In this age many have questioned the viability of traditional religons.

Perhaps its time to return to a simpler religion that transcends the divisions of christianity, that stem from the reformation and other schisms in the church and can be used to bridge us to the values of today's society.

I offer the following information on this website as food for thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Christianity

With regards to Celtic Christianity...while recovering from a severe illness...I would take walks to ponder concepts, such as the trisection of the angle...I also sought answers to the pain and suffering in my life that I experienced and looked to god for sign...as I was walking I looked up and percieved a full sized figure protruding from a tree trunk...the figure looked like that of a man in a robe with a mark on his head...it looked very simlar to that of Jesus Christ and bore in my opinion a striking resemblance to the Shroud of Turin image as if it had been transposed to the flesh of a tree...needless to say this experience struck me to my core...I have included the images of the tree for viewing at the following website...the position of the image and the shape of the tree in my opinion all combine to tell a very moving story in a manor that is striking...

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/edwardchesky/album?.dir=/66d7&.src=ph

Hi Edward,

Celtic Christianity has always fascinated me. Here is something I wrote on the monks who wrote the Book of Kells, c. 800 AD, at about the time when Celtic Christianity and Roman Christianity were crossing ideas. I have the full
text at this page on the forum: "Scriptorium".

I won't give away the ending, but the issues raised were left unresolved, though we know which Christianity prevailed.

Ivan

Hi Ivan,

I liked your work...I feel it capures the turmoil of the age...with regards to the image in the tree...I will not release the location of it...I point to the crowds that appear when these types of things manefest themselves...In Tampa an image of a angel in a glass window was destroyed and the image of the Virgin Mary that appeared under an underpass was defaced....all signs of the age we live in...being of a scientic mind I run analysis of these type of things and correlate them to events and locations....this particular image appeared in a location that was central to the founding of the United States; our victory at Yorktown; is near my relatives and ancestors homes; is in an area whose history dates back to the early 1600's; and was the home to or visited by major religous, witches, freemasons and political figures including George Washington, Ben Franklin and other notables of the Revolution....I have compared the image to three dimentional images of the Shroud of Turin image and found a high degree of similarity between the two images....more food for thought regarding multi-dimentional interaction with our reality....I have run across this type of thing in a variety of forms over the course of the 44 years of my life...hence why I got into investigating Pi and multidimentional phenominum

My Best Ed

Just a link to a 3 dimentional depiction of the shroud of Turin

Ed

http://www.geocities.com/player2000gi/turin.htm

THE SEVENTH SEAL

Oh martyred sons of Islam, what is your gift to humanity? Where is your art, your science, your medicine, your poetry, your industry? What have you given? Where is your beauty, your peace, your humility? In suicide? To kill yourself in sacrifice, to kill others? What is your gift to Allah? Death?

Oh sons of Islam, look into all the holy books in JudeoChristianIslam teachings, to see the hand of Allah. Make no mistake, you are one religion. Where does God command you to kill? Is Allah not All Merciful? Then why are the writings fouled with rage, tales of wars, killings, stonings, harsh punishment by the hand of man? Who wrote this? Go through the texts and remove all the writings of man. Remove all the fears, the hysteria, hatred of your enemies, the vengefulness, all written by cowering fearful men. Read only the truth, the true words of God. You will find truth where it is written with kindness, with courage, humility, goodness, love, togetherness, wisdom, bringing all into unity and peace. Those are the words guided by the hand of God, those are true. Only true words of love and courage must you believe. Allah never said to kill the innocent. To kill the naive, the confused, the mentally deficient, who do not understand the Word of God, those are sins. When you kill yourself, you are killing the innocent.

Oh daughters of Islam, stand up for your right to be equal with men. Teach them from birth how their greatness is your greatness, together as one. You are not their slaves, as they are not slaves to other men. You are servants only to the greatest Love. There is no other way, for your equality as women means freedom for all humanity. Teach them the courage to respect women, to love them, to serve them, so they too can be in freedom, as you serve them. Then serve all humanity in that spirit, love your children, as equal men and women.

