Session 11 October 2014

[Duke]

I have been doing the cold showers for about 3 weeks now. have found [like all of you] the body gets used to it.
I must confess..... It's about 35 to 40degC at the moment in Queensland, Australia, So I'm looking forward to our winter. It gets down to 0, -2, .......Soooo that will be fun!!!! BTW love the singing loud in the shower... I might have to learn some heavy-metal numbers for the winter.... only joking,, heavy-metal will kill my throat!! haha..
Interesting what been said about anything under 10dec water temp....

 

[Jacques]

I must admit that it was a lot easier to take my cold shower at around 14 C when it was not that cold outside.

Actually, the temperature outside is below 0 Celsius and it has been around minus 12 a couple of days, the ground is cover with snow and it is very
difficult to take a cold shower with these conditions. It takes me many hours to recover and to get my body warmer although I finish my shower
after my 6 or 7 minutes with an hotter water.

Fortunately my partner is doing the same protocol, so we encourage each other mutually.

 

[michaelrc]

I have been doing the cold showers for about 3 weeks now. have found [like all of you] the body gets used to it.
I must confess..... It's about 35 to 40degC at the moment in Queensland, Australia, So I'm looking forward to our winter. It gets down to 0, -2, .......Soooo that will be fun!!!! BTW love the singing loud in the shower... I might have to learn some heavy-metal numbers for the winter.... only joking,, heavy-metal will kill my throat!! haha..
Interesting what been said about anything under 10dec water temp....

Heavy metal vocalist sing from the throat do they not? The vagus nerves run parallel to the voice box...,l say go for it!

 

[|I AM|]

Love It, Thank You !

 

[forge]

I must admit that it was a lot easier to take my cold shower at around 14 C when it was not that cold outside.

Actually, the temperature outside is below 0 Celsius and it has been around minus 12 a couple of days, the ground is cover with snow and it is very
difficult to take a cold shower with these conditions. It takes me many hours to recover and to get my body warmer although I finish my shower
after my 6 or 7 minutes with an hotter water.

Fortunately my partner is doing the same protocol, so we encourage each other mutually.

Same problem here. My heroic imaginations in November about applying cold water proving harder to accomplish now, when temperatures start to really sink. Wintertime tap water is getting icy.

Hard to get core temperature back up. After having a meal the body starts the digestion burn producing heat, then its easier warm up: my fingers are freezing off before eating, then everything gets warm after eating. But my fingers start to freeze after 6:00pm too. So after reading Laura's posts about tea+butter, I thought why not try to start tea with a tablespoon or two of butter? Will see if it helps with icy fingers.

 

[lilyalic]

I'm not quite sure of the temperature of my shower, but I have to turn the actual thermostat off, and it's seems bloody cold!
The longest I've been able to last is 7 minutes otherwise my whole body just becomes numb, so I'm guessing it's below 10C

just be careful how long you actually stay in it, because I foolishly stayed in a little over my 'limit' and exhibited small hypothermia symptoms throughout the day, or maybe that was a changing point

 

[Mr.Cyan]

Thank you very much for all your explanations, gottathink. TRE really seems an interesting process but it also seems one should be careful about it, especially when learning it without a professional to guide you, given these possible undesirable side effects that you mentioned. I'll try to get Berceli's book to have a better understanding of it.

I was just catching up on this thread and saw the references to TRE. It reminded me of something I once read in Steven Pressfield's book "Gates of Fire". It was about a type of exercise the Spartans did after a battle. From the description in the book it seemed to involve a lot of shaking and throwing themselves about. I had never heard of these exercises before (or since) but Pressfield presumably had an historical reference for them. Maybe it was one of the ways that the ancient Greek warriors had of avoiding PTSD.

BTW. My impression of the book was that Pressfield had a lot more things about Sparta and Greece that he would like to have written about at greater depth but they probably got removed by his editors.

Just want to say what an awesome book that is! One of my favorites. Hard to say how much of it is based on sources, but I think Pressfield's reconstruction, even if fictional, is very cool and maybe even more accurate than academic accounts (inspirational influences and all that). The Spartans come across as something like precursors of the Stoics and Caesar-like self-discipline. Emotional awareness and training, strong social bonds and responsibility, and overall awesomeness. Wouldn't be surprised if they did cold adaptation. ;)

Fully second your comments Approaching Infinity :) - just finished reading "Gates of Fire" after reading the comment to this post - and it is truly inspirational, especially his portrayal of King Leonidas and also the philosophical aspects of Spartan training in the "agoge". Totally awesome book !

Would be interested to know if there are any threads in the Forum, or articles in SOTT on Lycurgus of Sparta ?

