What NorthrupGrumman Thinks About These Aliens And Whatnot....,

northropgrumman  |  Where is everybody? In a universe of at least 100 billion galaxies, why hasn’t anyone stopped by?

The answer depends on who you ask. Some favor the notion of time and distance — extraterrestrial life may not know we’re out here, or may be similarly limited to their local solar system by the finite speed of light. Others make more dire predictions for the fate of advanced life in the universe: Catastrophic events such as war, disease or stellar bad luck that effectively eliminate evolving life once it reaches a certain threshold.

But what if the truth lies closer to home? What if invisible aliens exist among us, already here but unseen by human eyes? Astrobiologist Samantha Rolfe of the University of Hertfordshire took this idea and ran with it, exploring the possibility of a “shadow biosphere” capable of supporting alien life on Earth — just not life as we know it.

What We Do in the Shadows

Phosphorus represents a key biochemical building block for RNA and DNA formation in earthbound life. All organisms — plant and animal — require a source of phosphorous to survive, despite its relative scarcity. As noted by Matthew Pasek of the University of South Florida, “phosphorous is the least abundant element cosmically relative to its presence in biology.”

The shadow biosphere theory postulates that other forms of life may exist alongside known organisms but operate in ways we don’t recognize as life. Consider the Mono Lake microorganisms, which use arsenic rather than phosphorus to generate essential energy — while their arsenic adaptation stems from very specific environmental conditions, it’s also possible that larger-scale shadow biospheres have existed throughout Earth’s history. According to Astrobiology Magazine, Earth could have had several “cradles of life” over its 4 billion year history; some may have collapsed as environmental conditions changed while others might have been overrun by our phosphorus-loving progenitors.

It’s also possible that meteorite impacts — or covert alien landings — introduced life into our ecosystem that required a novel energy source, and shadow biospheres have been humming along undetected and undisturbed for centuries or even millennia.

What does this mean for our theory of invisible aliens? The good news is that a proof-of-concept shadow biosphere already exists in arsenic-using organisms. The bad news? While shadow-biological microbes might be alien to us they’re probably not from a galaxy far, far away.

The Uncanny (Silicon) Valley

While energy creation is one way to approach the search for life, it’s also worth taking a look at our biggest chemical contributor: carbon. All life on Earth is carbon-based, since carbon makes it easy to create the strong double and triple bonds needed for cell walls, and is also soluble in water — another essential life-encouraging compound — when converted to carbon dioxide.

But what if carbon isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Rolfe considers the possibility of an alternative biochemistry based on silicon. As she points out, silicon is widely available on Earth’s surface and — just like carbon — has four electrons to create bonds with other atoms. There are challenges: Silicon is heavier, has a tough time creating strong bonds and isn’t water-soluble. Still, scientists have demonstrated that it’s possible to create bacterial proteins that bond with silicon, effectively creating tiny, silicon-based life.

The chances of silicon-based visitors, however, remains slim here on Earth. Still, there’s speculation that intrasolar moons or exosolar planets could have a chemical makeup that favors silicon life over its carbon companion. Here, climbing out of the terrestrial-focused valley of common life classification means thinking outside the biological box to prioritize the collective action of potential aliens rather than their chemical composition.

Interstellar Rest Stop

What if our invisible aliens aren’t living among us in shadow biospheres or using different building blocks? What if they’ve already visited — and aren’t coming back? What if they’re not aliens at all?

As noted by Business Insider, it’s possible that interstellar travelers visited Earth billions of years ago when their own star system was closer to ours. Maybe they watched the first organic molecules form, or walked among the dinosaurs. Perhaps they accidentally nudged an asteroid toward Earth on their way out of town? Other experts like Harvard’s Avi Loeb wonder if strange interstellar objects like ‘Oumuaumua — the first known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, detected in late 2017 — were of alien origin and sent to Earth deliberately.

Go deeper into we’re-not-alone-out-here speculation and you’ll find theories like the one from Michael Masters of Montana Technological University in Butte. He notes that while the collective evidence for unidentified flying objects (UFOs) continues to grow, details on actual extraterrestrials are almost entirely absent. He posits that the seeming existence of advanced technology without alien operators could suggest a future in which humanity discovers time travel, humans regularly visit the past and occasionally make the mistake of letting their advanced craft get noticed. Since they’re physically and visually human, any crash-landings or future-people infiltrations would go unnoticed. In effect, they’re temporal visitors; aliens by eons rather than elements.

We Are Not Alone

Are we the only house in the galactic neighborhood? Maybe not. Although shadow biospheres and invisible aliens aren’t the probable solutions to our carbon-based isolation, they’re critical steps in changing the way we view life, the universe and everything. Broader perspectives and bigger thoughts make it more likely that we’ll recognize the telltale signs of life — even if it’s not what we’re expecting.

According To Whitley Strieber Work Exercises Got Him Abducted....,

starlogic  |  It seems the most unlikely of links: Whitley Strieber follows the ‘sensing’ exercise as suggested by George Gurdjieff. This brought the light of his soul to the attention of the ‘visitors’.

