Tea Party What?

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Trish and Rob

                               Image from Huffington Post

Fair warning: this is a political rant.

Thirty days out from the midterm 2010 election, it’s beginning to look like class warfare.
When I used to think of a tea party, it was something little girls did on boring, rainy Saturdays. It was an Alice in Wonderland scenario, with Alice and the white rabbit and some of the other eccentric characters in Wonderland, sitting around, sipping tea. It wasn’t a bunch of almost exclusively white idiots convened by big money and corporate lobbyists who had convinced these people to rally against their own self interests.
You know the ones I mean. Last summer they stood around in the hot sun, with tea bags dangling from their silly hats, waving signs about NO to socialist health care and Obama’s socialist agenda, NO to bigger government and higher taxes. Yet, in their ranks were those shouting, Hands off my Medicare and Social Security!
They apparently didn’t realize that Medicare and Social Security are government programs. They apparently didn’t know that during the eight years of the Bush administration, government exploded in size. Bush brought us Homeland Security and the Transportation Safety Department. According to Wikipedia, DHS is the third largest department in the cabinet with more than 200,000 employees. The actual figure is probably much higher. The TSA supposedly has nearly 52,000 employees, but that figure seems low when you think about how many screeners there are at any single airport in the U.S. The TSA is enfolded within the Department of Homeland Security, which has a budget of nearly $43 billion. Yes, you read that figure correctly.
So where were these tea partiers when Bush was exploding the size of government and spending? Where were these tea partiers when we started two wars that have cost untold trillions and thousands of lives?
Now these fruitcakes have candidates:

So let’s start with Florida Marco Rubio, former speaker of the House of Representatives in Florida, attorney and son of Cuban immigrants. A Republican who has the support of tea partiers. He supports a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, gun rights, and a repeal of the health care reform law. He opposes abortion rights and a path to legal residency for illegal immigrants. He initially opposed Arizona’s immigration law, but now supports it since it was changed to narrow the circumstances under which people could be asked for their papers.

It’s never entirely clear to me what these people mean by a balanced budget. When Bush took office, the budget had a surplus. W went on a spending spree and blew through that in a few years. So I’m assuming that Rubio, like his fellow “conservatives,” means he supports extending the tax cuts Bush implemented for the wealthiest 2 to 3 percent and cutting every social program that acts as a safety net for the most vulnerable people in our society – the poor, the sick, and the elderly.He’s running for the senate. Scary.

 Then there’s Joe Miller,  Mr. Five O’Clock Shadow from Alaska. Like Rubio, he supports a repeal of the new health care law and opposes abortion. Oh, and he also supports “limited government spending,” the code phrase for cutting social  programs. You notice how no one ever really talks about cutting defense spending, which in the 2010 budget runs around $535 billion, and that probably doesn’t include black op programs. Good ole Joy also claims that Social Security “violates the mandates of the Constitution,” and that there should be no federal minimum wage.
Are we seeing the pattern of class warfare here? He’s running for the senate, too. Won’t be and Rubio be a pair up there on the senate floor?
Moving along.  Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin clone. Looks like her. Talks dumb like Palin. Same hairstyle, same type of clothing, big white smile.  Is basically clueless. Probably believes she can see the Pacific Ocean from her front porch. Lies about where she went to college, admitted on Bill Maher that she had dabbled in witchcraft. If she actually had, if she were a Wiccan, for instance, she would be far more interesting. Instead, she’s just embarrassing. She supports cuts to government spending (read: get rid of social programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security etc), lower taxes (especially for the top 2-3 percent of the wealthiest Americans) and, of course,  a repeal of the health care reform law. She opposes the Recovery Act and abortion.
Rand Paul. Kentucky. Former eye doc. Son of Ron Paul. Opposes government bailouts of private businesses, a path to legal residency for illegal immigrants, legalized abortion and the new health care law. He supports lower taxes and a dramatic reduction in government spending. He thinks people below the age of 55 should have to work longer before they can retire and collect Social Security. Uh-huh. And he was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Enough said. 
Sharron Angle, Nevada. When she smiles, I cringe.  Supports gun rights, expanded veterans’ benefits, tighter border security, cuts to government spending and making the Bush tax cuts permanent. (Read: she wants her donors to remain rich and the rest of us to be reduced to peasants). Naturally, she opposes the new health care law and abortion. She has said she wants to shut down the Department of Education to help balance the budget and make education a local responsibility. Neat, huh? So your kids will have to attend private school, which will cost you a bundle, or you home school them.  Endorsed by Sarah Palin. I think her platform should be called the Dumbing Down of America.  
Where is the humanity in any of these candidates? How will more guns, a greater disparity between rich and poor, the repeal of the health care law (as watered down as it is) and abolishing Medicare and public schools help this country in any way?
Tonight we saw a story on the news that really underscores what this election is about. In Union City, Tennessee, a man hadn’t paid the $75 fee to the fire department for fire protection. He forgot to pay it.Never mind that he pays property taxes, which usually covers police and fire protection. So when his house caught fire, the fire trucks parked out front and watched his home burn. Is that what  we’ve come to as a country? Have our hearts turned to stone? The man lost his home, his pets, everything because he’d forgotten to pay a $75 fee. That story is here.
According to ThinkProgress, “there are currently two competing visions of governance in the United States. One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well off and privileged sectors of the country. The other vision, the progressive one, believes in an American Dream that works for all people, regardless of their racial, religious, or economic background.

