Checkout a slideshow I made of the 2010 Gathering pictures. You can thank James Wong for taking them.
Category: 2010 April-Dec
Many Books
Posted Nov 21, 2010
Stephen brings up an interesting question, which is basically this.
Why do we need to have more than one life, or many lives? Wouldn’t it be better to just have one really good or interesting life and get it over with? For example, a good book is interesting if read at a good clip, but if one went through it at the rate of a crawl it would become boring. Therefore, it seems reasonable that we should go through life experiences in this world quickly rather than slowly over hundreds of lives.
First, let me point out that the analogy here is somewhat incomplete. Our whole existence on the material plane is not like a book, but each life is like a book. Consider this. How many of us would be satisfied to read only one book and then never pick up another one? The reader will have a burning desire to move on to other books, especially if the last book was a good one.
Many lives does not mean stretching one story for a much linger period, but it means that each of us lives through many stories. Some of the stories are interesting and some are so so, just like books we read in real life.
It is true that we live many lives before we become enlightened but that doesn’t mean that those lives are without meaning. Many such lives are very interesting and provide a wealth of experience to savor during the great pralaya. When enlightenment is achieved the life just takes another turn and new things fascinate the pilgrim as he continues his journey.
There are many more good arguments for reincarnation than against it.
One of the best ones is that without it those who die as children would forever be denied the knowledge of what it is like to live a full life.
Then those who do live full length lives die feeling that many desires have not been fulfilled and many accomplishments have not been achieved.
Here is a mystery revealed for you to ponder on. We do not have rebirth in the universe because God designed it that way. It exists because it is the only way for creation to be and the life therein to grow and develop. God and his reflections have to accept this principle as they participate in creation.
We have before us eternal lives on eternal worlds – worlds and universes without end. One life in some static finished situation for eternity would drive us crazy. Who wants to read The Wizard of Oz again and again forever, even though it is a good book? The only way to continue on the path of joy is to be born again and enter again and again a new kingdom of God with new challenges and a new story to write for ourselves.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey
Seasteading
SEASTEADING
Posted Nov 10, 2010
I did a little searching to see if much was new in seasteading – the idea of building cities on the sea. No major advances have been made but I did find a synopsis of projects attempted in the past. Thought the group may find this of intreats.
Attempted Projects
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them, and so we have studied what little material exists about attempts at seastead-like ventures. We find some of the following quite illustrative. Note that the distinction between “attempted” and “proposed” (the next category) is somewhat arbitrary. Since most nation-founding attempts don’t get past the drawing board, our standards for what constitutes an attempt are fairly low. Also, some of these attempts are still ongoing.
The Freedom Ship
The Freedom Ship [FreedomShip] is a proposal for a mile long “City At Sea” for 40,000 people. The chief architect is an engineer named Norman Nixon. The folks working on this one have managed to generate an extensive amount of press coverage (including Popular Mechanics and the Discovery Channel) and enlist dozens of volunteers. Construction cost, unfortunately, is in the neighborhood of ten billion dollars. While the large size makes the idea newsworthy, it also makes financing extremely difficult. This is especially true when ResidenSea, which was approximately 1/40th the cost, could not sell all its units. It seems fantastically unlikely to us that anyone will finance such a large project until smaller ones have demonstrated that the floating condo concept is viable.
Indeed, no signs have yet been seen of this staggering sum, although the company has built an 11-foot long, 400 pound model, which puts them well ahead of the average project. A lack of transparency has been notable from the beginning, with interested but skeptical people complaining that their criticisms have all been deflected or ignored [Patri_FS]. However, rumour has it that they’ll soon be selling copies of the huge amount of design work they’ve done. Only time will tell whether they can raise the funds for this gigantic project. While we are rather skeptical that it reach fruition in its current form, we would be delighted to be proven wrong.