Creating this type of friction is central to the way the visitors teach, and as a matter of fact, its use is also important in the Gurdjieff Work. Mr. Gurdjieff would create situations that would challenge his students’ egos and force them to face themselves, either driving them away or spurring them on. Gurdjieff called it puncturing the “hot air pie” of ego. My hot air pie has been leaped up and down on for many years by rude little men, and I am much the better for it. As I will discuss later when explaining how building a strong soul enables one to render moot the fear of them, the first lesson they ever gave me was about the danger of arrogance and the importance of humility.

I think that I’ve been in their school ever since that dream. When it happened, the two forms involved were nowhere in the news and not in my life. But there they were, kicking me out of the university that I have been studying in ever since!

Just as maintaining the double arrow enriches one’s life experience, doing the sensing exercise enables the sharing of self. While you are doing it, they can enter the silence of your mind and join you in your life experience. For them, this is more than a pleasure. I suspect that, when they are in their normal state, it is an utter delight for them, and I would think that they want to experience it with as many of us as possible. I suspect that Anne intuited this early on, which is why she insisted that our book be called Communion. Contact is not just about our learning new science and making new social and cultural discoveries. It is, more importantly, about this sharing of self. And incidentally, this has nothing to do with what is called possession. That’s exactly what the visitors don’t want to do.

For them, I don’t think that anything is ever new. For us, everything is always new. They may know reality outside of time. We don’t really know what the next second will bring. They hunger to share our sense of newness.

I think that the reason for this is explained by an insight that was published in the April 1977 issue of the magazine Science. D.B.H. Kuiper and Mark Morris made the observation that any intelligent entity appearing here from another world would have essentially nothing to gain from us except the results of our own independent thought. They would be after newness, and they would therefore be concerned about our state of preparedness to engage with them. As Kuiper and Morris speculate, “We believe that there is a critical phase in this. Before a certain threshold is reached, complete contact with a superior civilization (in which their store of knowledge is made available to us) would abort further development through a ‘culture shock’ effect. If we were contacted before we reached this thresh- old, instead of enriching the galactic store of knowledge we would merely absorb it.” They continue, “By intervening in our natural progress now, members of an extraterrestrial society could easily extinguish the only resource on this planet that could be of any value to them.” Having been involved with them now for so many years—for much of my life, really—I feel that this is indeed the reason for their secrecy. But they now find themselves in a quandary: Our planet is failing so rapidly that if they continue to hide and wait for us to catch up, we might go extinct first, or enter into a period of chaos that will destroy what progress we have made, causing them even further delay.

Fortunately, it’s not clear that our making more scientific progress is the only thing that holds them back. I think that what I might call psychospiritual progress is at least as important, and probably more so.

This would be why they have lavished so much more attention on this non-scientist spiritual seeker than they have on any scientist I am aware of. I learned, first through my Gurdjieff work and then by working directly with them, a grammar of communication that is both efficient, in the sense that progress is steady, and fruitful, in that the richness of communication is rapidly increasing.

The sensing exercise not only opens us to them and enables communication, it sends out a signal that communicates a good deal more than a laser pointer. When we place our attention on the nervous system, it glows in their level of reality like a little ember. Our dead can see this, too.

Strieber, Whitley. A New World (pp. 47-50). Walker & Collier, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16 KJV)

Annie Jacobsen's Peculiar Gatekeeping Of Gubmint Liminality

wikipedia  |  Annie Jacobsen (born June 28, 1967) is an American investigative journalist, author, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She writes and produces television including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan for Amazon Studios, and Clarice for CBS. She was a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine from 2009 until 2012. Jacobsen writes about war, weapons, security, and secrets. Jacobsen is best known as the author of the 2011 non-fiction book, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, which The New York Times called "cauldron-stirring."^[1] She is an internationally acclaimed and sometimes controversial author who, according to one critic, writes sensational books by addressing popular conspiracies.^[2]

Her 2011 book, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, addresses the Roswell UFO incident.^[3][4] It was on The New York Times Best Seller list for thirteen weeks and has been translated into six languages. Area 51 was being developed into an AMC^[5] Series with Gale Anne Hurd^[6] as executive producer but is no longer.

Jacobsen's 2014 book, Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America^[7] was called "perhaps the most comprehensive, up-to-date narrative available to the general public" in a review by Jay Watkins of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence.^[8] Operation Paperclip was included in a list of the best books of 2014 by The Boston Globe.^[9] Leading space historian Michael J. Neufeld, gave a negative review of the book: “Jacobsen concentrates on the scandals, which inevitably leads to an imbalance in presentation. Little is said about the substantive contributions of von Braun.”^[10]

The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency,^[11] was chosen as finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in history.^[12] The Pulitzer committee described the book as "A brilliantly researched account of a small but powerful secret government agency whose military research profoundly affects world affairs." The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and the Amazon Editors chose Pentagon's Brain as one of the best non-fiction books of 2015.

Her next book was published in March 2017: Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.^[13]

In May 2019, she released Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins. Apple audiobooks recorded SKV as one of the most popular audiobooks of 2019.^[14] J. R. Seeger, a retired CIA case officer who led the Agency's Team Alpha, the first Americans behind enemy lines after 9/11, reviewed the book, saying: "Jacobsen has a well-deserved reputation as a good writer and an excellent researcher,” but he criticized her attention to detail, and suggested that the book's focus was too general saying that "neither of the topics are discussed in anything resembling the detail required to understand the nuance of covert action".^[15]

What About Maurits Cornelis Escher?

mcescher  | Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world’s most famous graphic artists. His art is admired by millions of people worldwide, as can be seen by the many websites on the internet.

