Seattle Metaphysical Library

How the Web is Getting Worse

2012-01-27T09:21:00.000-08:00

Talk about synchronicities!

I was just complaining about how difficult it was to find information to research a project.

Then I read an article by a UC Berkeley professor, titled "Why We Desperately Need a New (and Better) Google" which said that google search results have been taken over by spammers and marketers, which I totally agree with. Unfortunately, his recommendation, which takes up most of the article, is for another search engine which produces even fewer useful results than google does! And I've never seen Bing do a better job than google, even when using it to search for technical information on Microsoft's website, which you would think they would be especially careful to index properly.

Then we get this post submitted:

Sent in by member Amir Fasad

I've been doing research of various sorts my entire adult life, and for the past fifteen years or so this has included extensive use of the Internet. Despite our much vaunted technological progress, the web is a worse place to do research than it was a decade ago. This may seem controversial, but others have noticed as I have the shocking deterioration of research capabilities.

Google, for example, has altered their search algorithms over the past ten years, allegedly in part to punish "content aggregators", who added lists of terms to their sites to cause hits, despite some of these being legitimate news and science sites. Regardless of the motive, some of the changes have not been for the better.

Google used to rank results by how they matched the search terms, which let users reduce a known quantity of results using minus signs before new terms. Now, doing this causes the number of hits to jump up and down, seemingly at random, probably as larger and smaller databases are used. This may speed things up if traffic is heavy, but not adding new descriptors to the original hits prevents users from doing a broad search sure to include the desired material, and then drilling down until they find what they want.

Further, most of the top hits today are basically advertisements, and it is nearly impossible to get the non-commercial content that used to appear first. These ads may be disguised as something vaguely related to the user's search, but the end result is that the formerly easy to find non-commercial material is drowned out by thousands of unwanted results.

One reason these changes seem deliberate is that archive.org hosts a "wayback machine" which I used for years to search google as it existed at selected dates in the past, and to search for deleted web content by URL. Suddenly a few years ago, these functions became almost useless, as both former google pages and most of the attempted URLs were blocked, and I was presented with a "retrieval exclusion error". One could imagine such a message in the case of a legal threat by a site owner, or someone defamed on an archived site, but why would seemingly millions of unrelated sites be impossible to access? The wayback machine, was only performing a valuable service by storing content that was voluntarily made public in the first place.

Another site, which is more specific to my interests but an important indicator nevertheless, was patent surf. It let users enter natural english language descriptions, including entire pages, of a technical concept, for example, and the site would return a short except from each of an entire list of United States patents relevant to the meaning of the search. That sites seems as dead as Jimmy Hoffa, and another site with equal functionality seems about as hard to find.

All of these things could be coincidences, or teething problems, or a result of random business decisions or corporate failures, but maybe not. The end result, however, is the same. The web is getting harder to use for anything but pop culture related interests. I feel bad for the younger generation that may never know what it was like when it was at its best.

Wikipedia Woes and Orwellian Black Holes

2011-07-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia Woes and other Orwellian Nightmares

While doing research for my talk on crop circles at our last UFO salon, I decided to see what Colin Andrews was up to these days. He gave a good presentation at the X Conference, and it was good to see him still out and about, after almost thirty years. So many of the other researchers were daunted and intimidated. I ran across an article about how he was treated by Wikipedia, which was part of a bigger article on how Wikipedia treats issues and opinions that do not have mainstream corporate approval. (http://www.colinandrews.net/Wikipedia-WhoAreTheseEditors.html ). He was not allowed to correct several errors of fact, and his content was continuously rejected or destroyed.

This caught my eye because just a few days earlier, I had tried to correct a reference to the Seattle Metaphysical Library in the Ballard entry of Wikipedia. I removed the word “New Age” from the description of our library. It is not only frequently used as a dismissive label, but also incorrectly limits the scope of material we carry. That correction was immediately removed by an editor who, looking at his last several hundred edits, is an expert on motorcycles. Period. He had touched NOTHING relating to libraries, art, etc. And there is no recourse – Wikipedia gave control to a dufus ignoramus! No wonder their credibility is becoming increasingly matched with that of the rest of mainstream media.

This is merely irritating to us - nothing compared to the damage that is done by agents attacking other people. An attempt to research the people with serious complaints against Wikipedia is an overwhelming task, the list is so long, so I will just encourage you to use your favorite search engine and search "Wikipedia censorhip” or “Wikipedia abuse”

Orwellian rewriting of history at the New York Times

One of the websites I like to look at is Blacklisted News (http://www.blacklistednews.com/. In looking over their links to news stories, I saw that there was a gas link explosion and devastating leaks to the Yellowstone River. I clicked on their link for the complete article, and saw that the New York Times, their source, had completely redacted the whole story! The article was dated July 3,2011 in the Blacklisted listing, but the only story that the NY times listed in their search results was on July 4, headlined “Ruptured Montana Pipeline Was Shut Down Before”, and that was linked to a page that had also been removed.

This continuous rewriting of history seems to be getting worse all the time. The only thing I can suggest is to copy the articles that you find interesting, because you don’t know how long they will be available on the internet, or when Google or Bing will decide to delist them, making them unavailable, unless you have the URLs.

More to follow....

A BATTLE WITH ACUTE RADIATION POISONING

2011-06-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

Samizat Press, in Kent, published the following first-person account of self-treatment for radiation poisoning.

In light of the ongoing, and increasingly disastrous core melt-downs in Fukushima, this may be information we all can use.

Prologue
Mid-December 2007 I was awakened at about 3:30 am. surrounded by an eerie amber-yellow glow, unable to move --- feeling like I was weighed down, and with big red sparks flying out of my body all over. This lasted for less than 30 seconds while I was awake. I do not know how long it had been going on before I awoke. Since I didn't feel any ill effects at that time, I went back to sleep. Two weeks later, however, I was very, very tired. I had lost 20 pounds and couldn't stand the sight of food. I do not know what kind of radiation I was exposed to, only that it was "radioactive". As I write this, it is now 9 months after that event. The material which follows is presented in the hopes that it may be of some assistance to others dealing with radiation sickness.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Excerpts from articles in two publications on radiation poisoning
"Life Savers", from New Scientist magazine,12 January 2008, page 4:

"High doses of radiation kill by damaging the DNA of fast-dividing cells in the gut and bone marrow. If victims survive the diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and loss of water caused by damage to their gut lining, they may succumb to fatal infections in the following weeks as their bone marrow struggles to produce enough white blood cells."

