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Spiritual Climate Newsletter OCTOBER 2006 INTRODUCTION

 

The Institute of Spiritual Climate

Is proud to present

Its newsletter

of Social Commentaries:

SPIRITUAL CLIMATE®

Sunday, October 08, 2006

“Education used to defend ignorance is no longer education;

it becomes nothing more than a class in persuasion of Wall Street advertising”

. . .Rev. David Strickler

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Welcome Friends, Students, and Readers of Spiritual Climate!

Welcome to the Equinox of Autumn and the October 2006 Edition of The Institute of Spiritual Climate’s Social Commentary Newsletter. Though we at Spiritual Climate have observed silence for a few months, as explained in Dr. Strickler’s article, we are back in full swing with thought provoking, insightful commentaries to make you stop, think and question. Hopefully you will join us on this never ending journey of discovery via the joyful process of agape as you surrender to the experience of allowing creaky, weathered doors to be kicked open and dusty veils to be pulled back from shuttered windows creating an aperture for the light of Truth to filter in and shine into the nooks and crannies of your stagnant, moldy old ways of looking at this mixed up world of ours! Perhaps brings up a picture of a haunted house, hhmmm? Ah yes, ‘tis the season, my friends. Be ever watchful!

In this month’s Edition, Dr. Strickler, in his unique style, weaves a message of heartfelt knowledge relating his process of stroke-recovery and past memories to challenge us all to recognize our personal worth and relevance to making change in today’s society in : “I am BACK, a BRIEF OBSERVATION, a SYNOPSIS”.

Wendy Ford compares the Sophists of our time to the bullies of remembered schoolyard days and challenges us all to stand up for that which is rightfully ours in: HEY! GIVE THAT BACK!”

Christine Ford shares her views on expropriation and the Hell that is being created within our society as we ignorantly acquiesce to the bureaucratic Sophists who are having a hey-day not only with our time and money, but with our Souls and Spirits as well in “NETWORK REDUX”.

Adam Crosthwaite shares his pain and joy of growth as he questions himself right out in the open for everyone to see, AND relate to, in: QUESTIONING EVERYTHING, ESPECIALLY YOURSELF!

May this Edition of the Spiritual Climate Newsletter haunt your waking time as well as your dreams, may it speak to you in phrases and in whisperings until you acknowledge and understand the Truth of the extreme severity of the dilemma that our great country faces, and begin to awaken to and take action to prevent the ever growing threat to your own personal Freedom.

Welcome to the OCTOBER Edition 2006 of the SPIRITUAL CLIMATE NEWSLETTER.

Regards

Christine Ford

Editor

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you know you want to do it:

Spiritual Climate Newsletter OCTOBER 2006 Part 1: I AM BACK, A BRIEF OBSERVATION, A SYNOPSIS by Rev. David Strickler, Ph.D.

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 I am Back, a Brief Observation, a Synopsis

 Rev. David Strickler, Ph.D.

Landscapes can change quickly sometimes within a short period of time. One day you go out at your usual time only to find the cascading envelope arising from the absence of light leading to the quizzical response of how the evening is arriving at earlier time. I have found this to be true after my sabbatical by honoring the tradition that I speak of and from by remaining silent during the major holiday of its observation relevant to this physical solar system. It was the downward spiral that descends from above to below, vertical, that urged me to remain silent for this particular observance more so than I usually do from the end of July till the end of the first week of September, which is why you, the readers’ of Spiritual Climate Newsletter have not received any editions this year.

Due to the Spiritual energy and the intelligence is inherent within the grace I receive during the period of my holy season (sabbatical); I halted the production of the newsletter due to what some call the overshadowing presence of Spirit, or to render it by a far more accurate Hebrew word in its formula of consonants, the Shekinah. Rest, digestion and the situational occurrences that gravitate and burst into the compression during this period of time, which even captured the attention of my students in Qabalah, verified the whispering voice of that Shekinah that spoke and said in the voiceless Voice, “Pause”, the Hebrew mother letter MEM, as represented by the tarot Arcanum XII. Without foundation of silence there isn’t anything that can be heard. Without the silence there is no space to utilize the process of reason to weed the fertile garden of imagination that could be used as a rough starting point toward the discovery of a principle hidden by the misshapen shadows created in the realm of the senses. Imagination is a powerful agent of narcosis if left unchecked by the use of reason, the necessary growth fluid that lights humility which is nothing more than the acknowledgement of the truth, even though Truth can never be enunciated at all in its ultimate form, only glimpsed in relative position to the moment of experience.

Over the last few months I have taken refuge into the past barrage bearing memories coming to surface during my neurological ‘rewiring’. Take for example, my hometown memory of Lorain’s Historic Lighthouse or the Ohio Theater, in Lorain, Ohio on Broadway Avenue just across the famous Bascule Bridge. It is a place that used to exist in the early part of my childhood that I have memories of because this is where my brother and I would go to see the summer movies. It is this theater where he and I first saw The Batman (the 1943 version) and quite a few other summer movies, many of which I cannot remember. I think it was the first time I truly began to recognize that my brother was actually not going to go away, not that I ever wanted him to, but that he seemed to come out of nowhere in my mind and into the presence of my life. There are many blank spots present until my recollection of his being about 4 or 5 and yet when we look back at our pictures that my mother took of us, he was there right by side, as he has been intermittently throughout the years whether in music or healing.