He is born in Leeuwarden as the fourth and youngest son. After five years the family moves to Arnhem, where he spends most of his youth. After he has failed his final exam, and after a short interlude in Delft, M.C. Escher starts with his lessons in architecture at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem.
Already after a week he informs his father that he wants to quit his architecture lessons and focus on studying graphic arts. He is supported in this by his teacher Samuel Jesserun de Mesquita, to whom he has shown his drawings and linocuts.

After completing his school, he travels for a long time through Italy, where he meets his wife Jetta Umiker and whom he marries in 1924. They go to Rome, where they live until 1935. During these 11 years M.C. Escher travels every year through Italy where he makes drawings and sketches that he later uses in his studio for his lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings.

For example, the background in the lithograph Waterfall (1961) comes from his Italian period. The trees that are reflected in the woodcut Puddle(1952) are also the same trees that he uses in his woodcut Pineta by Calvi, made in 1932.

During the time that he lives and works in Italy, he makes beautiful, also more realistic works such as the Castrovalva litho in which one can see already his fascination for perspective: close, far, high and low. Likewise is the lithograph Atrani, a small town on the Amalfi coast in Italy, which he makes in 1931 and comes back in his masterpieces Metamorphosis I and II.

He is most famous for his so-called impossible drawings, such as Ascending and Descending and Relativity, but also for his metamorphoses, such as Metamorphosis I, II and III, Air and Water I and Reptiles.

During his lifetime, Escher made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and more than 2000 drawings and sketches. Just like some of his famous predecessors – Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Holbein – Escher is left-handed.
In addition to his work as a graphic artist, he illustrates books, designs carpets and banknotes, stamps, murals, intarsia panels etc.
M.C. Escher is fascinated by the regular geometric figures of the wall and floor mosaics in the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century castle in Granada, Spain, which he visits in 1922 and 1936.

During his years in Switzerland and throughout the Second World War, he works with great energy on his hobby. He then makes 62 of the 137 symmetrical drawings he will make in his life. He also expands his hobby by using these symmetrical drawings for cutting wooden balls.

He plays with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces. His art continues to amaze and wonder millions of people around the world. In his work we recognize his excellent observation of the world around us and the expression of his own fantasy. M.C. Escher shows us that reality is wonderful, understandable and fascinating.

Was Louis Wain Mentally Ill? Or, Was He Accessing An Unusual Perceptual Modality?

flashbak  |  Louis Wain (5 August 1860 – 4 July 1939) was an English artist and diagnosed schizophrenic who made a name from drawing self-conscious, trippy and anthropomorphic cats and kittens. At the peak of his powers, he cranked out 1500 original paintings and sketches of cats every year. They were copied by the million. In Christmas 1903, you could buy 13 new Louis Wain books. He illustrated more than two-hundred books and had sixteen very successful Christmas annuals. “He made the cat his own,” said the author H.G. Wells. “He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world.” He was elected president of the National Cat Club, of course. “Louis Wain was on all our walls some 15 to 20 years ago,” wrote politician Ramsay MacDonald in 1925. “Probably no artist has given a greater number of young people pleasure than he has.”

A cat that has “lived a life of ease, seeing nobody and nothing beyond its mistress, will exhibit the most striking characteristics of its mistress. Another cat will, perhaps, show itself in the highest degree suspicious, taking after its master or mistress again; while a fourth, that has had to fight his way, will quarrel and rush at everything; and a fifth, that has been allowed to roam the country, will ruffle up its straw, get underneath its bed to hide right out of sight, and nothing but force will move it.”

– Wain – the November 1889 issue of Cassell’s Magazine on what he had learned from judging cat shows.

Wain was 24 when he sold his first drawing of cats to The Illustrated London News. Called ‘A Kitten’s Christmas Party’, the picture portrayed 150 cats doing all manner of humanistic things – holding a ball, sending invitations, playing games and making speeches. Spread over two pages, it was an instant hit. A few years earlier he’d sold his first picture: a  drawing of bullfinches. He drew more birds and animals with little success. And then came the catharsis. At age 23, Wain fell ill. Peter, a black-and-white cat, would sit on his bed. Wain passed the time by sketching his pal and handing the sketches to his wife, Emily. One picture featured 150 cats, each one doing its own thing. Success was his. Then tragedy struck. Three years after their marriage, Emily died.

How this changed Wain, we cannot be certain. But he never remarried and his mental health deteriorated. Despite huge commercial success, by the 1920’s Wain was broke. In 1924 he was committed to the pauper ward of London’s Springfield Mental Hospital. He continued to drew cats, experimenting with new styles and colours.

In 1925, his plight became common knowledge. A public appeal was made that raised £2,300. The money enabled Wain to move to the Bethlem Royal Hospital.

In 1930 Wain was transferred to Napsbury Hospital, near St Albans. Exhibitions of his work were held in London in 1931 and 1937, as well as a memorial exhibition shortly after his death.

 

 

Sensory Experience As Shortcut In A Multi-Modal User Interface

meaningfulparticipation |  The case against reality by Donald D. Hoffman Subtitled “How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes”

• Multimodal user interface (MUI) theory*: MUI theory states that “perceptual experiences do not match or approximate properties of the objective world, but instead provide a simplified, species-specific, user interface to that world.”