"U.S. Government Still Refuses to Admit Health Dangers Posed by Widespread Use of Banned Uranium Weapons" by Pat Shannan, from American Free Press , May 26. 2008, page 13:

"A study by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Long Island University in New York found that uranium dust may do permanent damage to the lungs, resulting in chronic respiratory problems, and that uranium exposure also affects neurological function. . . . . 1991 Gulf War veterans who were excreting high levels of uranium in their urine showed impairment of cognitive function. More minor health effects from lesser exposure may also include skin rashes, headaches, blurred vision, sensitivity to light and sound, localized numbness and urinary symptoms such as kidney stones, increased urine volume and blood in the urine.

Notes from a Personal Battle

Symptoms
At 2-3 weeks post-exposure, I had lost 20 pounds and I was very tired. My skin was gray and I had deep vertical creases on my face and big black circles under my eyes. I was very thin and the veins in my arms were too thin to allow the entry of a needle for a diagnostic test. Urine was a reddish-rust color.

Subsequent symptoms: Skin would develop a rash (copious tiny red raised dots) when slightly heated. Gums became inflamed, and a couple of teeth loosened and one broke. Complete loss of sense of smell, impaired hearing, blurred vision, difficulty remembering words when speaking, short-term memory loss. Couldn't stand eating: indigestion and feelings of nausea. For over 3 months had copious discharge of light-green thin mucus from lungs and sinuses, as though linings were sloughing off. During the early months I got food poisoning and flu, but these conditions didn't last much longer than they would have otherwise.

Remedial Measures

Digestion Early on, when still unable to eat, on a whim I mixed some instant mashed potatoes with warm water and swallowed several tablespoonfuls. The effect surprised me almost instantaneously the discomfort in my gut disappeared. Over the next few days I ate more doses of instant mashed potatoes, and while I still had to be careful, I was able to eat once again. I used pineapple enzymes (Bromelain) to assist digestion. Also, I found that I felt better if I didn't eat a heavy meal closer to bedtime than about 4 hours, to give time to digest food before sleeping.

Respiratory I helped ease the mucus discharge by gargling and rinsing my sinuses with saltwater. Also, breathing hot air was helpful.

Sleep
Adequate sleep appears to be a critical factor in healing from radiation sickness. The body appears to need more sleep than before the radiation exposure, and without it the body's ability to heal may be impaired.

Scurvy
Some months after exposure I realized that some of the symptoms indicated scurvy-an acute vitamin C deficiency-in spite of eating lots of oranges plus 500 to 1000 IU of vitamin C supplements daily.
These symptoms were the gray skin, the inflamed gums and tooth loss. While the lower vitamin C dosage had returned most of my skin to normal color, I had to up the dosage to 2000 mg/day plus oranges to make an improvement in the mouth problems.
In addition to the vitamin C I took a tablespoon or two full of garlic powder per day. (Garlic was used by the Russian during WWII to treat battlefield infections – before the advent of modern antibiotics). Also used cod liver oil capsules (Vit A 1250 IU; Vit D 130 IU) at least once daily. Sat in sunshine on sunny days.

Sauna
The body seems to have a higher toxic burden during radiation sickness-it feels like tissues are dying and/or body systems for digestion and repair are having a hard time. Sauna can help remove toxins through sweat. However, for those unaccustomed to high heat, medical supervision is recommended. Also, since those with some medical conditions such as heart problems, pregnancy, persons consuming much alcohol, and others may not safely be exposed to high heat, medical advice is important before using sauna. For those unaccustomed to saunas, it can be helpful at least at first to have someone else in the sauna with them to spot effects of overheating if they occur. (It should also be noted that sauna can cause toxins to exit the body faster than they entered the body, thus increasing the possibility of an adverse reaction to those toxins.)

Exercise
Gentle exercise, such as walking and gentle yoga exercises, can be helpful. Also, gentle self-massage and deep breathing exercises can also be useful.

Supporting the body's housecleaning systems
During the healing process, it appears the body does a lot of housecleaning of damaged and dead tissues. This puts additional stress on liver and kidneys which may themselves have suffered due to radiation. Measures I have found helpful in assisting these organs:
Liver: Dandelion root, milk thistle seed, decaf coffee. Also, sleeping on the left
side relieves pressure and appears to help drainage and circulation in the area of
the liver.
Kidneys: Chickweed (Stellaria spp.) can be used to soothe stressed kidneys. For
kidney stones I have found small doses of parsley helpful (i.e.. a couple of tiny
leaves chewed well, swallowed with water every 20 minutes until the stones
pass - about two hours altogether).
Besides a generally good diet, zinc supplements helped me recover mental function. Every couple of weeks I take a 50-mg zinc tablet. At the same time I take a 2 mg copper capsule (copper and zinc appear to work in balance with one another in the body). According to a veterinary medicine lecture I attended many years ago, copper deficiencies cause gallstones in cattle. When I have had symptoms of gallstones, I took a copper capsule at night for one or two nights-the gallstones passed in the morning.

Notes on diet
What I found helpful: No processed foods, refined sugar or grains; no foods with artificial dyes or flavors. Fresh (or dried or frozen) fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, nuts, dairy products, avoiding any to which there is an allergy or sensitivity,) I avoided stimulants (including coffee and tea), energy drinks, soft drinks, alcohol. Only beverages: fruit juice (with no additives), and spring water (non-chlorinated and non-fluoridated).

Nutritional supplements
In my experience, some nutritional supplements can help facilitate healing.
* Via mouth: A good-quality multi-vitamin/mineral (without iron). I had good results from taking half a table per day of "'Weil" supplement. Also, dried roasted sushi nori seaweed can provide an extra source of minerals.
* Via skin: Nutrients (like toxins) can be absorbed through the skin. Absorption can be facilitated by oils, rubbing, and heat. I rubbed the 'Weil' supplement (dissolved in a bit of water) onto face, over long bones, knee and ankle joints, and on abdomen and back over kidneys and liver-then rubbed the same areas with a lotion of coconut oil and aloe vera to facilitate absorption. I used a liquefied seaweed plant food (low phosphorus content) rubbed into the scalp, then followed by the coconut oil/aloe vera lotion-left on until hair was washed again. For the deep creases on my face, the best remedy was cooked chicken grease rubbed over the entire face.