Our lives took very divergent paths in some ways and yet some ways they are similar. I do not think he was with me when Peter Frampton was at the Ohio Theater back in the 1970’s. Wish we could have shared some time together at the PALACE THEATER ( Lorain Palace Theater Org, Lorain Palace Theater Pictures , Directory of Historic Theaters, Cinemas and Opera Houses in OHIO ) , in Lorain where some of my other musical friends used to perform. One in particular was Paul Fayrewether (who if you are reading this Paul, greetings, I haven’t spoken with you since the AGORA days) whom I had shared many musical conversations with since he evolved from his earlier gig originally called “The Book of Strawberry”, nor was my brother with me on the musical journey that my cousin Michael took me on at the Lorain Community College Commons with a group called Molkie Cole who were hitting the road about the same time as FAYREWETHER

Part of this memory recital seems to be nothing more than a vain attempt to override the feeling that I have had for the first time ever in my life, one that I had never considered or even knew that I had: the feeling of being irrelevant. Checking with my trusted friend who is clothed with wisdom, Dianne, I expressed to her my new found experience and she oddly looked at me and said, “Oh really? You have never felt that way in your life?” I replied “No!”

It was never a consideration or even the faintest idea that produced an effect within my subconsciousness because I look at all life as relevant. If that part of my larger Self known as the boundaries of Spirit and Soul had no use for my being here, I would never be here. I have always felt purpose for my life, whether it be from a menial task to the writing of any of these social commentaries to the privilege of teaching and transmitting the principles, knowledge and currents of Being proceeding from the principles of consciousness in the teachings of Qabalah.

Dianne, in her usual inimitable fashion asked me the once and famous question that holds gold rating in any path of discernment, “Where is this feeling of being irrelevant coming from?” she asked. I know where it is coming from, or I wouldn’t be a Qabalist worth my salt employing the essence of the word “qibel”, meaning to receive. It is coming from the unconscious explication and shouts from the collective individuals who are beginning to feel that they have been disenfranchised in favor of corporate profits.

Sheer pressure from this current phase of my cognitive and physical recovery process has also prompted me to pause and ascertain just “where the hell I am” at this stage in what some refer to as the “game of life”; a statement with glib overtones that denunciates a reverence of life and one that reverberates with a tonal quality of that of a person feigning the tone of an ignoramus and I detest such nonsensical attitudes with vehemence and disdain. I have also come to notice that my level of anger has arisen out of the ashes, albeit in new quality, better directed and aimed with far more precision than I have handled previously. Where would this world be without healthy anger; the anger that enables the proper questions to be asked of salesmen posing as politicians and drawing funds away from those people who would excel using the almost lost art of statesmanship; statesmanship provides for the long term haul and benefit of the citizens.

Now with that being stated, I will attempt in my ordinary fashion to make a brief observation and a synoptic social commentary about the conditions appearing within the world today and some of the people who are prancing around like arrogant fools pronouncing their ignominious cacophony and using the shrewd school of sophistry to convince the world that the sky is falling, that wonderful school that murdered both Socrates and Rabbi YHSVH—the SOPHISTS.

Read this statement over and over again a few times: Religion used to vindicate insanity is no longer religion. What is it then you ask? Simple, nothing more than a political agenda being used by human beings who are insane to justify and rationalize their actions and behavior in order to over compensate for their inability to have proper institutions of government that create fair fiscal and monetary policies to enable the growth of their people. In instances where this does not fit, as with many mental illnesses in this world, then it is still under the capitulation of an aggressive political philosophy that is seeking to either use Hegemony or thwart it.

So what is happening in the economic landscape and who are the landscaping agencies that are selling off America? I refer you to a man who if you read his interviews contained within the links in his name you might consider to be a prophet once you read his interviews; pay close attention to the dates of the interview. This man is Dr. Michael Hudson, University of Missouri-Kansas City Economics Department, author of the book Super Imperialism ( Entire Book on PDF link) and esteemed professor of Economics who was blackballed by the Reagan administration. His background with institutional cash flows, along with his profound experience in Economic History has stated,What we are dealing with here is Junk Science in the service of political ideology. . . It is basically an attempt to demonize public control of the monetary system. This prejudice has been sponsored by the financial sector hoping to elbow governments out of the picture. The empirical evidence is just the opposite, which helps explain why the free-enterprise monetarists have excluded economic history from the academic curriculum. . . The Fed’s policy of lowering interest rates is a precondition for reviving popular hopes for a Bubble and suckering voters to approve Social Security privatization.”

What about the healthy anger that provides the necessary force that can galvanize one into thoughtful and conscientious action against deceit and utter apathy upon which contempt to the principles that engage the foundations of society that enable mankind’s evolutionary spiral upwards, instead of the horizontal devolutionary direction that has been taken since the grand court jester Aristotle was chosen to lead the neo-feudal jackass ideologies promulgated by the likes of Peter Feaver and Felix Rohatyn with the aid of George Schultz in privatizing the infrastructures already paid for by the public in this country in order to expropriate more funds from the citizens and to transfer their ownership to foreign nationals? Without healthy anger these people are in the process of usurping the rights and privileges of the citizens of this country without many of the citizens even becoming aware of the process.

Without healthy anger and directing its process some Americans have become nothing more than doormats, submissive to the rancor of politicians who lead the gullible to believe they are statesmen waving their air of authoritarianism and fear sloganism to the cowering submissive crop of people they have cultivated as a cash crop of Religious Value while wrapping themselves up in the flag our Nation. This Nation doesn’t belong to any political party, whether they be Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, it belongs to the citizens. This sentiment was echoed by a group of Veterans known as VET PAC who are running for positions in Congress, “We didn’t fight strongly enough against the lies and innuendo in 2004,” Vietnam veteran Dick Klass told Murtha supporters Thursday, many of them veterans themselves. “Karl Rove’s clone army is out there spreading lies [but] we’re not going to take it anymore.” Read the full text

The solution is a simple one word answer. . .

VOTE. . .

YOU ARE RELEVANT!

