Quaker Watch: Scary New Pitfalls As World Enters Singularity

Last Sunday, at Meeting proper, one person spoke of a deep feeling that the whole world seems to be entering a kind of ocean of darkness right now. She asked us all to sing verse 4 of the George Fox song,

http://quakers.nu/george, which many of us view as the core of Quakerism today. That’s the one which talks about ... the ocean of light... versus that ocean of darkness. It’s curious: as I google just now, to find the whole song on the web, I can feel a powerful real shiver up my spine as I hear the words being sung. That shiver... well, it is a shiver of real qi, of real “psychic” energy, not so different from when I first tried and succeeded with kundalini yoga in 1972 (the experience which led me to actively search the spiritual side of life) and from shivers up my spine which I sometimes felt when I listened to classical music on my stereo in Adams House at Harvard back when I was in my senior year, 1966-1967. It reminds me that I only posted the first verse at http://www.werbos.com/pi/Christianity.htm,

a website I need to update, since I have learned a whole lot since when I put it together!!

But back to that ocean of darkness, and a few urgent pitfalls.

A different kind of... shiver?... alarm?... adrenalin?... came to me just yesterday, when I hear of folks who want to Extradite Gulen, betray the Kurds, and even investigate Flynn for violating the Logan Act.

Those are a lot like the butterfly effect in chaos theory... ways to perform small actions which might well send us to a different basic of attraction, as in a pathway to extinction. What’s scary is that some of the folks pushing such suggestions actually know where they might lead, in the initial avalanche... but would they still do it if they could see beyond? Do they actually WANT the human species to be wiped out? I do wonder about that some times, because they do seem to be so dedicated and ruthless.

I have had great discussions, away from microphones, with many people including some of the concrete details of what’s been happening in Washington lately. Several times people asked: “WHY did they do such a thing?” I basically replied: “Hey, these are just the facts as I observed them. Objectively, that’s all I know. They didn’t exactly hand me a script of their larger plans, and what their real motives were.” Yes, I do have other information, but it only goes so far. (In the spirit of dead man switch, I have put some of the hard unique data up on a secure place in the cloud.) But WHY would Lamar Smith so systematically destroy the technology base of the US? And he is certainly not the only player in the game.  How much does he actually KNOW what he has been doing, and how much has he been relying on guidance from folks who have been using and confusing him? (Certainly Jeb Bush has been more in the latter category... and I remember clearly when “W” started to penetrate the veil of such illusions more than his brother did.)

At the Quaker meeting, in the “afterthoughts” time (immediately after silent meeting proper), I got up and said, roughly: “Like Georgia, I was already hit very hard and directly by the new ocean of darkness on July 14, 2014, and have been groping hard to understand its full dimensions and how to deal with it.

I think of the darkness as a kind of entropy (a thousand random ways to go crazy and die), and of the light as consciousness. Our hope of survival, of raising the light, is based on raising consciousness, raising the light we all share, and raising together as all of humanity.”

“Here in this rightly sheltered place (which we once compared to the excitation chamber of a laser, another place to raise a pure and coherent light)... we as humans still are at risk of the human weakness of equating the light to “us,” and falling into a kind of solipsistic narcissism, which is not the true light we need to cope with this new ocean of darkness.  We need to exercise our minds and consciousness; consciousness and the light do not come sheer passivity, any more than strength of physical muscles does.

“At this time, I would suggest we struggle with ourselves, by really trying a spiritual exercise.

First... try to imagine what you would feel and do, if God were to play a kind of great joke on you, and insert your mind and soul totally into the brain and body of Donald Trump for the next year (assuming he will send you back to your body at this time at the end of that year). What would YOU do, really, seriously and sympathetically, if you had to deal with the incredible mix of people and inputs (and memories) he must deal with, here and now? And then... it is like eating sashimi... after at least an hour of seriously thinking about that... cleanse your palate, and then, for the sake of balance, try an hour of the same  thinking of how the world and the future look to the supreme Ayatollah of Iran, and Omar the head of the Taliban. And then think how to put it together...”

That is very real, and to a small extent that joke actually was played on me... as I have noted before...

and discussed with my friend Yeshua, whom of course I am still in regular contact with. It reminds me of a Netflix series, Sense8, giving a great portrayal of the high vedantic vision of the Self who sees through many eyes at once... (and of Jane Robert’s portrayal of a more tractable intermediate Oversoul in her nice trilogy story of Oversoul 7)... too bad that season 2 bombed so badly.

But then... after meeting, we had a brief meeting of the Peace and International committee. I had ten minutes to voice my current concerns there. “My number one concern there is those folks who are still really hot and bothered and ruthless about pushing for a war between US and Israel versus Russia and Iran, as ruthless and effective and persuasive and dedicated and successful in generating hysteria as Cheney was in creating a war with Iraq. People like us and Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton... basically underestimated how effective Cheney and his backers in the Persian Gulf were in wanting that war, and how totally dishonest they were in shaping their phony pseudo-dialogue on weapons of mass destruction. And now they are doing the same thing. They know that Trump will not be such a pushover on this issue as “W” was, and that he will be willing to issue a primal scream if necessary to resist their opiates (as I did in the hospital in April when folks tried to push opiates on me!)... but they also have plans to emasculate or remove him from office, plans already developed when they expected Hillary.    (And yes, it was in the press how Lamar Smith joyfully led the FBI investigation into Hillary, using moles at the FBI who felt free to bully Comey himself, folks Trump really should have rooted out long ago for the sake of his OWN survival. I hope Comey will help him.)

I actually do have some of those plans from the Gulf, which I passed on months ago to folks who are said to be close to Trump, with the highest security clearances. But it is tricky, and even they might be somewhat influenced by folks who try to manipulate our egos and national pride...