Aquarius Project
Another well-publicized venture during the 1990’s was the Aquarius Project, based on the book The Millenial Project by Mashall Savage [Savage1992]. An organization was created called the First Millenial Foundation, which later changed its name to the Living Universe Foundation. Savage proposes building many large floating cities out of hexagonal cells made from a material called Sea-crete or alternatively Seament. They would be powered by OTEC generators, which operate on the temperature differential between surface and deep water. Income comes from mariculture, hydrogen, magnesium, and several other sources. Actually, only the first 100 pages of TMP are about Aquarius, and the remainder discusses the remaining 7 stages necessary to begin colonizing the galaxy. This is an excellent example of the viewpoint that ocean cities are a stepping stone to space colonies.
Unfortunately, while the book is stuffed full of technical information, the basic ideas behind Aquarius are at the very least ahead of their time. They may even be inaccurate. We discuss the flawed calculations behind seacrete [Seacrete] and the currently nascent state of OTEC [OTEC] in more detail later, when explaining why those technologies are not currently part of our plan. In addition, Savage is overly ambitious, focusing on huge cities without any plan for starting with small ones. Unsurprisingly, without prototypes to demonstrate that the ideas were sound, there was not enough interest to build an initial Aquarius settlement.
Minerva Reef
A seamount is a not-quite island, an underwater mountain without enough oomph to make it to sea level. Like land, seamounts are geographically stable but politically problematic. They can act as breakwaters if they’re close enough to the surface, which is quite useful since waves are one of the major dangers of the ocean. Also they can function as anchoring points or pillar foundations. However if they are raised above sea level, they are vulnerable to claim by land-based jurisdictions, as happened with the Minerva Reef. Since this incident exemplifies the reasons why free-floating sea structures are better politically, we will recount it here.
Michael Oliver, a Las Vegas real estate millionaire, made several nation founding attempts. At one point he focused on the Minerva Reefs, 260 miles southwest of Tonga, which were conveniently outside the territorial waters of any nation and below water at high tide. Quite large, they seemed perfect as a foundation for a new, sovereign territory. His plan was to build them up with sand and create a new island and a new country, and he hired dredges from Australia in 1971. After six months, he proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Minerva, which issued coins.
The only reaction he got was from the Kingdom of Tonga, Minerva’s closest neighbor. A box of supplies was dropped on the new land which said “supplied and maintained by the government of Tonga”, an action said to be supported by other nations in the area. His Majesty then ventured to Minerva with a gang of convicts and a four-member band. They planted the Tongan flag, played the Tongan national anthem, and claimed the sandy patch for Tonga. After they left, the forces of nature did their work, and the sand of Minerva returned slowly to the ocean from whence it had sprung. [Strauss1984 pp. 115-117].
This is a classic example of the lengths to which nations will go to preserve their cartel status – even a worthless patch of sand is seen as competition. If a new nation is created on land (no matter how small or undesirable), it is likely that the nearest traditional nations will claim jurisdiction. It may be possible to negotiate a treaty, but that is likely to be expensive and prospective nation founders are unlikely to have much to bargain with.
The Isle of Roses
The short-lived Isle of Roses offers another excellent example of the antipathy with which countries view nearby nation-founding attempts. As Strauss explains:
Giorgio Rosa was (or is) a professor of engineering in Bologna, Italy. In the early 1960’s, he built a tower in the Adriatic Sea, in water less than 20 feet deep, about 8 miles off the coast of the Italian city of Rimini. This first tower was wrecked by a storm on February 13, 1965. A new one was built, with an area of about 4,000 square feet. It had a bar, a restaurant, a post office, a bank and a store, all surrounded by a promenade. The Italian authorities took no notice (since they only claimed 3 miles from shore as their territorial waters) until May 1, 1968, when the platform was declared to be an independent republic, whose official language was the artificial one Esperanto. The Italians invaded 55 days later, speaking vaguely of such things as “national security, illegality, tax avoidance, maritime obstruction and pornography.” In the spring of 1969, Italian Navy frogmen dynamited the structure. At last report, Rosa did not plan to try again, saying darkly that “This country is all Mafia.”
Mafia or not, this illustrates the extent to which existing countries are willing to brush aside written law if they think a new-country project has the potential to seriuosly inconvenience them.