Cautions

To the extent possible I believe it advisable to avoid any additional radiation exposure (including from diagnostic procedures). Also, exposure to toxic chemicals might slow recovery.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

9 months post-exposure: While digestion is not yet quite normal, I have regained 15 of the lost 20 lbs; my face is back to normal; my vision, sense of smell and hearing are normal as well. I still have occasional bouts with short-term memory loss, but I expect these to diminish as time goes on.

Copyright September 2008 by Maria Abdin. May be copied in whole or in part without permission provided meaning is not altered.

2010-12-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

UFO Dreams
by Charles Forsher

Around 1969 I had a UFO dream.

This was not due to indigestion because I was TOLD that I would be having this U.F.O. Contact(*1) by the local psychic, who did readings for a living at the Blue Grotto, a coffee house I worked in full time.

The dream started with me finding myself standing near the sub station for the power grid in West Los Angeles, located on the border of the Sawtelle Veterans Administration. In broad daylight, positioned nearby in the air, was the UFO.

The vehicle looked something like a rocket from the end of World War II, only it was constructed of diamonds(*2).

Shortly, a clean shaven man a little older than myself in a one piece jump suit appeared, greeted me formally, and then took my hand, telling me not to be afraid, as we levitated into the air effortlessly, and the next thing I knew, some seamless surface on one of the diamonds had opened up to receive us with a comfortable hole.

The inside of the vehicle was quite conventional looking, and I started to suspect it was a secret government project that had what we’d now call cloaking ability.

I had seen a National Geographic magazine from the 1920s in which there were photographs of the great Houdini making an elephant vanish in the middle of a Circus Ring. It was exciting then, several decades later, to see Gene Rodenberry dramatize 'cloaked’ ships on his Star Trek television show.

I was not allowed to explore the interior of this vehicle by myself, and in fact I was told not to go anywhere. I had no desire to, everything looking so average and explainable.

Some time went by, maybe twenty minutes. Nothing happened. This does not normally happen in a dream, any more than dreaming about things of which one has no prior knowledge.

Then I was assigned to follow a girl about my age. No problem with that, and this time, when we went through a seemingly solid surface, I focused on what was happening. The wall area became fluid, and divided up into a series of sheaths, much like the iris of a camera lens.

It seemed at first that we had just stepped into a very dark little cupola, like the projections in roofs of typical American homes, only windowless. I walked through a narrow passage and the Iris closed up after me, as if this part of the vehicle was a living organism. (*3)

Now my charming and perfectly human looking hostess slid over to one of two wrap-around seats in this organic cupola, and made a hand gesture that I should follow her closely to sit next to her in the other seat.

I complied, sensing I had to for the next thing to happen. I had read that in some encounters, guests such as myself are shown things on a television-like screen. This is what I anticipated, and if this had been a normal dream, I would have seen a television screen with something on it reflecting my unconscious mind.

No such thing occurred. My hostess did something with one of her hands, Ninja style, and instead of a television screen, a curved windshield suddenly formed in front of us, with an appearance similar to that of a then-popular American sports model car.

With daylight flooding into the cupola, I could now see that there was a control panel under the windshield. I wanted to know what was going on, and instantly got a clear, graphic mental image of the scout craft we were in. (*4)

This was the start of the commonly reported mental telepathic messaging in many UFO Contacts. Not only was I shown the scout craft in this way, as it detached from the side of the diamond-rocket-mother ship, but my hostess went to some length to explain to me mentally, how we were moving through the air.

What was conveyed was that behind us, the area that had temporarily been a passageway and in the majority of this living scout ship, was a reservoir of a primal energy.

My Hostess, after struggling for a metaphor, suggested an animated cartoon. She then suggested that the ink used to make the animated cartoon characters come to life on a two dimensional world, was a model for a similar ‘ink’ that was the foundation of the molecular structure for all living beings in this, the third dimension, and that this is why the vehicle we were in was a living being after its own kind.

One of it’s attributes was to create a field that repelled gravity, and that a few very simple controls were needed for direction, and elevation, speed being limited, this vehicle NOT ‘grown’ for streaking through the atmosphere.

I was looking for a building down below that I would have seen in a book or magazine. Many cities have landmark buildings, but I was not having any luck locating one.

I asked if this ‘break off’ as I called it, was also invisible.

Yes, came the mental reply, but that this along with control of the vehicle depended on the operator. And now I detected just a hint of pride in the young lady’s abilities.

That it was not a government project became very clear when we approached a multilevel concrete parking structure.

‘What is that?’ the hostess asked me mentally. Linked mentally, the young lady had access to my every thought and emotion, and I should have been privy to her every thought and emotion (*5) but found that I was somehow controlled. (*6)

I could not for my life remember the words that defined the parking structure. I could not formulate the words: ‘par-king Stru-c-ture’. I started to fight mentally against the control. This in turn put a strain on my Hostess, who had guided the vehicle INTO the parking structure. The strain allowed me to sense that for my hostess, it was a weirdly unfinished building, with cars parked in it.

With my struggling to regain full control over my mental faculties, the hostess lost the energy in our link up, to stay cloaked, so when we passed a car in which a man was reading a newspaper, he slowly put it down, and looked at us, my hostess said something like ‘Oh-oh’ mentally, and with more Ninja moves over the control panel steered the craft away, and for once picking up a little speed, perhaps due to the sensed danger.

Behind us, the sound of the car being turned on, and backed up, tires squealing as the driver then headed towards us as fast as possible down the ramp. We reached the bottom first. This must have been taking place on a Sunday, and early in the morning, because the street was deserted.

“ Get out!” my hostess insisted, pointing to an iris opening up in the side of the craft next to me. Shrugging my shoulders, I did as I was told. The craft was hovering just above the sidewalk as I jumped out, my friend jumping out after me. With seconds to spare, the craft suddenly both shrunk as well as flattened out, until it resembled a giant Frisby.