 

[panca kanga]

Fully second your comments Approaching Infinity :) - just finished reading "Gates of Fire" after reading the comment to this post - and it is truly inspirational, especially his portrayal of King Leonidas and also the philosophical aspects of Spartan training in the "agoge". Totally awesome book !

Would be interested to know if there are any threads in the Forum, or articles in SOTT on Lycurgus of Sparta ?

Laura started this interesting thread : Lycurgus and Sparta - Ideal Government. She begins it with a long quote from Plutarch. The thread then becomes a discussion of Lycurgus' reform of the Spartan commonwealth, specifically considering what kind of 'government' might be created after a cataclysm.

BTW. As you found Pressfields book interesting and if you are anything like me, you won't enjoy Miller's film, 300. It is quite a different kettle of fish. I got 30 minutes into the film and had to switched it off. I liked neither the stylised violence nor the animatronic extras. I've never seen his graphic novel of the same name and I don't want to.

 

[Mr.Cyan]

Fully second your comments Approaching Infinity :) - just finished reading "Gates of Fire" after reading the comment to this post - and it is truly inspirational, especially his portrayal of King Leonidas and also the philosophical aspects of Spartan training in the "agoge". Totally awesome book !

Would be interested to know if there are any threads in the Forum, or articles in SOTT on Lycurgus of Sparta ?

Laura started this interesting thread : Lycurgus and Sparta - Ideal Government. She begins it with a long quote from Plutarch. The thread then becomes a discussion of Lycurgus' reform of the Spartan commonwealth, specifically considering what kind of 'government' might be created after a cataclysm.

BTW. As you found Pressfields book interesting and if you are anything like me, you won't enjoy Miller's film, 300. It is quite a different kettle of fish. I got 30 minutes into the film and had to switched it off. I liked neither the stylised violence nor the animatronic extras. I've never seen his graphic novel of the same name and I don't want to.

Thanks panca kanga for the link to the thread on Lycurgus, much appreciated - will definitely read it :). It is interesting that coincidentally, when reading Pressfileds book, i too thought that Spartan society as it was depicted could be a possible model (with improvements) for a post-cataclysmic society. Glad to know that this trail of thought was already explored and discussed in the Forum by Laura.

About Miller's film, i actually liked it ( this was in 2007) as it was the first Miller film that i watched, and my knowledge of Sparta, Greco-persian wars, and Greek history was laking then - but in hindsight, now 7 years later and after reading Pressfiled, as you said it is deifnitely lacking in many aspects and a different kettle of fish

 

[Persej]

Q: (L) Was there anything remarkable about Caesar's birth?

A: Comet.

Q: (L) So there was a comet at the time of his birth, and that was the main thing. A comet at his birth, and a comet at his death. Is that it?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) But, no “laid in the manger” business, no wise men, nothing like that.

A: No.

Q: (Pierre) But the comets meant something. It was not only random chance, was it?

(L) But all the stuff about Jesus and the manger and being born in a cave or whatever...

(Perceval) Well, how long was the comet in the sky, and how many were born at the same time?

(Pierre) But an individual having a comet at his birth and at his death...

(L) Is kind of special. I mean, look at Mark Twain!

(Perceval) But how many people were born at that time? It doesn't necessarily relate to Caesar. If it was there in the sky for a week or two weeks, then you've got hundreds of people being born with the comet in the sky. But from a human point of view, people took it as a sign...

A: Receivership capability!

Q: (L) So there can be hundreds of people born with the emanations of a comet in the atmosphere, but only the one that has the receivership capability would be affected or influenced by it?

A: Yes

Q: (L) So it can be very important, but only for...

(Perceval) From a hidden perspective, and not from an ordinary human perspective.

Since the C's told us about the importance of the dark moon nights in clearing the crystals, and also in certain group activities, where they basically said that moonlight has a bad energy, I was curious to see if there was anything interesting about the moon phase at the appearance of this Halley's Comet last time in 1986. And at this website: link you can see that this comet reached it's perihelion (9th February) right at the dark of the moon. So if we can take the analogy with the crystal charging, we could say that the days prior and after this perihelion were the perfect for charging of human beings with the comet energy. :)

 

[Persej]

The Sun also reached it's minimum during that year, so that's another interesting coincidence: Solar cycles 21, 22 and 23

I also found this paper that talks about unusual geomagnetic storm just at the time of the comet's appearance:

Abstract: A very intense geomagnetic storm, the largest observed in 26 years, was observed in early February 1986 having just been preceded by a series of six solar flares during the period 3-7 February. The storm and its antecedent flares are currently a subject of great interest because of the unusually large magnitude of the various geomagnetic effects that obtained. The fact that the flares were moderate to large in soft X-ray intensity, but much smaller than the largest that the Sun is capable of producing, coupled with the fact that these events occurred near the minimum of the current solar activity cycle, adds to the uniqueness of the overall episode.