[Strauss1984, p 129-130]
Cortes Bank
Another brief example of the greed of traditional nations relates to the Cortes Bank, which lies off the coast of San Diego:
The USS Abalonia was a concrete cargo ship, constructed for the purpose of becoming an independent nation. The company which built it hoped to anchor it in rich shellfish beds on the Cortes Bank, 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, and claim jurisdiction over the area. Shortly after the Abalonia’s launch in 1969, it foundered and sank, nearly killing the crew. In the wake of the Abalonia fiasco, a second company began plans to build a platform on the Cortes Bank and declare it the nation of Taluga. The US government quickly gave notice that the Cortes Bank, as part of the continental shelf, fell within its jurisdiction.
[FootnotesToHistory]
Laissez-Faire City
This Ayn Rand-inspired project began as an attempt to found a modern-day Galt’s Gulch. The organizers placed a declaration of sovereignty and request for a host nation in several high-profile publications, including The Economist (6/10/95, 8/12/95). Media such as the London Times and BBC World Radio covered the story, and 3000 people from 108 different countries contacted the founding Trust.
Unfortunately, the response from potential sites was less enthusiastic. The principals followed several leads without finding an acceptable locations (although their standards may have been a bit high – the shallow shoals which LFC turned down would be more than sufficient for our purposes). With no land in sight, LFC transitioned to seeking freedom in cyberspace, developing tools for digital freedom.
Eventually, due to personality problems and poor business practices stemming from one of the founders and major financers of the project, LFC was dissolved. Their early experiences exemplify two of our claims about nation founding: that there is a large potential market, and that it is extraordinarily difficult to get sovereignty from existing nations.
Celestopia
Their webpage states:
Dedicated to creating ecologically balanced, floating ocean communities and terra-formed, permacultured islands, grown from the mineral-rich waters of the tropical oceans. We wish to share our creations and technologies to help expand the unity, prosperity and quality of life, of all the people of Earth.
This currently active project is based in Costa Rica, and the fact that its principals were willing to relocate there suggests that they are serious. Their website contains a timeline, including the steps they have completed. They are currently in the stage where they are beginning to need financing, which is a very difficult time for any project. While they pitch the seacrete + OTEC combination which we later debunk, they also acknowledge that seacrete is not ready for prime-time yet and plan to start with ferrocement. Their designs are partly based on the Monolithic Dome Institute [MDI], which is another good sign, as the MDI has helped construct hundreds of concrete domes. They believe, as do we, in teaching by example rather than rhetoric. Unfortunately they seem to be looking mainly to donations for initial funding. It seems to be the most mature environmentally motivated project.
Sealand
The Principality of Sealand [Sealand] is arguably the most (perhaps the only) succesful new-country project in recent history. It was founded in 1967, when Roy Bates, a pirate radio operator, moved into an abandoned WWII anti-aircraft platform called Rough’s Tower. The platform was located about 7 miles off the British coast, which was then in international waters.
Several incidents have supported the Principality’s claims of independence. Sealand fired warning shots at a nearby repair boat, who took King Roy to court over the matter. The ruling was that the tower was outside of the court’s jurisdiction. Later, some German men briefly seized the platform by force, and were captured in a helicopter raid. One was kept as a prisoner for several weeks, during which period the German government appealed to the British government for help. However, the British Foreign Office said that the tower was beyond their jurisdiction [Strauss1984, p. 132-138].
More recently, Prince Roy has retired, and Sealand was leased to a company called HavenCo [Havenco] for several years as a data haven. Unfortunately, the experiment was ended in 2003 because of worries about the country being blamed for aiding terrorism. There have been suggestions of expanding Sealand by damming off and then draining an area around it. It will be interesting to see if this upstart country can continue to maintain its independence, and whether it can turn sovereignty into business opportunities.
http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/commented/paper/review.html#Freedom_Ship
Also check out the home page at:
http://seasteading.org/
Copyright by J J Dewey
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Why Are We Here?
Posted Nov 12, 2010
Dennis writes:
I have a hard time believing in “The Dark Brothers”. As I get older I find I am not believing everything I’m taught or told anymore.
JJ
It is certainly not good to believe anyone just because they teach a thing but finding and observing people who work in darkness is an easy thing to do.