Perception is not a window on objective reality. It is an interface that hides objective reality behind a veil of helpful icons.

I take my perceptions seriously, but not literally.

startling “Fitness-Beats-Truth” (FBT) theorem, which states that evolution by natural selection does not favor true perceptions—it routinely drives them to extinction. Instead, natural selection favors perceptions that hide the truth and guide useful action.

Space, time, and physical objects are not objective reality. They are simply the virtual world delivered by our senses to help us play the game of life.

Physics and evolution point to the same conclusion: spacetime and objects are not foundational. Something else is more fundamental, and spacetime emerges from it.

Our senses report fitness, and an error in this report could ruin your life. So our senses use “error-correcting codes” to detect and correct errors. Spacetime is just a format our senses use to report fitness payoffs and to correct errors in these reports.

we differ from rocks in two key respects. First, we experience sensations. Second, we have “propositional attitudes,” such as the belief that rocks don’t have headaches we also have meaning, problem solving capability and enactors

Like a rock, we have bona fide physical properties. But unlike a rock, we have conscious experiences and propositional attitudes. Are these also physical? If so, it’s not obvious: What is the mass of dizziness, the velocity of a headache, or the position of the wonder why Chris won’t call?

Our failure to envision a mechanism does not preclude one. Perhaps we’re not clever enough, and an experiment will teach us what we can’t surmise from an armchair. After all, we invest in experiments because they often repay us in surprise.

Sperry’s explanation was simple and profound. When you fixate on the cross in KEY + RING, the neural pathways from eye to brain send KEY only to the right hemisphere, and RING only to the left. If the corpus callosum is intact, the right hemisphere then tells the left about KEY, and the left tells the right about RING, so that the person sees KEY RING.

What false assumption bedevils our efforts to unravel the relation between brain and consciousness? I propose it is this: we see reality as it is.

::Perception is always relative to WII. WII creates the context and filter for our perception::

::Placebo as example of reality models making reality::

beauty is a perception of fitness payoffs on offer,

The predictions of evolution about beauty are surprising but, as we will see in chapter nine, its predictions about physical objects are disconcerting: objects, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder and inform us about fitness—not about objective reality.

Retail Bank Branches And ATMS An Endangered Species In Kansas City For A Minute Now...,

dailymail |  As Australian banks continue to focus on digital transactions for customers, ATMs and bank branches are disappearing across the country, according to new data.

The analysis revealed close to 460 bank branches have shut down across the nation in recent years, and dating back to 2020, approximately 3800 previously active ATMs have been removed.

NSW alone now has 140 fewer in-store banks, and almost 300 suburbs don't have a singular ATM to withdraw cash.

It is a similar story in Victoria, where 120 branches have permanently closed their doors to customers.

'Closures have a devastating impact on local communities,' Finance Sector Union national secretary Julia Angrisano said.

'Jobs are lost, business is impacted, and another local service disappears.'

The closures have hit hard in regional and rural areas, and for older citizens, Ms Angrisano added.

Another key factor for the branch closures and reduced ATM's is the fact that banks are bringing in a small fortune from daily digital transactions.

As Australia accelerates towards a cashless society, fees from either the customer or vender for online banking have become common place.

In a modern-day digital world, an estimated 80 per cent of Aussies prefer to bank online.

But the remaining 20 per cent, namely the disabled or those who are not digital savvy, have been left stranded.

Tellingly, CBA now has 875 bank branches nationwide - compared to 1134 in February 2020. 

Their number of ATMs has reduced to just over 2000 - in 2019 there were 4118 ATM's in circulation.

Last year, ANZ head of distribution Kath Bray said bank branch closures were a sign of the times, with digital transactions now the primary focus for many.

 

This Is Not Iraq Or Afghanistan - This Is A Civilized European City...,

 

These same news outlets call Palestinians terrorists for throwing rocks at tanks https://t.co/BxhYjy9LlQ

— Abby Martin (@AbbyMartin) February 26, 2022

The official visuals of Ukrainians blocking Africans from getting on trains. #AfricansinUkraine pic.twitter.com/hJYpM3LY0A

— Damilare / ViF (@Damilare_arah) February 26, 2022

"Food For The Moon" - How Much Suffering Is Being Harvested Now?

downthecupracabrahole | In 1958 radio broadcasting executive Robert Monroe suffered a series of bizarre events. At the age of 43, he began feeling a strong vibration deep within his chest. Suddenly the sensation grew so intense that he was forced to lay down. Once reclined, the typically rational businessman found himself hovering outside of his body. He immediately panicked thinking he had died but the crippling fear abruptly returned him to his physical form. Similar episodes soon followed in which he weightlessly floated around the room. A concerned Monroe visited several doctors and psychologists yet each medical professional determined he was perfectly healthy. Relieved by their positive diagnoses, the telecommunication executive decided to hone his newly acquired skill. Before long he left his comfortable corporate career and dedicated his life to the exploration of consciousness.
Hemispheric Synchronization

For the next three decades, Robert intently studied out-of-body experiences. His primary goal was to gather scientific evidence proving the existence of alternate realities. In hopes of making cosmic travel more easily attainable, he developed a technology called Hemispheric Synchronization. Also known as Hemi-Sync, this system utilizes audio patterns containing binaural beats to create harmonization of the brain’s left and right hemispheres. Independent clinical neurologists conducted extensive testing on participants engaging in the experimental technique. To their shock, the results were clearly visible on every EEG scan conducted. Both sides of the brain simultaneously measured equal in both amplitude and frequency. Monroe’s work was pioneering the path to tangible altered states.