Oh sons and daughters of humanity, what are your gifts? Where is your beauty, your poetry, your love? Are these not the greatest gifts to Allah, to God, of the one great universal religion? It was said to Love one another. Can you not do this? Can you not find the beautiful harmonies of your soul? Do not give them the detritus of your lowly fears. Satan does not rule here. Rather give them the power of truth. Rise above your hatreds, your killings, your angers and deceits, for they are all horrors to God. You will still be forgiven in the Pure Love of Paradise, but your soul will cry in horror for what you had done, tears that will fill the seas of eternity. Is this what you wish for? To cry forever in the future Love of God? Would it not be better to seek that Love here, in this world, to be forgiven while you live?

Seek your true beauty in this world. Give love, find love, be love, for all humanity and all living things. To love one another is the greatest self sacrifice you can make, as your one true gift to God. Give your best for Allah, not your death, but your true inner love. If you are Jew, Christian, or Muslim, or followers of any of the great teachings, live true. You are the finest wine of Life. Be true. We are all in the universal Seventh Seal of peace, in humility on this Earth together.


In peace, a lowly messenger

To the messenger,

My Best wishes. I have walked in the world of Islam as a Teacher of Military Tactics and found the Islamic Peoples to be kind and gentle adhearing to the to teachings of the Koran...In your world, like ours, we have many extremists...Many will argue the face and figure in the tree is nothing more than random chance or nothing at all...I look to study the intereaction of the divine...multi-dimensional theory...in other words how the hand of god reaches out and interacts with his creation...from this type of study I and many others hope to gain further insight into the workings of creation...we for the most part believe that a loving God is trying to guide and teach us how to make use of his creation...to explore and spread his word among the stars to beings so different from us that we would have to learn no methods of communication just to speak to them...we hope that the children of the islamic world with their vast archives of thought, mathmatics, and study of the hand of god's interaction with creation will join us on our exploration of time, space and the forces of the universe so that, in time, we can go forth as brothers and sisters bringing light to a dark universe....

All My Best

Edward Chesky

During my study of Islam, I found many references to vast archives of data and thought that are in danger of forever being lost. The Islamic people during the height of Islamic society explored many subjects and recorded this information in their archives within the citadals of Islam.

Unfortunately many of these archives have been destroyed or at risk of being lost forever. Much of this work has yet to be publiched on the internet in languages that could be studied by the international community. The following data from this website discusses one such archive that is at risk of disapearing forever.

http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=119

Brief Description

Home of the prestigious Koranic Sankore University and other madrasas, Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its three great mosques, Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, recall Timbuktu's golden age. Although continuously restored, these monuments are today under threat from desertification.

Inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger: 1990
Threats to the Site:

At its 14th session, the World Heritage Committee inscribed the City on the List of the World Heritage in Danger due to the threat of encroachment by desert sands. A programme was set up to safeguard the site. The most pressing dangers called for the consolidation of the Djingareyber Mosque and improvement of the city's terrace rainwater drainage systems.

The World Heritage Committee, at its twenty-first session, held in December 1997, invited the Mali authorities to co- ordinate international aid for the mosques and the City of Timbuktu. The authorities are requested not to undertake major restoration work and new construction plans, which could modify the World Heritage values of the site, without previously informing the World Heritage Committee. A conservation plan for the Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia mosques should be prepared and the effectiveness and sustainability of the work already undertaken on the three mosques should be evaluated in co-operation with the World Heritage Centre.

Dear Messenger, salam aleikom.

You offer words of hope for us all. May we find the courage to be that peace, of the Seventh Heaven.

Thank you.

Ivan

Who can really say what the tree with the figure represents? As a symbol it cuts across all religous, political and cultural barriers. In interacting with his creation God sometimes sends signs that cause nations to tremble in terms of their simplicity and awsomness. Everyone who looks at that picture of figure in the tree see's something different. As a message it speaks volumes....is it a sign or nothing more than a simple tree virus that caused it to develop that way...regardless it is something to wonder about....

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life is an important symbol in nearly every culture. With its branches reaching into the sky, and roots deep in the earth, it dwells in three worlds- a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below. It is both a feminine symbol, bearing sustenance, and a masculine, visibly phallic symbol- another union.

In Jewish and Christian mythology, a tree sits at the center of both the Heavenly and Earthly Edens. The Norse cosmic World Ash, Ygdrassil, has its roots in the underworld while its branches support the abode of the Gods. The Egyptian's Holy Sycamore stood on the threshold of life and death, connecting the worlds. To the Mayas, it is Yaxche, whose branches support the heavens.