I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they do not believe in dark brothers, but to them I say – look around. What do you see with your own eyes? There are people shrouded in darkness all over. Take Kim Jong Il, for instance, who allows no freedom in his country of North Korea and will imprison or execute anyone who shows a peep of independence. Then Hitler, Stalin and Mao are other obvious examples. These murdered and tortured many millions.
The auras of people, which can be seen with a little training, show a great difference in light. Some people are actually surrounded with literal darkness and others are bright and radiant.
I have seen the truth of this scripture:
“But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matt 6:23
If there are workers of darkness on this side of the veil then they must also exist on the other side as noted in the scriptures.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Eph 6:12
“High places” is not an accurate translation as it comes from the Greek EPOURANIOS which means “heavenly or celestial realms.”
So here Paul was telling us that we fight against enemies in the heavenly or spiritual realms as well as “rulers of the darkness of this world.”
Dennis:
I read Max Skousen’s works before I discovered you, JJ. Max’s main teaching is, We were God’s in the pre-existence and we are here to learn what it’s like not to be God. I really believe that.
JJ
I’ve heard this teaching a lot, not only from the LDS but also many new agers and it has never made sense to me. If this was our purpose then our next step should be to become an insect so we could live a life that is not human to discover what it is like to not be human.
Ask yourself – being a human – do you want to become an insect so you can see how good you now have things? Yet many believe we were once Gods and were further above humans than we are the insects and we came down here just to discover an appreciation for being gods.
I do not need to become an insect to discover how much better it is to be a human, neither do I need to become a human to discover how great it is to be a god.
The real joy for all life comes from growth and accomplishment and as we grow from one point of consciousness to another there is joy.
We were one with God in the beginning as we are technically one with him now but we came here for growth, experience and joy rather than to just gain an appreciation of what we were in the past.
Dennis:
However, Max did not believe in reincarnation. Then I read your book, Eternal Lives and that made sense. If I’m not mistaken, I got from your book that we started our progression on some lower life and in each life thereafter, we made progression upward until we come unto this life. Maybe we all lived evil previous lives like Hitler, or Sadam Hussain and observed those lives like Max taught.
But we progressed up. Paul says in Colossians Chapter one that the mystery is, Christ in you the hope of glory. In that same chapter it says that Christ reconciles all things unto himself. Sometime in eternity Christ reconciled me, a thing, unto himself.
JJ
We all have within us the soul, a link with God, which is the Christ Principle so technically this is true.
Dennis:
Therefore I do not believe that God creates failures like the dark brothers. Right now I do not believe that one can get so low that one can not repent and come back sometime in eternity.
JJ
Yet God created Hitler and he was a big failure.
We are reflections of god so if we want to understand God we must examine ourselves. Are the creations of humans perfect?
No.
Do our creations need a lot of work to become perfect?
Yes.
Are God’s creations perfect?
No. There is not a perfect planet, moon, human, dog or crystal.
We are not here to obtain joy from being perfect but by accomplishment.
The word perfect in the Greek when referring to god and Jesus means to finish a work. Perfect as religion uses it today’s was a word embraced by the Pharisees.
Dennis:
The reason I have these questions is when I had my baptism of fire experience I was shown two main teachings. The first was that Christ loves me a rude and crude person not matter what. He forgave me all my sins. The second was that all people are perfect and that salvation is free and cannot be earned. Therefore I am not to judge anyone.
JJ
It’s quite possible you received a correct impression but are not seeing the whole picture. Our souls that link us to God are relatively perfect, but we have free will and can sever that link if we so choose. Once this is done then the life of God is lost and the entity has to lose his progression and start over again in the far future.
But even the dark brothers will eventually progress back to oneness with god so one can say that in the end of the great cycle of cycles that relative perfection will be attained by all.
Then a new cycle shall begin and we will create even greater problems to solve so our intelligence can expand even more.
Dennis:
How do I deal with both your teachings, Max’s teachings and the spirit’s teachings which seem to have 3 different teachings?