The conservative vision was on full display last week in Obion County, Tennessee.”

Posted in politics | 32 Comments

Psychokinesis and the Super Psychics

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Trish and Rob

While researching psychokinesis and spirit communication, I pulled a book off our shelves that I had forgotten about: Parapsychology: the Controversial Science, by Richard S. Broughton.

Psychokinesis – the ability to influence material objects through nothing but thought (think Uri Geller and spoons!) – happens frequently in spirit communication: lamps blink off and on, TVs go on and off, books topple from shelves, feathers or other objects suddenly show up where they couldn’t possibly be. I thought Broughton’s book might offer some insights. We’ve had numerous comments about this phenomenon under some of our posts. So anyway, I turned to his chapter on Contemproary Psychokinesis Research and ran across a section called PK Research Chinese-Style.

In the early 1990s, Zhang Baoshen, then in his mid-thirties, lived with his family in a 12-room suite at Bejing’s Institute of Space-Medico Engineering (ISME). He and his family had a chef, nurse, servants, and “all of it is provided by the state,” Broughton writes, “on condition that he doesn’t leave the country.” Why? He’s one of China’s super psychics.

Broughton says that Zhang was brought to the attention of Bejing scientists in 1982, when Chinese parapyschology – known as Exceptional Functions of the Human Body – was going through a rough patch of criticism. Between 1982-1984, Zhang was tested by both supporters and critics of the Party’s National Committee of Science. “After 1984, Zhang was no longer available to scientists outside of the military controlled ISME, also known as the 507 Institute of Spaceflight Department.” Apparently Zhang’s specialty was psychokinesis, specifically the ability to move small objects and insects in and out of sealed tubes.

In one experiment, Broughton writes, “a live insect was marked and placed inside a tube. The tube was sealed so that any attempt to open it would break a fine hair glued inside.” The tube was set on a table in front of Zhang, with two experimenters watching. “Several minutes later the insect, still alive, was outside the tube.”

A similar experiment was performed with specially marked pieces of chemically treated paper inserted in a tube, which was then melted so it was constricted at the midpoint. The ends were sealed with cotton wads that had been treated with a different chemical and  were irreversibly sealed. With four experimenters observing from different angles, it took Zhang about five minutes to accomplish what he had with the insects. “The seal on the tube was undamaged and later inspection revealed traces of chemical reaction on the cotton, suggesting that the papers had passed through the cotton.”

Ok, so this isn’t what Stephen King’s Carrie could do. But it was enough so that Zhang’s work was kept quiet by the authorities. I Googled Zhang with different search phrases and didn’t find much about him now. There are references to the 1997 book called China’s Super Psychics, but I was curious about Zhang in 2010. I found a brief wikipedia entry and an article from 2005.  There were a few others places where his name was mentioned, notably as a qigong master. But I didn’t find much of anything, at least in English, about what this enigmatic figure is doing now. Interesting, though, that qigong was outlawed in China in the summer of 1999 because of the government’s fear that it had attained cult status. New York Times article on that is here.

What began as a search for psychokinesis related to after death communication turned into a weird little mystery about Zhang. So Zhang, if you’re out there, please check in and leave us a comment!