Portals to Other Dimensions Closely monitoring the astral explorer’s groundbreaking findings was the US government. One day in 1978 representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency contacted Monroe. High-ranking officials invited him to join a highly classified military project. They wanted to implement his mind-expanding practice in attempts of sending soldiers into deep remote viewing sessions. Should subordinates succeed, America would have a huge advantage over Soviet enemies. Troops could be catapulted into past, present, and future timelines or even the multiverse. Given Robert’s extensive background and various patented applications, he was the perfect choice for this trailblazing operation. Hoping to obtain further credibility in the study of paranormal phenomena, Robert agreed to join them.

Since those involved were opening portals to other dimensions, researchers aptly named the assignment Gateway Process. According to declassified files, the program is “a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space. The participant then gains access to the various levels of intuitive knowledge the universe offers.” Discoveries listed in Commander Wayne M. McDonnell’s final analysis paper included detailed information about the nature of reality. Investigators ascertained we live in a holographic universe and waking life is a projected electromagnetic matrix.

Reptilians Emerge
To enter the unearthly realms, headphone-donning voyagers sat in isolated darkness while listening to various tones at specific hertz. Participants had no contact or communication with one another. After their journey was finished, volunteers would report what they experienced with staff members. According to Robert, subjects would often encounter interdimensional entities. Most frequently witnessed were reptilian humanoids. Viewers referred to the uncanny creatures as ‘the alligators’ due to their crocodilian features. Curiously, Monroe was already quite familiar with the unsettling breed. During countless expeditions, he observed identical saurian creatures. For over thirty-five years the etheric investigator gathered insight about these startling beings.

Pharmakeia: By Thy Sorceries Were All Nations Deceived

topical-bible-studies  |  A study of the Greek words pharmakeia (Strong's 5331) and pharmakeus (Strong's 5332).

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance:
"5331. pharmakeia ... from 5332; medication ('pharmacy'), i.e. (by extension) magic (literal or figurative)."
"5332. pharmakeus ... from pharmakon, (a drug, i.e. spell-giving potion); a druggist ('pharmacist') or poisoner, i.e. (by extension) a magician."

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary:
"pharmaceutical ... from Greek pharmakeutikos ... a medicinal drug."
"pharmaco- ... Greek pharmako-, from pharmakon ... medicine : drug."
"pharmacology ... the science of drugs."
"pharmacy ... from Greek pharmakeia ... the art or practice of preparing, preserving, compounding, and dispensing drugs ... a place where medicines are compounded or dispensed ... DRUGSTORE." 

The words in bold in the following verses, unless otherwise noted, are the King James Version translations of the Greek word pharmakeia, and represent every occurrence of pharmakeia in the New Testament.

Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft [RSV: sorcery], hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Revelation 9:20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

Revelation 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Revelation 18:21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

---

The word in bold in the following verses is the King James Version translation of the Greek word pharmakeus, and represents the only occurrence of pharmakeus in the New Testament.

Revelation 21:7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

 

A True Secret Is Still A Secret Even When It Is Revealed To All

feldenkrais-ip |  He based this work on a behavioral study of human beings that gave rise to the concept of using unconscious or instinctive responses for self-preservation. In other words, he wanted to design a self-defense system for the Haganah, based on “a movement someone would do without thinking.”⁷ 

Feldenkrais mentioned this concept in the introduction to his translation of Emile Coué’s book,  Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion. Feldenkrais’ background as a survivor gave him a unique perspective on the practical use of judo in an emergency situation, outside the dojo. At the time, it was a rare judoka who thought about the use of judo for self-defense.⁸  We see Moshe’s interest in survival throughout his development of the Feldenkrais Method. As he said years later, “The most drastic test of a movement is self-preservation.”⁹ 

From  a close reading of Better Judo we will also get a preview of Feldenkrais’ intellectualism. “In those days judo/jujutsu was an art of self-defense. Thanks to Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais it gained a scientific and more sophisticated facet. The Japanese art was increasingly seen as a science of combat practiced by intellectuals, university students, scholars…Moshe played a pivotal role in this evolution [of judo] from a utilitarian practice to a scientific one.”¹⁰  [Fig 1] Feldenkrais became involved with judo when he met its founder Professor Jigoro Kano in Paris in September of 1933. This was not merely a meeting between two giants; it was an event that would lead to a dramatic change in the direction and trajectory of Feldenkrais’ thinking. In his famous 1977 interview about martial arts, Moshe recalled that Kano had said to him that judo is “the efficient use of the mind over the body.”¹¹  

At the time, Moshe had thought that this was a funny way to describe a martial art. During their initial meeting, Moshe was introduced to the concept of seiryoku zenyo (minimum efort, maximum eficiency). Kano challenged Moshe with a judo choking technique. Moshe attempted to free himself using the technique that had always worked for him, but this time it did not help him. As Kano described in his diary: “I grabbed him in a tight reverse cross with both hands and said, ‘Try to get out of this!’ He pushed my throat with his fist with all his might. He was quite strong, so my throat was in some pain, but I pressed on his carotid arteries on both sides with both hands so the blood could not get to his head, and he gave up.

