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The Wave Chapter 28: Technicians of Ecstasy: The Shamanic Initiation Of The Knighted Ones Part 1

STO and STS

In 1999, a document started making the rounds online called “Top Secret/Demon” by an individual or group calling themselves The Nexus Seven.1 The document attempts to convey an assessment of the current alien/UFO phenomena culled from both strictly “3D” analytical thinking and apparently channeled material from a variety of sources. I was very interested to read this document because it very usefully creates a platform from which to discuss some of these issues more thoroughly, as I did in Stripped to the Bone. On the subject of the prime duality within both creation and humanity, the Nexus Seven write:

The notions of Service-to-Self and Service-to-Others in popular use in channeled Ufology today are outrageous, but apt simplifications of the real intricacies of the matter. As the definitions change of exactly what ‘self’ encompasses these notions map across a wide variety of different orientations, and it is appropriate to introduce the dialectic, the triad pattern that is really involved beyond the dualistic notion. Although merely extending the differentiating metaphor into three classes is hardly as far as it can be taken.

In this remark, the Nexus Seven make it clear that they are falling under the influence of the damping effect of Service-to-Self (STS) deception. There is no clearer or more fundamental understanding of the reality of creation than to grasp the concept of Being vs. Non-being, creation vs. entropy, as is often exemplified in the yin-yang symbol. That’s the bottom line. The One that is Two in One. It is only in the dynamic between them that there even is a “third man.” The third man (Gurdjieff’s third force; tertium quid), the supreme barzakh of Ibn al-’Arabi, or Nature, is the created cosmos: the matter of entropic, sleeping consciousness enlivened with creative, awakening consciousness. As the Cs put it:

Q: (L) But, just a clue: how does thought become matter?

A: Bilaterally. Dual emergence.

Q: (L) Emergence into what and what?

A: Not “into what and what,” but rather, “from what and to what.”

Q: (L) What emerges from what?

A: The beginning emerges from the end, and vice versa.

Q: (L) And what is the beginning and what is the end?

A: Union with the One. Seventh density, i.e.: all that is, and is not.

The two fundamentals of all that is: the most important concept to grasp in order to know how to grow or ascend to higher realms. The thing is, since all of creation is cycles within a grand cycle, this means that not everyone is ready at any one time. Those who are ready have a profound sense of mission, and for some, that mission is to assist those who are very close to awakening to be able to do so. But, even those with a mission must awaken to it:

Q: (L) But, just exactly what is the mission?

A: You are awakening to it just fine, thank you!

Q: (L) Are you saying that all this constant discussing and taking things apart and talking about them and thinking about all these things is actually getting us somewhere?

A: Absolutely!!!!

Q: (L) Is some mode of sharing this information we are receiving part of this “mission?”

A: When you have learned, you have energized yourself. Lead by the hand? No way, Jose!

Q: (L) So, we have to make that choice ourselves. OK, we discussed a name that would sort of symbolize this mission and we came up with — and who knows how — Aurora to symbolize the dawn, waking up … that sort of thing. Where in the world did this come from?

A: Refer to the previous answer.

Q: (L) So, we have to choose everything here. And there are no comments?

A: No need, you are doing just fine by yourselves.

Q: (S) What did you expect them to say? “Atta girl!?” [Laughter] Will we be able to find some way to support this mission?

A: We are not going to answer that, as it would violate level one directive.

Q: (L) What is a “level one directive”?

A: Refer to last answer.

Q: (L) Well, fine! I want to know! Is there some place that gives out orders up there?

A: You will know when it is right, and not before!

Q: (L) I want you guys to know that I sometimes feel a wee tiny bit like a pawn on a chessboard!

A: You should, you inhabit third density STS environment.

Q: (L) I was at least hoping that if I was a pawn, that some of the players were good guys. Is that asking too much?

A: Yes. The “Good guys” don’t play chess.

Q: (L) But there have been so many strange events, so many synchronous events. Is that the good guys helping or the bad guys leading me astray?

A: Neither. It is Nature running its course.

Q: (L) OK. One of the sensations I have experienced is that I have had it up to the eyebrows with the negative energies and experiences of third density, and I have thought lately that this feeling of having had enough, in an absolute sense, is one of the primary motivators for wanting to find one’s way out of this trap we are in. I want out of it. Is this part of this “nature” as you call it?

A: Yes. When you see the futility of the limitations of third density life, it means you are ready to graduate. Notice those who wallow in it.

Q: (L) Some people obviously wallow in extreme materiality. And there seems to be another kind that is more subtle, which has to do with saying that you want to grow and become enlightened, and yet such a person is unable to pierce the veil of their own illusions about how to become enlightened, and then they wallow in the illusion that they are really making progress …

A: Wallowing takes many forms. More often, the sign of wallowing is someone who does not feel alienated by the obvious traps and limitations of third density.

So, we know that the obvious traps and limitations of third density produce a sense of alienation in the person who is in the process of awakening. But then, awakening is not precisely the same thing as growing to fit fourth density. We know we have to awaken in order to choose our polarity, but then comes the matter of amplification through forced oscillation.

It is in this matter of choosing orientation and amplification that the terms of Service-to-Others (STO) and Service-to-Self (STS) become the most important ideas presented to humans in the present time. They are not “outrageous, but apt simplifications of the real intricacies of the matter,” as the Nexus Seven suggest.

In practical terms, how do we grow stronger in our polarity? If it is to be of the STO alignment, isn’t it just necessary to give? Isn’t that the only key? And don’t the STS polarized beings just take? Well, it is that simple, and it is more complex, as well. From one perspective, it would seem that the most accepting and loving thing to do would be to love all — to surround all those of the STS alignment with “love and light” so that they would be enclosed and permeated with this love which would then transform them to the STO alignment.

But note immediately that, in these terms, the sending of love is intended to change, to transform, to deny free will to the being on the receiving end. And thus, by simply doing this, one is aligning with the very orientation that seeks to deny free will, i.e. STS! The result is that the very love energy being sent is STS-oriented forced oscillation. What will it then do? It will amplify the STS frequency in the person or situation it is being sent to transform. It will do the opposite of what is wanted by the sender, but exactly what is intended.

Service-to-Self seeks to dominate and take all in order to stuff its black hole of fear. To send love (or to give anything) with the intention of changing, transforming, or making anything different than what it is, is to seek domination. For the Service-to-Others polarity to allow itself to be manipulated by deceptive teachings of “sending love and light to transform the world” amounts to the ipso facto acceptance of dominance, the damping of its own frequency, the loss of amplitude. Service-to-Others seeks to give all of self to others, but, because the chief thing it wishes to give is free will, it only gives when asked. Sounds like a marriage made in heaven, yes? One side wants to take; one side wants to give. Go for it, right?

The idea that those of the STO frequency must not give without being asked is a subtle thing. The concept inherent in asking is that of willing exchange. The asking is the giving of the one who asks. The response is the giving of the one who is asked. If there is anything in either of them that expects any change other than the explicit asking and giving, the interaction falls into STS and not STO. (And one must consider, just what is asking? Some people may verbally ask, but the intention is manipulative, designed for the exact opposite of what they appear to be asking. Others may not ask verbally, but it is clear that they are asking with their actions or their very situation. This is where knowledge becomes so valuable.)

However, if one can ask, and one can give without expectation of any change of any kind in the receiver, the STO dynamic is operational. If there is even a hidden motive that anything will be changed by the exchange, the result is damping of the STO frequency. When you give in response to manipulation, which is a domination dynamic, you are also giving from a position of STS, which is further self-damping to STO-orientation and amplifying to STS. And then, on top of self-damping, you are losing energy, because there is no willing exchange.

The end result of giving love energy to the STS polarity is to gradually deplete the STO polarity in the self as well as in the grander scheme of things, and eventually, to deprive all those of that polarity from shared, symbiotic sustenance. One has then, by default, become part of the STS hierarchy and has lost any usefulness in terms of STO. If you are seeking to polarize in the STO mode, you must gain energy by alignment and amplification to move out of the STS realm into an STO dynamic where all give to each other and there is multiplication of force in the act, rather than depletion. Because of the primacy of matter at our level of existence, STS is the default state in which we find ourselves as beings with all kinds of physical and emotional needs.

Another way of saying it is that the true object of the STO dynamic is to give to the free will function of the Cosmic Mind (God) in all its myriad forms of creative manifestation; to establish frequency resonance in this dynamic. The true object of the STS dynamic is to give to the Cosmic Mind in its role of death and the destroyer — the Thought of Non-being — to deny free will to create or be. The STS side wants to induce or manipulate enslavement. The STO side must refuse in order to retain their strength and purity and ability to actualize free will for all.

The essence of creation is the fact that, beneath the empirical, observable “real world” is the realm of underlying potentials, out of which our physical world is manifested by our perspective, our awareness. The gift of free will of God is our ability to choose our perspective: is the glass half-empty or half-full? We can choose “living water” that becomes a spring of water welling up continually within, to eternal life, or we can choose the water from the “well of Jacob the supplanter,” which will leave us thirsty again and again. It is in this choice that we come to the remark of Carlos Castaneda’s don Juan from The Active Side of Infinity: “As awareness reaches levels higher than the toes, tremendous maneuvers of perception become a matter of course.”

Such a choice is a maneuver of perception, though it is only in retrospect that I can even say this, having been as ignorant of what was happening to me in my own life as a person could be. Further maneuvers of perception amount to the ability to make every choice based on seeing the unseen. Every time we choose, based on knowledge and love2, rather than chemical-emotional love or love based on assumptions and wishful thinking, we are giving a push to the swing of amplifying our Frequency Resonance Vibration (FRV), our vibratory signature. Such amplification increases our polarization and we grow.

The problem is, in the beginning, when we begin to use discipline to try to see the unseen, we are like a blind man stumbling through a maze. We are Theseus in the lair of the Minotaur, guided only by the thread of Ariadne. Our ability to perceive the noumenal world,3 which can reveal to us the activities of fourth density, requires great attention, great discipline, and an ability to “face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations.” We have to learn the art of “facing infinity without flinching.” And it is this process that the Cassiopaeans are facilitating. What they tell us about the noumenal world, the fourth density realm, is not supposed to terrify us in the end, it is supposed to wake us up to the odds facing us that do not accord with our expectations.

And, as we begin to learn to really see, we begin to make some experimental choices based on what we are seeing. Some of them work, some of them don’t. We adjust our course gradually, learning what amplifies our polarity and what damps our polarity.

I recently received some correspondence from members of our online group who have been experimenting with awakening and seeing the meanings behind the reality as outlined by the Cassiopaeans. One of them wrote:

One thing I am finally realizing in spite of decades of religious and social training to the contrary, is that we all have only one decision to make, just one. At any specific moment, we are all faced with the opportunity to invoke an STS or an STO approach to the specific lesson at hand. By placing focus on this specific choice of the moment instead of fretting about a lifetime of “wrong” choices and carrying the weight of redemption/salvation via an outside source who demands that you pay them money so they will “speak nicely about you to their lord in an afterlife,” coupled with the Cassiopaeans’ insistence that there is no “right or wrong,” just lessons, makes the “task” of being an STO candidate sooooooo much easier…

And another member of the group responded:

Doesn’t it seem like a choice made in the present moment that brings deep clarity and understanding of a lesson, changes the nature of all choices ever made? And that is the essence of the matter. A choice made in the present moment — ANY present moment — excluding all the outside influences, with only the consideration of whether it allows Free Will to all involved, changes the nature of all choices ever made!

Every choice that supports free will for any being, whether that being is using their free will to choose to deny free will to either themselves or others and must be blocked from accomplishing that aim, to the extent free will is maintained for all involved, is a choice for free will at the deepest levels of existence. But notice the key: to support free will of others to choose and fully experience their own path — and that does not mean to support the choice they have made by participating in their lesson. To participate in the choice of orientation of another is to make it your own. It can then act as a damper to your own amplification.

This means that the ability to support free will in others, which lies in the STO pathway, must remain pure and must not be subsumed into the STS alignment. Otherwise free will for all could cease to exist in our present reality, which would create an imbalance of such awesome proportions that I shudder to consider the consequences. In fact, it could even be said that learning the true dynamics of STO and free will in the cadres of those who have the internal inclination, and to begin to practice it, might considerably ameliorate any predicted cataclysms. One thing that is certain, however, to continue to violate free will by all the “love and light” efforts to change the world, to transform the darkness into light, will result in nothing but worsening conditions on our planet by the very fact that they amplify the STS polarity.

It is for God — the Divine Cosmic Mind — for all — including the STS polarity, that the STO candidates must refuse to support, sustain and feed the STS dynamic. If you feed the STS polarity, it grows stronger (and it has already been in charge here for over 300,000 years, according to the Cs) and the STO presence will grow weaker, which will erode free will for all.

So, we return again to one of the main themes of the Wave series: the peeling of the onion of illusion, the constant reiteration of the point that you are asleep, the necessary shocking of your sensibilities over and over again with the idea that unless you awaken, your position is hopeless — you are “food for the gods.” By taking away every hope and dream of outside salvation you ever thought you could cling to, I am stripping your bones bare. Not only am I stripping your bones, I am boiling your flesh. And, to those who are truly asking, it is an essential function I am performing for you. It is the shamanic initiation. You cannot be reborn unless you die, and unless a man be born again, he can have no “eternal life”. A man cannot be reborn unless he die first.4

In the broadest sense, the human being who has mastery over his own life is a shaman, and those of you who resist this process most strenuously are most likely the ones with the greatest shamanic capacity. Will is will. It just needs to be married to knowledge. It cannot be married until is has matured and it cannot mature unless it has been born, and it cannot be born until the false personality dies.5

It has been observed that the desire of the human being to enter into ecstatic contact with the divine is in direct conflict with the fear of being obliged to renounce the simple human condition. We can see, from our discussion above, that this is, essentially, the conflict between Service-to-Others and Service-to-Self. The work to gather the knowledge and become humble and face the deep inner truth about the self is the price, and not everyone is able to pay it. This is the human dilemma. There is nothing cozier than to be a human being. We can live forever behind veils of illusion, suffering our blindness, and dying in our ignorance; and, until some aspect of that human has had its fill of suffering and death, there will be no desire to venture into the unknown to seek the cure for the human disease. Only the soul that is ready for this definitive journey is willing to risk the soul-chilling fear of traveling into the enchanted forest of the cosmos in order to experience the unspeakable joy of finding the Grail — the choice for free will service to others that serves all.

A shaman is, as Mircea Eliade describes, a “technician of ecstasy.” This is an essential qualification and result of contact with the divine. More than that, in order to be in direct contact with the divine, a human being must be able to see the unseen. This seeing is the capacity of human beings to enlarge their perceptual field until they are capable of assessing not only outer appearances, but also the essence of everything. They can then access the level of being that enables them to make choices that are capable of initiating new causal series.

Of course, problems arise when an individual attempts to be a shaman without knowledge. A recent correspondent sent us some information about a popular channeled source that claims to be teaching a new perspective on physics.

Dear Ark and Laura,

I don’t know much about Scalar Waves, certainly not enough to know whether or not the below site’s information on Scalar Waves is useful, but I pass the information along to you. I have heard Anna Hayes speak on the Jeff Rense radio show, and she made a good impression as an apparently calm and knowledgeable person.

J***

Ark went to the site in question and began to read. After a period of study, he responded as follows:

Hi J***,

While reading:

“Dimensions are interwoven layers of scalar waves that serve to direct the flow of consciousness/energy into multiple patterns of refraction through which the hologram of matter density, linear time and manifest objectification of reality can be experienced. Dimensions exist in precise relationship to each other creating a 90-degree difference in Angular Rotation of Particle Spin between dimensional bands. Scalar Waves are points of Standing Waves, composed of quantities of consciousness, that emanate out of fixed points of vibration which form ultra-micro-particle units called Partiki, Partika and Particum. Scalar Waves exist within a fixed Scalar Field that forms the Universal Unified Field of consciousness/energy. Fixed scalar waves appear to move due to a perpetual action of internal fission and fusion, through which series of scalar standing wave points ‘flash on and off’ creating perpetual rhythms of motion called ‘flash-line sequences’ through which continual manifestation and de-manifestation of matter occurs.”

I can’t help thinking that it is a pity that a person that evidently knows nothing about waves, dimensions, particle spin etc. chooses to “teach” others on these subjects. But, on the other hand, creating more confusion is what the Lizzies must have on their mind. And they seem to be successful. On the other hand, we are in a Free Will Universe — it is up to each person to choose the path and the “teacher.” Thanks for the link — it helps me.

Best,

ark.

As it happened, Ark’s response was also sent to a promoter of the above channeling who then responded:

Hi:

One doesn’t need to know anything on a specific topic when the information isn’t coming from oneself but from a higher source.

Love, Light, and Joy

Dee Finney

Aside from the fact that actually reading that nonsense is an energy drain, such a perspective does not resonate with the Cassiopaean information, in which independent study and gaining of knowledge is urged as the only means by which we can be protected from being led into traps. Ark replied:

Dear Dee,

Sure, but to check whether the information comes from a higher source or lower source, it is always necessary first to check whether the information makes any sense or is just a mumbo-jumbo. There are lot of dead dudes and other entities that are more than ready to pour all kinds of nonsense into our heads.

Real research is always necessary. How else can we know we are not being disinformed? You must never rely on what the entities tell you. You always have to check and keep critical! Unless you want to live in an illusion. Many people do.

Best,

ark

Anyone can be a channel. However, it takes knowledge and will to be able to choose to do the work to access expanded states of consciousness. Gurdjieff addressed this very topic in the following exchange recorded in Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous:

“How can we recognize people who are able to come to the work?” asked one of those present.

“How to recognize them is another question,” said G. “To do this it is necessary to a certain extent ‘to be.’ But before speaking of this we must establish what kind of people are able to come to the work and what kind are not able.

“You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner evolution of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their essence, he will find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but little, it is difficult to talk to him.

“If he has a good essence there is another way for him without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And he has to come to this also in some way or other.

“It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuable in the system unless he is disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for. If he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science. If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion. If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics. If he is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy. If he is a theosophist he should be disappointed in theosophy. If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism. And so on.