JJ
Don’t worry about what either Max or I say. Just go with what feels right with the spirit within. If you are pure in heart and in error the error will be discovered and corrected.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey
Preparation
Posted Nov 17, 2010
Blaine writes:
So my question to you JJ (and others) is how do we give others hope that it won’t be the end of the world and to look to a bright new future? It won’t be without some pain however how do we make it into a positive when we do feel the pain?
JJ
Before the Y2K scare and then the Planet X I received a number of voices of concern and I assured them that no major calamity was forthcoming. At that time my concern was so low that I stored no food and made no emergency preparations for calamities.
This time around I am not so confident as this tremendous borrowing we are doing is driving us over a financial cliff unless something is done. No matter how you look at the current situation the fact is that we are going to have some tough times to endure. At best we will have a couple years of high unemployment and tough financial times and at worst we could have a collapse of the currency not only here but in many parts of the world with China being the only major nation holding things together.
Unfortunately, I cannot give you the hope that things will be easy, but I will offer this hope. Even though things may get tough the pure in heart will make the best of the situation and those who live by the highest they know will reap many rewards of the spirit.
The world is not going to end and whatever happens will serve to teach us important lessons that will serve to put a more workable system in place – maybe not immediately but after the dust settles.
I do not believe we are approaching apocalyptic conditions for if we were a way of escape and a gathering place would be prepared. I think we are just headed for more tough times and should do our best to prepare. Now’s a good time to store up some extra food and get some emergency heat ready. If a wood or pellet stove is not practical for you get a propane heater that is safe for indoor use. A back up generator is also a good idea and propane is better than gas because it stores indefinitely.
That said I think we are going to pull through this awkward situation we are in and learn some lessons from it.
As far as doomsday thinking goes this has been around since I remember and the doomsdayers have always been wrong. Unfortunately, our economy faces a real threat this time but if leaders arise and point us the right direction the nation can be revived and thrive again.
The time of opportunity for the lights to create great change has not quite arrived but the day is no so far off. The hard times are making people more open for the messages to come.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey
Prime Directive
Posted Nov 22, 2010
Steve clarifies his questioning:
I would suggest that far more prayers go unanswered than they are answered, and that for me is where so much of the frustration lies. Eventually, one is going to tire of asking. I do not ask questions flippantly, I ask only when I want to know something that I think is necessary. If I blanked my children as much as our Higher Selves blank us then I wouldn’t consider myself to be a good parent. If our Higher Selves do not know something, then let them speak, let them say “I do not know”.
Maybe if the communication channels were a little more open, and a little more trust was given concerning knowledge, then perhaps there would be a little less suffering for all and we wouldn’t need the 600 year holiday between each incarnation.
JJ
Let me summarize your question to see if I understand correctly. It seems logical to you that the Masters, Higher Lives and our own Higher Self should be more interested in helping us out a little and communicating more directly and consistently with us. If they really wanted to help it would seem that they wouldn’t make us jump through so many hoops to get a little assistance.
I’ll make a few comments on this trend of thought.
This thinking is correct if we are talking about physical to physical help, but we are not. Instead we are talking about assistance that must be given through the soul of the person involved.
Now there was a time when the guides of the race walked among us and helped us on the physical level. This was necessary because even the highest among humanity was not soul conscious to much of a degree. Therefore, if the higher lives were to assist humanity at all it had to be on the physical plane.
At that time the human teachers could just ask the Masters (who they called gods) whatever question they desired and they received some kind of answer. It wasn’t always a complete answer, but it was something at least.
Then the Masters made a mistake and they helped too much. This caused a negative effect comparable to the story of the person who helped the butterfly escape from its cocoon and killed it because the butterfly needed to participate in the struggle of escape to survive.
Partially because of too much help the late great civilization of Atlantis was destroyed. After this the Masters contemplated their work and determined that they must be more careful in giving out help. They must assist just the right amount and not too much if humanity is to survive another cataclysm.
After civilization sprung up anew they helped again on the physical plane as related in Bible stories, but much less than they did before. Then came Jesus Christ and opened the door to soul contact for the masses. As disciples become sensitive to the soul the door was shut as much as possible to physical on physical help. It was determined that humanity would advance at the fastest rate possible if they placed their attention on the soul and the inner voice became the voice of God to them instead of an outside physical entity.