The failure of education is blatantly apparent with those who have eyes to see is in the current use of Sophistry to prostitute the process of education by the Consumptive addicts borne out of the reductionism of Aristotelian (non) thought, whose  Ptolemaic product was and is fraudulent to this day; hijacked into modern warfare by the hoax of Information Theory  (mid 1950’s) which has gradually replaced people trained as true Educators into the current prostitutes who pass certification skills and degrees masquerading as knowledge.  

It was the Sophists that induced Athens of Pericles to destroy itself in the Peloponnesian war; thus, the current Sophists posing in our Federal, State and local agencies and Departments (including Education) are being led by carrots on a string by some business pimps ( e.g., Abramoff lobbyists) who are transforming modern education into a moat of whore-ship to serve information, consumption and immediate gratification determined by K STREET, instead of the discovery of new KNOWLEDGE that can protect this nation from its genuine enemies instead of those who purvey fear as an instrument to lose this great Republic or as stated by Bruce Fein who was interviewed in this article: A Conservative Concerned About Presidential Lawlessness.

The latest sophistry meddling in education appears thus far to be coming out of the Department of Education from Secretary Margaret Spelling, who spoke at the National Press Club on September 26, 2006 luncheon speaking about the rather undynamics (my word) of the “No Child Left Behind” policy. From her comments I wouldn’t take her as a true educator, more of a proselytizer of short term gains to create further anemic conditions within education. I have to wonder about the quality or lack thereof of her quantitative assessment which at first glance seems closer to hitting the bulls-eye of entropy in education while being adorned in the fluff of her questionably genuine enthusiasm to enable greater availability of higher education to our citizens. The zeal that I question is this, is Secretary Margaret Spelling paving a sophist argument to devolute the processes in Education that would be the equivalent to what Bruce Fein states in this quote “We are more likely to lose democracy on the installment plan like the Roman Republic as chronicled by Gibbon than by a military-industrial coup."?

This new movement  in education resembles a disassembling of education fueled in its reptilian guise of short term profiteering using competition, money and the mechanics of economic terrorism of Adam Smith, instead of the American System of Economic Principles that are the bedrock foundation of this Great Nation. What is really required is the removal of axiomatic thinking or presumptions and getting to the genuine problems inherent within the construction of policies which do nothing more than band aid the growing crisis in education; to do otherwise will allow the continued gutting, disintegration and further creation of weakness in the greatest resource we have:  our Citizens. There are long term consequences with determinable effects that come about from major policy changes or changes in mandates, foreign or domestic—just look at the lack of argument about the HMO Mandate in being the root of our current crisis in health care, which I might point out, few, if any are bothering to highlight as a necessary dialogue.

The blind acceptance of this type of sophistry (wall street slogansim) will destroy the U.S.A. unless a classically based form of education with a science driven economy is reincarnated to increase our present accumulation of knowledge and thus maintain our leadership in this world; lest we be destroyed by the terrorism of modern neo-Kantian Sophistry, be it in the political arena, business arena, religious arena, medical arena, communications arena, journalists or rather entertaining talking heads, you name it. There are people walking around with sucker pasted on their foreheads who will drink the Kool-Aid labeled ‘competitive education’ based on the needs of our consumptive society, along with those who will sell it to any willing buyers:  Bullshit and Money are the candy convincing many Educational Administrators (not true Educators) to become Professional Pimps in education to enable to leave their pile of history by defaming true education in this country as they turn the minds of our young people into corporate whores sold at the center of town like a slave to the highest bidder. 

The Course that modern education is currently churning will turn our universities into nothing more than vaudeville strip clubs with graduate-parrots who lack critical discernment, critical thinking and peer review thus divesting the U.S.A. of creating leaders who are expending the energy toward pioneering new KNOWLEDGE through the discovery of principles, replaced instead by a shareholder-value philosophy that serves to satiate only the immediate gratification of profits instead of long term benefits to the citizenry of this great Nation and our progeny. 

So by now you may be asking, “What the hell does this have to do with Qabalah or anything of a Spiritual Nature?” Plenty I say if you have but ears to see and eyes to hear with.

One of the many aims of Qabalah, rightly understood, is to lead the mind, conjoined by self consciousness, by a system of practices, to ever increasing clearer apprehensions of spiritual truth as fast as consciousness becomes fitted to realize them and the container adapts to be able to cognize the principles veiled by the representations created by the apparitions of the senses. It is here that we can come to a fuller comprehension of a truer understanding by that act known as necromancy and the meaning of that act and word enumerated as necromancy in its full to partial reality conveys and engages: a glimpse into the reality unveiled by piercing acts of attention that are generated during an act of cognition thus enabling an apprehension in the discovery of a universal (non) physical principle. The comprehension of this principle is a crucial catalyst that gives awakening of understanding emergence of coalescent physical manifestation and how that principle is the catalyst of the resulting growth.

Our Spiritual growth does not leave the physical world out of the equation because the paradox of the physical world is part of the spiritual equation that we incarnated here to come to understand. Spiritual principles do not give way to insane and corrupt behavior; rather, it stabilizes and nurtures the growth of the Soul giving birth to its expression in the last of its tests, being able to handle the realm of the physical. The true end of our personal world takes place when we come to find that our senses are not able to fully report what ‘this world actually is’, that the apple only appears to be red, the object known as the apple is NOT RED. It is part of our spiritual duty to recognize what is truly happening within our environs and create solutions that are genuine, not imaginary ones which only “sound good”.

Enemies we have, that is true, for we live not in a perfect world. Proper education is our key to recovering the unstable processes within this world. Otherwise it produces the very terrorism we now see spreading like a cancer and it metastasizes in forms other than bombs, whether it be legislation ‘products’, intelligence ‘products’, or education ‘products’.  In the new Religion of Consumerism and its current Sophistry, this rose by any other name would smell like Horseshit on a hot humid day. Education used to justify ignorance is no longer education.