“But you must understand what this means. I say for instance that a religious man should be disappointed in religion. This does not mean that he should lose his faith. On the contrary, it means being ‘disappointed’ in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere. All religious teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the hidden. To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion. To be disappointed in science does not mean losing interest in knowledge. It means being convinced that the usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others. To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is merely … as it is said in the Russian proverb … pouring from one empty vessel into another, and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also can and should exist. To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing faith in the miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self-deception and that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is able to learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs.

“So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it is worthwhile speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work. But if he continues to think that he is able to find anything on his former way, or that he has not as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means that he is not ready. I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before. This is entirely unnecessary. On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do what he used to do. But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity. In this case it is another matter, he will then be able not to identify.

There is only one thing incompatible with work and that is ‘professional occultism,’ in other words, professional charlatanism. All these spiritualists, healers, clairvoyants, and so on, or even people closely connected with them, are none of them any good to us. And you must always remember this and take care not to tell them much because everything they learn from you they might use for their own purposes, that is, to make fools of other people.

“…In the meantime remember one thing only: A man must be sufficiently disappointed in ordinary ways and he must at the same time think or be able to accept the idea that there may be something … somewhere. If you should speak to such a man, he might discern the flavor of truth in what you say no matter how clumsily you might speak. But if you should speak to a man who is convinced about something else, everything you say will sound absurd to him and he will never even listen to you seriously. It is not worthwhile wasting time on him. This system is for those who have already sought and have burned themselves. Those who have not sought and who are not seeking do not need it. And those who have not yet burned themselves do not need it either.”

“But this is not what people begin with,” said one of our company. “They ask: Do we admit the existence of the ether? Or how do we look on evolution? Or why do we not believe in progress? Or why do we not think that people can and should organize life on the basis of justice and the common good? And things of this sort.”

“All questions are good,” said G., “and you can begin from any question if only it is sincere. You understand that what I mean is that this very question about ether or about progress or about the common good could be asked by a man simply in order to say something, or to repeat what someone else has said or what he has read in some book, and on the other hand he could ask it because this is the question with which he aches. If it is an aching question for him you can give him an answer and you can bring him to the system through any question whatever. But it is necessary for the question to be an aching one.” (Ouspensky 1977, 242—244)

One of the hardest things for anyone to acknowledge is their own susceptibility to suggestion, manipulation and external control. No one wants to admit that their awareness can be manipulated. Yet, without exception, all of the Mystery Teachings tell us that the first order of business in expanding awareness is to overcome the hypnosis, or “sleep state” in which man exists. Without exception, all of the mystery teachings tell us that this is so formidable a task that only one in ten thousand can achieve it.

Think about this for a moment. Nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine people will react to this statement by thinking: “I am the one in ten thousand!” The Great Masters will tell you that if you think this, then you are not.

It is the one who realizes that all of his perceptions must be minutely scrutinized, doubted, tested, examined and challenged who has the smallest hope of escaping the hypnosis. To realize this is but the first in a long series of steps to awakening. But, remember, awakening is not the same thing as seeing. Many can see in expanded awareness, but immediately go back to sleep. What they saw is then interpreted by the standards of the hypnotic sleep state of ordinary awareness. This is what happens to most of those who claim to channel with no need to check their sources. As Ark wrote above, “to check whether the information comes from a higher source or lower source, it is always necessary first to check whether the information makes any sense or is just a mumbo-jumbo. … Real research is always necessary. … You must never rely on what the entities tell you. … Unless you want to live in an illusion.”

From my perspective, the main reason such “seers” do not doubt, test, examine and challenge their so-called guides is due, purely and simply, to ego. They have been told that they are special or chosen or are the messenger of this or that council or the heavenly host. It is far easier and more comfortable to believe this and the further instruction that “all you need to do is listen to us!” than to exert the enormous efforts required to acknowledge, and extirpate the ego’s weaknesses, the chief one being, of course, susceptibility to manipulation by forces far more devious than the human mind can fathom.

Don Juan says that seers must be paragons of virtue by their will and intent in order to override the nearly invincible laxness of the human condition and programming. To say, “One doesn’t need to know anything on a specific topic when the information isn’t coming from oneself but from a higher source,” is so astonishing an example of this laxness and manipulation that it is difficult to understand how a person can write it without having their conscience immediately assaulted by the insanity of such a view. In The Fire from Within, Carlos Castaneda writes that one of the necessary conditions of learning to truly see is to:

… bring [one’s] mind to focus on anything with uncommon force and clarity. Yet, an inherent quality of heightened awareness is that it is not susceptible to normal recall. (Castaneda 1984, xi—xii)

Obviously, great polarized strength is necessary here. Seeing is to witness the unknown and to glimpse the unknowable. The unknown is veiled from man but is within the reach of man’s reason if he is sufficiently polarized and amplified. The unknowable is the indescribable, the unthinkable, and the unrealizable. It is something that may never be known to us in our human state, but seers who are in the grip of laxness and programming don’t let that stop them. Castaneda’s don Juan states:

“… there have certainly been attempts to imbue eagles [the ineffable unknown or faces of the Divine Cosmic Mind] with attributes they don’t have. But that always happens when impressionable people learn to perform acts that require great sobriety. Seers come in all sizes and shapes. … There are scores of imbeciles who become seers. Seers are human beings full of foibles, or rather, human beings full of foibles are capable of becoming seers. … The characteristic of miserable seers is that they are willing to forget the wonder of the world. They become overwhelmed by the fact that they see and believe that it’s their genius that counts. A seer must be a paragon in order to override the nearly invincible laxness of our human condition. More important than seeing itself is what seers do with what they see.” [emphasis added] (Castaneda 1984, 41—42)

Apparently the effort required to bring this learning to normal consciousness is staggering and impossible for most people because they have no “vessel of knowledge” prepared to receive it. Castaneda further tells us, and this is corroborated in other teachings, that to interact with the unknown — but that which is ultimately within the reach of knowing through great work — is energizing, exhilarating and fulfilling even when it is also full of apprehension and fear. It seems that one of the effects of enlargement of the perceptual field is a combination of sheer joy combined with a frightening feeling of sadness and longing. This is apparently because a full field of awareness includes all the opposites in perfect balance.

But, even on the level of the unknown that is ultimately accessible to human perception, seers who truly see often go to pieces upon finding out that existence is incomprehensibly complex and that our normal awareness distorts all and perverts with its limitations. Don Juan remarked that:

… in the life of warriors it was extremely natural to be sad for no overt reason. … whenever the boundaries of the known are broken. A mere glimpse of the eternity outside … is enough to disrupt the coziness of our controlled inventory [i.e., awareness]. The resulting melancholy is sometimes so intense that it can bring about death. … the best way to get rid of melancholy is to make fun of it. (Castaneda 1984, 97)

However, to interact with the unknowable is to become drained or confused, open to oppression and possession. The bodies of such seers lose tone, their reasoning becomes flawed, and their sobriety wanders aimlessly. The Cassiopaeans have said:

The bottom line is this: You are occupying third density. You are by nature, STS. You can be an STO candidate, but you are not STO until you are on fourth density. You will never grasp the meaning of these attempted conceptualizations until you are at fourth and above.

To make this point a little clearer, let me add that, before the Fall,6 human beings were third density STO, which means that they were aligned with fourth density STO. In Stripped to the Bone, I discuss what this reality must have been like in terms of the megalith builders who were able, by their interaction with celestial forces, to manifest all that was needed without assault on the environment of Earth.

Don Juan tells us that the seers of ancient times were “men capable of inconceivable deeds. They were powerful sorcerers, somber and driven, who unraveled the secrets” of existence at our level. They were able to “influence and victimize people by fixating their awareness on whatever they chose.” This is an important key in terms of Frequency Resonance Vibration that cannot be overstressed.

There are two positions in the study and understanding of awareness: the sorcerer vs. the warrior who sees. They both practice the same seeing, but the difference is in their intent. The sorcerer practices to control others. The warrior practices to become free. Sorcerors attempt to manipulate and interact directly with higher levels — the unknowable — and end up being manipulated in the process.7 Warriors act on their own level — the knowable — in harmony with higher levels. The Cassiopaeans designate these two positions as STO and STS. Those who wish to control others are serving self; those who wish to become free and help others who wish to become free are serving others. One must be aware that a desire to be of service combined with ego and false personality is a deadly mix because such an individual is so easy to manipulate and made to believe they are doing good when, in fact, they are only serving the “dark side”.

Shamanism

“Shaman” is another term to describe the warrior who practices to be free. A shaman is not a magician or a sorcerer although he can play those roles if he chooses. He is not a healer, though he can play that role also. A shaman is far more; he is a psychopomp, a priest, a mystic, and a poet. Shamanism is not a religion, it is a function, a role, a magico-religious phenomenon specific to certain individuals who have ecstatic capacity permitting “magical flight” to higher realms, descent into the underworld to battle dark forces, mastery over fire, matter, time and space. Unfortunately, as don Juan noted, in the present time, the shamanic acts are acts of great laxity, distortion and aberration.

The word shaman comes to us through Russian from the Tungusic saman. The word is derived from the Pali samana (Sanskrit sramana), through the Chinese sha-men (a transcription of the Pali word). The word shaman may be related to sarman. According to John G. Bennett:8

The pronunciation is the same for either spelling [sarmoung or sarman] and the word can be assigned to Old Persian. It does, in fact, appear in some of the Pahlawi texts … The word can be interpreted in three ways. It is the word for bee, which has always been a symbol of those who collect the precious ‘honey’ of traditional wisdom and preserve it for further generations.

A collection of legends, well known in Armenian and Syrian circles with the title of The Bees, was revised by Mar Salamon, a Nestorian Archimandrite in the thirteenth century. The Bees refers to a mysterious power transmitted from the time of Zoroaster and made manifest in the time of Christ.

“Man” in Persian means “the quality transmitted by heredity and hence a distinguished family or race.” It can be the repository of an heirloom or tradition. The word sar means head, both literally and in the sense of principal or chief. The combination sarman would thus mean the chief repository of the tradition … And still another possible meaning of the word sarman is … literally, those whose heads have been purified. [emphasis added] (Bennett 1992)

Those whose heads have been purified. What an interesting idea! Especially when you consider the concept of Frequency Resonance Vibration and orientation. As already stated, the difficulty of adjusting one’s frequency is a matter of dealing with programs and false personality. One of the reasons this is so difficult is because it is also a brain chemistry issue. Barbara Oakley writes in her book Evil Genes:

A recent imaging study by psychologist Drew Westen and his colleagues at Emory University provides firm support for the existence of emotional reasoning. Just prior to the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential elections, two groups of subjects were recruited — fifteen ardent Democrats and fifteen ardent Republicans. Each was presented with conflicting and seemingly damaging statements about their candidate, as well as about more neutral targets such as actor Tom Hanks (who, it appears, is a likable guy for people of all political persuasions). Unsurprisingly, when the participants were asked to draw a logical conclusion about a candidate from the other — “wrong” — political party, the participants found a way to arrive at a conclusion that made the candidate look bad, even though logic should have mitigated the particular circumstances and allowed them to reach a different conclusion. Here’s where it gets interesting.

When this “emote control” began to occur, parts of the brain normally involved in reasoning were not activated. Instead, a constellation of activations occurred in the same areas of the brain where punishment, pain, and negative emotions are experienced (that is, in the left insula, lateral frontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Once a way was found to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted, the neural punishment areas turned off, and the participant received a blast of activation in the circuits involving rewards — akin to the high an addict receives when getting his fix. In essence, the participants were not about to let facts get in the way of their hot-button decision-making and quick buzz of reward. “None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged,” says Westen. “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.” …

Ultimately, Westen and his colleagues believe that “emotionally biased reasoning leads to the ‘stamping in’ or reinforcement of a defensive belief, associating the participant’s ‘revisionist’ account of the data with positive emotion or relief and elimination of distress. ‘The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data,’” Westen says. Westen’s remarkable study showed that neural information processing related to what he terms “motivated reasoning” … appears to be qualitatively different from reasoning when a person has no strong emotional stake in the conclusions to be reached.

The study is thus the first to describe the neural processes that underlie political judgment and decision making, as well as to describe processes involving emote control, psychological defense, confirmatory bias, and some forms of cognitive dissonance. The significance of these findings ranges beyond the study of politics: “Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret ‘the facts,’” according to Westen. (Oakley 2007, 189—190)

Obviously, this understanding was available to ancient scientific cultures now long gone and have come down to us in greatly distorted versions. We already suspect that these ideas are far older than Zoroaster, and for those who have supposed that the concept of the shaman was stimulated by Buddhism, I will point out that other studies have shown that even before the intrusion of Buddhism into Central Asia there was the cult of Buga, god of the sky, a celestial worship that antedates Sun and Moon worship.

The central theme of shamanism is the ascent to the sky and the descent to the underworld. In the former, the practitioner experiences ecstasy; in the latter, he battles demons that threaten the well-being of humanity. There are studies that suggest evidence of the earliest practices are to be found in the cave paintings of Western Europe — Lascaux and others — with representations of the bird, the tutelary spirits, and the ecstatic experience (ca. 25,000 bce). Animal skulls and bones found in the sites of the European Paleolithic period (before ca. 50,000—30,000 bce) have been interpreted as evidence of shamanic practice.9

The ecstatic experience is the primary phenomenon of shamanism and it is this ecstasy that can be seen as the act of merging with the celestial beings. Merging results in forced oscillation, which changes frequency. Continued interaction with celestial beings is a form of Frequency Resonance Vibration. Such an individual is one who “walks between two worlds” almost constantly.

The idea that there was a time when man was directly in contact with the celestial beings is at the root of the myths of the Golden Age that have been redacted to the Grail stories of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. During this paradisical time it is suggested that communications between heaven and earth were easy and accessible to everyone. Myths tell us of a time when the gods withdrew from mankind. As a result of some happening (i.e. the Fall), the communications were broken off and the celestial beings withdrew to the highest heavens.

This is exactly what the Cassiopaeans have told us regarding our former alignment with fourth density STO and our present alignment with fourth density STS, and which we have examined to some extent in other volumes of the Wave series.

But, the myths also tell us that there were still those certain people who were able to ascend and commune with the gods on the behalf of their tribe or family. Through them, contact was maintained with the guiding spirits of the group. The beliefs and practices of the present day shamans are a survival of a profoundly modified and even corrupted and degenerated remnant of this archaic technology of concrete communications between heaven and earth. And, again, the Cassiopaeans suggested this perspective, which was confirmed in later studies.

Let me speak for a moment about a current-day trend to experiment in drug-induced shamanic experiences. There are a number of proponents of this approach, starting with Timothy Leary who, I should mention, died of a brain tumor. If people can’t get the symbolic message of that fact, there’s not much hope for them! In any event, among the proponents of this approach are a few authors with high profiles in alternative knowledge circles such as Colin Wilson, Graham Hancock, and others. I recently read Hancock’s book Supernatural and Mr. Hancock certainly thinks he is talking about the “spirit world” and acknowledging its existence, reality, and so on, but the fact is, so far as I can tell based on research, reason and experience, he has only helped with the process of degrading the perception of it.

Up through page 8, Hancock announces that he is going to take hallucinogenic plants, talks about shamanic use of plants, how widespread it is, and then, on pages 7—8 he tells why he did it:

My primary motive, unabashedly, was research. I had deliberately submitted myself to this ordeal as part of a wider, longer-term investigation into a mysterious “before and after moment” that took place in human prehistory, perhaps as recently as 40,000 years ago. Before it, other than a very few widely-scattered and isolated examples, there is nothing in the archaeological record left by our ancestors that we would instantly recognize as modern human behavior. After it, the signs that creatures exactly like us have arrived are everywhere, most notably in the first definite evidence for beliefs in supernatural realms and beings — evidence, in other words, for the birth of religion. ….

An ingenious explanation for the bizarre appearance of these beings…. has been put forward by a prestigious group of anthropologists and archeologists. The essence of their argument is that the cave art expresses mankind’s first and oldest notions of the supernatural, of the “soul,” and of realms of existence beyond death — notions that took shape in “altered states of consciousness” most likely brought on by the consumption of psychoactive plants. Although not to the liking of some scholars, this has been the most widely-accepted theory of cave art since the mid-1990s. It is therefore an embarrassment that none of the experts currently advocating it have ever actually consumed any psychoactive plants themselves; nor do they have any first-hand ideas of what an “altered state of consciousness” is, or any desire to experience one. To give fair consideration to their arguments, and to the views of their critics, I felt I needed to be able to judge on the basis of personal experience whether plant-induced visions could be made of strong enough stuff to have convinced early humans of the existence of supernatural realms and of the survival after death of some essence of deceased ancestors.

This, in a nutshell, was why I had taken ibogaine — for sound, solid, common-sense research reasons. But I have to acknowledge that there was another, much more personal motive as well. It had to do with my own father’s painful death from bone cancer the previous autumn and my inexcusable failure to be at his bedside during the last few days of his life. Part of the appeal of this slightly risky experiment with ibogaine was undoubtedly its promise of “encounters with the ancestors,” and — however tenuous — the possibility of closure and quietus that it seemed to offer. (Hancock 2007, 7—8)

Now, let me give my perspective on these many assumptions he is making. First of all, I understand his intense curiosity about the alleged shamanic hallucinations. The issue of the very existence and survival of the soul occupied my mind for many years. However, while I had all the shamanic signs and symptoms and experiences — beginning when I was a child — I also had a powerful, logical, skeptical mental apparatus.

I, too, was drawn to experiment in my own way as a consequence of the loss of loved ones. In the case of my grandfather, who died when I was 22, I had a classic contact experience at the time of his death that was actually witnessed and partly experienced by a third party, so there was a certain conviction in my mind that there is more to life than the body. But exactly what it was, what it meant, was still unproven to my very active rational mind. Nevertheless, this was a stimulus to my work and experiments with hypnosis through the years. In that work, I developed shamanic techniques where I both traveled with the subject, and remained guardian of the experience in this reality.

Why didn’t I decide to experiment with drugs? Let me include here an extract from a letter I wrote back in the 1980s to a friend who was advocating a particular meditative technique that was guaranteed to enlighten one where I explain why.