And in fact, it is NOT a trivial matter to address the question: if an alliance with Russia against the Third Caliphate movement, to get us out of the “war with Russia” attractor, is the number one need for world peace, how do we actually make that operational? Of  course, hammering out such an alliance, and starting deeper progress on the US-Russia relation, is not a trivial challenge.   I say that being far more aware than most of what it takes to build a marriage of the complex core of US noosphere and Russia noosphere...neither being trivial spheres.  Both sides need to work a lot... and also need to focus, at stage one, on a couple of core issues, avoiding red herrings.

It may well be that the two core issues to begin with are simply Ukraine and ISIS.

In a way, an initial grand bargain might be true international enforcement and true adherence to what Kerry thought Russia agreed to on Ukraine, with more disarmament of Russian forces outside Crimea and protection of everyone’s rights (with UN support if needed)... with more US acceptance and support of Russia’s view of what it takes to destroy ISIS.

But on the second point... there are complex issues, and I am reminded (from discussions of other issues with my wife)... that sensitivities get to be really intense, and that there are reasons for sensitivities. The present Russian grand strategy in the Middle East has big holes; the Russians often view us as does a clever high schooler laughing at pompous and ignorant first graders, but this is a graduate school project they are stuck with, and neither nation seems to see the big picture of a viable way out. Which DOES exist. Ironically, there are times lately when I see some flickers of vision in Iran, of all places... despite the horrible sunni sharia moles there who want to make war... Clearly there is a positive spiritual core in the world of Islam which also needs to be cultivated in a positive way, to balance out the narrow negatives (narrow negatives which also exist in our world, as in Yeshua's words "lawyers! liars ! Hypocrites! when he addressed money changers in the temple.) 

As much as I should say even now in this obscure but open blog.

Three closing thought on this subject.

First, the current entropy... seems a lot like a singularity... not of the machine kind, though god help us, IT is part of it, not as Kurzweil would imagine.

Second, having a whole ten minutes, I also told the committee my view that there is an urgent second priority, which should be first for some folks.. on the cyberblitzkrieg front... requiring more unilateral but very different, new US action for now...

And maybe I just whispered the word “climate.”

On climate... I did mention elsewhere the risk that China might follow the path of some other emerging powers...  the joke being “Why start a war with US over North Korea or South China Sea, when US is on course to destroy itself much more effectively than you could in a traditional bilateral war?”

Others warn of China using Pacific Partnership to develop a new deal, which oppresses the working class worldwide even more than PPT would (as per the important criticism by Senator/Candidate Tim Kaine, whose analysis the Communist Party should pay attention to). If they really want to reinvigorate values they claim to care about, it would be better to work with Kaine and Trump to go for a new kind of deal, better for workers in both countries. Military confrontation with US over North Korea or South China Sea would hurt with developing such a new partnership to include such nations as South Korea, and Japan!! To co-opt Japan and South Korea in an arrangement to truly benefit the working class, the moral highground of developing it and “offering a place to the US” (as Putin wisely did to Trump in the Syria table recently)... would work well.. as, in addition, would be a new initiative to unite the world in trying out the technology proposed by Teller/Wood Caldeira to cool down the Antarctic before it is too late.

If it is wise, China will not attack Trump’s views on climate change. It will just ignore him (and try to avoid Trump-esque phrases about ignoring barking dogs). The Antarctic is under an international regime, and a set of nations has the power to do this without the US (inviting the US but not insisting). It is EXACTLY the Antarctic which threatens the very survival or all humanity. (See www.werbos.com/Atacama.pdf.) To be really  display testosterone and proper pride in a constructive (Trumpesque way), China could build a coalition which also offers  new job and sanctuary to Jim Hansen, who was retired from NSF; if Comey watches, he might learn a bit more than he already knows about the gestapo (ala fifth column of Moslem Broetherhood) which also is a threat to Trump right now.   My ulterior motive here is... the objective reality that we probably do need that Teller experiment to prevent a global disaster, which it is now too late to stop by other means. (Of course, I still support those other means, and hope we do not have to fly Teller’s proposed airplanes forever.)

Best of luck. We do need it...

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Since I mentioned Kurds and Gulen, I should at least mention some of what I know about the Kurds.

In the Middle East, it is well-known in fundamentalist Islamic circles that many Kurds are Yezidis, and that they are devil-worshippers. But bear in mind that others have said that Jimmy Carter was the devil himself.  By analogy, in the US about 30% of the people say that they still believe in Adam and Eve.

This is serious stuff. If Donald Trump now relies on support from 40% of the US population,
and that includes that same 30%... well, I do hope he finds a way to build new trust and new networks, fast! I still remember hearing from a very friendly and loving member of that community who overheard me talking about evolution, and broke in: "Paul!! Do you still believe in that silly old wives' tale that humans have monkeys in their family tree? Don't you know that that has been thoroughly debunked long ago?" Yes, she meant Adam and Eve... that;s how agitprop works, and so many people fall for it in so many ways...

Among my sources of information on Kurds and yezidis... most vivid in my mind was a trip (*Luda and me) back from Dulles Airport, after our trip to Chile and Peru, where we met many native people including a shaman who told us about their beliefs about pachamamma (like Gaia), pachatatta (like Jesus's Father in Heaven) and about apus (spirits of mountains, not at all logically distinct to me but unmistakable feelings and  energy). Our Kurdish cab driver was downright excited, and exclaimed how much his mountain people had in common with their unknown brothers in the Andes...

But of course, there are many other sources of information. Sufis and older cultures of many kinds have an important role to play in the Middle East )hopefully) rediscovering and recovering its soul from the rich oppressors who want to revive the Abbasid gardens where they play as others grovel...
and as larger trends erode the hopes of humanity surviving at all...