Introduction

On 6 February, 1986 a sudden (magnetic) storm commencement (SSC) began about 13 : 12 UT as recorded by the College, Alaska, Magnetic Observatory. On the following day the first of a series of major terrestrial magnetic disturbances arrived with such intensity that these magnetogram records in the customary format were rendered nearly unreadable by the off-scale excursions of the magnetic variations. After a brief recovery on 8 February another very intense magnetic storm produced a maximum H (horizontal field component) variation of 6110 nT which was the largest ever recorded at that station. The storm was the largest recorded since 1960, and the eighth largest since 1932 (Allen, 1986).

In addition to the storm’s exceptional magnitude two other factors make this storm particularly unusual: (1) it occurred near the minimum of the Sun’s activity cycle; and (2) it was apparently caused by flares that could be described as moderate to large, but still much smaller than the largest flares the Sun is capable of producing. The essential question that must be addressed for a full understanding of the relevant physics is: why should a series of ≤ X3 class flares, such as occurred during the February 1986 events, produce a major geomagnetic storm when often times a much larger single flare, perhaps possessing a greater integrated energy, does not?

1987SoPh..109..119G Page 119

 

[Persej]

And here is the video of the comet's trajectory in 1986. As you can see, it was approximately in line with the Earth, opposite from the Sun, just at the time of those solar flares and geomagnetic storms:

 

[Faith-Hope and Love]

Thank you for this informative and educative session.
I was just revisiting and revising it after having bookmarked it quite some time back....

(Perceval) From a hidden perspective, and not from an ordinary human perspective. Was the cult surrounding Caesar after his death perceived as a threat by someone at that time or thereafter?

A: Indeed! Caesar advocated treating the poor and the masses with care and kindness.

Q: (Perceval) So they were threatened enough to kill him and undo pretty much everything he had done... But, was there a real threat that his teaching would have spread across the world and changed everything?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) The ideas of communalism, sharing, caring, mercy etc.

(Perceval) What I'm trying to do is contrast the extent of that threat of changing the world in a positive way with what they did to his story. And we still have it today! They didn't just stamp it out at the time and then forget about it. We're still lumbered with the deception. So, it's so big and so monstrous... Like opportunistically, they killed two birds with one stone... "We can get rid of Caesar and his teachings, and then we can also have this new religion that gets us what we want!"

(L) Yeah, a religion of passivity, obey your masters, give them all your money, pay your taxes, and all this kind of stuff.

The C's always comfort and encourage us by reminding us that 'All there is here are Lessons', but the disgust and shock that come with the realizations of what has been done to our history and to we ourselves, requires herculean efforts not to go into despair, hopelessness and loss of Faith.!

Fortunately, earlier on in the Session, Laura followed up on the 'Tribal Unit' topic, highlighting the uttermost importance of the individual's efforts' contribution to the whole, so as to reach critical mass - thus enhancing 'Receivership Capabilities' and DNA changes...
And hopefully this will enable or help others see through the lies and the imposed burdens that have arisen due to this...

A: Oh indeed! The times ahead will be most interesting especially if the network both expands to the full tribal unit strength, and many others take the initiative to move up to the next stair step.

Q: (L) So, in a sense, what you're saying is that there is a need for the network to expand as in connecting chakras and so forth which is probably what helps with these “helper” things described a few minutes ago. When people are connected, they can help each other, both in and out of the body to make DNA changes and changes in their whole system. So, that's important. Also, people need to graduate when they get these DNA changes going on in their bodies that are helped by their helpers because of their connecting chakras because the network has strength. Does that make sense, everybody?

(Pierre) More members, and...

(L) And more involved, more doing.

(Chu) Not necessarily quantity, though. Because it says strength.

(Perceval) Well, that's the question: What is the full tribal unit strength?

(L) Does that means quantity, and/or quality?

(Data) Or both?

A: Both.

Q: (Pierre) So when you reach this critical mass, it means you can have this influence, you can have this soul group influence on all the members and trigger these changes?

(L) Is that what you're saying here?

A: Yes!

Q: (L) When the tribe reaches critical mass, it'll start changing people's DNA.

(L) So, it's very, very important if people want to make this transition to be like the wise virgins: keep the faith, and keep doing, keep putting one foot in front of the other day after day even though they don't see any immediate benefits for themselves. Is that what we're getting to here?

A: Yes.

And, just as in the latest Session, Session 24 June 2022, the 'Psychomantium matter' also came up.....

A: Time for you to sit in the psychomantium or something similar with pencil and paper ready.

Q: (L) Why do I need a paper and pencil ready?

A: Because we have complex things to convey and that will conserve energy.

Q: (L) You mean I'm supposed to do this alone?