December, 1987 — […]

About the ‘Journey Into the Light’ tape you sent — it was very interesting and not unfamiliar or dissimilar to previous personal experiences of my own. But, I want to comment that, years ago, I interviewed a number of people who had taken mescaline [and LSD]. It seems they had all experienced fantastic “inner voyages”. It is, it seems, a total alteration of perception; they ‘see’ sounds and ‘hear’ colors and movement. Most of them described, laying over the whole experience, ‘waves of reality.’ They traveled into ‘other realms’ and perceived other beings — even very frightening areas of darkness and despair. They describe a disintegration of reality that includes the self. For most of them, this ‘loss of identity’ is terrifying.

In my own experiences with meditation, I have experienced ‘transfer of information,’ most of which is kept buried and which I have never shared with anyone. Until I can find confirmation of it in some other source, I will continue to hold it inside.

The point is: the mescaline experience — including other hallucinogens — is purely chemical — or, at least, chemically induced. Since the brain is capable of such incredible ‘voyages’ as a result of chemicals, how can we assert with absolute certainty that similar self-induced ‘flights’ or even acts of ‘channeling’ are not also merely chemical reactions within the physical brain? How do we know we are not merely manifestations of the imagination of some slumbering Cosmic Being? Or the toys or whatever of a group of celestial adversaries? (For I cannot doubt some foundation for our existence other than mere accident).

Now, I suppose that what has happened to me is that my faith — once so strong and impervious to external assault — has succumbed to a sort of ‘devil’s advocate’ mode of thinking. For so long I maintained the ‘proper’ attitudes — performed the proper acts — to ‘create’ a reality more in line with what I felt would provide the environment for creative productivity and simple happiness …

Well, hope springs eternal, as they say. I will continue to do those things which should lead to ‘enlightenment.’ I will water the shriveled plant of my faith and withhold judgment. But I cannot lie and pretend all is at peace in me or that I find my life, up to this point, at all what I would have hoped.

I am now at the age you were when I met you. You are now past 50 — and so little time has passed! I thought we would be young and adventurous and carefree forever, or at least until we died. As Rose said: I expect to be dead someday, but I don’t plan to spend any time dying. Yet, my mortality has never weighed so heavily upon me as now. Maybe I’m going through “the change”. I feel crazy as hell sometimes.

The reason I felt “crazy as hell” sometimes is due to the fact that I had embarked on my own experiment, though it had nothing at all to do with drugs. As I have written elsewhere, my grandmother’s death, ten years after my grandfather’s passing, really knocked the wind out of me. And six months later, I was bedridden after the birth of my fourth child. This was in 1985 and it was during this period of enforced stillness (typical event in the life of the shaman) that I turned to inner journeys in order to cope with the depth of my agony. You could say that what happened to my body was a physical expression of what was going on inside. I could no longer sit up or walk internally or externally. I needed to know with some certainty, what it all meant.

Even in my state of doubt, I continued to meditate. I had the idea that if I could produce the required changes in myself — even if it was only acceptance of my suffering and the sufferings of others — that would enable me to pass through this rough period. Most particularly, I wanted a change in my marriage. I needed my ex-husband’s acceptance of me as a questioning, intelligent human being — not merely a cook, housekeeper, sex object, baby-sitter and doormat. I knew that he had been wounded, that he had insecurities, that perhaps his behavior was simply designed to drive me away, to manifest some self-fulfilling prophecy he had about himself that no woman could love him or stand by him. I knew that, if anybody could do it, I could. And the goal was, of course, to heal myself so that my ex-husband would be healed. Then, if we were both “en rapport,” our children would benefit, and all would be right with the world!

My meditation practice rapidly progressed. After only a few months of practice, I found myself “zoning out” while remaining conscious in another way simultaneously, for up to three hours at a time, coming to myself feeling as though no time at all had passed. The only problem was: I never seemed to bring anything back with me. I had no idea what had been going on, where my mind had been. I did note that I was far more peaceful and able to cope with the difficulties of my life, but it was still frustrating not to obtain something a bit more concrete from all of this endeavor.

As a matter of practicality I generally meditated lying on the bed. Some people cannot do this because they tend to fall asleep, but that was never a problem for me. I could zone out in meditation, come to some time later, and then go to sleep easily at night. I was generally so uncomfortable in any position, that getting to sleep was problematical if I didn’t meditate first.

So, I went to bed one night and began my breathing exercises. This part of the process I had borrowed from my hypnotherapy training and was extremely useful. Of course, I later learned that it had been borrowed for hypnotherapy from certain meditation systems.

At this point, I don’t know what happened. All I remember is starting the breathing phase, which came before the contemplative phase of the exercise. But then I made some kind of big “skip”.

The next thing I knew, I was jerked back into consciousness by a sensation that can only be described as a boiling turbulence in my abdomen. It was so powerful that, at first, it felt actually physical — like there was a boiling agitation in my organs that was going to erupt upward in some way.

I was frantically holding my throat, because I could feel a tightening of the muscles in the throat area, as wave after wave of energy blew upward like the precursors of steam blasts from a volcano before it erupts. I struggled out of the bed, holding the wall with one hand and my throat with the other, clenching my teeth so whatever it was would not come gushing out of me and disturb my family. For all I knew, I was just going to be violently sick!

I rushed outside to the porch where there was a lawn sofa, and collapsed onto it just as the outpouring began.

I wish I could describe this in better words, but there are simply none that apply other than to use ordinary descriptions that don’t come close to the essence and intensity of the event. What erupted from me was a shattering series of sobs and cries that were utterly primeval and coming from some soul-deep place that defies explanation. Accompanying these cries, or actually, embedded in them, were images — visions — complete scenes with all attendant emotional content and implied context conveyed in an instant. It was like the idea of your life passing before your eyes only it was many lifetimes and many levels of experience. I was experiencing myself at multiple levels of reality, in multiple lifetimes, interacting with multiple beings, in scenario after scenario. There was a whole lot of communication going on in ways that are impossible to describe.

And the tears! My god! The tears that flowed. I had no idea that the human physiology was capable of producing such copious amounts of liquid so rapidly!

Now, if this had been just an hour-long crying jag or something like that, it would have to pass into history as “just one of those things,” maybe like PMS. But, this activity had a life of its own! It went on, without slowing or stopping, for more than five hours! If I attempted to slow it down, stop it, or “switch” my mind in another direction, the inner sensation of explosive eruption rapidly took over, all the muscles in my body would begin to clench up and I was no longer in control. I could only sit there as a sort of instrument of grief and lamentation and literally sob my heart out for every horror of history in which I had seemingly participated or to which I had possibly been a witness from whatever level of existence I occupied at that “time”. I think that there were even some that I was simply aware of without my direct participation. And some were truly horrible scenes.

Plague and pestilence and death and destruction. Scene after scene. Loved ones standing one moment, crushed or lying in bloody heaps the next. Rapaciousness, pillaging, plundering; rivers of blood and gore; slaughter, carnage and butchery in all its many manifestations passed before my eyes; holocaust and hell. Rage and hot anger, bloodlust and fury, murder and mayhem, all around me, everywhere I looked. Evil heaped on evil like twisted, dismembered bodies. And the grief of centuries, the unshed tears of millennia, the guilt, remorse and penitence, flooded through me; melting, thawing and dissolving the burdensome shell of stone that encased my petrified heart; washing away the pain with my tears; an ocean of tears.

As this release of the worlds of accumulated guilt and grief of many lifetimes went on, the “voice-that-was-not-a-voice” in the background, ever soothing, ever calming, repeated:

“It’s not your fault. There is no blame. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

I came to understand something very deep: I understood that there is no “original sin”. I understood that the terrors and suffering mankind experiences here in life on earth is not caused by some sort of “flaw” or “error” or aberration from “within”. It is not punishment. It is not something that one can be “saved” from. I understood that every scene of terrible suffering and heart-rending cruelty was the result of ignorance. And each experience was the gaining of knowledge.

It is easier to see this idea when you consider the Crusades or the Inquisition. You can trace the path of twisted reason, leading from the idea of the Love of God to imposing that view on others “for their own good”, ending in torture and mass murder. Forget for a moment about those who just viciously used such philosophies for their own gain and political maneuvers. Think for a moment only about the sincerity of the philosophies behind such events. But it is based on ignorance.

Many of those who were seemingly out for gain and self-aggrandizement were operating out of ignorance — fear and hunger of the soul that cannot be satisfied. It is only a matter of degrees, but in the end, it is only ignorance.

When the flow of energy, images and tears finally began to subside, I felt a sensation of warm, balmy liquid, almost airy in its lightness, and so sweet that to this day, I can still remember the piercing quickening of the fire of love for all of creation. It was ecstatic, rapturous and exultant all at the same time. I was lost in wonder, amazed and at the same time bewildered at this vision of the world.

The result of this event was a state of prolonged “elevation,” or “loving peace” that persisted for a very long time. You could even say that the effects reverberate to the present. Never again was I able to condemn (act against with intent to destroy what they choose to believe) another, no matter how wicked their deeds. I could see that all so-called “evil” and “wickedness” was a manifestation of ignorance. No person, no matter how holy and elevated they may think they are in this life, has not reveled in the shedding of another’s blood in some other time and place. And no person who chooses ignorance and wickedness and destruction in this life is wrong. Yes, I had the right to avoid them, to defend myself against them, to understand what they were doing. But it was not my place to go on a campaign to forcibly change their mind.

The significant point is: Ignorance is a choice, and one made for a reason: to learn and to grow.

That realization led to another: that one needs knowledge to learn how to truly choose; the point of this existence is to be able to learn, at this level of reality, what is and isn’t of ignorance, what is of truth and beauty and love and cleanliness. I understood the saying of Jesus that some things are bright and shining on the outside, but inside they are filthy and full of decay. And I don’t mean that I was seeing this negativity as something to be judged. I clearly understood its reason and place as modes of learning, but I was deeply inspired to seek out all I could learn about this world to best manifest what was of light.

With this comparison of my non-drug induced shamanic experience to the drug-induced ones that Hancock describes in the book, I think that the attentive reader can see the difference. It seems that drug induced experiences do indeed open the door to other realms, but they are generally lower realms, where one would not wish to remain for any period of time. I should also add that this was only the beginning of the initiatory process. It proceeded by stages for years. I’m not sure it ever ends, either. But with each step of progression, your perception changes and with the change of perception comes the change of the reality you live in. My life now is so vastly different from the life I was leading then that it is literally a Cinderella story. Yes, I have paid a high price for my knowledge and awareness; I am subjected to vicious attacks from those who seek to keep humanity ignorant and in chains. But let me say at this point that, in my personal life, I experience happiness that few have ever known, and there is a peace that passes all understanding10 in doing what is right simply because it is right.

The shaman, in his ability to achieve the ecstatic state inaccessible to the rest of mankind, was regarded as a privileged being. More than this, the myths tell us of the “first shamans” who were sent to earth by the celestial beings to defend human beings against the “negative gods” who had taken over the rule of mankind. It was the task of the first shamans to activate, in their own bodies, a sort of transducer of cosmic energy for the benefit of their tribe. This was expressed as the concept of the world tree, which became the axis or the Pole of the World, and later was co-opted and corrupted to mean the royal bloodlines.

There is a specific relationship between the shamanic function and certain bloodlines. But, as with everything that has been provided to help mankind, this concept has been co-opted by the forces seeking to keep mankind in darkness and ignorance. The true and ancient bloodlines of the first shamans have been obscured and hidden by the false trail of the invented genealogies of the Hebrew Old Testament supposedly leading to certain branches of present day European royal and noble families, which seek to establish a counterfeit kingship that has garnered a great deal of attention in recent times. These families are, for the most part, carriers of genetic psychopathology.

In this present time, there are indications that cosmic changes of monumental proportions are in the wind. There are also indications that a particular time element is involved and all the forces of darkness seek to deceive and obfuscate at levels never before achieved in order to distract, confuse, dilute and defuse the abilities of those who may be the bearers of the circuits of change for all humanity.

The Sufis have kept the technician of ecstasy concept alive in their tradition of the Poles of the World. The kutub or q’tub (pole of his time) is an appointed being, entirely spiritual in nature, who acts as a divine agent at a certain period in time. Each kutub has under him four awtads (supports) and a number of abdals (substitutes), who aid him in his work of preserving and maintaining the world. The interesting thing about this idea is that the individual who occupies the position does not even have to be aware of it. His life, his existence, even his very physiology, is a function of higher realities extruded into the realm of man. That this has a very great deal to do with bloodlines as promulgated in recent times is true, but not necessarily in the ways suggested.

Q: (L) But isn’t the nature of a person determined by their soul and not the physical body?

A: Partially, remember, aural profile and karmic reference merges with physical structure.

Q: (L) So you are saying that particular genetic conditions are a physical reflection of a spiritual orientation? That the soul must match itself to the genetics, even if only in potential?

A: Yes, precisely.

Q: (L) So a person’s potential for spiritual advancement or unfoldment is, to a great extent, dependent upon their genes?

A: Natural process marries with systematic construct when present.

Preparing this text for publication, I see so many things that were clues of things yet to come even from the time of writing the Wave in 1999 and 2000. You could say that the experiences that resulted from publishing this material were initiatic in a very significant way. It’s one thing to be a mystic in private, it is altogether another thing to put your knowledge to work, to exist in that state where your understanding leads to action.11

In the present time, it seems that many of those with the “bloodline” are awakening. It is no longer feasible to be a Pole of the World who is asleep, because, as we will soon examine, there are some very serious matters of choice and action that may be incumbent upon the awakened shaman. The first order of business seems to be to awaken and accumulate strength of polarity. A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake. When a man awakes he can die; when he dies he can be born.

Shamans are born and made. That is to say, they are born to be made. But, the making is their choice, and from what I have been able to determine, the choice may be one that is made at a different level than the conscious, third density linear experience. Those who have made the choice at higher levels, and then have negated that choice at this level because they are not able to relinquish their ordinary life, pay a very high price, indeed.

A shaman stands out because of certain characteristics of religious crisis. They are different from other people because of the intensity of their religious experiences. In ancient times, it was the task of the shamanic elite to be the “specialist of the soul,” to guard the soul of the tribe because only he could see the unseen and know the form and destiny of the group soul. But, before he acquired his ability, he was often an ordinary citizen or even the offspring of a shaman with no seeming vocation (considering that the ability is reputed to be inherited, though not necessarily represented in each generation). At some point in his life, however, the shaman has an experience that separates him from the rest of humanity. The Native American vision quest is a survival of the archaic understanding of the natural initiation of the shaman who is called to his vocation by the gods.

A deep study of the matter reveals that those who seek the magico-religious powers via the vision quest when they have not been called spontaneously from within by their own questing nature and feeling of responsibility for humanity, generally become sorcerers; those who, through a systematic study, obtain the powers deliberately for their own advantage. This can be done, of course, but the price is that the individual eventually, in this life or the next, must cut himself off from all true love and caring whether for parent, spouse or child. Apparently, some are willing to pay that price, and still more are not aware that this will eventually be demanded of them.

The true shamanic initiation comes by dreams, ecstatic trances combined with extensive study, and hard work: intentional suffering. A shaman is expected to not only pass through certain initiatory ordeals, but he must also be deeply educated in order to be able to fully evaluate the experiences and challenges that he will face. Unfortunately, since ancient times until now, there have been precious few who have traveled the path of the shaman, including the practice of the attendant skills of battling “demons,” who could teach or advise a course of study for the awakening shaman. In my own case, over thirty years of study, twenty years of work as a hypnotherapist and exorcist, and the years of calling to the universe that constitute the Cassiopaean experiment stand as an example of how the process might manifest in the present day.

The future shaman is traditionally thought to exhibit certain exceptional traits from childhood. He is often very nervous and even sickly in some ways. (In some cultures, epilepsy is considered a mark of the shaman, though this is a later corrupt perception of the ecstatic state.) It has been noted that shamans, as children, are often morbidly sensitive, have weak hearts, disordered digestion, and are subject to vertigo.12 There are those who would consider such symptoms to be incipient mental illness, but the fact is that extensive studies have shown that the so-called hallucinations or visions consist of elements that follow a particular model that is consistent from culture to culture, from age to age, and is composed of an amazingly rich theoretical content. It could even be said that persons who “go mad” are failed shamans who have failed either because of a flaw in the transmission of the genetics, or because of environmental factors. At the same time, there are many more myths of failed shamanic heroes than of successful ones, so the warnings of what can happen have long been in place. Mircea Eliade remarks that:

The mentally ill patient proves to be an unsuccessful mystic or, better, the caricature of a mystic. His experience is without religious content, even if it appears to resemble a religious experience, just as an act of autoeroticism arrives at the same physiological result as a sexual act properly speaking (seminal emission), yet at the same time is but a caricature of the latter because it is without the concrete presence of the partner. (Eliade 2004, 26—27)

Well, that’s a pretty interesting analogy! It even suggests to us the idea that one who attempts to activate a shamanic inheritance within the STS framework of wishful thinking, has an illusory partner as in the above-described activity, with similar results. In other words, sorcery is like masturbation: the practitioner satisfies himself, but his act does no one else any good. And, by the same token, a shaman who operates without knowledge is like the proverbial “three minute egg”: he gets everybody all excited, and then leaves them hanging! In both cases, such an individual has satisfied only themselves, and it could be said that, in the latter case, it is actually worse because another individual has been used for that satisfaction.

But, such amusing vulgarities aside (even if they do make the point remarkably well) the thing about the shaman is that (s)he is not just a sick person, but a sick person who has been cured, or who has succeeded in curing himself. This point can’t be overemphasized. Those who aspire to mysticism, to the shamanic path, and who still remain frail or sickly in physical, material or spiritual terms, may not yet have been presented with the initiation, or, if they have, may have failed to pass. The possibility of achieving the shamanic powers for Service-to-Self also exists, so great care has to be used in trying to see the unseen.

In many cases, the election of the shaman manifests through a fairly serious illness which can only be cured by the “ascent to the sky.” After the ecstatic vision of initiation, the shaman feels much better. After the response to the calling of the gods, the shaman shows a more than normally healthy constitution; they are able to achieve immense concentration beyond the capacity of ordinary men; they can sustain exhausting efforts and, most importantly, they are able to keep a cool head in the face of experiences that would terrify and break an ordinary person.