The driver of that car came roaring down the ramp in the parking structure, and slammed on the brakes as he passed by us. He drove slowly for the longest time, watching us, but since the craft now looked like a terrestrial novelty item, there was nothing he could say to anybody, and so he roared way, angrier than shaken.

I expected that once the danger was passed, the hostess could reanimate the thing, but reading her mind, I found that there was a law; when these things were ordered to ‘go to sleep’ they could not be re constituted for a minimal amount of time.
Further, in reading the thoughts and feelings of my deflated Hostess, I saw she was not a fully authorized ‘Tikunaut’ like the adults on the mother ship.

Now I was starting to regain control over my autonomy, and the Hostess knew it.

We walked and walked and walked, stranded in an unknown city somewhere in the United States, with the giant Frisby under the right arm of my Hostess. I could now explain to her, still mentally, what a parking structure was.

We came to a cluster of buildings that I recognized as a museum complex. I explained verbally; which felt strange, that in those buildings, I could show her everything she ever wanted to know about life on Earth. And to hide the craft in some bushes, which she did, and I’d take HER for an unforgettable ride in turn.

Considering that up to now and decades ago I had gone out on two ill-fated dates, this was the third and wildest date I had been on.

Linked mentally to my hostess, the joy of sharing the history and culture of the Earth was ‘out of this world’ as I could feel the awe and delight that she experienced with every new discovery I presented.

This could have gone down in the history of intergalactic contacts as a first. Had I been more mature for my age, this could have led to more dates, being taken home to meet her parents, flying to an extra-terrestrial version of a drive in movie, and finally a climatic night of passion inside her Frisby-like friend, hovering over the Pacific Ocean off of Malibu.

I was twenty-five years old, going on nine emotionally, having inherited Aspergers from my father, and made half-crazy by my war-traumatized mother. It seemed I was fated to remain nine years ols emotionally for the rest of my life, and when we came to the transportation displays, the model train layout triggered an Aspergers obsession also inherited from my father, who loved trains instead of me.

It was such a strong obsession that it broke the psychic link. Perhaps my hostess decided it was hopeless and failed to reestablish the link, because the next thing I knew, she was gone.
I retraced my steps, through the many ponderous museum buildings (one isn’t supposed to do that in a dream) to the bushes she hid the Frisby thing in, but the Frisby thing was gone as well.

I suddenly found myself a few miles from where I had been abducted, Westwood Village, and it was both at night, as well as in the middle of a Hollywood movie downpour. I felt cold all over.

My E.T. friend giving me the ‘cold shoulder?’

There had been rains like this, years before, about the time my parents separated, about 1956. The scene also reminded me of mom, who was cold emotionally, so more than likely my hostess was giving me something to access and work my way through, so the next time we met I could have warm intimate feelings for her.
II.
I woke up still feeling like it was in December 1956 (*7) but after getting out of bed, it was abundantly clear that Los Angeles was in the middle of a heat wave, in 1969.

I got dressed, amazed at the strange dream, remembering the lines in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland at the end of the story, Alice saying: “ It was only a dream, after all.”

I left my studio, locked the door to it and walked down the hall to the stairs. Casually I went down the echoic stairwell and onto the sidewalk, and walked towards the corner drug store, which still had a lunch counter from the 1940s. I had no hot plate in my studio. And as I got to the store, I looked at the morning headlines in the Herald Examiner- this was mid day- and the headlines were about freakish cloudbursts in Florida.

Some day I’d like to know if Florida has museums like the kind I visited in my UFO contact.

===================================
End Notes

*1.More recent events, such as with Whitley Streiber, point towards the Aliens creating Twilight Zones for such meetings, or doing other, metaphysical tricks, and this is what seems to have happened.

*2. Years after this 'dream', I’d see an illustration of the same vehicle in flight, in a UFO Calendar!

*3 Confirmations came years latter reading that certain life forms encountered such as the Grays, are supposed to be artificial life forms

*4 A few years after this I’d see a photograph of the craft
taken by a Contactee.

*5 The idea of a psychic link up was dramatized in the Star Wars series decades later, Darth Vader senses his son Luke Skywalker.

*6 A friend of mine who has had dozens of these experiences, told me years latter that this is done to insure one is not overwhelmed.

*7 My parents had succeeded in rendering me slightly delusional.
For some unexplainable reason I have greatly improved since 1969

Screaming Bull Frogs and Leprechauns

2010-11-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

1984, Southern California
by Charles Forsher

One day, while I was working for Mrs. Haydon on her end of Rustic Canyon Road, Pacific Palisades ranch in Southern California, I was asked to give a boy and girl, children of some visiting guests, a tour of the ranch. By this time I had become quite familiar with the ranch and was happy to oblige.

The first stop in my tour was the small square cement pond behind the Haydon's house. It was a few feet high, about five feet in width by four feet. A small amount of water from a garden waterfall above it frequently cascaded down into the pool keeping it filled with just the right amount of water for the frogs that assembled here at night who would spend the night singing praises to the Creator, exactly what the stucco covered box was designed for.

The small pool was usually empty this time of day, but when I arrived this day, there was a marvelous bullfrog resting on one of the loose bricks placed in the pool for such a purpose.

"This, " I thought "would make explaining the pool much easier". I bent over, reached down, and gently picked up the bullfrog. The children, who were seven and eight years old, were delighted as I started the narration.

Then the bullfrog screamed - it let out a short, shrill, piercing scream.

The children’s mouths dropped open, and their eyes became as big as organ stops.
I was speechless as well. A scream implied vocal cords. Frogs are not supposed to have vocal cords. I half expected the bullfrog to raise up on his legs, producing a
small top hat and cane and break into a chorus of:

‘Hello my honey, hello my sweetheart, hello my rag time gal.’
‘Send me a letter by wire, honey set my heart on fire-‘

Like the singing bullfrog seen in an animated cartoon series aired on television about this time in Los Angeles. However the bullfrog just sat there complacently, just as in the other parts of the cartoon where it does that, foiling its victim.

“It must be a fairy in disguise.” I said as I gently put the bullfrog back on his loose brick perch, and led the children away to continue my tour.

Why this happened can be traced to a prayer a month prior.

I had become interested in the idea of Fairies. If there can be angels, I thought, then there must also be Fairies, just like there are levels of life in the sea.