Imagine a small Japanese man, at the age of 75, subduing a strong, young man of 29. This incident impressed Feldenkrais and changed his approach to the use of his own body.  [Fig 2] 

Feldenkrais began to study judo and in a relatively short time was promoted to black belt. More than a skillful practitioner of the art, he proved to be a unique judo teacher of the highest quality. Kano had a great deal of faith in Moshe.¹³  Supported by Kano’s authority, and through his own considerable abilities, Moshe became the leading judo teacher in France. Moshe’s influence on the development of the martial art in France was extraordinary, earning him the title “Pionnier du Judo en France.”¹⁴ As Moshe became more expert at judo, he learned from and cooperated with the judo master Mikinosuke Kawaishi. This partnership gave Feldenkrais the background to later write two judo books. He wrote in the forward of Higher Judo: “I wish to express my gratitude to my friend and teacher of many years, Mr. Mikinosuke Kawaishi, 7th Dan. The figures in the illustrations in this book represent him and myself.”¹⁵ 

Neuropolitics: Computers See You In Ways You Can't See Yourself

TechnologyReview |  This spring there was a widespread outcry when American Facebook users found out that information they had posted on the social network—including their likes, interests, and political preferences—had been mined by the voter-targeting firm Cambridge Analytica. While it’s not clear how effective they were, the company’s algorithms may have helped fuel Donald Trump’s come-from-behind victory in 2016.

But to ambitious data scientists like Pocovi, who has worked with major political parties in Latin America in recent elections, Cambridge Analytica, which shut down in May, was behind the curve. Where it gauged people’s receptiveness to campaign messages by analyzing data they typed into Facebook, today’s “neuropolitical” consultants say they can peg voters’ feelings by observing their spontaneous responses: an electrical impulse from a key brain region, a split-­second grimace, or a moment’s hesitation as they ponder a question. The experts aim to divine voters’ intent from signals they’re not aware they’re producing. A candidate’s advisors can then attempt to use that biological data to influence voting decisions.

Political insiders say campaigns are buying into this prospect in increasing numbers, even if they’re reluctant to acknowledge it. “It’s rare that a campaign would admit to using neuromarketing techniques—though it’s quite likely the well-funded campaigns are,” says Roger Dooley, a consultant and author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing. While it’s not certain the Trump or Clinton campaigns used neuromarketing in 2016, SCL—the parent firm of Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Trump—has reportedly used facial analysis to assess whether what voters said they felt about candidates was genuine.

But even if US campaigns won’t admit to using neuromarketing, “they should be interested in it, because politics is a blood sport,” says Dan Hill, an American expert in facial-expression coding who advised Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012 election campaign. Fred Davis, a Republican strategist whose clients have included George W. Bush, John McCain, and Elizabeth Dole, says that while uptake of these technologies is somewhat limited in the US, campaigns would use neuromarketing if they thought it would give them an edge. “There’s nothing more important to a politician than winning,” he says.

The trend raises a torrent of questions in the run-up to the 2018 midterms. How well can consultants like these use neurological data to target or sway voters? And if they are as good at it as they claim, can we trust that our political decisions are truly our own? Will democracy itself start to feel the squeeze?

Delightful ASMR For No Good Reason...,

Elven Queen Plumbing The Abyssal Reaches Got Me Wanting To Live Forever...,

Quantamagazine |  Furey has gone further. In her most recent published paper, which appeared in May in The European Physical Journal C, she consolidated several findings to construct the full Standard Model symmetry group, SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1), for a single generation of particles, with the math producing the correct array of electric charges and other attributes for an electron, neutrino, three up quarks, three down quarks and their anti-particles. The math also suggests a reason why electric charge is quantized in discrete units — essentially, because whole numbers are.

However, in that model’s way of arranging particles, it’s unclear how to naturally extend the model to cover the full three particle generations that exist in nature. But in another new paper that’s now circulating among experts and under review by Physical Letters B, Furey uses C⊗O to construct the Standard Model’s two unbroken symmetries, SU(3) and U(1). (In nature, SU(2) × U(1) is broken down into U(1) by the Higgs mechanism, a process that imbues particles with mass.) In this case, the symmetries act on all three particle generations and also allow for the existence of particles called sterile neutrinos — candidates for dark matter that physicists are actively searching for now. “The three-generation model only has SU(3) × U(1), so it’s more rudimentary,” Furey told me, pen poised at a whiteboard. “The question is, is there an obvious way to go from the one-generation picture to the three-generation picture? I think there is.”

This is the main question she’s after now. The mathematical physicists Michel Dubois-Violette, Ivan Todorov and Svetla Drenska are also trying to model the three particle generations using a structure that incorporates octonions called the exceptional Jordan algebra. After years of working solo, Furey is beginning to collaborate with researchers who take different approaches, but she prefers to stick with the product of the four division algebras, R⊗C⊗H⊗O, acting on itself. It’s complicated enough and provides flexibility in the many ways it can be chopped up. Furey’s goal is to find the model that, in hindsight, feels inevitable and that includes mass, the Higgs mechanism, gravity and space-time.