Another point that should be emphasized is that the shaman must be able to be in full control of himself even when in the ecstatic state. (Trance channeling or mediumship with no memory of what transpired is not the activity of a true shaman.) This ability to “walk in two worlds” simultaneously demonstrates an extraordinary nervous constitution. It has been said that the Siberian shamans show no sign of mental disintegration well into old age; their memories and powers of self-control are well above average.

Don Juan calls this state of being “impeccable.” This idea is also reflected in the archaic systems of the Yakut, where the shaman must be “serious, possess tact, be able to communicate effectively with all people; above all, he must not be presumptuous, proud, ill-tempered.” The true shaman emanates an inner force that is conscious, yet never offensive. At the same time, it should be noted that a true shaman might evoke very negative responses from those who are aligned with the STS polarity.

Getting back to the infirmities, nervous disorders, illness of crisis and so forth that are the signs of election, it is also noted that sometimes an accident, a fall, a blow on the head, or being hit by lightning are the signs from the environment that the shaman has been elected. But, being called is not the same as being chosen, or, more precisely, choosing. Many are called; few choose to respond. This choosing is a process and it is a process of struggle and pain and suffering because, in the end, what is required is that the unhealthy ego, the false personality, must be killed.

My goal for the Wave series, particularly Soul Hackers and Stripped to the Bone, has been to take you, the reader, through many of the stages of this process vicariously, and I know that it has affected you in many of the same ways it affected me, judging by the mail I have received. Many of you have been through some of the stages of initiation already. Many of you are struggling with the process of death of the ego and striving for rebirth as the shaman — he whose head has been purified. In any case, many of you know that this can be a process of many years and many stages, sometimes including many illnesses, many accidents, and many assaults to the physical body as well as the soul.

The pivotal initiation of the shaman occurs after a long period of preparation. In retrospect, I can see this was the process in my life, but as I was going through it, I had no idea that this was what was happening. I was just struggling through the illnesses, the accidents, the suffering, the trials, the tribulations, the lessons that seemed to just be the path of my life in generic terms. I didn’t see them as tests, or that they manifested in my life as the call. It was only after the choice that I began to make the discoveries that explained the process of my life, and which I am now sharing with you.

For many of you, reading these books has had a similar effect — initiatory — though the present series was not begun with that intention. It just, more or less, took over and began to write itself. So, for those that want “just the facts, ma’am!” I apologize. I’m not going to change it, but I acknowledge your right to want something different.

Returning to my “descent into Hell” and the sensation of being stripped of everything, yes, there had been other steps in the process, other choices, visions and experiences. But none of them were like the moment of being completely stripped to the bone of all belief in anything and everything I ever held as true, including all my beliefs and illusions about my personal life and relationships and my very self.

The pathology of the shamanic path seems to be part of the means of reaching the condition to be initiated. But, at the same time, it is often the means of the initiation itself. These pathological conditions have a physiological effect that amounts to a transformation of the ordinary individual into a technician of the sacred. However, if such an experience is not preceded and followed by a period of theoretical and practical instruction, the shaman becomes a tool for those forces that would use the shamanic function to further enslave mankind as we have already noted.

Now, the experience that transforms the shaman is constituted of the well-known religious elements of suffering, death and resurrection. One of the earliest representations of these elements is in the Sumerian story of the descent of Ishtar/Inanna into the underworld to save her son-lover, Tammuz. She had to pass through seven gates of Hell and, at each door or gate, she was stripped of another article of her attire because she could only enter the underworld naked. While she was in the underworld, the earth and its inhabitants suffered loss of creative vigor. After she had accomplished her mission, fertility was restored. I’m sure that the attentive reader can see how this idea has been corrupted.

The most well known variation of this story is the myth of Persephone/Kore, the daughter of Demeter, who was kidnapped by Hades/Pluto. In her grief for her daughter, Demeter denied fertility to the earth. An agreement to have her daughter with her for part of the year resulted in the manifestation of seasons. We can see that this has been interpreted as a representation of a very ancient account of the cyclical nature of time. But, even more, we can now see that it is a shamanic tale of descent of the “daughter” of the greater soul unit into third density where it is entrapped by the forces of darkness, and the searching of Demeter for her daughter is the calling of the higher self to the shamanic path. Of course, we also note that in the Sumerian versions, it was the separation of the goddess from her consort, which would indicate the separation of the dual energies and the hemispheres of the brain that we discuss in Stripped to the Bone.

The shamanic visions represent the descent as dismemberment of the body, flaying of the flesh from the bones, being boiled in a cauldron, and then being reassembled by the gods and/or goddesses. This, too, is well represented in myth and legend, including the myth of Jesus: suffering, death, and resurrection. I can also attest to the fact that this is exactly what it feels like at various stages of the process.

… a Yakut shaman, Sofron Zateyev, states that as a rule [during this visionary initiation] the future shaman “dies” and lies in the yurt for three days without eating or drinking. … Pyotr Ivanov, gives further details. The candidate’s limbs are removed and disjointed with an iron hook; the bones are cleaned, the flesh scraped, the body fluids thrown away, and the eyes torn from their sockets. After this operation all the bones are gathered up and fastened together with iron.

According to a third shaman, Timofei Romanov, the visionary dismemberment lasts from three to seven days; during all that time the candidate remains like a dead man, scarcely breathing, in a solitary place. [emphasis added] (Eliade 2004, 36)

According to another Yakut account, the evil spirits carry the future shaman’s soul to the underworld and there shut it up in a house for three years (only one year for those who will become lesser shamans). Here the shaman undergoes his initiation. The spirits cut off his head, which they set aside (for the candidate must watch his dismemberment with his own eyes), and cut him into small pieces, which are then distributed to the spirits of the various diseases. Only by undergoing such an ordeal will the future shaman gain the power to cure. His bones are then covered with new flesh, and in some cases he is also given new blood.

According to another account, the devils keep the candidate’s soul until he has learned all of their wisdom. During all this time the candidate lies sick. There is also a recurring motif of a giant bird that hatches shamans in the branches of the World Tree, which is an allusion to an Avian bloodline that is opposed to a Reptilian heritage. The following excerpts are from the available accounts obtained in field research and should be read with the awareness that we have now entered a world of pure symbolism:

… the candidate … came upon a naked man working a bellows. On the fire was a caldron “as big as half the earth.” The naked man saw him and caught him with a huge pair of tongs. The novice had time to think, “I am dead!” The man cut off his head, chopped his body into bits, and put everything in the caldron. There he boiled his body for three years. There were also three anvils, and the naked man forged the candidate’s head on the third, which was the one on which the best shamans were forged. …

The blacksmith then fished the candidate’s bones out of a river, in which they were floating, put them together, and covered them with flesh again. … He forged his head and taught him how to read the letters that are inside it. He changed his eyes; and that is why, when he shamanizes, he does not see with his bodily eyes but with his mystical eyes. He pierced his ears, making him able to understand the language of plants. …

… The Tungus shaman Ivan Cholko states that a future shaman must fall ill and have his body cut in pieces and his blood drunk by the evil spirits (saargi). These … throw his head into a caldron where it is melted with certain metal pieces that will later form part of his ritual costume. …

… before becoming a shaman the candidate must be sick for a long time; the souls of his shaman ancestors then surround him, torture him, strike him, cut his body with knives, and so on. During this operation the future shaman remains inanimate; his face and hands are blue, his heart scarcely beats. …

… A Teleut woman became a shamaness after having a vision in which unknown men cut her body to bits and cooked it in a pot. According to the traditions of the Altaian shamans, the spirits of their ancestors eat their flesh, drink their blood, open their bellies and so on. …

… in South America as in Australia or Siberia both spontaneous vocation and the quest for initiation involve either a mysterious illness or a more or less symbolic ritual of mystical death, sometimes suggested by a dismemberment of the body and renewal of the organs.

“… they cut his head open, take out his brains, wash and restore them, to give him a clear mind to penetrate into the mysteries of evil spirits, and the intricacies of disease; they insert gold dust into his eyes to give him keenness and strength of sight powerful enough to see the soul wherever it may have wandered; they plant barbed hooks on the tips of his fingers to enable him to seize the soul and hold it fast; and lastly they pierce his heart with an arrow to make him tender-hearted, and full of sympathy with the sick and suffering. …

… If the alleged reason for the renewal of the organs (conferring better sight, tenderheartedness, etc.) is authentic, it indicates that the original meaning of the rite has been forgotten. …

Then the master obtains … the disciple’s “lighting” or “enlightenment,” for [this] consists “of a mysterious light which the shaman suddenly feels in his body, inside his head, within the brain, an inexplicable searchlight, a luminous fire, which enables him to see in the dark, both literally and metaphorically speaking, for he can now, even with closed eyes, see through darkness and perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others …

The candidate obtains this mystical light after long hours of waiting, sitting on a bench in his hut … When he experiences it for the first time “it is as if the house in which he is suddenly rises; he sees far ahead of him, through mountains, exactly as if the earth were one great plain, and his eyes could reach to the end of the earth. Nothing is hidden from him any longer; not only can he see things far, far away, but he can also discover souls, stolen souls, which are either kept concealed in far, strange lands or have been taken up or down to the Land of the Dead.”

… the experience of inner light that determines the career of the Iglulik shaman is familiar to a number of higher mysticisms. … In the Upanishads, the “inner light” … defines the essence of the atman. In yogic techniques, especially those of the Buddhist schools, light of different colors indicates the success of particular meditations. Similarly, the Tibetan Book of the Dead accords great importance to the light in which, it appears, the dying man’s soul is bathed during his mortal throes and immediately after death; a man’s destiny after death (deliverance or reincarnation) depends on the firmness with which he chooses the immaculate light. …

… the essential elements of this mystical vision are the being divested of flesh … in all these cases reduction to the skeleton indicates a passing beyond the profane human condition and, hence, a deliverance from it.

… bone represents the very source of life … To reduce oneself to the skeleton condition is equivalent to re-entering the womb for a complete renewal, a mystical rebirth. …

[It is an expression of] the will to transcend the profane, individual condition, and to attain a transtemporal perspective.

… the myth of renewal by fire, cooking, or dismemberment has continued to haunt men even outside the spiritual horizon of shamanism … The myth of rejuvenation by dismemberment and cooking has been handed down in Siberian, Central Asian, and European folklore, the role of the blacksmith being played by Jesus Christ or other saints. [emphasis added] (Eliade 2004, 41—44, 53, 57, 58, 60—61, 63—64, 66)

I would like to add that these same ideas of death and re-birth are well represented in alchemical literature as the various processes of chemical transmutation. As Boris Mouravieff observes in Gnosis, Book Two:

[I]n order to respect the principle of hermetism adopted by the Tradition, … these warnings [esoteric teachings] are given in a sibylline form. This is why St Isaac the Syrian points out that: “The Holy Scriptures say many things by using words in a different sense from their original meaning. Sometimes bodily attributes are applied to the soul, and conversely, attributes of the soul are applied to the body. The Scriptures do not make any distinction here. However, enlightened men understand.” (Mouravieff, 1992, pp. 196—197)

A couple of important things to note are the ideas that the candidate must be under the control of demons or beings that torture and torment him in order that he may learn their wisdom, and that this process confers greater powers on the initiate.13 A present day experience that is so similar to this initiation is the alien abduction scenario. Unfortunately, just as was reported among the shamanic stories of failed initiates or those who chose the dark path, there are many who have embraced the tormentors and become possessed by them to one extent or another. In a deeper sense, we can observe that the very fact of our existence in the STS third density reality — “the world inside the devil” — constitutes an initiation over many, many incarnations. We must suffer the lies before we can perceive the truth.

So now, perhaps, the reader can see what I am doing. I am sharing with you the knowledge of the process of initiation which many of you have experienced with no contemporary context; I am assisting those who have asked, in the process of being stripped to the bone; of suffering, dying and, hopefully, being resurrected; of becoming a shaman; of becoming one whose head has been purified.

All of what follows from here on out must be understood to apply only to those who have accepted the call. If your life has not followed the shamanic pattern, none of the following can be construed to apply to you. If, on the other hand, you do think that your call is to be one whose head has been purified, then you should study a great deal more until you arrive at your own initiation, at which point your choices will be clear to you. But, for the sake of those who are already there, the following remarks are being made as generalities to be applied only if or when they fit.

As I said, after the initiation that I passed through in my descent into Hell, the world changed for me in profound ways. The profundity of the change was at a level I could not fully fathom in my waking consciousness, but it bore fruit almost immediately. My view of all my relationships, all my actions and interactions with the world changed in incalculable ways. I could literally see the unseen dynamics of every exchange between myself and other people in all situations. And by seeing, I was able to choose that reaction that was truly expressive of unconditional love, of truth, of ultimate beauty in cosmic terms. I no longer saw with my human eyes nor was I ruled by my human emotions. However, this does not mean that I did not feel them. I had already made a choice of the greatest magnitude in terms of putting aside all human egoic need for comfort and illusion, and I was simply not able to ever view anything the same way again.

Certainly, I have come under intense criticism from various quarters because making the choice to have no close relationships based on lies, or that permit lying, makes it imperative that such relationships either be corrected, and if that is not possible, relegated to a distance.

One of the first acts of application of this new state of being was, as I have chronicled, the reordering of my personal life which included divorcing my husband and bringing to a halt all manipulative interactions between myself and my children, close friends and associates.

Many people saw these actions as unfeeling or as showing a certain coldness or lack of love and caring. But, the truth is I knew that as long as I participated in these dynamics, I was feeding the STS forces. I understood my position: that I needed to gain strength. I also knew that I needed to be strong in my polarization for the sake of others, not just those immediately in my life. It wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I was devastated at the thought of hurting anyone. But, I also realized from looking back over my life that I was particularly vulnerable to having people placed close to me who were there for the express purpose of draining my life force because it was very potent, and by manipulating me to give in to the STS dynamic, I was a powerful feeding machine to amplify those energies. So it is with many women (and men) who are in relationships with manipulative, psychopathological people.

I also understood that those who are not awake are completely subject to engaging in this type of manipulation, even subconsciously. More than this, I understood that I must battle for the souls of those I loved and that this could even mean saying no to them literally, or spiritually, so as not to amplify the STS frequency in them. I knew that if I continued to act as their buffer, I was making it almost impossible for them to overcome their own predatorial natures. Such a price was so high that I couldn’t bear to consider it. That higher spiritual value took precedence over my own human emotions that sought only ease and peace and to make things nice. As Jacob Needleman writes in Lost Christianity:

Egoism, too, can in its way “see” the suffering of man, but it is a “seeing” mixed with illusions and fear, leading to impatience, faulty action and, finally, infliction of yet more suffering upon others, even in the name of love. … To [truly] love my neighbor is to assist the arising and the unfolding in him of that which can harmonize the real elements of his nature. … To transmit the truth is … to nurture the growth, in my neighbor, of the soul. … the transmission to another of conditions of living, thinking and experiencing that foster the growth of the intermediate principle in human nature: the soul. (Needleman 2003, 218—221)

Yes, I realize the love that I felt for my children which made me think that we could or would travel into the higher levels together might be a trap, but at least I knew for sure that, if it was their soul choice, they needed to wake up and do it fast, and they would never do it with me there allowing myself to be manipulated into giving amplification to their STS tendencies. I understood that it was not love to do anything that prevents another from learning a lesson that they are here to learn, no matter how hard it is to watch when someone you love is suffering.14 You must love another as they are in order to be able to allow them to learn their own lessons, and this is the bitterest lesson of all for the human part of one who chooses to serve others in the cosmic sense.

That does not mean I stopped being kind or giving, nor does it mean that I stopped being a parent and imposing necessary discipline that is part of the parent-child soul agreement, it simply means that I knew that if I was acting a certain way to persuade someone to fulfill my idea of how they should be, without considering their choices and lessons, that I was not helping them. I also knew that if I allowed them to manipulate me by intimations that it would produce some result favorable to me, it was the wrong reason to do it. I also knew that when they did things that required a disciplinary response, they were asking me to discipline. Most asking takes place in action, not words.

In the case of my ex-husband, I realized that, by continuing to support him emotionally in his choices which, most of the time, if not all of the time, happened to be in direct opposition to my own, as well as opposed to the well-being of the family, I was either expecting this support to convert him to my view, or I was simply giving up my free will. I understood that his choices were his and fully worthy of his pursuit. They just weren’t mine. And, by the same token, my choices were not his and he had made that clear so that I could no longer be angry when he behaved in passive-aggressive ways about things I wanted or needed, making it clear that he only did things for me grudgingly, and to keep the peace. Not only that, I understood that, by his behavior, he was asking me to release him. Even if it was neither conscious nor part of his social and religious programming. At a very deep soul level, he was being guided to behave in ways that were subtle, yet definite asking for release. To refuse such asking, would not be love.

In the case of the husband and wife relationship, this is a most difficult thing to assess because it is a relationship based on commitment to similar goals and ideals and intimate interactions of assimilation and identification with one another. When you fully realize that the giving of energy to the STS alignment in any respect is to help it grow while you are diminishing your own possibilities of increasing the STO dynamic, you are faced with very difficult choices at the most intimate level. It is actually in and through these choices and their activation that you are marrying your knowledge to your will. If you perceive, make the correct choices for a true STO dynamic, implementation will powerfully amplify your frequency. And, the closer the relationship, and the harder it is to do it, to overcome the illusions of programming, the more profound the effect it can have on the amplification.

In terms of a marriage partner, yes, of course, you can still have similar goals of raising your children, of paying your bills, of building a nest egg for retirement. Can’t we say that serving others might constitute giving of support to such mundane human pursuits while the other aspects of our lives, our spiritual pursuits, are kept separate? Not only that, but when one looks at divorce, one is looking at possibly losing one’s own financial, physical, and emotional support system which may be detrimental especially when children are involved, so isn’t that very self serving?

In the case of a marriage, this is where the rubber hits the road in terms of applying one’s knowledge and choices. It all depends on your idea of what marriage is supposed to be and what your life goals are, and whether or not they can harmonize.

For most of us, marriage constitutes a commitment to support and sustain another person physically, emotionally and financially “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

Note the key words: support and sustain.

Now, if it becomes clear that the marriage partner is at a level or position on the learning cycle that is different from the individual who is waking up, what is the level of responsibility? One might think that it is their responsibility to stay in the marriage because they simply are married or committed. In this case one then has to think very carefully about the term “response-ability.”

How are you going to respond to a person who makes choices to act as “food” in the STS hierarchy? How are you going to respond to a person who is still lost in the illusion that he has free will and the power to choose his destiny, and is completely unaware of the forces that dominate our world? How are you going to support a person who makes choices to not expand his or her knowledge base to the same extent that you have, a person who is content to stay in the locked room and doesn’t care that it may be locked. He or she has not even arrived at the point of checking the door! If you have left your own “locked room,” are you then going to move into the locked room of another person?

Well, you can continue to support them, in which case your energy amplifies their own STS frequency and feeds the STS dynamic through them.

OK. That’s cool. You can think that this is something you are willing to do as an act of love and giving because loving and giving are your ideals. But there is something far more important here and that is: if, at the soul level, they have set up lessons so as to be eventually brought to a crossroads, a choice, your continued support and sustenance prolongs the period of time it will take them to do it. It may even be that, by your support, the individual will not learn what they incarnated to learn in this life and will be obliged to do a whole additional life (or more than one), over again. If you are trying to “save” them you are doing far more harm than good.

I am reminded of a case Edgar Cayce dealt with. A couple had a baby and obtained a reading for the child shortly after birth. They were told how special the child was and how many lessons he was going to learn, and what great things he would do as a consequence.

His parents only heard the “special” and “great things” part and ignored the “lessons” part. They began a lifetime of protecting the boy so that he would be ready to do his great work. Every time there was a problem, they stepped in and “fixed” it or helped him find the way out, and so on and so on.

Then, in his early 20s, the boy was killed in an auto accident. The parents were devastated. They went to Cayce and asked him, “Why? He was so special, you told us he had a great work to do!” And Cayce gave them another reading that pointed out the fact that the boy had a life plan before he was born, and that included getting some karma out of the way and learning some specific things by making certain mistakes and having to pay for them. It was all set up in a graduated way so that he would never have to deal with more than his skills could handle at any one time.

However, due to the interference of the parents, it was clearly seen by his higher self that the lessons were not being learned, that the parents were not being truly loving toward the soul and its plan, and in order to prevent more and greater karma, as well as to get the lesson out of the way in the most expeditious way possible so that, at least, he would have time to return quickly for the next stage of his series of life plans, he would have to “check out.”

Naturally, reading about this was quite a revelation to me. I began to understand my relationship with my children in a very different way. I also began to think of the lessons that my kids had to learn as blessings even though some of them were very hard for me to live through, standing by and doing nothing to help. It’s like watching a child learn to ride a bicycle, and watching them fall again and again, and not rushing over every time to pick them up. Instead, you smile and help them to see the scrapes and bruises as badges of victory even though you want to pack them in cotton wool. On the soul level, this is much more difficult because the lessons can be quite painful.

A friend of mine recently wrote to me about a clue he was given about this very matter:

I don’t think that we can `save` anybody BUT we can help many others in SAVING THEMSELVES (well, I guess you could call that a form of saving if you want, it’s only semantics). When I went to sleep last night, I sort of asked: if there is anything to us `saving` others, show me how it’s done. And I had this dream, just before waking up… Basically, I was facing someone of the `other camp`, we were in a sort of fight/discussion, until he said: please, release me, help me out of this. It was said in all honesty, sincerely. Then, `something` of me or something `came out` of me, sort of melted with this individual and HE CHANGED COMPLETELY, IN A SORT OF MORPHING WAY. VERY STRANGE!!!

And the key was in what the soul of the other was crying: please release me! And this is, indeed, the way. To release that soul to enter fully into the lessons they have chosen without your interference or support except to love them as they are — even if at a distance — and to give to them only when they truly ask, without manipulation. The something that “came out” and “melted with the individual” was this unconditional love that allowed them to be as they are, at their level, fully and completely so that they could grow out of it. He gave free will and discontinued his feeding of the STS frequency, thereby releasing the soul to change in its own way and time.

So, in the cosmic scheme of things, which is true love and giving? To support and sustain a person in lies and illusion with all the attendant “food” that is implicit in the marriage relationship, to continue to amplify their STS frequency, or to release them to their lessons — the giving of what is truly appropriate to their actions which demonstrate clearly what the soul is asking — that may eventually facilitate their own growth and initiation, if not in this life, in the next?

Of course, the question then becomes: can you withdraw support from the dynamic and still support the person? The fact is, in terms of soul choices, it is impossible to intimately support a person who is aligned to a certain soul choice without also supporting that person’s choices. In other words, how can you sleep with someone who has different goals than your own? Each time you do, an energy transfer takes place, and it amounts to your energy going to feed their goals, so you might as well decide that the goals are your own, because certainly, your energy is advancing them.

But, it is here that a very hard look has to be taken at the self to inquire why you would want to continue to support and sustain a person who is part of a dynamic that you have chosen not to feed any longer? (Again, I repeat that what I am saying here is only for those who have taken the step toward full initiation.)

Are you staying in the relationship because of financial considerations? Is it “for the children”? Or because you don’t see how you could continue your path of learning without the financial backing of the marriage? If it is for financial considerations relating to yourself, it is easy to see that you are the vampire. You are offering an illusion of love and support in order to obtain something that you want or need. If you are staying for the sake of the children, you need to be very careful how you think this is going to benefit them.

In the first place, at some soul level these children are learning by observing and experiencing. If they observe and experience a vampire dynamic between their parents and themselves, that is what they will grow up to emulate in their own lives

Is that what you want for your children? That they should marry for financial considerations? Or that they should marry someone who does not really love them for themselves, but then find that they have to stay in the marriage for the sake of the children, further perpetuating the dynamic to the next generation? Is that what you want for your children and your children’s children? Can you look at your own life and say, with deepest honesty, that this is what you would want for someone you love very much?

In another sense, if you are in a relationship where there is feeding going on, one or both of the marriage partners is going to have to obtain energy from somewhere, and the most likely sources are going to be the children. Is that what you want?

Another key is, can you stay in the relationship without expectation of anything being changed or made better by your presence and support?

The essential thing about the STO shamanic path is to give only when asked. And then, to give all that is asked. Most love relationships consist of one person asking another (implicitly or explicitly) to give them their ideal partner. This may have nothing at all to do with who the person really is. And certainly, most relationship partners will try to fulfill this role, at least for a time. But when the energy of pretending to be something you are not runs out, what is left? An even deeper issue is: what if the pretense of who or what you are is so programmed into you by the role you were taught to play by your own upbringing, and you find one day that this just isn’t you, but you can’t stop doing it because if you stop, you have no idea what you would do?

In any event, giving only when asked pretty much excludes giving to those of the STS orientation because they never ask. They manipulate, they demand, they beg, they even ask with their words but not their actions. And so, the only real thing a person seeking STO alignment can give to one who is still firmly embedded in the STS path is a no.

This issue of asking is a thing you can often only see by seeing the unseen. Perhaps one way to think about it would be that you could tell if someone is really “asking” if there is no anticipation on their part that you will give to them what they are asking and there is no condition placed upon you as to whether or not you say yes or no. In other words, if you say no, (because you cannot say yes for whatever reason) you are certain that there will be no break or decline in your relations. And the same thing applies to the self. If you “ask,” are you really asking? Or, is there some string attached such as “if you love me you will say yes,” or “see what I have done for you; now it’s your turn,” whether implied or not?

Gnosis, Love, and the Two Races

Since I often refer to Christianity in this discussion, perhaps it would be useful to take a small side-trip to consider that topic?

The Christian religion, and its New Age offshoots, is the chief proponent of the many End of the World scenarios with which we are most familiar. Scenarios about the end times originate mostly in the body of apocalyptic, eschatological writings of the New and Old Testaments. It is in the final book, Revelation, that most striking and symbolic representations about the end of the world are said by many to be depicted.

It is a difficult work to comprehend. Probably no other piece of writing in history has been examined more thoroughly and interpreted more widely. It is the end-of-the world legend, a doomsday tale on moldy bread with virtual reality special effects in abundance. It is the inspirational fountainhead for mad prophets, spittle spewing pulpit-pounders, apocalyptic Enochian magicians, fanatical true believers, grade-B moviemakers, and knaves and snake-oil salesmen of every form and sort.

Does this mean that we can just discard Revelation and the other prophecies altogether? It would be nice to think so, but as we have already noted, even though the Control System is always stepping in to do damage control, they do it oh, so carefully! While the above is rather accurate in terms of the many and varied interpretations that have been given to this Mother of all End Time Prophecies, there is no point in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Anybody with eyes and ears can perceive that there is something amiss in our world, in our reality, and once that is seen, and once the questions are asked, which then leads to research, we come to the idea that something is really going to happen!

But what?

What seems to be true is that the writers of both the Old and New Testaments couldn’t just toss out the oral traditions. They used them in a very special way. It often seems that whatever was positive was twisted and turned backward. With an awareness of how history can be mythicized and then historicized, and any combination thereof, we can look at the scriptures with a different eye. We can theorize that there must have been a real person around whom the legend of Jesus — the mythicized history — was wrapped. Or, there could have been a real tradition that someone taught in those times and the myths that are now called history were ways of preserving that tradition. We can theorize that he was teaching something important and dramatic for it to have made such an impact. We can also theorize that this “impact” — the fact that so many people were interested in this new way of seeing the world — was seen as dangerous and needed to be co-opted so as to be utilized as the centerpiece of a Control System, while at the same time burying, twisting or distorting the teachings themselves. The very nature of the reality itself and our current-day observations, as well as a broad historical review, suggest that whatever he was really doing and saying, it was most certainly twisted, corrupted, and emphases shifted in fairly predictable ways.

Early Christians are said to have believed that the end of the world and the reappearance of their Messiah were imminent. We are told that, from the earliest days of the organized church, anticipation of the millennium — the thousand-year reign of the returned Christ — was in conflict with ecclesiastical policies that were growing apace in the new church hierarchy.

In what is today Turkey, a man named Montanus claimed to have experienced a vision of a heavenly New Jerusalem about to descend to the earth. Montanus and his idea were perceived as a threat to ecclesiastical authority. Hippolytus, writing in 215 CE, accused the Montanist believers of heresy, including listening to revelations from female seers. Montanism continued to spread, especially after Tertullian — the brilliant legal scholar who had been born in Carthage and converted to Christianity in 196 CE — joined the movement. He too reported a vision of this heavenly city descending from the sky, a metaphor that has persisted for centuries.

The ubiquity of this vision is interesting for a lot of reasons, most particularly when one considers the possibility that these early Christians may have been interacting with hyperdimensional realities. While some Gnostic groups “spiritualized” the events foretold in Revelation, there were still those who insisted that this paradise was quite real and physical and could exist on earth. This idea became known as chiliasm, a form of apocalyptic vision that depicted the millennium as a physical and material period.

A Gnostic prophet named Cerinthus said that there would be an earthly kingdom of Christ, and that the flesh of human beings again inhabiting Jerusalem would be subject to desires and pleasure. He added, “The kingdom of Christ would … consist in the satisfaction of the stomach and of even lower organs, in eating, and drinking and nuptial pleasures.” One writer described Cerinthus and his followers by noting, “there was great enthusiasm among his supporters for that end …”

No doubt.

Many chiliasts believed that in the millennium all manner of physical craving would be satiated, that men would find all women beautiful and willing to partake in carnal delights. Others taught that women would bear many children, but without the pain of childbirth or even the inconvenience of sex. It can be noted that there is a thread of sexual allusions in the millennialist vision that — through the centuries — has emerged again and again.

It is fairly simple to see in the “seed” of the primitive chiliasm of the early Christian ideas the concept of Time Loops and hyperdimensional realities as well as the idea of cyclical catastrophes signaling both the end and the beginning of “worlds.” However, there seems to have been something else about this early Christianity that created problems for church fathers who were busy codifying dogma and constructing a far-flung ecclesiastical empire. Since end time fever would not go away, it was codified as “believe in our dogmas, and you will go to heaven at the End Time. It will only happen once, and we are the agents of the god who is going to destroy everybody who does not belong to our club.”

The question is: if the early Church fathers eliminated “primitive chiliasm” from Christianity, what else did they eliminate?

What is most revealing is the fact that the only writings contemporary to the times of early Christianity which mention it specifically, remark that it was a “vile superstition.” Yet, what we have as Christianity today is nothing more or less than the same religious practices of the peoples who branded it a “vile superstition.” Tacitus tells us that in the time of Nero:

There followed a catastrophe, whether through accident or the design of the emperor is not sure, as there are authorities for both views, but it was the most disastrous and appalling of all the calamities brought on this city through the violence of fire. …A rumor had spread abroad that at the very time when the city was burning, Nero had mounted on his private stage and sung of the destruction of Troy, comparing the present disaster with that ancient catastrophe….

In order to put an end to these rumors Nero provided scapegoats and visited most fearful punishments on those popularly called Christians, a group hated because of their outrageous practices. The founder of this sect, Christus, was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilatus. Thus the pernicious superstition was suppressed for the while, but it broke out again not only in Judaea, where this evil had its origin, but even in Rome, to which all obnoxious and disgraceful elements flow from everywhere in the world and receive a large following.

The first ones to be seized were those who confessed; then on their information a vast multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of incendiarism as because of their hatred of humanity. (Leon 1952)

Pliny the Younger, who lived c. 62 to 113 CE, was sent by Emperor Trajan as a special representative to the Roman province of Bithynia in Asia Minor. His task was to keep the peace. When he had trouble dealing with Christians, Pliny wrote to the emperor asking how he should proceed against them describing what he knew about their religion:

However, they asserted that their guilt or mistake had amounted to no more than this, that they had been accustomed on a set day to gather before dawn and to chant in antiphonal form a hymn to Christ as if to a god, and to bind themselves by a pledge, not for the commission of any crime, but rather that they would not commit theft nor robbery nor adultery nor break their promises, nor refuse to return on demand any treasure that had been entrusted to their care; when this ceremony had been completed, they would go away, to reassemble later for a feast, but an ordinary and innocent one. They had abandoned even this custom after my edict in which, following your instruction, I had forbidden the existence of fellowships. So I thought it the more necessary to extract the truth even by torture from two maidservants who were called deaconesses. I found nothing save a vile superstition carried to an immoderate length.

The contagion of the superstition has pervaded not only the cities but the villages and country districts as well. Yet it seems that it can be halted and cured. It is well-agreed that temples almost desolate have begun to be thronged again, and stated rites that had long been abandoned are revived; and a sale is found for the fodder of sacrificial victims, though hitherto buyers were rare. So it is easy to conjecture what a great number of offenders may be reformed, if a chance to repent is given. (Heironimus 1952)

So we have these clues:

1. Christians were hated because of their outrageous practices.

2. Their beliefs were described as a pernicious superstition.

3. The pernicious superstition had its origin in Judaea.

4. Christians were convicted because of their “hatred of humanity.”

5. Pliny describes their practices as benign, but that the core belief was a “vile superstition carried to an immoderate length.”

6. This “vile superstition” was pervasive and apparently led to the temples and ancient rites including sacrifice being abandoned.

The question that comes to mind is: what would the peoples of that time have considered a “vile superstition” or “outrageous practices” when one is aware of what they considered normal religious practice which included dying god myths and gnosticism and sacrifice and all the other accoutrements of Christianity as we know it today? The only real clue we have is the remark: “not so much on the charge of incendiarism as because of their hatred of humanity — a vile superstition carried to an immoderate length.”

Their what?

“Their hatred of humanity.”

~~~

Boris Mouravieff’s trilogy Gnosis is an attempt to recover and describe, in terms understandable to modern man, a particular Tradition handed down over the centuries, in a sometimes broken line, but one that still exists today in the Eastern Orthodox Church. This tradition could be said to be the Christian equivalent of Yoga, Zen, and the other inner traditions of the far Eastern religions, disciplines which have each existed as specializations within the religion of which they are a part. It is not one man’s system or invention, but has its roots far back in the history of Christianity — revealed in certain statements of St. Paul and in the Q gospel — the foundational material of modern Christianity as extracted by scholars such as Burton Mack. It is said that the development of this tradition in its current form can be traced through formative figures of the early churches, and it clearly relates to the doctrines expressed in the key texts of Eastern spirituality such as the Philokalia.15 It clearly relates the oral tradition known as the Royal Way that survives to this day in the main centers of monasticism in the Eastern church, though that appears to be a corruption of the original teachings. The tradition explicated by Mouravieff does not claim to be a work of Orthodox theology, nor to reinterpret Orthodox doctrine.

Mouravieff admits that the survival of this tradition within the church is tenuous, that the doctrine does not appear to survive in full or has not been collected together in full. Monks on Athos admit the existence of the Tradition but say that it has never been fully spelled out in writing. The importance of Mouravieff’s work is the effort he has made to collect that dispersed information and to make it accessible in practical form. He has written extensively on this subject and I will quote some of his material here that comes at the problem from a slightly different angle. In his introduction to book one of Gnosis, Mouravieff observes that we confuse moral progress with technical progress, “so that the development of science continues in dangerous isolation.” Despite all our technological achievements, the human condition has not changed “in the slightest,” and will not change, because it focuses only on external things, whereas the essential is found within. One result of this is that we have completely ignored the study of our own death, and all it entails. He writes:

Homo Sapiens lives immersed in his everyday life to a point where he forgets himself and forgets where he is going; yet, without feeling it, he knows that death cuts off everything.

How can we explain that the intellectual who has made marvelous discoveries and the technocrat who has exploited them have left outside the field of their investigations the ending of our lives? How can we explain that a science which attempts everything and claims everything nevertheless remains indifferent to the enigma revealed by the question of death? How can we explain why Science, instead of uniting its efforts with its older sister religion to resolve the problems of Being — which is also the problem of death — has in fact opposed her?

Whether a man dies in bed or aboard an interplanetary ship, the human condition has not changed in the slightest.

Happiness? But we are taught that happiness lasts only as long as the Illusion lasts … and what is this Illusion? Nobody knows. But it submerges us.

If we only knew what Illusion is, we would then know the opposite: what Truth is. This Truth would liberate us from slavery. (Mouravieff 2002, xxiii)

This last remark seems to me to be important. Very often people write to me and say that the Cs material is too “scary” and that we talk too much about the illusion, why aren’t we talking about positive things or concentrating on “escaping” or whatever.

Well, the fact seems to be that what Mouravieff has said above is the key: If we cannot map the illusion, we have no hope of getting out of it. It is in mapping the illusion that we are able to distinguish between what Mouravieff calls the A influences and the B influences. We call it seeing the Theological Reality behind the symbolic things and events of our world. Mouravieff points out that the more we collect or perceive the B influences, and act on them, the more we “magnetize.” And naturally, “seeing” the A influences, or discerning the lies of our reality, consists in an ongoing series of shocks that seem to be necessary to change our center of gravity.

The point is that it seems that until a person fully SEES the illusion — the layers and layers of it — they have no hope of becoming free of it. Until we are trained, step by step, to discern the lies from the truth, we have no internal consistency and are subject to the whims of the Control System at every turn. And it seems to be that this patient, time-consuming, taking apart of our reality and extracting the Truth or B influences is what literally grows the soul.

Many people simply can’t do it. They can’t stand the bloody mess of the birth of the higher self which takes place on the bodies of all the sacred cows that were held so close for so long. They want to hear nice stories about how their breathing and spinning tetrahedrons are going to just fix them right up. They want to hear how the “Guardian Alliance” is going to help us out of the soup. They want to hear how the Zetas are warning us that we are in danger of being smacked by a rogue planet and if we ask real nice, we might get a seat on the airlift out.

As Mouravieff has just said: “If we only knew what Illusion is, we would then know the opposite: what Truth is. This Truth would liberate us from slavery.”

And it seems that the only way we have of discovering truth in this reality, is to first of all strip away all the lies. And Lord! There’s a raft of them!

After describing our confusion regarding progress, Mouravieff writes that with the Cartesian spirit which had destroyed scholastic philosophy itself now becoming obsolete, “The logic of history demands a new spirit.”

The divorce between traditional knowledge, of which religion is a trustee, and acquired knowledge, the fruit of science, threatens to make sterile [our] civilization … Yet it is an aberration to believe that Science by its very nature is opposed to Tradition, and it must also be firmly stressed that Tradition does not include any tendency opposed to Science. (Mouravieff 2002, xxiv)

In St. Paul’s formula of “Faith, Hope and Love” Mouravieff sees the first two as temporary, specific to Paul’s time and culture and the limits placed on what was then possible to achieve, but now to be replaced by “Science and Knowledge.” But even though science replaces hope, it isn’t the final stage, either.

[Paul] adds that “When that which is perfect is come, that which is incomplete disappears.” The perfect is Love, which unites in itself the accomplishment of all virtues, of all prophecies, of all mysteries, and of all Knowledge. … It is by the joint efforts of traditional science, based on Revelation, and of acquired Science, the domain of positive knowledge, that is, on “Faith and Hope,” that one can hope to fulfill the programme traced out by St. Paul, and finally attain Love in its integral meaning. (Mouravieff 2002, xxiii—xxiv)

Mouravieff talks about the degrading of women to “living merchandise” and how Jesus (as a Gnostic teacher, though Burton Mack has identified a strong Hellenic Cynicism in the Q gospel) taught “reciprocal choice in love” which established the idea of “romance” between men and women. I have already noted that this seems to be philosophy of the Golden Age, transmitted down through the ages via archaic shamanism, the Eleusinian Rites, and then later the true teachings of Jesus, not to be confused with the Egyptian mythical overlay that is known as Christianity today.

“Reciprocal choice in love” is certainly a theme of the Grail stories with their emphasis on romance and it has long been a mystery as to what, precisely, this allegory was supposed to convey. If what Mouravieff is saying is true, then it will all begin to make perfect sense, even including the possible survival of the Cathar teachings in the Grail stories and the lays of the minstrels and Troubadours.

But even if the romance of the Middle Ages remains the ideal of our society, relations between the sexes hardly live up to that ideal. Mouravieff offers a vision of a new kind of Love:

Liberated from servitude to procreation, this romance of tomorrow is called on to cement the indissoluble union between two strictly polar beings, a union which will assure their integration in the bosom of the Absolute. As St. Paul says: “Nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor man without the woman in the Lord.”

The vision of such a romance has haunted the highest minds for thousands of years. We find it in platonic love, the basis of the singular romance in the myths of Androgyne man; of Orpheus and Eurydice; of Pygmalion and Galatea … This is the aspiration of the human heart, which cries in secrecy because of its great loneliness. This romance forms the essential aim of esoteric work. Here is that love which will unite man to that being who is unique for him, the Sister-wife, the glory of man, as he will be the glory of God. Having entered into the light of Tabor, no longer two, but one drinking at the fount of true Love, the transfigurer: the conqueror of Death.

Love is the Alpha and Omega of life. All else has only secondary significance.

Man is born with the Alpha. It is the intention of the present work to show the path which leads towards the Omega. (Mouravieff 2002, xxv—xxvi)

However, we still have to deal with the problems facing us, the human condition which hasn’t changed at all, despite our technical progress. There’s a lot that stands in our way between our current ideas about love and the type which Mouravieff is speaking about. Observing the problems the average person living under “the constant pressure of contemporary life” has when it comes to self-observation — the ever-shifting fog and obscurity that characterizes their inner landscape — Mouravieff writes:

Everything is in fact continually changing within us. A minor external shock, agreeable or disagreeable, happy or unhappy, is sufficient to give our inner content a quite different appearance. … As this impression becomes more defined we begin to become more aware that it is not a single being who lives within us but several, each having his own tastes, his own aspirations, and each trying to attain his own ends. If we proceed with this experience, we will soon be able to distinguish three currents with that perpetually moving life: that of the vegetative life of the instincts, so to speak; that of the animal life of the feelings; and lastly that of human life in the proper sense of the term, characterized by thought and speech. It is as though there were three beings within us, all entangled together in an extraordinary way. (Mouravieff 2002, 4)

When we really take a look at ourselves, we can see that we are not complete, whole, stable, everlasting. How can we profess to Love when this is the case? If we are ever to Love, ever to enter into ourselves fully, we must know ourselves. And in order to do that, we must first observe ourselves. As Mouravieff points out, at first all we will notice is fog and obscurity. He uses an analogy of a vase full of iron filings to describe our inner content. Each external shock shakes up the vase and rearranges the filings. Without “conscientious and sustained effort,” we have no way of knowing how and when we will react to a shock and our inner life will be disturbed. We are at the mercy of external forces…chance…and left only to “patch up” after each emotional flare-up.

Esoteric science indicates the possibilities and the means of freeing oneself from this law. … But to begin effectively in this way, one must first clearly see the situation as it is. … Introspection carried out relentlessly results in enhanced internal sensibility. This improved sensibility in its turn intensifies the amplitude and frequency of movement whenever the iron filings are disturbed. As a result, shocks that previously were not noticed will now provoke vivid reactions. These movements, because of their continuous amplification, can create friction between particles of iron so intense that we may one day feel the interior fire igniting within us. … If it continues in this way [a steady, burning fire], our state can change: the heat of the flame will start a process of fusion within us.

From this point on the inner content will no longer behave like a heap of iron filings: it will form a block. Then further shocks will no longer provoke interior change in man as they did previously. Having reached this point he will have acquired a firmness; he will remain himself in the midst of the tempests to which life may expose him. … to reach this state … we must from the beginning rid ourselves of all illusions about ourselves, no matter how dearly held; an illusion, if it is tolerated at the start, will grow en route, so that suffering and additional effort will be necessary in order to rid ourselves of it at a later date. (Mouravieff 2002, 6, 5—6)

So in order to truly live, and to truly Love, we must triumph over lies. Just as a culture of Love (the “Cycle of the Spirit” in Mouravieff’s Christian gloss) necessitates living wholly in the true, a person in Love…a true individual…must be free from all lies. But our mechanical nature causes us to lie constantly, to others and ourselves. Mouravieff devotes some time to lying, and the long struggle against it. I recommend readers interested in this valuable line of work to get the books and study them as an adjunct to the work of Gurdjieff. They offer much food for thought. For example, “useless lies” to others are easier to master, according to Mouraveiff, than the lies we tell ourselves.

We can therefore begin it [i.e. stopping automatic lies in ordinary conversation] without delay, as long as we do it discreetly so as not to draw attention to ourselves, and so do not provoke increasing pressure from the General Law [i.e. The Predator’s mind/Matrix, which will try to circumvent these efforts.] … As for efforts at suppressing lies to oneself, they entail quite different and important consequences. Such lies grow deep roots. In this domain, paradoxical situations sometimes arise, some of them of such psychological subtlety that it is difficult to draw them out of the shade. (Mouravieff 2002, 167, 168)16

He then applies this to the love relationship:

Here we must mention the question of marriages where one of the partners, having realized that this union is an error, persists in trying to convince him or herself of the contrary. If he is of an affectionate nature, he will redouble his amiability towards his partner as if truly toward his polar “other.” The absurdity of the situation reaches its limits if the other partner reacts by adopting a corresponding attitude — without any sincere or spontaneous glow of tenderness.

The danger from the esoteric point of view is that, by mere force of habit, such a situation takes on for one of the partners, or even for both of them, the value of true love. This kind of lying to oneself can go on for dozens of years with people who are amiable and of good faith, and they entail tragic disillusions in the end. (Mouravieff 2002, 168)

The process of rooting out these lies to the self is a struggle, but essential. As our cherished beliefs and “beautiful dreams” vanish, it is painful and can bring up feelings of profound regret and disillusionment. But as we mourn the loss of our illusions, an atmosphere of truth within us develops and we begin to feel liberated. In other words, the Truth will set you free, free from slavery to self-lies. The elimination of lying — the state of inner freedom — is the prerequisite for self-development and work on the “lower centers” of thought, emotion, and action. An inner observer develops, which sees the self as it is, observing and judging impartially. This part desires to be free, to rid the self of the baggage of our past. But we must be consistent and pure in our efforts. “Everything false within him will be burnt by the flames of this blazing sword.” The self progressively “merges” with the higher self, or as Mouravieff puts it, “the Individuality becomes progressively integrated with the higher cosmos” (Mouravieff 2002, 231, 233).

He then goes on to distinguish between reincarnation and what is called the “film” of our life. This film, along with each individual’s own script, is the “field of action” in which we can learn to apply conscious choices in our lives. According to the Tradition, this film repeats. In the realm of all possibilities and probabilities, it represents the paths of least resistance, the mechanical “playing out” of thoughtless action which characterizes normal life. Feelings of déjà vu are actually “temporary surges of fine energies in the organism” — the “Present” in which we experience life temporarily — expanding to bring future aspects of this film into our consciousness. According to Mouravieff, in many cases, the feeling of having lived before is just an expanded awareness of the mechanical course of our everyday actions, the mechanical unfolding of the “film” of our life. But to be conscious, is to act consciously within this film.

As long as man lives in the wilderness, self-satisfied and immersed in lies and illusions, the film will unfold with mechanical inflexibility, and the Personality will remain entirely unchanged. These circumstances start to change the moment man crossed the first Threshold. This passage can be compared to the conception of the future Individuality. The Staircase symbolizes the period of gestation, and the crossing of the second Threshold represents the second Birth, the birth of Individuality. … [As man becomes more and more integrated with his “I”, growing his Individuality,] he progressively participates in real, objective existence … This is … liberation from the bonds of the film. (Mouravieff 2002, 256—257)

Only then does true reincarnation become possible, as it is done consciously, usually with a mission to accomplish.

In theory, the film in which man is born and in which he lives can go on until the end of the world, on condition that he is happy, satisfied with himself, attributing his virtues to himself, and blaming others for his mistakes and misfortunes. Properly speaking, this kind of existence cannot be considered as human; it could be described as anthropoid. This term is justified in the sense that exterior man, immersed in self-satisfaction, represents the crowning achievement of millions of years of evolution of the species from its animal ancestors, yet from the point of view of esoteric evolution, he is a possibility which has not yet been realized.

If we envisage the problem of esoteric evolution from the point of view of the film and the different parts man can play in it, it is clear that this kind of evolution is impossible as long as the film can always be considered as turning in the same circle. People who perform in such a film are those we have called anthropoids, puppets, the dead who, in the words of Jesus, “believe themselves to be alive.” Esoteric evolution starts when man, by his conscious efforts, proves capable of breaking the circle and transforming it into an ascending spiral. … In a film which unfolds in a spiral in this way, the contents of the play change; they change in two ways: first in each life, that is, during each revolution, and also from spiral to spiral. The composition of the cast, the circumstances, and the scenery all change. Two elements however remain permanent: first, the general aim, to reach and cross the second Threshold; then the absolute condition for crossing this Threshold, that all the karmic debts which have been accumulated in the present life, as well as during previous spirals, must be neutralized and liquidated. Before the Second Thresholdevery drama must be played out to its denouement. (Mouravieff 2002, 234—236)

Following the spiral, or “climbing the Staircase,” is reserved for those who have already made some headway in absorbing B influences and developing their magnetic center through work on the lower centers. Those on the path are observed by other STO beings who then step forward, offering assistance when asked. But this doesn’t mean that (s)he can stop working and making conscious efforts, and the nature of the assistance offered means that it is often not seen or grasped. For that, one must be well-versed in reading the symbols of reality. In other words, it’s not yet a done deal!

If we could avoid all errors and complications in this new experience, produced as a result of free movements, esoteric evolution would then occur in a harmonious rising curve. Generally, this is not the case. … man most often comes to this idea of evolution after he has already complicated the film to which he belongs. But true evolution cannot occur except on the basis of the original film — after all artificially added elements have been eliminated. The latter is conditional on a return to the purity of the centers, especially the emotional center which — at least at the start — is the sole receptacle of ‘B’ influences, and the seat of the magnetic centre. The heart must therefore be pure, and if not already pure, it must be purified. This is the sine qua non condition of success. All the information [regarding] ‘lying’ in all its aspects was given to emphasize the absolute need for purifying the heart, and for beginning to re-educate the emotional center in a positive direction.

This necessity explains the meaning of the words of Jesus: “Except you turn, and become as little children, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Mouravieff 2002, 238)

This refers specifically to the emotional life. Many have interpreted this as a restriction on the development of the intellect. This is a huge mistake. Intelligence and intellect must be developed and stimulated. The admonition to “become as little children” only points to the need for purity of the centers, and not the idea of keeping them in a primitive state. Paul wrote: “Brothers, be not children in that which concerns judgment, be children in what concerns malice, but as to judgment, be fully grown men.”

But how do recognize our mission? The true meaning and intent of our film?

Man must proceed with an impartial analysis of its contents: the role that each of the actors plays in it — and the value of this role — must be passed through a sieve. Gradually, as this stripping work progresses, the positive or negative character of different roles emerges more and more clearly. After this, inappropriate elements tend to disappear from the scene. At the end of this analysis, the film will contain only a reduced number of actors. But all of them are organically bound together, and with the hero, by the contents of the play, as it was conceived from the beginning of these experiences … which are pursued by the real “I” through centuries or even millennia. The play must then be played out to its resolution or denouement.

The basic task of man, once he has crossed the first Threshold, is to shelter himself from the karmic influences which are the effects of errors committed in his free movements, either in the present life or in the past. [In the past,] workers used to go to some monastery or … hermitage … and this enabled [them] to concentrate on … introspective work. … Our times require energetic and rapid methods. (Mouravieff 2002, 244)

The last sections of Gnosis bring us back to our discussion on relationships. Mouravieff writes that work as a couple can facilitate quick movement between thresholds, but only on the condition that the two partners are “integrally polar.” Such a partner can be found either by the long path, where “by successive elimination based on long and minute analysis of his film, and after new errors and new failures, man may end by finding his legitimate spouse,” or by the short path, whereby such a partner is consciously sought after. They can then work on their film together.

A man alone is incomplete. But just where he is weak, his polar being is strong. Together, they form an integral being: their union leads to the fusion of their Personalities and a faster crystallization of their complete subtle bodies, united into a common second Birth. This is the redemption of “original sin.”

The system of films is conceived in such a way that polar beings will necessarily meet in life, in certain cases more than once. Only the confused ties contracted in this life by each of them, as a result of their free movements, combined with the karmic consequences of one or more previous experiences, can divert the man or woman from the only being with whom they could form a Microcosmos.