Posted in psychockinesis, spirit contact | 19 Comments

The Ouija Board and Synchronicity

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Trish and Rob

The Ouija board. Maligned by some, considered to be an instrument of the devil by others, this simple board with letters and numbers on it is seems to be as positive or negative as the users’ beliefs about it.

Jane Roberts and her husband, Robert Butts, first became acquainted with Seth through a Ouija board. After the third session or so, Jane began hear the answers in her head before the words were spelled out. Esther and Jerry Hicks also started this way. However it works, the collective psyches and beliefs of the individuals whose hands are on the heart-shaped planchette apparently influence what happens. Other factors involved in the results may be the energies in your own environment, the emotions swirling around the questions that you ask, and the general state of your own physical and mental health. That said, here’s an experience that’s harrowing.

It’s from Jenean, who comments  as gypsywoman, and whose synchros we’ve posted a number of times. It began some years ago, with the death of Jenean’s brother, who died under mysterious circumstances.

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“While I was still in Louisiana, my brother, with whom I was very close, died in Arkansas under very suspicious circumstances. His death was sudden, unexpected, he was just 46, three years younger than me. I left within a few hours of hearing the news and headed to Arkansas.”

There was a lot of trauma surrounding his death, many unanswered questions, enormous emotional  upheaval for her brother’s family and for Jenean and her family. 

“After I got home, a close friend and I decided to ask my Ouija board about his death. We were sitting on my bed with the Ouija between us. We had turned off the lights and had six or seven large red pillar candles burning in the room. In any event, we began with more mundane questions, and then began to ask about the recent death of my brother. I don’t recall the specific question we asked, but the pointer began moving rapidly, all over the board. And then each and every one of the pillar candles exploded.

“I don’t mean that they just burned out. They exploded, spewing hot red liquid wax onto the furniture, the walls, carpeting, everywhere. The carpeting was so ruined it had to be replaced. And that ended our little Ouija session for the evening.”
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Tomorrow, Jenean moves back to her home state of Louisiana. Bon voyage, Gypsy!

Posted in death, Jenean, Ouija | 15 Comments

Is It An Alien?

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Trish and Rob

On Whitley Strieber’s site, there’s a tab called out there that lists worldwide UFO sightings. Some of these come with photos and videos. That’s how we ran across one of the strangest you tube videos to date.

Posted in aliens, video | 14 Comments

I Ching Record Book

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Trish and Rob

That’s the title of a new book, written by Adele Aldridge, who has provided a number of fascinating synchronicities for this blog as well as a couple that appeared in 7 Secrets. Interestingly, the sub-title of the I Ching Record Book is Tools for Creating a Synchronicity Journal. Indeed, the I Ching is a form of divination, and divination is a close encounter with synchronicity.

Adele’s book is both a primer for learning to use the I Ching and a workbook that provides the reader with space for recording readings for each of the sixty-four hexagrams. Adele also provides a list of sample questions readers might ask the I Ching on matters of relationships, health, career, dreams, and more.

The workbook doesn’t provide interpretations of the hexagrams. For that, readers will need one of the code books. The classic is Richard Willhelm’s I Ching, and Wilhelm’s interpretation now can be accessed on-line .  Others are also available on-line.

The record book is a handy adjunct for I Ching readings, and it also has an on-line version available free to those who purchase the book. The book would make a good gift for both beginners with an interest in the subject, and avid users of the I Ching. You can find more information at I Ching Meditations.
Rob

Posted in divination systems, I Ching | 6 Comments

Caterpillar As Messenger

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Trish and Rob

We recently posted a story about an orange centipede as an animal messenger. Today, we ran across this post about a caterpillar on Threads of Spiderwoman, and asked Lauren if we could repost it. At one time, I didn’t look at little critters like ants, centipedes, caterpillars or anything similar as messengers. Then I realized this was a kind of human arrogance on my part. If a creature as small as a hummingbird can be a messenger, why not a centipede? If an inanimate object like a feather can hold synchronistic meaning, why not a caterpillar? After all, caterpillars, like frogs, begin life as one thing and end life as something else. They’re about transformation. It’s not their size that matters. It’s their message.

After I read Lauren’s story, I asked what caterpillars represented for her. That’s the last part of the story.
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This morning I went to my mother’s house to prepare her breakfast, and beside the door, on a “cat rug”, was a strange looking fat green thing, curled into a little spiral. At first I thought it was a bit of plastic the cat had dragged home, but then it moved! Keep in mind that I live in Southern Arizona, where it is currently about 102 degrees, and there are very few leafy trees. I’ve never seen a caterpillar like this here, although obviously they are around.