This has several disadvantages. The main was that very few people as of yet have consistent soul contact. But it has one overwhelming advantage and that is humans are forced to stretch themselves spiritually and seek the inner voice so they can become one with God in their own right.
When a critical mass of humans reach soul contact then the earth will no longer be in danger of destruction. We will then become one of the few planets to have achieved the station of progress where we can move ahead and eventually become cultivators of other planets and assist in a greater creation that is in its infancy in this universe.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey
Cayce and Wilcock
Posted Dec 3, 2010
Sarah writes:
A friend of mine sent me a link to these youtube videos of a seminar given by a man named David Wilcock at The Conscious Life Expo in San Francisco in Spring of 2008. I find it to fit in nicely with the ‘puzzle’ (at least the one I have been driven towards) so to speak and he answered some questions I had been pondering within myself concerning OBE’s. I wanted to know what the Keysters thought. He claims to be the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce.
The 2012 Enigma (There are 10 parts, here is part 1)
Click here for video
JJ
I came across this guy (David Wilcock) a number of years ago and wasn’t impressed at the time. It seemed his only desire was to prove he was Edgar Cayce reincarnated.
I figured he was just one more person wanting to be someone famous without earning the fame.
I was pleasantly surprised at watching the video to see Wilcox giving a very intelligent presentation outside the real of claiming to be Cayce. Even though the presentation raises more questions than it answers it is well worth watching.
I do not know if Wilcock is Cayce or not but at least he is probably as intelligent as him.
Speaking of videos I found one that is very interesting about the moon – giving evidence that intelligent life was once and maybe still is there. This is in 9 parts beginning at:
Moon Video
Also this page gives an actual photograph taken by an orbital that shows the moon landing spot for Apollo 11. This should forever dispel the conspiracy theory claiming the moon landing was a hoax. Go to:
Apollo Landing
I decided to take a look at the charts of David Wilcock and Edgar Cayce to see if there is anything that stands out.
Probably the most significant thing, as the online astrologer pointed out, is their moons are very close in Tarus, about a degree apart. Also both have Saturn, Mercury Venus and the Sun in the most emotional and sympathetic sign of Pisces. Both also have Mars in Capricorn.
There are two ways to interpret this seeming coincidence. One could say that it indicates that David could have been Cayce because of the coincidental sameness. But there is another more logical view and that is this.
On any given day there are about a half million people born so there are many thousands of others who have a similar chart. Anyone with such a chart who studies Cayce will feel an affinity for him and if such a person studies him deeply he will feel a strong identification with him. This particularly applies to someone with a moon only one degree different in location.
When a person contemplates his own past lives he is likely to guess he may be someone who dealt with similar astrological forces as he is. That is not strong evidence that Wilcox was Cayce in a past life. Instead it is evidence tat Wilcock is drawn to Cayce because of emotional similarities.
A chart can give subtle evidence of a past life but astrology is a very weak tool in identifying or proving one. A chart is merely a description of forces that surrounds us and saying two people are the same because of two charts is like saying Jim and Bob are the same because they both live in Denver and deal with the same traffic problems each day.
It is also notable that a person’s chart will often be very different from life to life as the entity faces new challenges.
That’s not to say that Wilcock is not Cayce. He could be and it should be easy to prove. He claims that several of his friends were associated with Cayce. All he has to do is regress everyone who he thinks was associated with Cayce in a past life (including himself) and see if they can retrieve information that is not in any book but can be validated.
Another thing to do is compare handwriting samples. Whereas thousands of charts are very similar no two handwritings are the same. Unfortunately handwriting is usually not solid proof because it changes over the years as does character – but similarities will remain.
Susan wrote:
I was impressed how similarly his associates looked to Cayce’s associates. That
is one of the signs you have taught in the past.
JJ
Yes, I’d say that was his best evidence so far.
Actually, Cayce didn’t come up with much on his own, but in the trance state –
so unless Wilcock goes into the trance state he doesn’t have to go too far to
duplicate Cayce’s intellect.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey