only true sin is having a value system that cuts you off from knowing all the vibrations of the life-force because that also cuts you off from knowing the interrelationship of all things and the unity underlying all consciousness. The lack of inner awareness of the life-force and spiritual principles can lead to harmful and horrific acts. Lack of empathy, which stems from an ignorance of the divinity of nature and the self, has led to ecocide and genocide and could lead to the destruction of the planet itself, but if we walk on the path long enough, we can feel the connection that we have with all people and all things.

Go on a different adventure.