I put it on a potted plant, the only thing I could find it might like to eat, although, sadly, the poor thing looks none too well for its encounter with a cat.

Can’t get over the fact that just yesterday I was writing about, and reading about, “The Chrysalis Effect” in my previous post!

PS: It was suggested that I consider what this synchronicity might mean symbolically to me. I think caterpillars represent, to me, what we are as a global humanity, adolescent, trying to mature, to transform. We’re presently, like a caterpillar on a leaf, mindlessly gobbling up our world, eating up everything in sight. The hopeful thought is that there is an impulse, a greater force, within our collective instinct that will lead us into, and eventually through, the Chrysalis, the “imaginal” stage. So that we might become, at last, “winged, whole”. Pollinators…….
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Another possible explanation, on a personal level, is that Lauren’s life is about to undergo a significant transformation. Another synchro of hers that we posted concerned a black butterfly, and butterfly (or moth) is what the caterpillar becomes.

Posted in caterpillars | 14 Comments

Extinctions

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 jeweled lizard

Aside from the obvious tragedy of mass extinctions, what do they mean on a metaphoric level? What prompted me to wonder about this was an article in National Geographic News about how, if global warming continues at its present rate, many lizards will become extinct.

The study, conducted by Barry Sinervo, a herpetologist at Berkeley, concludes that no matter what we do to combat global warming from this point on, at least 6 percent of lizard species will go extinct. By 2080, the study estimates that 1 in 5 lizards will be extinct.

Extinctions since 2000?  Take a look at this list: Pyrenean Ibex, the bajii (China’s freshwater river dolphin), three  Hawaiian species of birds – the Po’ouli,  the Kama’o, and the Hawaiian Crow, Western Black Rhino, the Golden Toad, Spix’s Macaw. This list doesn’t include plants and invertebrates.

Another animal that now faces extinction is the tamarind monkey, which lives in zoos and the forests of Colombia.There are just 7,000 of them left. The original article is here. 

In one of Jane Roberts’ Seth books,Seth specifically addresses extinctions. If memory serves me, Seth said something to the effect that extinct animals reappeared in probable realities. If that’s true, could it be one explanation for why certain animals that are deemed extinct suddenly reappear?  These creatures, often referred to as “Lazarus species,” include  the New Holland Mouse, for instance, first discovered in 1843. It vanished for more than a century and then  reappeared in a national park north of Sydney, Australia.

Maybe the Dodo bird, which went extinct around 1800, is alive and well in some probable reality and is simply waiting for an opportune time to resurface. I hope that’s how it works.

Posted in extinctions, global warming, lizard, tamarind monkey | 14 Comments

Ghosts as Tricksters

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 When we posted a synchro called Hank and Judy, Photographers,  there were a number of really great comments, stories unto themselves, and some interesting email that came in. Here are two of them – one from an email, the other a comment.
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This one comes from Sharlie West. We used  one of her synchros in our book. She has the most unusual experiences with ghosts/spirits. This one sounds like ghosts as tricksters!
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My home is haunted. I’ve gotten used to the spirits; they were more active when the house was filled with children. Things still disappear and we never find them. We all kidded about it a lot. One Thanksgiving the family was sitting around the table talking about our occasional spirit visitors. We were drinking wine and gave a Thanksgiving toast, raising our glasses high. My mom said, “If there are any ghosts, let them make themselves known.” We were all smiling until her wine glass broke midair into tiny pieces and splattered all over the table. Dead silence after that. I got chills realizing that although we kidded about the spirits, they were definitely there.
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Under comments, Connie posted this amazing synchro:

During the final three days of my Mom’s life, she was in a S. GA hospital in a terminal coma. (She was 63) My aunt, her older sister, who was a born-again fundamental Christian, was sitting beside me at the foot of Mom’s bed. There was a very loud CRACK! in the air over Mom’s head, and my Aunt and I looked up from our books. I was accustomed to seeing spirits, but was not accustomed to being with other people who could also see them.

There was a Catholic Clergy in the white and red robes of a Cardinal or Bishop, (my Mom was Baptist), and he was leaning over my Mother’s bed very clearly giving her rites of some kind. My poor Aunt saw him as clearly as I did, and she burst into tears, dropped her book on the floor, and flew from the room. The Priest faded in a few moments, but every day at exactly the same times, for three days, he came and gave my Mom rites. He was there at the moment of her death.