It Takes Courage to Live. We must use that courage to Laugh at the Sophists who are trying to fill and sell your soul with fear, it is the Lord of the Universe, El Elyon, that will Judge those who LIBEL and SLANDER the use of His Ineffable Name and His Son’s in the arrogance and vanity of human beings acting with perdition in the misuse of their human ego, ignominious policies and blasphemous VOX POX.

YOU ARE RELEVANT. This is not a new War, all one need do is to examine the record of history to understand the nature of this war; it is the battle between sophistry and truth, not good and evil as has been suggested by our ignorant brethren in this Nation, some of who are arrogant enough to believe that they are God and can determine that which is evil, along with the end of the world. Guess they don’t take the great Rabbi Yeheshua (Jesus) seriously, for it is he who said, NO ONE knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, BUT ONLY THE FATHER.” Matthew 24:36. I say that some people still don’t know how to read. Just goes to show you what education under the guise of information theory has produced, leaders who lack necessary conscience to read accurately, quote precisely and ACT PROPERLY, with Behavior principled in Wisdom.

PAX ET BONUM,

(Peace and Goodness)

Rev. David Strickler

Qabalistic Minister

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you know you want to do it:

Spiritual Climate NEwsletter OCTOBER 2006 Part 2: HEY! GIVE THAT BACK! by Wendy Ford

 

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Hey! Give That Back!

By Wendy Ford

Expropriate is defined in Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as a verb:

To take away money or property especially for public use without payment to the owner, or for personal use illegally.

Did you ever watch the schoolyard game of Keep Away? Perhaps you were even a victim at one time or another or maybe even a participant. For those unfamiliar with this classic children’s game Keep Away consists of one person grabbing an item from another and tossing the item back and forth amongst two or more “others” just out of reach of the owner while taking great pleasure in watching the attempts of the owner to retrieve the item. Perhaps its owner chases after the person who grabbed it only to have the item tossed quickly to another just as they are about to capture the bully who took it. Other times the object is handed back and forth among the “players” so fast that it is difficult or impossible for the owner to keep track of who has the object.

Depending upon how much meaning the object has to its owner the attempts to recapture the object can become increasingly desperate. Apparently it is this reaction that is the main object of the game. The more desperate and upset the owner becomes the greater the perceived pleasure or “fun” of the perpetrators. The ultimate goal of course is to wear down the owner until tears are shed. The “game” is generally abandoned at this point with the object being tossed into the nearest bushes or tree or pond or other suitably difficult place for the owner to retrieve it. If it is an item of particular use or value the perpetrators may decide to keep it as their own. If the game is taking place in a schoolyard perhaps the recess bell is a blessed interruption or an adult in attendance intervenes but that is part of the challenge to the bullies. Play the game without interruption and play without being caught by an authority figure. Other children observing the game are generally not inclined to intervene and many are just glad they are not the victims.

A big secret that usually eludes the victim: if, when the bully takes the item, disinterest is feigned. The game is no longer fun and the bully or bullies will move on in search of another victim who will be more entertaining or who has an item they deem to be of with higher value to them.

The game generally starts very early in childhood. It can be found wherever a group of young children gather and over time take note of the similarities and differences among themselves. The stronger tend to pick on the weaker or more sensitive. Initially the game is really just a fun game involving much chasing, screaming and giggling with adults or older children around to intervene should things get too out of hand. But as children get older the game takes on deeper and darker meaning as the bullies emerge from the social group and it becomes a form of torment; a way for the bullies to assert their noble selves and show how strong and great they are thus intimidating the rest of their peers and giving themselves the perception they are really hot shots and superior to all others. It would appear that learning the process of expropriation has roots deep within most of our childhoods.

Keep Away continues to be played out in ever increasingly suave and sophisticated ways for the rest of our lives. The stronger always pick on the weaker. In this sense physical strength and prowess are not the sole defining factors of strength or weakness. The bullies of the schoolyard have learned how to function quite effectively in the adult world. Only now they have learned to disguise their schoolyard false bravado and false senses of their own greatness behind the appearances of wealth, knowledge, intelligence, power, assets, access to information, and the ability to withhold information or knowledge. But the game of Keep Away is ever present. Take something that has meaning or value to someone without consent and use it for your own reasons. Expropriation.

By definition in the Cambridge Dictionary expropriate is a verb that refers to property being taken especially for public use without payment.

Doesn’t it just sound like a fancy term used to distract attention from an act? Guess folks won’t notice what we’re up to if we call it something fancy. They won’t want to appear ignorant or stupid so they are less likely to question what we are doing, especially if we tell them it’s for public use. They’ve all been taught (trained, programmed) it’s not right to be selfish. If we tell them it’s for the greater good they’ll do it. They won’t want to look like bad citizens or disloyal.

In Roget’s Thesaurus guess what shows up as synonyms for expropriate? “Verb: expropriate: To take quick and forcible possession of: Commandeer, confiscate, grab, seize, snatch”. And as an idiom: “help oneself to”. Don’t two other words immediately jump to the head of the line: steal and theft?

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines steal “to take something without the permission or knowledge of the owner and keep it”. The same source defines theft as “(the act of) dishonestly taking something which belongs to someone else and keeping it”.

It seems if something is taken dishonestly and without permission and then kept for oneself it is called theft or stealing. But if it is taken away for public use then it is expropriation. My, my, my. The line distinguishing the difference sure appears very thin. Looks like one big, fancy game of Keep Away.

Except that it has become a deadly game. Continue to give tax breaks to big corporations and the wealthy but Keep Away from the poor, the sick, the elderly. Refuse to infuse enough money into educational system so that our youth will be able to compete in the global economy. Allow the price of gasoline to go so high that people have to choose which tank to fill, their car gasoline tank or their own stomachs. Pay lip service to the need for alternative fuels but don’t fund the necessary programs to build the infrastructure required for distribution. Crow on about family values and morals then go on demanding mandatory overtime and requesting voluntary relinquishing of vacation time. Pay lip service to the need to save and protect our environment but deny funding to programs that would restore our coast marshlands. Wring hands and cluck tongues at how horrible the destruction was from Hurricane Katrina but tie up funds (our tax dollars which have been deducted, expropriated, from each of our earned dollars) so that after almost ONE YEAR the gulf area looks not that much different from a month after the event. Puff out those manly or womanly chests and pound on them with clenched fists to show strength and greatness to the world and to competitors. Gather cronies around and continue to show just how sophisticated the game of Keep Away can be.

Expropriation. Look around. Can evidence of it be seen? Probably right under your very nose. To whom do our natural resources belong? How is your paycheck being expropriated in the market place? Who owns your personal time, indeed ANY of your time and should that even have to be questioned? How much of it has been expropriated by your employer in the form of mandatory overtime? Who owns your ability or right to make decisions about your health care? Most of us are at the mercy of our healthcare insurance companies who, for the most part have very little concern over any one individual’s state of health. If you work in a field of research, who owns your “discoveries” (intellectual property)? Depending upon the employment agreement you may not even have the right ownership of your own ideas and discoveries, you may not be eligible to be credited with a patent. Expropriation.

Bullies can blind others with their false greatness, kindness and false genuineness so suavely and smoothly that they can be quite easily elevated to positions of power and influence. From those positions their acts of expropriation can often be completely unnoticed. Why? Because those of us who put them in those positions have for far too long had the belief they will act in our interest and we have blindly put our trust, money and very lives and well being in their hands. They have taken that trust and run with it. They have inflated their own egos and while one hand grabbed personal power the other has covered our mouths to smother our voices.

Their grasp has become so firm that it is strangling the very life out of us as individuals and families. It is crushing our children’s education and the very future of our country and society. And they will continue to get away with it unless the right questions are asked and followed up on, asked again and again with persistence until the truth is uncovered. Until enough eyes and ears are opened enough that folks will stop, shake loose of the grasp and say, “Hold on a minute. Just what is going on here? Just what do you think you are doing? And more importantly, why are you doing it? Who are you serving?” Until we as individuals choose to band together and make our voices heard the bullies will have no reason to stop.

A reverse game of Keep Away needs to start. We could call it Take It Back, or Give It Back. It appears through various sources and media that people are starting to look around and say, “Hey! Wait a minute! I didn’t say you could do that. What are you doing? I didn’t say you could have that. If you had asked, I might have been willing to share it or let you borrow it. But you can’t just take anything you want any time you want it. You aren’t in Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory stomping your foot ‘I want it NOW Daddy. Give it to me NOW!’ ” No.

Expropriation: just another fancy word for stealing and theft, which, by the way, ARE illegal. Just who are we going to hold accountable, along with When and Why aren’t the true journalists of the world pounding on this theme?

There are times to be generous and there are times when it is necessary to fight the bully who keeps trying to grab your stuff on the playground. Sometimes others will come to stand with you if they see you are willing to stand up to the bully. Sometimes when you fight the bully you end up with scraped knees, a torn jacket and a black eye, but sometimes you earn the respect of the bully and he thinks twice about messing with you in the future.

May the Lord of Life bless you with courage to enable you to stand up to the bully and fight for what is rightfully yours.

Wendy Ford

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you know you want to do it:

Spiritual Climate Newsletter OCTOBER 2006 Part 3: NETWORK REDUX by Christine Ford

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Network Redux

By Christine Ford

There is an unprecedented phenomenon happening within our society and government that affects every class, race, religion, age and ethnic group with a with a wrath more destructive than any terrorist threat could pose to our physical well-being. You, your kids, your families and your friends are being held captive within a prison that continues to tighten and twist the chains of restriction so gradually that you are oblivious to the process. Tethered and held in containment by these shackles, we have become so accustomed to the limitations that we are not even aware of the non-physical tower that we are being incarcerated within. There is little relief from the sinister creeping engulfment that we are experiencing, yet it has come on so slowly, with such stealth and covertness that as we go merrily on our way in what we have been taught since elementary school is “the land of the FREE and the home of the brave” that we have permitted the freedom upon which this great nation was established to exist as mere words repeated in rote, like the Borg’s statement “Resistance is futile”.

This expropriation of our liberties has been propagated by the business management that runs our country, by a few strong, clandestine families whose agenda is power, wealth and enslavement of the masses at the cost of the horrific payment with the Truths and Ideals upon which this nation was built when our Founding Fathers established the United States of America some 200 plus years ago. Sophistry reigns supreme and we all blindly accept that as the “norm” each and every moment of each and every day of our lives. The Matrix like chains that hold us are so insidious that the majority of our citizens go blithely from day to day, coffee, work, dinner, to bed, to rise to do it all over again, struggling to make ends meet, to get kids to activities, to stretch already overtaxed budgets and time, in a never ending rat race of complexity of NOTHING.

In my opinion, the major injustice that has been perpetrated upon us when one genuinely examines the “big picture” is the confiscation of personal time and attention needed to foster the awareness of the most precious commodity we have, contact with our Soul and Spirit. Pretty strong statement, yes, but I have some pretty strong feelings about the commandeering of our time, resources, life style and that which we have previously as a nation held in high regard to support what has become an almost A-Spiritual manifestation with little or no regard given to the essential experience of what it is to be truly human.