A: Not necessarily. It will help to have one or two other compatible energy persons present to ask the questions.

Q: (L) Do these have to be questions of general interest, or is it possible that say, for example, other people could send in questions to be answered in this way?

A: Limit personal questions please.

Q: (L) Alright, then if there's nothing else, I'm going to say good night.

A: Remember Caesar... Goodbye.

END OF SESSION

 

[thorbiorn]

Tarsus - Paul was not from Tarsus
Following the reading about Tarsus in the article by @Pierre in Julius Caesar and Mithraism I looked up this session, where one finds:

Q: (L) Was Paul a member of the Herodian family? That is, was the Saul who WAS a member of the Herodian family as described by Josephus the same Saul that was the Apostle Paul?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) So, in other words, Paul was not from Tarsus? Is that correct?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Paul was... Where was Paul from?

A: Near Jerusalem.

Q: (L) Okay. Why was it said that Paul was from Tarsus? Why was this added to the legend?

A: To conceal and reveal.

Q: (L) What do you mean? Conceal and reveal? What would Tarsus reveal?

A: Where Antony spent time, where veterans retired, where the development and perpetuation of the Caesar cult actually took place.

(Approaching Infinity) Allegedly, one of the earliest things about the Jesus people was their communal meal, the Eucharist. Was there something about Caesar's life, or something that he did, that led to that?

A: Not in particular, however it came to be a sign shared because Caesar made sure that the hungry were fed and if his soldiers were hungry, he shared their suffering. The "meal" was another aspect borrowed from Mithras. Notice that the clue about Tarsus points to Mithraism also. Finally, elements of Caesar's last supper were incorporated into the story as well!

Mithraism - No evidence for a strong link between Mithraism and Tarsus
About Tarsus, there was a blog entry by Roger Pearse about Mithraism, and he found a mismatch between common assertions and actual archaeological finds. He writes:

Mithras in Tarsus
Posted on June 16, 2011 by Roger Pearse
Today I had the chance to look for ten minutes at volume one of Vermaseren’s Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM). The second volume was inaccessible, unfortunately. The two volumes apparently parallel the two volumes in Cumont’s Textes et Monumentes, so I infer that the second volume may contain literary references.

Vermaseren arranged his collection of inscriptions geographically, and started with eastern parts — some coins from Bactria, in fact, although these were clearly of Persian Mitra to my eye. There was but a single entry for Cilicia, which was a bronze aes of the reign of Gordian III, ca. 240 AD (CIMRM 27).

What struck me, profoundly, was that the vast majority of the book was devoted to finds from Rome itself. Vermaseren stated that he wanted to begin the book with Asia, as that was where the cult originated (or so he thought). But the impression made, looking at those entries, was of a cult originating elsewhere, and that the material in Asia was distinctly peripheral to it. Just holding the pages for each area revealed a cult whose archaeology was overwhelmingly western.

All this reminded me of many a confident statement online. E.g.

“It was in Tarsus that the Mysteries of Mithras had originated” — Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, 1999, from here.
“Now Tarsus was one of the chief seats of Mithraism” — Roy Wood Sellers, from here.
“David Ulansey holds (or rather speculates) that, in the late 2nd-century BCE, a group of Stoics in the city of Tarsus originated Mithraism.” — from here.

The list could be extended.

And yet … all we have to support such a claim, from the archaeology, is a single coin?

A single coin does not have to be a poor catch, but here is what he writes further on:

Searching for an image of the medallion online, I encountered the image of a coin of Gordian III from Tarsus, here at Numismatics.org. The coin also has a deity wrestling a bull on the reverse — probably Mithras. It is a great blessing to have so many images of coins online, indeed. The images are:



Here is the image of what is perhaps the same item, given by Cumont in The Mysteries of Mithra, p.201 (from here – click on the image below for a larger version):

All this is not much, tho.

We do have the statement of Plutarch in his Life of Pompey that the Cilician pirates in 68 BC worshipped Mithras. But probably the eastern deity is meant, linking the pirates with older enemies of the Romans like Mithradates. But equally we may not be able to rely on the statement at all.

And that, it seems, is all the evidence we have about Mithras and Tarsus.

Enough to say that Tarsus was a major cult centre? It seems unlikely.

To conceal and reveal
Taking into consideration the session and the text by Pearse, one can summarize where the concealing and revealing might take place:

Claiming that Paul came from Tarsus (The Wiki), hides his origin near Jerusalem, but reveals his association with a place "Where Antony spent time, where veterans retired, where the development and perpetuation of the Caesar cult actually took place."​

​

Claiming that Mithraism stood strong, even originated in Tarsus conceals, while investigating the claim, as Roger Pearse does, reveals Mithraism to have been much stronger in the western areas.​