Maybe my thoughts were coming from another source. The Haydons had bought land nobody else wanted. Actor and commentator, Will Rogers, had lived up the hill, what was now Will Rogers State Park, and the Haydon's Ranch was where Will Rogers kept hundreds of horses, for several decades. Nobody wanted the property.

The Haydons used the tons of horse manure to create an Eden like garden.
This in turn attracted the Fairies.

I guess after I had been working for the Haydons for over a year my inclination towards being a Medium alerted me to the Fairies' presence.

One night I had a vivid dream. I was walking between a cabin, which was one of Mr. Haydon's studies (and where I lived) and the main house. As I passed under a big tree, looking up where the white rooster liked to sleep at night, I saw a Leprechaun sitting on a thick overhanging branch. His black clothes were wrinkled, and his stovepipe hat was a little bent. He was smoking a tiny clay pipe. My own experience with a Wonderland Caterpillar?

I was dreaming, but still, this was an unusual dream. The Leprechaun's face was clearly Irish, even with the thin beard. I kept walking, and as I got near to the main house I woke up.

Later that morning, while working in the garden, I looked up and over at the big tree I had walked under in my vivid dream, and then it all came back.

I stopped, closed my eyes, and audibly as well as reverently offered a prayer; not as prayers are commonly thought of. To pray, I had found out by research, meant to speak sincerely.

The Gospel teacher hinted that every word his students spoke was to be a prayer, that normal dialogue was an invitation to evil, and for centuries afterwards, the sincerity associated with prayer was voiced in the statement, ‘speak, I pray thee.’ In this spirit I audibly and reverently thanked the Fairies for the vision, but explained that I needed to see some proof of their existence in the physical world---the one I lived in, and what better place than in the great garden the Haydons had created.

Then, as the late Carl Jung might have said about such things, I forgot entirely about the matter to let nature take its course.

A few weeks later, Mrs. Haydon came to me with a project. The big cement pond in front of her house, the one that really looked like a pond, had been attacked by the trees surrounding it and needed to be drained so that the cracks created by all of those trees could be repaired.

My job was two-fold. I had to corral the goldfish, transport them back to the square pool in back of the house, and then drain the pond.

The first part of this was fairly easy. Fruit from a nectar tree growing near the pond kept dropping in, fermenting the pond water and making the goldfish, well, drunk. I made sure I included ample amounts of fermented water with the transport so that the goldfish would not be traumatized.

Then, the hard part of the project was tackled. I was told by Mrs. Haydon not to spill one drop; not to splash. The fermented water after all.

The artificial pond had a place where anybody could sit, a special depressed place designed for family members and guests to sit in on hot California Augusts, where water would be up to one’s shoulders and the goldfish would lazily swim by.

I got permission to use a garden hose to create a siphon, and once I had suction, placed it at the bottom of the sitting place, the other end of the garden hose yards away and down hill near a horse coral. All that I had to do for the next few hours was monitor the draining process. It went smoothly enough, including the removal of the barrier I had set up when corralling the drunk goldfish.

Finally, in the late afternoon, there was nothing more I could with a siphon, and the rest had to be scooped out by hand, using a bucket to put this in, and finally I got hold of some large rags. Each filled bucket was carefully carried away from the cement pond and down to the same place the water had drained out of the long garden hose.

Near sunset that day, I thought I saw a jewel lodged in a unusual kind of palm tree the Haydons had planted in the small island, in the middle of their pond, protected by the same concrete surface that had been cracking due to tree roots.

“Oh-oh!”

The prayer request I had made weeks ago came rushing back. I had asked to see physical proof of the existence of garden fairies, and they had met my request with what looked like a very expensive gift.

I waited until the large rags and the process of evaporation had the entire pond area dry as a bone. Now it was myself who was wet. Mostly from working up a good body sweat while walking up and down the long steep driveway in warm weather. I climbed back into the empty pond and literally crawled over to the island, and then, using the strange palm tree the jewel was lodged in lifted myself up to the level that the jewel was resting in.

There was a mixture of relief and disappointment. No, it was not really a large jewel. The relief was the near-paranoia that would have come over me next, worrying about what to do with it; the Fairies essentially saving me from myself.

Then bemusement. Despite the fact I had not spilled one drop of pond water as Mrs. Haydon had instructed me, here was a tiny drop of pond water nearly six feet off the ground, AND sitting in a leaf with a serrated edge, just as a real jewel might be held in place on a ring by a silver construct with a serrated edge, AND resting at just the right angle to catch the setting sun, causing the jewel like effect.
“A JEWEL FOR YOUR MEMORY” came a very loud thought.

But then, perhaps it was not a thought at all, but one of the Fairies using Clairaudience.

I turned around and sat down, weary but happy. My prayer had been answered. I would always have this moment; this jewel in my memory, and this also confirmed my earlier notions about Fairies as part of a Divine Order.

At the top of this, as expressed in the book of Genesis, God (as a plural - Elohim) creates heaven and earth, and later man and women in their image, after their likeness. How easy it would have been for the wee ones to ‘copy and paste’ a drop of pond water up on to that leaf.

Even now, years later, I am still moved by the fact that I was answered at all, surely a manifestation of Divine Love.

Use "Other Editions" to save money buying used books on amazon

2009-11-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

Amazon has a way of listing books such as to hide the cheaper books.

Here's an example of a book I was looking up today. The book is Essential Tibetan Buddhism, by Robert A. F. Thurman.

I did a search on Amazon "Thurman Essential Tibetan Buddhism" and got the following page: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=thurman+essential+tibetan+buddhism&x=0&y=0

If the listing has not changed since I posted this, you will see that the lowest-priced book of this title is a paperback edition for $1.65.

However, if you click on the label "Other Editions: Hardcover" at the end of that listing, you will see that you can buy the new hardback edition for only 11 cents!

So, when you are looking for used books on Amazon, be sure to check the "Other Editions" tag attached to some of the listings.

So far, I've not been able to determine what the logic is in how they decide what editions to hide, except that it seems to be the lowest-priced one.

How I Quit Smoking Using Auto Hypnosis

2009-10-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

by Gloria D. Vyne

I read a book published back in the 60's, called "How to Quit Smoking", or something like that. I recently went to AbeBooks, but it was not listed in the 800+ books they had on quitting smoking, so I can't verify the title or even the author. The technique the book used was auto-hypnosis.