His energy was so powerful that several medical people could see him, and personnel were coming from all over the hospital trying to catch a glimpse of him. He disappeared on the Sunday that she passed, and I could see her “essence” up in the corner of the room, like a flowing blue-white mist. No one else saw that. I’ve always wondered why a Catholic Clergy Spirit came for her. It was an awesome, awe-inspiring experience. My aunt never recovered from it. She was completely spooked by it, no pun intended. For me it was magnificent.
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Some of the followup comments to this were terrific, with speculation about whether Connie’s mother had been Catholic in a previous life and that perhaps this representative of the church was someone she had known or simply a symbol she would recognize.

Posted in spirits | 38 Comments

The White Butterfly

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Trish and Rob

During the early afternoon of August 5, Jorge Galeguillos and Franklin Lobos were driving into the Copiapo mine in Chile in a pickup truck when a huge slab of rock collapsed behind them.  The collapse blocked the road behind them, so they had nowhere to go but forward. As Jorge wrote to his brother,  “We had been up to the workshop and as we were driving back down, a slab of rock caved in behind us. It crashed down only a few seconds after we drove past. Just ahead, I saw a white butterfly. After that, we were caught in an avalanche of dirt and dust.”

Keep in mind that the butterfly was 500 meters or more than 1600 feet beneath the surface. What was this little insect doing that deep in the earth? The two men, perhaps struck by the oddity, slowed their truck as the dust cleared to get a closer look at the butterfly.  It prevented them from driving right into the fallen rocks  and cave-ins that had been triggered by the initial collapse and they were eventually able to make their way to the 31 other miners trapped deeper in the mine.

Jorge’s brother, Eleodoro contends that “our grandfathers knew it was a good omen to come across a white animal in the dark of the night.”

These butterflies are sometimes sighted around purple flowers that blossom for just a few hours in the Atacama desert when dew or fog is present. But as mining consultant Miguel Fortt noted, the closest cluster of these flowers lies two kilometers from the mine. “People who are religious would call this a miracle,” Fortt says. “From a scientific perspective, the butterfly may have flown into the mine on air currents. You can draw your own conclusions but that butterfly saved their lives.”

It’s interesting that in esoteric traditions, butterflies represent transformation, resurrection, the spirits of the dead. As Eleodoro remarked, “Maybe it was just a little angel passing in front of them…”

Posted in butterflies, chilean miners | 12 Comments

Sydney Synchros

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Trish and Rob

(Unfortunately, synchronicity is misspelled in this image!)

Here’s a couple of synchronicities that came to us from DAZ in Australia, who experienced the synchros while reading our book. Again, this is an example of the first secret of synchronicity. When you think about synchronicity, you tend to notice more of them in your life. It also qualifies as a cluster.

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I just started reading your book “7 Secrets of Synchronicity” and already the synchros are going off like fireworks and I’m only up to page 20.

Here’s one of them. I read that you had taken over the Sydney Omar astrology series…my middle name is Sydney…which got me to thinking about the city of Sydney and how haven’t been there for nearly 20 years. I feel I should visit soon…then as I’m reading and thinking this, an advertisement comes on TV about Sydney (which I haven’t seen before). The catch phrase in this new ad is…Sydnicity.I was nearly falling off the chair in disbelief…looks like I have to visit Sydney ASAP.

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We followed up on this ad and found it on Facebook. Not only is one of the slogans Sydnicity, which sounds like synchronicity and Sydney combined. But on the Facebook version, right next to the Sydnicity headline is another one that reads: Syncronicity (misspelled!) That’s the illustration above. If you click it, it leads to some cultural arts events taking place in Sydney.

But DAZ also offered a second one.

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Here’s one more from “7 Secrets” before I forget.The part about Joseph Campbell and the praying mantis made me think of the DVD “Microcosmos,” which I had placed in the shopping basket a couple of weeks ago on a site where I buy my DVDs. I had also placed a copy of “Pleasantville” in there and couldn’t decide if I wanted to get that as well. I kept reading “7 Secrets” until (boom), on page 18 you start writing about “Pleasantville.” Problem solved, movie purchased.
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Well done, DAZ!

Posted in 1st secret, clusters, names | 15 Comments