Already, there’s a sense of space-time in the math. She finds that all multiplicative chains of elements of R⊗C⊗H⊗O can be generated by 10 matrices called “generators.” Nine of the generators act like spatial dimensions, and the 10th, which has the opposite sign, behaves like time. String theory also predicts 10 space-time dimensions — and the octonions are involved there as well. Whether or how Furey’s work connects to string theory remains to be puzzled out.

So does her future. She’s looking for a faculty job now, but failing that, there’s always the ski slopes or the accordion. “Accordions are the octonions of the music world,” she said — “tragically misunderstood.” She added, “Even if I pursued that, I would always be working on this project.”

The Effect Of 50 Years Of Warsocialism Abroad On Politics At Home

npr |  "To be clear, I'm not arguing that this is at all representative of Vietnam veterans — this is a tiny, tiny percentage of returning veterans," Belew says. "But it is a large and instrumental number of people within the White Power movement — and they play really important roles in changing the course of movement action."

In her new book, Bring the War Home, Belew argues that as disparate racist groups came together, the movement's goal shifted from one of "vigilante activism" to something more wide-reaching: "It's aimed at unseating the federal government. ... It's aimed at undermining infrastructure and currency to foment race war."

The Vietnam War narrative works first of all to unite people who had previously not been able to be in a room together and to have a shared sense of mission. So, for instance, Klansmen and neo-Nazis after World War II had a very difficult time aligning, because Klansmen tended to see neo-Nazis as enemies ... the people they were confronting in World War II. But after Vietnam they see common cause around their betrayal by the government and around the failed project of the Vietnam War. So that's one function.

Another function of the Vietnam War is to provide a narrative that shapes the violence itself, and this is partly material in that veterans who are trained in Vietnam War boot camps come back and create boot camps to train other White Power activists. People who didn't serve in Vietnam War combat even use U.S. Army training manuals and other kind of paramilitary infrastructure to shape White Power violence and they even choose Vietnam War issue weapons, uniforms and material and even obtain stolen military weapons to foment activism.

On the White Power movement turning on the state

The turn on the state happened in 1983. It happened at the Aryan Nations World Congress, which was a meeting of many different factions of the White Power movement and the thing that's important about this turn on the state is that it's openly anti-state for the first time in the 20th century. Prior Klan mobilizations had really been organized about maintaining the status quo or maintaining what historians would call "systemic power," which is to say, state power and all of the other kinds of power that are bound up in state power.

thenation |  The belief expressed here is that the majority of Americans are soft and insulated, ignorant of a long-running war, and that revolutionary racist terror is the only remedy for an American society suffering from a terminal cancer of liberalism and tolerance. This conviction may seem obscure and The Turner Diaries mere fiction, but as the historian Kathleen Belew demonstrates in her compelling new book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, it has been at the core of decades of white-supremacist organizing and violence. 

Meticulously researched and powerfully argued, Belew’s book isn’t only a definitive history of white-racist violence in late-20th-century America, but also a rigorous meditation on the relationship between American militarism abroad and extremism at home, with distressing implications for the United States in 2018 and beyond. Two fundamental insights underpin the book: first, that there exists a profound relationship between America’s military violence and domestic right-wing paramilitary organizations, and, second, that the character of that relationship underwent a decisive change in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

Criminalizing Homelessness Is Bad Policy

theconversation |  Not only do we and other legal experts find these laws to be unconstitutional, we see ample evidence that they waste tax dollars.

Cities are aggressively deploying law enforcement to target people simply for the crime of existing while having nowhere to live. In 2016 alone, Los Angeles police arrested 14,000 people experiencing homelessness for everyday activities such as sitting on sidewalks.

San Francisco is spending some US$20 million per year to enforce laws against loitering, panhandling and other common conduct against people experiencing homelessness. 

Jails and prisons make extremely expensive and ineffective homeless shelters. Non-punitive alternatives, such as permanent supportive housing and mental health or substance abuse treatment, cost less and work better, according to research one of us is doing at the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at Seattle University Law School and many other sources.

But the greatest cost of these laws is borne by already vulnerable people who are ticketed, arrested and jailed because they are experiencing homelessness.

Fines and court fees quickly add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars. A Sacramento man, for example, found himself facing $100,000 in fines for convictions for panhandling and sleeping outside. These costs are impossible to pay, since the “crimes” were committed by dint of being unable to afford keeping a roof over his head in the first place.

And since having a criminal record makes getting jobs and housing much harder, these laws are perpetuating homelessness.

As Goes Blackness - The Parable

thisisinsider |  Like much of Glover's work, "This is America" is cryptic and loaded with shocking imagery and metaphor. The track's tone swerves from happy-go-lucky psalmic readings to more alarming verses. In typical Glover fashion, he dismissed close readings of his work in an interview at the Met Gala Monday night. 

"I just wanted to make a good song," Glover told E!. "Like something that people could play on Fourth of Julys." 

Directed by his frequent "Atlanta" collaborator Hiro Murai and choreographed by Sherrie Silver, the music video touches on gun violence, the precarious state of black bodies in the US, and how we've historically used entertainment to distract us from pervasive cultural and political problems. But the music video's iconoclastic images and many layers deserve close examination to fully parse. 

Here are 24 things you may have missed.  Twitter moments.