Prep
Before I discuss the technique I used to quit smoking, I want to talk about what I was doing when I was smoking, because I think it made it easier to quit. One thing I had been doing for several years before I started this was rolling my own cigarettes. I smoked Drum tobacco, sometimes Top tobacco. One reason these are better than store-bought cigarettes is that they don't have chemicals that keep the cigarette burning if you put it down.

If I were to smoke now, I would smoke organic tobacco. The only brand I know that has organic tobacco is American Spirit. There are over 700 chemicals added to cigarettes; some to make the tobacco more addictive, some to keep it burning. If you switch to just tobacco, without all those chemicals, I think it will be easier to quit. I suspect some the addiction is to the additives, and if you switch to hand-rolled cigarettes, you will break the addictions to the chemicals without also having to deal with the tobacco withdrawal at the same time.

Plus, if you roll your own, the cigarettes are smaller, and the ritual of rolling your cigarette means that you spend less time smoking. My consumption of tobacco fell quite a bit when I smoked roll-your-own cigarettes. Plus, after a few years, I could hardly tolerate the chemicals in regular cigarettes.

Clearing your lungs
This has nothing to do with quitting smoking, but I think it's important for cigarette smokers, whether they are quitting or not, to do lung-clearing exercises every morning. It's just a matter of doing deep coughing, to clear the phlegm out of your lungs and nasal passages. Lean back and take a deep breath, and then use the force of your body as you bend forward and cough as hard as you can, without doing any damage. Don't cough so much you rasp your throat, but do a deep and thorough three or four coughs like this.

Also clear your nasal passages. You can get a neti pot, but I just put luke-warm water in a saucer with a bit of salt and snorted it up my nostrils, until I felt it in the back of my throat, and then spit it out my mouth, and blow it out my nose. As long as the salinity is normal, and it's body temperature, it feels fine.

Back to the story.
The first thing the book instructs the reader to do is write down all the reasons you can think of to quit smoking. I did not do this part, and I think its is one of the reasons it took me six tries to finally quit. It's possible I might have quit the first time if I had done this step.

Some reasons might be:
* The smell - not only on you, but on all your stuff
* The cost, in time and money
* The inconvenience
* Health consequences, both to you yourself, and to family members who share your air
* Social pariah factor
* Danger of accidental fire
* Bad example for children
* The feeling of self-abnegation when you realize how morally weak you feel, not being able to quit.
* Moral objection to strengthening corporate greedsters' wealth

Don't put in a time limit.
I remember this was the most striking thing about the program to me. He just said to trust to Spirit, that on the right day, you will wake up and not want to smoke. Don't say, "By next Friday" or "By my wedding day" or any time limits at all. And it was true - that's just what happened!

Visualize not smoking.
This is the key.

How do you visualize a negative?

Watch what happens in your mind's eye when I tell you, "Don't think about your left foot" You think about your left foot!

We are dealing with our subconscious here, which does not understand "NOT".

When you are instructing young children, tell them what to do, not what not to do.

Say, "Walk quietly.", instead of "Don't run".

Say, "Shut the door carefully.", not "Don't slam that door!".

When you say, "Don't run!", what does the subconscious hear? "Run!"

When you say "Don't slam that door!", what does the subconscious see? A door slamming.

So…how to visualize not smoking?

People will have different ways to do this. I suggest thinking about what your life will be like as a non-smoker. What good images does the word,
"non-smoker" conjure up for you?

For me, I pictured myself walking briskly outdoors, walking with big strides, shoulders back, arms swinging, empty-handed, and wearing clothes with no pockets. As a smoker, I always had tobacco, papers, and matches with me. I never went anywhere without them. Plus, I could not breathe in deeply, and vigorously for more than a few breaths before I started hacking. So, that image of taking a long, brisk walk became my visualization.

You will have to come up with your own image, maybe being in a fragrant environment, with a favorite smell you haven't smelled in a long time. It has to be personal, and it has to be positive.

Maybe you will visualize what you will do with the money you will have saved by not smoking. Whatever. Maybe you'll see yourself enjoying your friends in a restaurant after eating, rather than impatiently waiting to leave, so you can have a smoke.

Do the Relaxation Countdown
After you have your visualization, you can start the Relaxation Countdown. This is the core work you will be doing.

I did this at bedtime, in my bed. I went to bed earlier than usual, to make sure I didn't fall asleep.

I modified the approach described by the book - I was too high strung and nervous. Because this approach worked so amazingly well for me, I have to assume the author(s) had real success with this approach, even though I had to modify it, so I will describe the author's method, and then my own modification.

The book I was reading said to do a count-down from 10 to 1. That may work for you, it didn't for me. I had to use a more complicated system.

In the countdown, you are relaxed, either lying in bed (if you are well-rested and won't go to sleep) or sitting up in a chair or in a yoga asana position.

I didn't do the countdown from 10 to 1. Instead, I used my fingers to keep track of the breaths. The count-down is slow: one deep, slow breath per number - one exhale and one inhale. Make it as long and slow as is comfortable. The point is to be deeply relaxed. If you strain your breath, you defeat the purpose. At each breath, tell yourself you are going deeper into relaxation….deeper….deeper….more relaxed…more relaxed…. Don't think the numbers. The only thing to think is "deeper, slower, more relaxed" etc.

Press each of your ten fingers, one for each breath. With the first slow exhale, press your first finger and say silently to yourself, "More relaxed. Deeper into relaxation…..deeper… down deeper. . "

Say that the entire time you are exhaling and inhaling. Just keep telling yourself you are getting more and more relaxed. As you start each deep, slow exhale, press the next finger.

At the tenth finger, vividly picture the image you have previously developed of yourself as a non-smoker. Make it as real and detailed as possible.

I had to do a double-countdown, because I was too nervous. Before I got started, I told myself to do a relaxing count-down for each of my fingers. When I got to the last finger, that's when I would give myself the suggestion to do another count-down and finish with the visualization of myself striding briskly down the street, hands empty, no pockets, breathing deeeply. When I got to the last finger this second time, is when I would do the visualization.

That's it.

I modified the instructions from the book to suit my own peculiarities; you may want to do the same.