We are living a nightmare of chaotic apathy and indifference that has lulled us into the superficial posture of keeping so busy with our mundane comings and goings, yet doing NOTHING of a true Spiritual nature. Indeed when the topic comes up of being on a Spiritual Path and reconnection with Soul and Spirit, one feels compelled to explain and defend the pursuit of that which is our Birth Right and entire purpose for even BEING in this dismal plane of manifestation. The mere mention of the words “Spiritual Path” or “Spiritual Teacher” has the common result of sending people running in a different direction, with the snap judgment made, based on absolutely NO knowledge except for their pin headed, biased opinion that you belong to a “cult”.

I MUST interject here my pet peeve with those idiots who hear the word “occult” which means “hidden, veiled, and mysterious” and mix it up with the word “cult”, which does indeed have a negative connotation in our current society. When defined, however, even the word “cult” itself is innocuous. “Cult” means, according to that good old standby, Webster, “a system of religious worship or ritual, a devoted attachment to a person, principle, etc.”. I guess now if I choose to use the widely accepted form of logic that makes all you born again Christians, or Baptists, or Catholics, or whatever name you choose to define your religion by members of a CULT! Perhaps I should be screaming and running in sheer terror from those of you who self-righteously deem yourselves to be “religious”!

I will not condemn you for your chosen path of ignorance, however, for the Path of Spiritual Development I have chosen to follow is more accepting, forgiving, and open than the opinions you proclaim as fact given to you from the cult of headline news worshippers. You are entitled to your opinion, no matter how limited, shallow or information based it may be. It just totally continues to astound me, however, that the vast majority of the populace is too afraid, too lazy, too ignorant, or just too plain brainwashed to even CONSIDER that there may be more when the Truth is sought out and unattended facts give way to knowledge.

Can you say Sophistry and Information Theory bullshit at its finest?

Can you see even begin to see the box that your limited information has put you into? Can you envision the enormous height and breadth of the charade of walls that have been created by the brainwashing of Information Theory and productivity demanded by those Sophists in power to isolate you and separate you from contact with your Soul and Spirit? Does this even give you the tiniest of inklings as to the bonds and constraints you have unwittingly permitted yourself to be enslaved by? Do you KNOW where this dilemma has its roots and how it affects your every movement and thought, which you so blindly and ignorantly repeat time after time, actually believing you are FREE and acting on your own?

To quote Dr. Strickler, and you have heard this one before, but since it is where the root of the situation lies, it bears repeating. “Ignorance is NOT a natural state of human consciousness.” Yet we have blindly allowed ourselves to be manipulated, maneuvered and expropriated into the brainwashed existence of being ignorant robot slaves. We function as automatons, moving through our daily rituals of what we have been told is “life”, when in fact it is a programmed response to the chaos and insanity created by an extremely shrewd, elite aristocracy that view the masses as mindless zombies. Responding perfectly to the words and phrases that have been ingrained and indoctrinated into the mass of the subconscious mind since the bastardization of our educational system by the onset in the 1950’s and 1960’s Information Theory, like lambs unwittingly heading to slaughter, we live the naïve nightmare of ignorance. As we acquiesce to the herd mentality, we allow our Soul and Spirit to be held hostage in a terrorist act of expropriation that goes beyond any physical terrorism we might witness.

I watched the classic movieNetwork” a few days back, a movie produced in 1976. Believe it or not, I had never seen it before, and I was astounded by the manner in which it clearly and simply portrayed that insanity which we are living in the quagmire of today. It brought to mind a prediction that Dr. Strickler made in 1994, that if things keep going as they are, our country is on a collision course with another Civil War along with the possibility of a corresponding clash of civilizations between the years of 2002-2006.

“Network” left me wondering if that Civil War might not in fact be between those of us who HAVE contact with Spirit and Soul, those who have been FREE and BRAVE enough to shout out their windows, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” and the insipid mindless masses who subscribe to the “Everything is beautiful, Let go and Let God” theory without questioning a damn thing. This, my friends, is expropriation on a grand, macrocosmic scale. Your very Soul and Spirit are being whittled away by the gnawing jaws of those who control you! Even in your present state of ignorance, doesn’t that statement make you wonder just a little bit if maybe, just maybe, there is more to the picture than you might have considered?

To bring the idea of expropriation into focus in a mundane, impactual way, all you need to do is look at the current fiasco of the Medicare D program instituted by those in power. What a mess! Medicare recipients were forced to “choose” one particular plan to subscribe to. They, the elderly and disabled, pay a monthly “tithe” deducted from their government issued Social Security or Disability checks to belong to a PRIVATIZED program that allows them the privilege to purchase their medications for a co-pay amount. The choice was made based upon which plan carried the drugs they take currently, and this choice cannot be altered. The companies, however, within this plan have the right to change their drug list that they are providing at any time, and to change the price of the drugs they are providing at any time. Remember, once selected, there is no turning back, no altering the “CHOICE”. These people are on low fixed incomes, and they are bound to a system that may change at any time the service it provides, as well as the cost for that service.

The links below are from CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE


Medicare bleeds indie druggists
The Denver Post | August 28, 2006

Pharmaceutical Industry Paid for Part of Campaign Ads on Medicare
The Associated Press | August 25, 2006

Millions Will Soon Be in the Prescription-Drug-Coverage "Doughnut Hole"
Davenport River Cities’ Reader | August 24, 2006

Give Medicare program total overaul; don’t just fill ‘doughnut hole’
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | August 21, 2006

Falling into the Doughnut Hole
Campaign for America’s Future

The Origins of the Doughnut Hole
Center for Economic and Policy Research

Don’t Swallow The Doughnut Hole
TomPaine.com

Donut Hole Fact Sheet
Campaign for America’s Future

Donut Hole Graph
Center for Economic and Policy Research

Now, if that’s not enough of a mess, many critically ill subscribers are discovering that there is a “loophole” which they are referring to “the donut hole” within this process. Once they have used “X” amount of dollars of the plan, they are then responsible for “X” amount of “out-of-pocket” expenditures before they are able to apply for “Catastrophic Coverage” to again cover the cost of their medications. Suddenly, prescriptions that require a $20.00 co-pay last month, without warning, cost $1,000.00 this month, until the “out-of-pocket” deductible is met. These people were NOT told of this when signing up for the plan. Please keep in mind that during this time they are still paying the monthly “premium” out of their Social Security or Disability Check, but are receiving no benefits, only accruing a dollar amount towards the “out of pocket” expenses. To top it all off, any “charity” type assistance that the drug companies may have given to these people before is now null and void, because they have subscribed to a plan providing medication coverage.

Those taking phenomenally expensive drugs are paying thousands of dollars per month to stay alive, and I know that Social Security and Disability recipients seldom can afford that kind of expenditure. They are being forced to choose between eating and getting their medication. According to the testimonies I heard on CSPAN in the above link and video, without the multiple meds these severely ill people need they are unable to function and could, indeed, die because they were not able to secure the medication they needed to combat their illnesses. Severely Mentally Ill people on drugs to keep them functioning within society are also caught in the ‘Donut Hole’ and are finding themselves in the terrifying position of becoming totally out of control because they cannot afford the medication they depend upon to maintain some semblance of mental stability. Our government and its leaders have sold a bill of goods to the infirm, elderly, disabled and mentally ill that is just plain a business money maker for the drug companies and HMO’s. Our citizens of the United States are suffering at the hands of the very institution that should be protecting them.

Can you say EXPROPRIATION much louder than that? And consider what is being expropriated in the pension funds in this country? Does this sound like something that should be allowed to happen in “the land of the FREE and the home of the brave”? It sounds absolutely appalling to me, especially given the factual evidence that the V.A. and D.O.D. systems are procuring the same medications for their recipients at much lower prices. Fact! Our own government is screwing us and we are just sitting back and allowing it to happen. This is just one of the most glaring of examples that can be cited. We won’t even go into the War in Iraq, but hopefully you can use the knowledge presented to draw some of your own conclusions. Just engage the power of the brain and the use of Free Will that The Almighty gave you for a moment and you will find numerous examples of just such gross IGNORE-ANCE and apathy.

What’s the solution? ACTION! Reclaim that which is your Birth Right, direct access and communication with your Soul and Spirit. Grab it back and make it your own before it is too late. Start shouting from the roof tops, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Stop believing everything you hear as fact and question it. RESEARCH! Get to the truth of matters within your own sphere of influence to the best of your ability. Tell other people what you are uncovering and start spreading Truth rather than opinion and knowledge rather than information. Most importantly, stop condoning and blindly accepting the masquerade of the unnatural state of human consciousness, IGNORANCE, and become that which you, as human consciousness, have every right and privilege to be, the Jewel in the Crown of Creation. . . Soul and Spirit in manifestation.

May you too become a fellow crusader in the battle to stamp out ignorance and the expropriation of the most precious commodities that The One has given us: human consciousness, Soul and Spirit.

Blessings.

Christine Ford

Editor

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Spiritual Climate Newsletter OCTOBER 2006 Part 4: QUESTION EVERYTHING, ESPECIALLY YOURSELF! by Adam Crosthwaite

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Question Everything, Especially Yourself!

By Adam Crosthwaite

Irony has a funny way of rubbing your nose in your own mistakes, all Karmic puns intended. Let me tell you about my latest achievement regarding my not so suave moments of revelation in contrast to the graceful moments, as few and far between as those moments appear to be for me, at least in this current stage of mindset I am looking through.

As the story goes it was beautiful Arizona morning, only 96 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was late for an appointment, as usual. I slept in a few minutes, don’t you just love those handy little snooze buttons they install on alarm clocks? I ran out the door that morning racing to the gas station to grab my morning coffee. I knew I could make up for lost time on the freeway so an extra five minutes for fresh hot coffee wouldn’t hurt me any. I grabbed my coffee and pulled out of the parking lot to hit the freeway with the determined fierceness of the typical twenty something throwing caution to the wind. The 5.2 liter V8 under the hood of my 4×4 roared as I accelerated with all wheel drive power across the lanes into the fast lane on one of the most notorious stretches of freeway in Arizona. I checked my time and was right on schedule, nothing to worry about. I sipped my morning coffee as I flew past Cameros and Mustangs on my way across town, now on time to my meeting.

I arrived at my meeting ready to get to business. The coffee was just hitting the brain cells and I was fully awake. I arrived just in time too find out I was half an hour early! For the first time this month my gamble against time paid off. I WON! Or at least I was granted the temporary illusion of winning. This had been my pattern for as long as I can remember. For the last few months I had been becoming more and more aware of it as I have been working on overcoming my addiction to the thrill of last minute-itus. If only I had taken closer consideration to the warnings of my teacher about slowing down and paying attention to things.

I have been speeding through my days thinking only of how quickly I can get to where I am going, heeding no warning to the signs up ahead telling me to slow down and pay attention. I continually race ahead focusing only on how much faster I am moving than everyone else. That all changed as I opened my mailbox the other day when I received a nice fat-Fan letter from the city. This is never a good thing especially when you know you don’t live in the city where the letter was sent from. I opened it right away. There was a summons to court for this month and a picture of me driving my car on the freeway. I was nailed by photo radar.

Instantly I began to deny the validity of the ticket. I had my defense completely prepared in less than five minutes and I was ready to walk into court to demand a trial. I had all the angles covered. After all I sat in class for three years learning from judges, retired police detectives and sheriff’s deputies about the justice system. I have learned from the experience of law enforcement officers numerous techniques and a few tricks of the trade. Long story short I could possibly beat this. In fact I know some of the details about the speed radar used by police that the agencies really don’t want people to know. I was ready to stick it to the system. Could I be any more arrogant if I tried? It would seem that I have one more chapter to add to my book entitled “The Greatest Asshole Moments of My Life”, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Strickler.

As I sat on my little throne, confident in my decision, an image flashed in my mind. I remembered looking down at my speedometer and telling myself to slow down. The needle on the speedometer was sitting at 85 mph. Now this was not at the time of my ticket, however it was not uncommon for me to catch myself approaching mach 3 during rush hour. I hung my head and sighed. “I know, I know. I should know better”, I said out loud as I walked out of my personal throne room. For all the warnings I received from David and for all the discussions about slowing down and paying attention to things, I still had to receive a speeding ticket in order for the point to sink in.

Now I am faced with a fine, this being an inopportune moment in my life for added expenses, and time out of my already packed schedule to attend traffic school.

This has been a continuous pattern of self defeat in my path for as long as I can remember. Although this is my most recent incident in which I hit one of my personal barriers there are plenty of similar experiences to be revisited and questioned at a later time. As for this round, what may be a better question is why the hell was I running short on time and cutting corners, or in this case speeding down the freeway like car thief on a joy ride? I will spare you the barrage of questions I worked with over the course of the last few weeks. After all this is an article, not a novel.

This question has many answers to it which have lead to more questions, most of which I am sure will be answered in the coming days. Some of these questions I don’t expect to have answered for quite some time, but I still replay them augmenting the question, shaping it until I find an answer that will lead me on to a new question. I have come to see that I have a personal issue with time. Perhaps it is my distaste for limitation. There could even be a dose rebellion in this equation. So many questions can be extracted from this personal excavation, but in order to stay on track the main question I have been working on is, how do I lead myself into a corner? As it would seem I have lost control over an aspect of my life or at the very least I have finally been forced to recognize one that perhaps should have been dealt with sooner.

So who or what is control here? Yes it is possible that something else could be in control. . So what is it could be in control if not me? Is it some underlying need that I have overlooked, swept under the rug so to speak? What lead to this error and what can be done about it? I question carefully so as not to assign blame thus laying a trap for myself. Forget blame! After all it was my choice to stay up late and then sleep in. It was my choice to drive irresponsibly. It was even my choice to get a speeding ticket in order to learn to slow down and pay attention! Look at the response of a person experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they are being controlled by something nonphysical from within the psyche that is provoking a series of reactions within the physical senses.

People may consider this process tedious and pointless. After all it was just a speeding ticket. It is not the ticket that I am questioning. It’s not the events surrounding the ticket that are being questioned. The questions may begin at the events surrounding the ticket, but that is just a starting point. Now that I have been processing this over the past few weeks by questioning and answering then returning a day or two later to the same question I noticed some very interesting reactions within myself as I continue to dig.

People who choose not to question themselves are doing nothing more than practicing the art of ignorance. I call it an art because it would appear that people take pride in the craft of insulating themselves from truth. In turn they become bait for those that seek to control the lives of others, as evidenced by the multiple crises brewing around this country.

A lot of people I have listened to are complaining about the state of things in this country, yet I hear no questions about why things are the way they are. I listen to them complain about things they believe they have no control over until I finally lose all patience and start to question their point of view. Most people surrender in an attempt to save face by agreeing with whatever I say without question. I know I am not an authority by any measure and yet people still worry about looking like a fool in front of me. While my ego is gracious enough to accept this shallow gesture of respect, the rest of me laughs and at times feels like crying for these poor ignorant minds. I am not that damn important. No one living in the mundane world is important enough to demand the blind respect of ignorant minds. It never ceases to amaze me the levels of false humility people would sink to in order to look good in the eyes of those around them. I would almost prefer they attempt to change the subject or at least stare back at me in disbelief.

It would appear that people are responding to themselves as if they were experiencing some form of intense physical or emotional trauma. By focusing on the pain and not the cause people tend to remain in the state of “woe is me”. When they are no longer focusing on the pain they seek a scapegoat to pin the blame on playing shadow tag with themselves in the dark. Personally I got tired of playing with myself in the dark a long time ago. Instead they should be looking at the situation they find themselves in and find out why things are the way they are and how to change them for the better, and how to maintain a positive change to ensure the negative events leading to the situation do not repeat.

As cruel as we humans can appear to be at times no one is as cruel to us as we are to ourselves. No one can set traps like we can through the subconscious responses we set into motion through our thoughts and actions. Dr. Strickler has been working with me on my approach to life. I have come to see through both aggravation and observation that I have yet a long way to go before I make headway with my questioning process. Although I have witnessed the fruits of this process over the last two years I still find myself presented with questions I haven’t thought of yet as I spend time with my Spiritual Mentor. Without an objective viewpoint or sounding board this path stays dark and increases in difficulty.

Dr. Strickler tells us of the teachings from the old schools of the Q-Tradition. Inscribed above the entrance was the phrase, “Know Thyself”. Of course this was not written in English, in the Egyptian temples it was ‘NUK PU NUK’. Without the questioning of the self and the guidance of a Master this task was impossible. We all travel through darkness at one time or another along the path of life as it leads us through this world. The question I asked myself was, “Are you going to take that time to play with yourself in the dark, or are you going to reach out and question the darkness as you find the switch that turns on the light”? I suppose it depends on whether or not you require a speeding ticket or some other form of slap up side the head to get one’s attention.

Pain lets us know that something is wrong. The problem in our society in all age groups is that we have mastered the commercial art of avoidance. Judging from the looks of the current world scenario, hopefully there is enough pain for us to seriously consider waking up and doing something about it.

Blessings,

Adam Crosthwaite

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