The Underlying Nature of the Divide in American Politics

medium |  For several years now, political journalists, analysts, and pundits have been arguing that U.S. politics has increasingly turned into a struggle between urban and rural voters. Regional differences were once paramount, Josh Kron observed in the Atlantic after the 2012 election. “Today, that divide has vanished,” he declared. “The new political divide is a stark division between cities and what remains of the countryside.” Two years later, the Washington Post’s Philip Bump wrote that there are “really two Americas; an urban one and a rural one,” going on to observe that since Iowa was growing more urban, Democrats could count on doing better there. Instead, an ever-more urbanized and diverse nation turned not just toward Republicans, but also toward the authoritarian nationalism of Donald Trump, prompting further hand-wringing over the brewing civil war. “It seems likely that the cracks dividing cities from not-cities will continue to deepen, like fissures in the Antarctic ice shelf, until there’s nothing left to repair,” concluded a lengthy New York story on the phenomena this April.

I don’t disagree that the United States is in crisis, with fissures breaking apart our facade of national unity and revealing structural weaknesses of the republic. Our federation — and, therefore, the world — is in peril, and the stakes are enormous. As the author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, however, I strongly disagree with the now-conventional narrative that what ultimately divides us is the difference between metropolitan and provincial life. The real divide is between regional cultures — an argument I fleshed out at the outset of this series—as it always has been. And I now have the data to demonstrate it.

Bone-in-the-Nose Medicine "Discovers" System That Taoist Chi-Kung Develops...,

universal-tao | An introduction to the ancient Kung Fu practice designed to unify physical, mental, and spiritual health:

• Describes the unique Iron Shirt air-packing techniques that protect vital organs from injuries
• Explains the rooting practice exercises necessary to stabilize and center oneself
• Includes guidelines for building an Iron Shirt Chi Kung daily practice

Long before the advent of firearms, Iron Shirt Chi Kung, a form of Kung Fu, built powerful bodies able to withstand hand-to-hand combat. Even then, however, martial use was only one aspect of Iron Shirt Chi Kung, and today its other aspects remain vitally significant for anyone seeking better health, a sound mind, and spiritual growth.

In Iron Shirt Chi Kung Master Mantak Chia introduces this ancient practice that strengthens the internal organs, establishes roots to the earth’s energy, and unifies physical, mental, and spiritual health. Through a unique system of breathing exercises, he demonstrates how to permanently pack concentrated air into the connective tissues (the fasciae) surrounding vital organs, making them nearly impervious to injuries--a great benefit to athletes and other performers. He shows readers how once they root themselves in the earth they can direct its gravitational and healing power throughout their bone structure. Additionally, Master Chia presents postural forms, muscle-tendon meridians, and guidelines for developing a daily practice routine. After becoming rooted and responsive, practitioners of Iron Shirt Chi Kung can then focus on higher spiritual work.  Full Text. 

DopamineHegemony |  The team behind the discovery suggest the compartments may act as “shock absorbers” that protect body tissues from damage.

Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center medics Dr David Carr-Locke and Dr Petros Benias came across the interstitium while investigating a patient’s bile duct, searching for signs of cancer.

They noticed cavities that did not match any previously known human anatomy, and approached New York University pathologist Dr Neil Theise to ask for his expertise.

The researchers realised traditional methods for examining body tissues had missed the interstitium because the “fixing” method for assembling medical microscope slides involves draining away fluid – therefore destroying the organ’s structure.  

Instead of their true identity as bodywide, fluid-filled shock absorbers, the squashed cells had been overlooked and considered a simple layer of connective tissue.

Having arrived at this conclusion, the scientists realised this structure was found not only in the bile duct, but surrounding many crucial internal organs.

“This fixation artefact of collapse has made a fluid-filled tissue type throughout the body appear solid in biopsy slides for decades, and our results correct for this to expand the anatomy of most tissues,” said Dr Theise.

We Know A Little About What Matter Does, But Nothing About What It Is....,

qz |  Interest in panpsychism has grown in part thanks to the increased academic focus on consciousness itself following on from Chalmers’ “hard problem” paper. Philosophers at NYU, home to one of the leading philosophy-of-mind departments, have made panpsychism a feature of serious study. There have been several credible academic books on the subject in recent years, and popular articles taking panpsychism seriously.

One of the most popular and credible contemporary neuroscience theories on consciousness, Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory, further lends credence to panpsychism. Tononi argues that something will have a form of “consciousness” if the information contained within the structure is sufficiently “integrated,” or unified, and so the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Because it applies to all structures—not just the human brain—Integrated Information Theory shares the panpsychist view that physical matter has innate conscious experience.

Goff, who has written an academic book on consciousness and is working on another that approaches the subject from a more popular-science perspective, notes that there were credible theories on the subject dating back to the 1920s. Thinkers including philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Arthur Eddington made a serious case for panpsychism, but the field lost momentum after World War II, when philosophy became largely focused on analytic philosophical questions of language and logic. Interest picked up again in the 2000s, thanks both to recognition of the “hard problem” and to increased adoption of the structural-realist approach in physics, explains Chalmers. This approach views physics as describing structure, and not the underlying nonstructural elements.

“Physical science tells us a lot less about the nature of matter than we tend to assume,” says Goff. “Eddington”—the English scientist who experimentally confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity in the early 20th century—“argued there’s a gap in our picture of the universe. We know what matter does but not what it is. We can put consciousness into this gap.”  Fist tap Dale.