I did this maybe five nights a week. I would occasionally forget. I did not beat myself up if I forgot, I just did it the next night. The point is to deeply relax, and you can't do it if you're stressed out about missing a night.

Results
After a few weeks (maybe five, I can't remember now) I woke up one morning and did not want a cigarette. It was the damndest experience I had ever had, even to this day! I didn't want a cigarette! If it hadn't happened to me, I would not have believed it. It was like a gift from God. I went through all the withdrawal symptoms. My hands and arms felt big - not light or heavy, just big. My mouth felt funny, like it didn't know what to do, my whole blood chemistry was upset. It was very physiological. But it had nothing to do with cigarettes. I did not associate it with wanting a cigarette. I was disoriented. It was like having the flu - nothing to do but suffer through it until it ran its course.

My co-workers would ask me how it felt to not smoke, and I didn't really know what to say, because I was not associating these weird body feelings with nicotine withdrawal. When they asked me how I liked not smoking, I said I hated it.

Backsliding
After a few weeks, I was at a bar, and someone offered me a cigarette, and I took it, and that was it. All over. Bummer.

So, a few years later, I decided to try to quit again. I was so amazed that my subconscious had that much power. I never would have believed it if I hadn't experienced it myself. I wanted to see if it would happen again. It did. It was the most amazing thing. I just did not want a cigarette. After a few weeks of complaining about not smoking, I started again.

I really didn't think it would work a third time, but it did. And a fourth, and a fifth.

By this time, six years had passed since my first successful foray into the world of the subconscious.

Success
I re-read the book, and realized that one step that the author spent a fair amount of time on, I did not do. The author said you should write down all the reasons why you want to quit, so that after you quit, you will re-read that list. It's not enough to quit. You have to stay quit.

Of course! I was reprogramming myself to start! It was obvious, but I didn't get it the first five times.

So, I decided to quit once more, but this time, I would keep the auto-suggestions going. Every time anyone asked me about how I felt about quitting, I would say, "Great! I'm so glad I quit. It's the best thing I've ever done." And that worked! I haven't smoked since, and it's been over twenty years.

Every time I think about having a cigarette, I think, "I'm so glad I quit. It's the best thing I've ever done."

Am I still hooked?
One thing still to talk about, though - my dreams.

Six months after the last time I quit, I dreamed I took a puff on a cigarette. I could feel the tobacco going deep into my lungs. It felt so good. Then I was devastated. I remembered how difficult it had been to quit - it took me eight years. And I knew from experience that I could not take even a single puff without being re-addicted. I had started smoking again and I was grief-stricken over it. Then I awoke, and was so relieved to realize it was only a dream.

A few months later, I had another dream, only this time I finished the cigarette before that deep remorse set in. Again, I woke, and realized that I was still safe, it was only a dream.

In the next few years, every few months, I would have a dream about smoking. And in each dream, I became successively more of a smoker. After about six years, I remember one dream where I reached into my pocket for a cigarette about 3 pm, and the pack was empty. I distinctly remember that I had had three-quarters of a pack of cigarettes that morning, and I had smoked them all up. This was proof that I was becoming more and more addicted, and that I was lying about not being hooked on tobacco. Again, deep relief when I awoke.

But by that time, say between four and ten years after my last cigarette, my dreams took a weird twist. I remembered my dreams in my dreams,they had a continuity. I was living a parallel life in my dreams.

In my dreams, I was lying about the fact that I don't smoke. In my dreams, I'm saying that I'm not a smoker, but I am. It was like when I was a teenager. I started smoking at 16, but didn't buy my first pack of cigarettes until I was 19, I always bummed them. I figured as long as I don't buy them, I'm not a smoker.

In my dreams, I was living the same kind of schizy life, smoking, but trying to call myself a non-smoker. I even started beating myself up in my dreams for being self-deceptive.

I remember one dream, about eight years after I quit. Before bed that evening, I had been a little short of breath reading a bedtime story to my child. In my dream that evening, as I was arguing with myself about not smoking, my Smoking Self said, "See. You were out of breath, sitting on a bed reading a story. That's proof that you are still smoking."

My smoking dreams remember all my other smoking dreams, and I remember becoming addicted in my dreams.

I can't remember the last time I had one of those dreams, because they are a constant
alternative reality to me. I know when I am awake that I am awake, and not a smoker, and not dreaming, but when I am dreaming, I think I have a higher state of awareness, that maintains a history, as well. And time does not live in that dimension. When I forget my dream upon awakening, I forget to remind myself that it was only a dream, so when I comes back again, months or years later, it seems like a continuation.

So, now, I periodically have these dreams, and I don't know if it's been weeks or years since the last dream, but I am struggling in my dream world with the fact that I am a liar, and am sneaking smokes away from myself.

I have not a clue what this whole thing is about, but whenever I think about it, like now, when I'm writing this, I just keep saying, "I'm so glad I quit. It is a very powerful step to building a successful life. I'm so glad I quit. It was a great thing to do." And I repeat it over and over.

I've changed the part about "…best thing I ever did.." because in the intervening twenty-plus years, I'm really proud of some of my accomplishments, so I've changed my mantra.

But, I still have to reaffirm that intention. I can't let it slide. Although, I can't really think I would ever be tempted again. But, on the other hand, I wasn't addicted when I first started smoking, I was just curious, and I need to remind myself to keep my curiosity at bay in this one area.