If there were no karmic debt, everything would go wonderfully: two young people would meet in the most favorable family and social atmosphere, and their union would represent a true fairy-tale. But this is not reality. Obeying the principle of Imperfection, and moved by the action of the General Law, the two predestined beings will commit errors. Deeply buried in lies, they do not generally know how to appreciate the gift they are given. Often, they do not even recognize each other.

If this is the case, then an agonizing question is put: is there one or more means to detect our polar being, and if so, what are these means? To meet that person, to do so without recognition, to let our polar being pass by, is the worst mistake we could possibly make: because we would remain in our factitious life, without light. Must not everything be sacrificed in favor of a union which is the only chance of our life: the promise of return to paradise lost?

Nevertheless we should beware of the last trap, one we can fall into just at the moment when ineffable happiness seems to smile upon us. We have just said: all must be sacrificed; we have not said: all must be broken. If, having recognized one another, the two polar beings triumph over this last ordeal or test, often the most painful, the new life, will open in front of them, as they are then called to be One on earth and in heaven. (Mouravieff 2002, 245)

Now, let me make it clear at this point that the “polar opposite” concept is a dangerous one because there is a tendency for people to see it as the solution to all their problems, that, if they can only find their “soul mate” they can then sail off into the sunset and spend the rest of eternity in blissful “oneness” together. This would appear to be a significant twisting of the concept, a trap if you like, that would lead only to further immersion in service to self. Based on long observation and research, it seems that those who are truly granted the gift of finding their polar opposite are few and far between. Ark and I found each other only after 30 years of hard work and suffering. Being joined to your polar opposite is the Universe saying that you have work to do: work for others. Finding one’s “polar opposite” is not about either of the people, but rather about the service that they can offer to others as a result of their coming together. The process involved in preparing a person to be able to convey these understandings is very demanding in terms of stripping away of the myriad personal lies and illusions. It seems that the extent of a person’s conscious suffering is relative to their ability to understand the deeper aspects of the human condition and by that understanding be able to transmit them to another. If you understand Gurdjieff’s description of conscience and “conscious suffering,” then you have some idea of what the price is because in order to be in the state necessary for the PO relationship, one must have an awakened conscience and be conscious.

It was shortly after Ark and I met that I came across a passage in Linda Goodman’s Love Signs where she mentions, in passing, the idea of “Twin Flames.” This idea apparently arose out of her astrology research. She writes:

Wandering through the millions of couples on Earth who are attempting to achieve (of have achieved) satisfying contentment and fulfillment together — and those who are still struggling through heavy sexual karmic testing — are those rare ones esoterically called “Soul Mates” … or “Twin Souls.”

It sometimes happens that a man and a woman meet and instantly recognize the other half of themselves behind the eyes of each other. The eyes have been rightly called “the windows of the soul.” (Goodman 1991, 3)

Unfortunately, Linda didn’t seem to be aware of psychopaths who, with their empty eyes, can perfectly mirror a person’s soul back to them and thereby deceive them.

Even their voices are familiar to each other’s ears, like a remembered chord of music. These are two who immediately sense the unalterable fact that they have been, are — and must always be One; even though they might have fought against their fate for centuries and struggled in vain to escape their linked destiny. Almost from the first moment they meet and gaze upon each other, their spirits rush together in joyful recognition, ignoring all convention and custom, all social rules of behavior, driven by an inner knowing too overwhelming to be denied. Inexplicably, often without a word being spoken, they know that only through each other can they hope to find Wholeness — only when they’re together can they both be Complete in every way.

Somehow, they feel Immortal, and they are… for this level of love can bestow the beginning knowledge of the attainment of several centuries longevity in the same flesh body on the Earth plane, as well as the accomplishment of changing flesh bodies (The Temples of the Soul) in a fully conscious state, without the “coma” called death. The solution to the problem of the “over-population” which rises to the mind as the result of such achievement by everyone on Earth must wait till a forthcoming book for a detailed discussion.

Neither will I attempt to detail the origin and ultimate destiny of Twin Souls here, since I’ve done so in another forthcoming book, called Goobers, to be published in the near future. But there is so much burning curiosity concerning the subject of Soul Mates or Twin Souls, it bears some explanation here, however incomplete.

A man and a woman who are Soul Mates hardly need to speak the words “I love you,” kowing as surely as they do that they must belong to each other whether in this present incarnation (lifetime) — or (due to karmic complications) at the end of many more centuries. The words in the marriage ceremony “those which God hath joined together, let no man put asunder” refer to such as these. Yet this warning is unnecessary, simply symbolic ritual, for no man can break the tie between Twin Souls, not even themselves. Nor can any energy in the Universe. The Force that created them is all-powerful and indestructible. The bond may be weakened, their final union and consummation delayed, but they cannot be separated permanently. There can be no end to the kind of happiness they may claim — when they wish to do so — on a timetable dictated by the Free Will choice of the Higher Angels of their own selves. (The Superconscious or Supraconscious of each.)

This kind of instant magnetic attraction is often called “love at first sight,” which is no accident of fate, but very real. It’s more than curious coincidence that Twin Souls, out of the whole huge world, should be drawn together at the appointed time. The crossing of their paths has been predestined on a Higher Level of Awareness. Certain spiritual energies are at work to bring about their meetings, as surely as the migration of birds and the return of comets are governed by a similar Universal Law. Their coming-together is controlled by the workings of Karma, which is but the sum total of Causes set into motion in the Past — and these determine infallibly the conditions of the Present. When the time comes for Twin Souls to incarnate, they are sent to Earth clothed in flesh (again, the bodies being the Temple of the soul) through particular Time-Energy Forces, at the moment in Earth Time when certain planetary configurations create the proper conditions. These Time-Energy Forces are electro-magnetic in nature, yet more complex than this.

None of us can control the eventual results of the Causes we’ve initiated or set into motion in our past lives, although we can control our reactions to the results such past Causes bring into the present lifetime. The “Free Will” to change these karmic events is possessed by the Higher Self, and we many attain such power by learning to tune into or communicate with the Higher Self (Supraconscious). But “Free Will” on a conscious level can only be realized in the Future — since, in the ever-moving stream called the Present, we are setting into motion, through actions we currently initiate and through our reactions to past Causes — the future conditions we will inevitably meet.

As for which particular planetary influences in the nativities (horoscopes or birth charts) of two people reveal to an astrologer the indication that these are Twin Souls, they are too intricate to comprehensively explain in this book, in their entire scope — and must await another volume planned concerning this and related subjects. But assuming that such planetary influences are present in the respective charts of lovers, a destiny is revealed in which the two will meet involuntarily — and cannot be separated, even through the experience of death — except for temporary intervals of Earth Time in the present life, for the purpose of karmic soul-testing. During these periods of being apart, however brief or however extended, both persons are lonely, empty and incomplete. Yet even throughout any such temporary spaces in their togetherness, there’s a constant, pulsing astral communication between them — for even then, they are linked by a cord that connects them over the miles. …

During the weary search for one’s own Twin Soul, there will be many side trips, many relationships that at first appear to be genuine, then fade into disinterest and boredom. Even when the Soul Mate is at last discovered, there are often many complications and testings of worthiness which cause temporary pain. …

Sometimes, it seems that the problems of two people who love each other are hopeless, the wall that separates them too high to ever surmount. …

The fabled search for the Holy Grail is a dual quest. …

On a higher mystical level, the successful conclusion of the search for the Holy Grail is reached, for each human, at the time of reunion with the Twin Soul. For only when all lonely and separated Twin Souls are at last joyously reunited, will the pieces of Life’s jigsaw puzzle form themselves into a whole and complete picture within the Universe.

Legend whispers that it shall be during the dawning of the Age of Aquarius when the fourteen pieces of the soul of Osiris — scattered when his body was cut into fourteen pieces by his brother, Set — will come together in one man, “with all his scattered pieces whole.” One man, who will be reunited with his own Twin Soul, Isis, after millions of years of searching, and countless uncomprehending incarnations spent together in the past.

At the same time, the long ago sundered Twin Souls of Set and his Nepenthys will be rejoined, to fulfill their destiny of discovering together the Grail of the Nazarene, through the blending of their auras. Then, says legend, through the miracle of mutual forgiveness for that long-ago crime, Set and his brother, Osiris — along with Isis and her sister, Nepenthys, will in some way, together, find the lost records of Atlantis … as well as the burial place of Osiris, which contains the records of the building of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh by Osiris… When these great and holy events manifest themselves, following the recognition of these four (and one other) of the true identity of their own Higher Selves — many more Twin Souls will suddenly recognize each other. Then we shall at least begin to realize our blessed birthright, as supplicated in those singing lines of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdome come, Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven,” (as above, so below), changing the pattern of the Trinity of Solar, Stellar and Lunar energies in the cosmos.

Those who love deeply and who are truly mated with the other half of themselves, have no desire to initiate wars, or to dominate others. As the devotion of Romeo and Juliet, even in death, had the power to dissolve the enmity and reconcile the difference between the warring Capulets and Montagues, so shall the ecstatic blending of all Twin Soul lovers have the same power to unite mankind and womankind, all Earthlings in permanent Peace and Good. It’s not a coincidence (nothing is) that the man who initiated at least a beginning gesture toward Peace in the Middle East, Anwar Sadat, is a genuinely happily mated man, with a woman by his side who reflects the goals of his Higher Self — as is Menachem Begin, of Israel, who at least initially welcomed the gesture in an equal spirit of good will and sincerity. Nor was it coincidence that Hitler was a lonely, unloved man. (Goodman 1992, 3—4, 5—6)

This was obviously written before the assassination of Sadat; Goodman also, obviously, did not know the history of the Irgun, the group to which Begin belonged. Indeed, after he came to power, the first thing he did was to negotiate the Camp David Accords, and this may be evidence of the power of the love he had for his wife, but Goodman, again and again, seems to be just a bit naive.

Linda Goodman died before she could product the promised volume on “Twin Souls”.

In any event, she gave no sources for her claims of a “legend” of Twin Flames reuniting at the end of the Age. When you search on the net, all you find is a lot of New Age nonsense that seems to be derived from Linda Goodman!

Barring that, it seems that the “oldest” source we have for the seed of the idea is Mouravieff’s “Polar Opposite” concept. Mouravieff claims that his information comes from the Eastern Orthodox Oral Tradition. As we have noticed in other areas where he decides to take off on his own and expand on an idea, he falls miserably short of having a real clue about what he was talking about. But we also notice that he doesn’t seem to create ideas out of thin air, so there must be some source for this idea that may be truly ancient.

We can certainly see echoes of the idea in ancient myths, though very few of them tell a story of a successful “Twin Soul” or “Twin Flame” union. Most of them fail, tripped up on pride and ego. The only really successful couple in the Greek Myths that I can think of right off-hand is the union of Perseus and Andromeda who, after being united, went off to fight against evil and right wrongs.

Then, there is the echo of the theme in the extremely ancient idea of the Shaman — the union of the divine male and female — keeping in mind, that the most ancient idea of the shaman was that of a warrior against the forces of darkness which is the same theme found in the story of Perseus and Andromeda.

So, we really don’t have much to go on.

Since Nature is always abundant, it may be that there are many “Twin Flames” provided in any period of history because it is understood that a certain percentage of them will be defective or failures for one reason or another. Twin Flame possibilities that are present but defective, lacking the drive for Truth and stopping at the first convenient enterprise that they consider “service” and going no further. It could also be a manifestation of lying to the self; after all, who wants to engage in a work where the possibility of real spiritual warfare exists? Better to stick to the warm and fuzzy half-truths and not make waves … even if that means compromising, which spells death to the Twin Flame relationship.

My thought is that the Polar Opposite idea that was presented along with the other ideas mentioned above is accurate, though with some distortions and a Biblical gloss. And that is not to mention the nonsense that Mouravieff picked up from the European occultists of his time as well. Those same occultists are the ones who are probably behind the New Age nonsense being propagated. Going back to the shamanic tradition, it seems that the Twin Soul/Twin Flame purpose is primarily that of the champion of the people, the warrior against the darkness.

So, I guess we have some idea of why Polar Opposites might be formed and why they might be born at particular times in any historic cycle, and what their role might be. I’m not even sure if we dare to assume that there might be 2 such or 3 such pairs in any cycle as Goodman suggests, or if we dare to go further and consider that there might be 14 such pairs, as the number in the Osirian myth might suggest. Or, if numbers are irrelevant?

We also have the idea that there are “soul mates,” which is probably an altogether different thing than a “Polar Opposite,” and probably more common.

When Ark entered my life, it was at a point that I no longer felt the need for a partner. That had been burned out of me by suffering. I was content to be alone in truth rather than with anyone where there was the slightest compromise of truth on either side. I didn’t want to be with anyone who had to make any “adjustments” to “get along” with me, and I didn’t want to make any adjustments to get along with anyone else. I just simply wanted to be me, as I was, in full Truth. And since, at that point, I had concluded that there was no possibility of such a perfect union in this reality, I decided that I must be this alone. And then, the Ark appeared.

Ark and I knew from the very beginning that in all things there is balance in the universe. If there is great happiness in one place, in another there must be great sadness. Also, if an individual experiences great happiness, they will also, most assuredly, cycle down into abyssal despair.

We first of all did not want our happiness — which can’t be described so I won’t even try — to be the cause of misery anywhere else. We also did not want our happiness to decay in a normal cyclic way. The only option seemed to be to make a sacrifice, to consciously suffer to balance the Cosmic Gift that had been given us.

We analyzed what we had, what we wanted, what our assets were, our natures, and so on, and came to the conclusion that we must give our lives in service to the Universe and sacrifice that one thing that still calls to us like a siren: a private, peaceful life doing just the things we like together.

Oh, what a joy it would be to have a little cottage by the sea with a library and a piano and a garden … To shut out the world, to close the door to the suffering and madness, to never have to wake up in the morning and wonder what vile and evil lie is being spread about us today simply because we are standing against the darkness.

I hope that the reader can really understand the horror and suffering we have been through as a result of our decision to give back to the Universe all our efforts, all our being, as payment for our happiness. Can you imagine, for a few moments, being a home-body type of person who likes to cook and sew and is sensitive to a fault, having to stand up in public and essentially strip naked in all aspects of my life in order to circumvent the wiles of evil? And then, once your life is laid bare as clearly and honestly as you can present it, to have it slimed and degraded and to have abuse and scorn poured on you; to have every evil thought and motive imputed to you; to be described in terms that are sickening if they are true, and ten times more sickening because they are not?

Do you actually think that you can have such happiness and not pay such a price? You will only get what you pay for, you know; there is no free lunch.

The essential thing to know is that Service-to-Others is the path of spiritual love, which is entirely distinct from the love of the world and self-love. The whole secret of true magic lies within the laws of the divine proximity. As you grow closer to love as God the creator expresses it, you grow closer to God. And God loves everything exactly as it is. That is why it is. There are other, deeper and crucial considerations in this matter of relationships. In Gnosis Book Three, Mouravieff further discusses the difference between what he called true men and anthropoids, mentioned in the discussion above:

The Scriptures contain more than one reference to the coexistence on our planet of these two humanities — which are now alike in form but unlike in essence. We can even say that the whole dramatic history of humanity, from the fall of Adam until today, not excluding the prospect of the new era, is overshadowed by the coexistence of these two human races whose separation will occur only at the Last Judgment. … The human tares, the anthropoid race, are the descendants of pre-adamic humanity. The principal difference between contemporary pre-adamic man and adamic man — a difference which is not perceived by the senses — is that the former does not possess the developed higher centers that exist in the latter which, although they have been cut off from his waking consciousness since the fall, offer him a real possibility of esoteric evolution. Apart from this, the two races are similar: they have the same lower centers the same structure of the Personality and the same physical body, although more often than not this is stronger in the pre-adamic man than in the adamic; regarding beauty, we must not forget that pre-adamic man and woman were created by God on the sixth day, in His image and after His likeness, and that the daughters of this race were beautiful. (Mouravieff 1993, 107, 108—109)

The adamic race came to identify with the “I” of their personality, losing their higher state of consciousness, and thus coming to resemble the pre-adamic race, with whom they have mingled and coexisted in competition. In fact, the adamics are generally in an inferior position due to this fall of consciousness due to their maladjustment to a world better suited to pre-adamics. Appearing the same as pre-adamics by all external measures, adamics still have higher centers, and thus the possibility for esoteric evolution, which pre-adamics can gain in what Mouravieff calls the “Era of the Holy Spirit.” But these centers remain inaccessible until work is done on the lower centers, developing a magnetic center which acts as a bridge between the lower and the higher.

Pre-adamics cannot individuate in the sense that adamics can. According to the Tradition, they are placed under the “low of collective Individuation,” governed by the Thought Center of Non-being, and directed by the “spirits” under its hierarchical authority. The do not reincarnate in the terms discussed above because they lack this development of an individuality. Despite this, they are not prevented from entering “the evolutionary field that forms the films of adamic man in great numbers, and as adamics suffer from a lack of discernment because of their corrupt state, this disturbs and sometimes slows their evolution” (Mouravieff 1993, 134).

The two races counterbalance each other and are thus necessary because of the principle of equilibrium. From the perspective of the General law, they maintain the stability of organic life and allow adamics to pursue esoteric development.

Jesus confirmed this when he spoke about the End in the following terms: ‘Then, shall two be in the field; one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.’ … tares grow without having to be cultivated. Good seed, on the other hand, demands a great deal of care if it is to bear fruit … (Mouravieff 1993, 108)

Humanity is always divided into these two equal parts, and the equilibrium is constantly maintained to allow for fluctuations in the incarnative patterns of adamic souls. The danger exists, however, that by denying its divine nature, the balance will be broken in favor of the “tares.” This is the danger we face, against which Gurdjieff also warned.

Jesus foresaw this possibility of such a degeneration — where the servant buried the one talent entrusted to him and, on returning it to his master without having made it multiply, was told: ‘Thou wicked and slothful servant … and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Is there any need to emphasize the esoteric meaning of this terrible penalty? (Mouravieff 1993, 134)

After the Fall, adamic man “kept only a dim consciousness of his higher self in spite of the almost complete obstruction of his channel of communication with the higher centers.” However, “If he hears the Voice of the Master [the higher intellect] and resolutely steps onto the Staircase, and if he reaches the Fourth Step and resists the Trial by Fire, then, when he crosses the Second Threshold, he will be welcomed as a Prodigal son.” This is an event that will be understood only by those who have accomplished it. Mouravieff continues, with my comments in brackets:

If the adamic humanity en masse abandons the combat that leads to Redemption [the restoration of their former estate — Ascension], and if this desertion goes beyond the tolerances [of balance], the good seed could be progressively stifled by the tares … The world will then go straight toward catastrophe … a Deluge of Fire … On the other hand, if the equilibrium, which is already jeopardized, were reestablished, then, with the integral and simultaneous incarnation of adamic souls, the Time of transition would enable adamic man to enter the Era of the Holy Spirit [a reality in constant touch with the creative principle, fourth density]. Then would follow a thousand years consecrated to the perfecting of the two races, and after a second millennium, the reign of the Androgyne, the Last Judgment would definitively separate the tares from the good seed. [At this point, adamic man would begin an] even higher evolution, and would at last attain the Pleroma [sixth density]. [At this point, and only at this point, will] the Tares of yesterday cease to be tares. Promoted to the rank of good seed, they would begin their own long evolutionary course that the adamics would have already achieved. Then they in their turn would receive the higher centers of consciousness which, given them in potential, would be the talents they must make fruitful. … the adamics who had previously degenerated into pre-adamics would [also] have the possibility of taking up their abandoned evolution again, while an equal number of the most able pre-adamics would receive the talents that were initially given to the former, and this would help them leap forward on the road of esoteric evolution. They may be compared with gifted, hardworking students who get a double promotion while the incapable and lazy ones do another year in the same class. …

Meanwhile, the two races are totally mixed: not only nations, but even families can be, and generally are, composed of both human types. This state of things is the belated result of transgressing the Biblical prohibition against mixed marriages … The dominant position of the pre-adamics that is a result of the esoteric failure of the adamics is now creating a critical situation of unprecedented gravity. The remainder of the Time of transition offers the last chance for humanity to reestablish the threatened equilibrium and so avoid a general cataclysm.

If we do not take this opportunity, the tradition of ‘Solomon’ will finally overcome the tradition of ‘David’ [Perseus] … Then, deflected from the [goals of Ascension], and even going beyond the limits of what is necessary and useful [to feed the Control System], the false prophets and their followers, thinking that they are right, will hurl pre-adamic humanity — the children of this world — against the adamics — the children of light — and will provoke a final frightful and useless struggle.

If this should happen, [if the adamic humanity] does not manage to quell the revolt against the Love [of the Son] … a resistance that would ensure victory, the balance will finally be broken, and humanity will be destroyed in the Deluge of Fire. (Mouravieff 1993, 134—135, 136)

Mouravieff’s description of the Fall of the adamic race also follows the same lines as the description given to us from the Cassiopaeans where we see that this is a symbolic version of the Fall of our consciousness unit. In the following excerpt, note that our term “Lizzies” is a short-hand notation for those theorized denizens of hyperdimensional realities whose essence is read as reptilian:

August 28, 1999

Q: Well, this is one of the problems I am dealing with in trying to write this history of mankind. As I understand it, or as I am trying to figure it out from the literature, prior to the Fall in Eden, mankind lived in a fourth density state. Is that correct?

A: Semi/sort of.

Q: Please be more specific.

A: Fourth density in another realm, such as time/space continuum, etc.

Q: OK, so this realm changed, as a part of the cycle; various choices were made: the human race went through the door after the gold, so to speak, and became aligned with the Lizzies after the female energy consorted with the wrong side, so to speak. This is what you have said. This resulted in a number of effects: the breaking up of the DNA, the burning off of the first ten factors of DNA, the separation of the hemispheres of the brain …

A: Only reason for this: you play in the dirt, you’re gonna get dirty.

Q: (T) What were we before the Fall?

A: Third density STO.

Q: (T) We are STS at this point because of what happened then?

A: Yes. […]

Q: (T) We were third density STO at that time. Was this after the battle that had transpired? In other words, were we, as a third density race, literally on our own at that point, as opposed to before?

A: Was battle.

Q: (L) The battle was in us?

A: Through you.

Q: (T) The battle was through us as to whether we would walk through this doorway … (L) The battle was fought through us, we were literally the battleground. (T) Was the battle over whether or not we walked through that door?

A: Close.

Q: (T) OK, we were STO at that point. You have said before that on this density we have the choice of being STS or STO.

A: Oh Terry, the battle is always there, it’s “when” you choose that counts! […]

Q: (T) This must tie into why the [aliens] keep telling people that they have given their consent for abduction and so forth. We were STO and now we are STS.

A: Yes, … “When” you went for the gold, you said “Hello” to the Lizards and all that that implies.

Q: (T) … By going for the gold, we became STS beings because going for the gold was STS.

A: Yes.

Q: (T) And, in doing so, we ended up aligning ourselves with the fourth density Lizard Beings…

A: Yes.

Q: (T) Because they are fourth density beings and they have a lot more abilities than we at third density …

A: You used to be aligned with fourth density STO.

Q: (T) And we were third density STO. But, by going for the gold we aligned ourselves with fourth density STS.

A: Yes.

Q: (T) And by doing so we gave fourth density STS permission to do whatever they wish with us?

A: Close.

Q: (T) So, when they tell us that we gave them permission to abduct us, it is this they are referring to?

A: Close.

Q: (J) Go back to what they said before: “Free will could not be abridged if you had not obliged.” (T) We, as the human race, used our free will to switch from STO to STS. (L) So, at some level we have chosen the mess we are in and that is the super ancient Legend of the Fallen Angel, Lucifer. That is us. We fell by falling into that door, so to speak, going after the pot of gold, and when we fell through the door, the serpent bit us!

A: But this is a repeating syndrome.

Q: (L) Is it a repeating syndrome just for the human race or is it a repeating syndrome throughout all of creation?

A: It is the latter.

The adamic race with its full set of DNA, with its connection to the higher centers in place and functioning, is what the Cs describe here as third density STO living in a “semi/sort of” fourth density state aligned with fourth density STO. That sounds very much like a Golden Age when man “walked with the gods.”

In making the choice to experience greater physicality, the consciousness unit fractures and “falls” from the STO state, loses its connection with the higher centers, and finds itself more or less at the same level as the pre-adamic race, those who have no possibility of reaching the higher centers because the DNA hardware isn’t in place. However, because this new third density STS existence was not the natural habitat for a body with the potential to reach the higher centers, the fallen race is at a disadvantage compared to the pre-adamics.

Q: In book three of his Gnosis, Mouravieff discusses what he calls pre-adamic humanity and adamic humanity. As I read this I could see that the thing I was struggling to understand in terms of psychopathy as discussed in the Adventures series,17 was exactly what Mouravieff was describing. However, he was using the Bible to explain it, and that just didn’t quite work. Nevertheless, the basic idea is that pre-adamic human types basically have no soul, nor any possibility of growing one. This is certainly shocking, but there have been many recent scholarly discussions of this matter based on what seems to be clinical evidence that, indeed, there are human beings who are just mechanical and have no inner or higher self at all. Gurdjieff talked about this and so did Castaneda. Are Mouravieff’s ideas about the two basic types of humans — as far as they go — accurate?

A: Indeed, though again, there is a “Biblical Gloss.” The pre-adamic types are “organic” portals between levels of density.

This, of course, raises the issue of whether or not trying to help or save such individuals is a waste of time. This is a major clue as to why the early Christians were charged with holding a “vile superstition” and “hatred of humanity.”

Q: Is it a waste of time to try to help or “save” such individuals?

A: Pretty much. Most of them are very efficient machines. The ones that you have identified as psychopaths are “failures.” The best ones cannot be discerned except by long and careful observation.

Q: Have any of us ever encountered one of these “organic portals” and if so, can you identify one for the sake of instruction?

A: If you consider that the population is equally distributed, then you will understand that in an ordinary “souled” person’s life, that person will encounter half as many organic portals as souled individuals. But, when someone is in the process of “growing” and strengthening the soul, the Control System will seek to insert even more “units” into that person’s life. Now, think of all the people you have ever met and particularly those with whom you have been, or are, intimate. Which half of this number would you designate as being organic portals? Hard to tell, eh?

Q: (B) Is this the original meaning of the pollution of the bloodline?

A: Yes.

This certainly gave a whole new meaning to the experiences I have described in Petty Tyrants and Facing the Unknown. It also became clear that the work of discerning these “organic portals” from souled human beings is crucial to the so-called ascension process. Without the basic understanding of conservation and transformation of energies, there is no possibility of making any progress in such a pursuit. This means that the understanding of organic portals vis a vis human beings of the “bloodline” (diffused though it may be throughout all of humanity), is the deepest and most crucial of esoteric secrets.

During the session quoted above, one of the attendees stated that there was a member of her family who she was certain was one of these organic portals. The Cs jumped to respond:

A: Now, do not start labeling without due consideration. Remember that very often the individual who displays contradictory behavior may be a souled being in struggle.

Q: (L) I would say that the chief thing they are saying is that the really good ones — you could never tell except by long observation. The one key we discovered from studying psychopaths was that their actions do not match their words. But what if that is a symptom of just being weak and having no will? (A) How can I know if I have a soul?

A: Do you ever hurt for another?

Q: (V) I think they are talking about empathy. These soulless humans simply don’t care what happens to another person. If another person is in pain or misery, they don’t know how to care.

A: The only pain they experience is “withdrawal” of “food” or comfort, or what they want. They are also masters of twisting perception of others so as to seem to be empathetic. But, in general, such actions are simply to retain control.

Q: (A) What does having a soul or not having a soul have to do with bloodline?

A: Genetics marry with soul if present.

Q: Do “organic portals” go to fifth density when they die?

A: Only temporarily until the “second death.”

Q: (V) What is the “origin” of these organic portal human types? In the scheme of creation, where did they come from?

A: They were originally part of the bridge between second density and third density. Review transcripts on the subject of short wave cycles and long wave cycles.

Ark had been reading the transcripts and noted that the Cs had said that sleep was necessary for human beings because it was a period of “rest and recharging.” They had also said that the soul rests while the body is sleeping. So, the next logical question was “what source of energy was tapped to recharge both the body and the soul?”

A: The question needs to be separated. What happens to a souled individual is different from an organic portal unit.

At this point, we stopped and discussed the possibility that the life force energy that is embodied in organic portals must be something like the soul pool that is theorized to exist for flora and fauna. This would, of course, explain the striking and inexplicable similarity of psychopaths, that is so well defined, that they differ from one another only in the way that different species of trees are different in the overall class of “Tree-ness.” So, we divided the question and asked first:

Q: Where does the energy come from that recharges organic portals?

A: The pool you have described.

Q: Does the recharging of the souled being come from a similar pool, only maybe the “human” pool?

A: No — it recharges from the so-called sexual center which is a higher center of creative energy. During sleep, the emotional center, not being blocked by the lower intellectual center and the moving center, transduces the energy from the sexual center. It is also the time during which the higher emotional and intellectual centers can rest from the “drain” of the lower centers’ interaction with those pesky organic portals so much loved by the lower centers. This respite alone is sufficient to make a difference. But, more than that, the energy of the sexual center is also more available to the other higher centers.

Q: From where does the so-called sexual center get its energy?

A: The sexual center is in direct contact with seventh density in its “feminine” creative thought of “Thou, I Love.” The “outbreath” of God in the relief of constriction. Pulsation. Unstable Gravity Waves.

Q: Do the “centers” as described by Mouravieff relate at all to the idea of “chakras”?

A: Quite closely. In an individual of the organic variety, the so-called higher chakras are “produced in effect” by stealing that energy from souled beings. This is what gives them the ability to emulate souled beings. The souled being, in effect, perceives a mirror of their own soul when they ascribe “soul qualities” to such beings.

Q: Is this a correspondence that starts at the basal chakra which relates to the sexual center as described by Mouravieff?

A: No. The “sexual center” corresponds to the solar plexus. Lower moving center — basal chakra. Lower emotional — sexual chakra. Lower intellectual — throat chakra. Higher emotional — heart chakra. Higher intellectual — crown chakra.

Q: (V) What about the so-called seventh, or “third eye” chakra?

A: Seer. The union of the heart and intellectual higher centers. This would “close the circuit” in the “shepherd’s crook” configuration.

Q: (V) What about the many ideas about twelve chakras, and so forth, that are currently being taught by many new age sources?

A: There are no such. This is a corrupted conceptualization based on the false belief that the activation of the physical endocrine system is the same as the creation and fusion of the magnetic center. The higher centers are only “seated” by being “magnetized.” And this more or less “external” [unseated] condition of the Higher Centers has been perceived by some individuals and later joined to the perceived “seating” locations, in potential. This has led to “cross conceptualization” based on assumption!

Q: Are the levels of initiation and levels of the staircase as presented by Mouravieff fairly accurate?

A: Yes, but different levels accessed in other so-called lives can relieve the intensity of some levels in “another” life.

And so it is, summing up, that according to the most ancient secret tradition, there are two types of humans on our planet. In the above quoted session, the Cassiopaeans confirmed that, once the biblical gloss was removed, Mouravieff’s description was accurate. The most important thing about the Cassiopaean comments is, however, that they were able to deepen our understanding by situating the pre-adamic race within hyperdimensional reality and the Control System. Let’s look at four points they raised:

The pre-adamic race serve as portals between levels of density.

They are very efficient machines and the best ones cannot be discerned except by long and careful observation.

They steal energy from souled beings so as to emulate them.

They make up one half of humanity.

One half of humanity. Stealing energy from souled beings. Think about it. Sure does sound like what most people would consider a “vile superstition” and a “hatred of humanity.” Not just then, but now as well.

But, if it is true, it explains why the teachings of Jesus say what they do. It also explains why it had to be covered up. Because, if it is true, it means that the two races have been interbreeding for a very, very long time.

It is extremely important to understand that the two races have been interbreeding for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to look at the races on the earth today, the Red, the White, the Black, the Brown, or the Yellow, and argue that one or the other is this “pre-adamic” and soulless race. We cannot speak of groups, nations, tribes, or peoples who are members of the soulless race as a group. The DNA of the two races is completely mixed, and this is the real meaning of the pollution of the bloodline. Only those with the appropriate genetic makeup are actually able to accommodate a soul and therefore pursue esoteric work, which means that no color or ethnic group is either excluded or has an advantage.

Consider this further: According to the ancient tradition revealed by Mouravieff, the DNA of these two races is so mixed that both can be found within the same families. Jesus pointed out that he would turn a husband against his wife, a child against the parent, and so on. And we now begin to really understand what this might have meant, again, assuming this information to be accurate.

We wish to insist on this point so that the hard of thinking will not take this idea and use it to underpin any racist attitudes. The two races are so intermingled that it is a question of the individual genetics of each person on the planet. This is suggested in these comments from the Cassiopaeans:

Q: (L) I want to get back on my question that you have not answered … I want to know who, exactly, and why, exactly, genetically engineered the Semitic people, and why there is such an adversarial attitude between them and the Celts and Aryans.

A: It is not just between the Jews and Celts, if you will take notice. Besides, it is the individual aural profile that counts and not groupings or classifications. But, to answer your question: there are many reasons both from on and off the planet

Q: (L) So, the creation of the Germanic “master race” was what they were going after, to create this breeding ground?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) And, getting rid of the Jews was significant? Couldn’t a Germanic master race be created without destroying another group?

A: No.

Q: Why?

A: Because of fourth density prior encoding mission destiny profile.

Q: (L) What does that mean?

A: This means encoding to activate after elevation to fourth density, thus if not eliminated, negates Nephalim domination and absorption. Jews were prior encoded to carry out mission after conversion, though on individual basis

You will notice that the Cs are pointing us in the direction of individuals and away from groups. It is not groupings or classifications, it is the individual aural profile. And this coincides with Mouravieff’s statements on the issue, as he remarks here:

But the mixing of chromosomes was already an accomplished fact, so that the hormonal symmetry of the adamics has naturally diminished through the generations until it has become stabilized at the point it has now reached. … certain indications in the Gospel lead us to believe that the two human races that coexist on the earth are numerically equal … (Mouravieff 1993, 130)

We repeat: The DNA of these two races is so mixed that both can be found within the same families. Your brother, sister, mother, father, daughter or son. Not somebody “other” across the world or across the street worshipping a different god or with a different skin color. It may be somebody you live with every day of your life, and if so, they have but one reason to be here, to drain, distract and deflect souled beings from evolving. And it is important also to note that this cannot be conscious. Such individuals are as little aware that they do not have higher centers as those who do, except, perhaps, that the latter may feel something is missing in their lives.

The way back to the activation of the DNA necessary to attain the contact with the higher centers is not through genetic manipulation, which is seeing the question through the lens of Control System influences. The way back is through the ancient spiritual science, the shamanic initiation, the real work of the alchemists, which through the heating of the crucible, the neo-cortex, rewires the brain so that the ancient and broken connection with the higher centers can be reestablished. It is the fusing of the magnetic center, the “birth of the holy child,” the real “I.” This is natural genetic modification in terms of enhancing the feedback loop between the Thought Center of Being rather than the Thought Center of Non-being. Big difference.

Q: (A) Which part of a human extends into fourth density?

A: That which is affected by pituitary gland.

Q: (L) And what is that?

A: Psychic.

Q: (A) Are there some particular DNA sequences that facilitate transmission between densities?

A: Addition of strands.

Q: (L) How do you get added strands?

A: You don’t get, you receive.

Q: (L) Where are they received from?

A: Interaction with upcoming wave, if vibration is aligned.

Q: (L) How do you know if this is happening?

A: Psycho-physiological changes manifest. […] STO tends to do the process within the natural flow of things. STS seeks to alter creation processes to fit their ends.

Continue to Part 2

1 It can be read online here: http://soulresonance.110mb.com/demon.html

2 To love is to seek knowledge of the beloved. To know is to love. “For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” First Corinthians, 13:12, 13.

3 The Platonic idea of a thing is referred to in some philosophical systems as noumena. In Kantian philosophy, this is an “object reached by intellectual intuition without the aid of the senses.” It is the essence of the thing, independent of the mind, the thing-in-itself.

4 There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:1-8.

5 We are born with body and Essence. As we begin to grow we develop personality through learning and imitation. Personality is necessary. We need a strong personality in order to meet the demands of our material life. However along with personality we also develop false personality. False personality is made up of ‘I’s in ourselves that are totally unreal. False personality is all that we imagine ourselves to be. It is the imaginary picture that we have of ourselves that we try to live up to. It is the false face that we put on to meet the other false faces that we meet. http://hubpages.com/hub/False-Personality-and-Chief-Features

6 The Fall is described in more depth in Riding the Wave.

7 Exactly as given in the example presented above of “Keylontic Science” where the channel and her followers are convinced that human knowledge and reason are unimportant.

8 I generally hold Bennett’s ideas somewhat suspect because he was one of Gurdjieff’s students who seems to have missed many of the main points of what Gurdjieff was trying to say and do. For example, see William Patrick Patterson’s The Struggle of the Magicians.

9 See David Lewis-Williams’ The Mind in the Cave.

10 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds… Philippians 4:7.

11 I discuss the events surrounding this process in Petty Tyrants and Facing the Unknown.

12 It seems that bloodline physiology is much more sensitive to environmental toxins, which cause a great number of autoimmune diseases. The biggest toxins are heavy metals (e.g. mercury), gluten, and dairy. See, for example, Dr. Sidney Baker’s Detoxification and Healing and Sherry Rogers’ Detoxify or Die.

13 This may translate in real life to being tormented or attacked by pathological individuals, psychopaths, etc. and thereby learning all the ways of deception and destruction so as to be able to spot them and warn others. This is an integral part of the shamanic initiation in the modern day.

14 Do not misunderstand me, I do not mean standing by when someone is sick, or needs help for any real reason in the course of daily life.

15 An anthology of texts that were written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by mostly monastic writers of the Christian hesychast tradition. It was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, two monks of the Greek Orthodox Church and first published in 1782. The book is a principal spiritual text for all the Eastern Orthodox Churches — in the last century its popularity has spread to include Western Christians, due to the growing interest in contemplative prayer.

16 Recall the study by Westen et al. cited by Barbara Oakley in her book Evil Genes quoted above.

17 Published as Petty Tyrants, Facing the Unknown, and Almost Human.