Exploring 2012 Themes

2007-01-30T22:34:00.000-08:00

by Dorene A. Carrel

We are now past the Winter Solstice and it is only six short years until December 21, 2012, the year the Mayan Calendar is said to come to an end. I have been quite intrigued with what the various prophecies have said about the year 2012. The ideas around this period also interest me because of my long-term study of astrology. Astrology can be described as a study of time that is based on the relationships of planetary cycles, with each cycle having its own unique characteristics. Both astrology and the Mayan Calendar view time as cyclical in nature, as opposed to the more linear view of time that our current civilization has adopted.
What do scholars have to say about this 2012 end time? In Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, John Major Jenkins writes about a rare alignment of the December solstice sun with the Galactic Center in 2012. Jenkins further develops his theories in a more recent book called Galactic Alignment. Will Hart has written an intriguing article called “2012: End of the 5th Sun.” It can be found on Geoff Stray’s website, which is www.diagnosis2012.co.uk. In this article, Hart expounds on the relationships between the many cycles occurring during this 2012 period. According to Hart, the year 2012 signals the completion of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, begun in 3114 BC, along with the end of the 5th Sun. Hart said that 2012 also coincides with the next solar sunspot maximum. This means we are going to enter the flip side of a new 13,000-year cycle with an overheated earth resulting in increased earth changes and erratic weather patterns.
Author Steve Alten concurs with Hart that the Mayan Calendar has five great cycles, with the current one being the fifth cycle. His research, based on the Dresden Codex, finds that the previous four cycles have all ended in cataclysms and that our fifth cycle is expected to end in a great flood. He claims that the Mayan Calendar is based on science and has been proven by past events.
Some scholars, such as Bruce Scofield, take a more discerning approach and view the significance of the year 2012 as arbitrary. In a recent article in the Mountain Astrologer, Scofield said he believes that the winter solstice sun is actually closest to the galactic center in 2219 (in his footnotes). Scofield argues that the Maya had longer periods of time than the Long Count and concludes that therefore they must have expected time to continue. He astutely suggests that no matter what cycle we follow our consciousness will have to change if we are to survive.
According to Scofield and others, it is the specific alignment with the dark band of the Milky Way galaxy that will occur in 2012. He said the Maya called this place the origin point of creation and the pathway to the gods who dwelled in the underworld called Xibalba. William Henry, investigative mythologist and author, puts forth the idea of a serpent rope that will descend from this galactic center opening and the partaking of a substance called cosmic sap. He proposes that we may then be able to ascend and become star walkers.
One of the most intriguing possibilities put forth by one author, Carl Calleman, is the end of time as we know it. Another scholar, Jose Arguelles, has said it will be the end of history. It is hard for me (and likely others) to imagine how we can live continuously in the present without any reference to the past or the future. However, just because our limited minds can not conceive of this, it does not mean it would be impossible.
In a recent interview, Arguelles said he believes the Mayans were time travelers. He thinks they purposely shut down their civilization at a certain time and disappeared through time travel. This sounds both plausible and intriguing to me. But where did they go -- to another dimension or another universe perhaps?
Our changing orientation towards time is likely one of the outstanding themes of 2012 (at least for me) that could be due for a total transformation. And that transformation could start in the next 1-2 years with the alignment of Pluto with the Galactic Center, which first occurred on December 29, 2006 and will again occur during the latter half of 2007. Pluto is the planet of birth/death and total transformation on all levels. Pluto also rules the cataclysms that the Mayan Calendar seems to suggest are coming our way. Will our current life choices determine the outcome of this transformation?
How would we live our lives if we viewed time like the Mayans, as cyclical, instead of linear? Perhaps we would live our lives more by synchronicity and intuition rather than following the current world’s expectations. It is also prophesied that the world power center will move from the west to the east. Eastern countries put a higher value on the right brain (intuition) over the left brain (mental) functions.
I will conclude these opening ideas/remarks about 2012 themes with the hope they will inspire others to share what ideas are important for them about 2012. I’d like to hear comments from others who have read the sources I have cited in this article.

2007-01-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

A New Name for the Library

Welcome to the Seattle Metaphysical Library blog. This is a way we can discuss things that take up too much time in our bi-weekly staff meetings, and also that have a wider interest than just the volunteer.

One thing we have been talking about since the library's near-death experience in the summer of 2005 is renaming the library.

The library was originally called the Seattle Metaphysical Library before it incorporated as the AS-YOU-LIKE-IT Library in the early 1960s. When the Board changed its name back to the old original name a couple of years ago, many people thought that was a significant improvement.

But the discussion centers around whether we want to use the word "Metaphysical". It has connotations of looking-backward and high-status arrogance of the European aristocracy. The reason we like having "Metaphysics" in our name is that metaphysics can be stretched to include just about everything we are dealing with. Dictionary.com has a definition of "Metaphysics" as

The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including

the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute,

fact and value.

When we are talking about metaphysics, we are talking about the fundamental nature of Reality, of what we are as human beings, of how we, as humans, affect and are affected by the world around us. This affect is not limited to a narrow, Newtonian view, but encompasses how our world view affects us and our lives.

We want to understand, at a deep, fundamental level, what affects our world view, and our view of ourselves, because we understand that our assumptions affect what we see, and what we see affects what we get.

We understand, at a deep level, that there is a mysterious connection between what we think, and what we see, and what we get. This is not a simplistic "You create your own reality" pablum handed out like candy by so many New Age hucksters, as if the kids being hacked up in Africa created that reality for themselves.

Nor is it a comforting view of Karma, in which bad things happen to bad people, good things happen to good people, and we deserve everything we get, as a reward or punishment for behavior in previous lives. That is a nice, reassuring philosophy for the well-off and comfortable, but there is no reason to believe it is tue. A variation on the Law of Karma is that when we see something bad we can say, "Wow. That person must have been really bad in a previous lifetime, to deserve to be treated like that today!" I see the Law of Karma as having a high correlation with a stratified society, and people being complacent about extreme differences.

I find it distressing when I hear people use that as a rationale for inactivity. But, on the other hand, it is to important to live honorably and to develop a high sense of ethics - that something happens to people when they are always trying to get the edge on others. Something happens to us when we decide that we have a life of sufficiency, that we don't have to always be in a hard-scrabble sitation - even if we are in a situation of extremely low income. We know the importance of our thoughts, and our vision.

Clarity of vision and intent allows our creative intelligence can come up with better actions. So- back to our name. We want the Library to be more of a resource center, to be a place that people can have small group meetings, meet others of similiar interests, provide a space set aside for people to develop and hone their intent to widen their vision of possibilities.

We don't want the main focus to be on the books themselves, but, rather, on the community of high-energy people consciously striving to create a better world for themselves, their friends and family, and the community at large.

2006-09-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Seattle Metaphysical Library blog.

This blog allows us to discuss things that take up too much time in our bi-weekly staff meetings, and also that have a wider interest than just the volunteer librarians.

The library itself is in downtown Ballard, and you can see the address, open hours, and booklist on our website, www.SeattleMetaphysicalLibrary.org.

This blogsite is intended to talk about issues in the library, especially the vision of what it could be, as well as a way for people to discuss the subjects in the library with others of similiar interests.