The tree has other characteristics which lend easily to symbolism. Many trees take on the appearance of death in the winter- losing their leaves, only to sprout new growth with the return of spring. This aspect makes the tree a symbol of resurrection, and a stylized tree is the symbol of many resurrected Gods- Jesus, Attis, and Osirus all have crosses as their symbols. Most of these Gods are believed to have been crucified on trees, as well. The modern Christmas tree hearkens back to trees decorated to honor Attis, the crucified God of the Greeks.

A tree also bears seeds or fruits, which contain the essence of the tree, and this continuous regeneration is a potent symbol of immortality. It is the fruit of a tree that confers immortality in the Jewish creation story. In Taoist tradition, it is a divine peach that gives the gift of immortality. In ancient Persia, the fruit of the haoma bears this essence. The apples of Idun give the Norse gods their powers, much like the Gods of the Greek pantheon and their reliance on Ambrosia. This aspect of the tree as a giver of gifts and spiritual wisdom is also quite common. It is while meditating under a Bodhi tree that Buddha received his enlightenment; the Norse God Odin received the gift of language while suspended upside down in the World Ash (an interesting parallel is the hanged man of the tarot). In Judeo-Christian mythology, the Tree of heaven is the source of the primordial rivers that water the earth- similar to the Tooba Tree of the Koran, from whose roots spring milk, honey, and wine.

This tree and its gifts of immortality are not easy to discover. It is historically difficult to find, and almost invariably guarded. The tree of Life in the Jewish bible is guarded by a Seraph (an angel in the form of a fiery serpent) bearing a flaming sword. To steal the apples of knowledge, the Greek hero Hercules had to slay a many-headed dragon Ladon. In Mayan legends, it is a serpent in the roots that must be contended with. Similarly, the Naga, or divine serpent guards the Hindu Tree. The Serpent Nidhog lives under Ygdrassil, and gnaws at the roots.

The tree as the abode of the Gods is another feature common to many mythologies; in some, the tree itself is a God. The ancient Sumerian God Dammuzi was personified as a tree, as is the Hindu Brahman. The Byzantine World tree represents the omnipotence of the Christian god.

Another form, the inverted Tree, represents spiritual growth, as well as the human nervous system. This tree, with its roots in heaven, and its branches growing downward, is most commonly found in Kabbalistic imagery. A similar tree is mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, "The banyan tree with its roots above, and its branches below, is imperishable." In Jewish Kabbalah, the inverted tree represents the nervous system as well- the 'root' in the cranial nerves, with the branches spreading throughout the body; it also represents the cosmic tree- rooted in heaven, the branches all of manifest creation.

Dear Edward, thanks for the pictures of the tree.

I must admit that in my more obtuse mind, it was merely a tree. But in some finer level of mind, I could see the image you spoke of. Whether it is our mind that projects the image, or the tree telling us something, is a mystery. I often thought that our mind in seeing, or feeling, or just being, influences some extremely subtle energies of reality of which we know absolutely nothing. See what I wrote, about the same time you wrote, on this page today: What do I really know?" How can we really know what our mind is doing in this kind of universe, to which we are but just now awakening? What great dramas lay ahead of us? I think it, like that tree, is wonderful.

Ivan

You are very welcome Ivan,

As to the image of the tree...who can really say what it represents...some of us see signs in the fabric of creation...I have always been of the artistic poetic bent myself...my skill as a intelligence analyst, like Dr. Nash, came from being able to see subtle patterns in data flows, using it I was able to break codes and rebuild WARSAW Pact war plans from fragments of data, drawing out them in graphic depictions that matched or exceeded the best computer technology and hosts of analysts could match...they formed the basis of a nuclear targeting campaign that would have destroyed most of the front line forces of the WARSAW Pact in a storm of nuclear fire from artillery, missile and tactical aircraft stikes...in another age I would have been in a monestary or tower in a castle drawing illuminated manuscripts or deciphering dispatches to unravel the machinations of princes...today I am back in school learning new skills..working on my house and garden...I have mabey 40 years of life left...who knows what I will see...should I see other things like the tree...I will post them here for you...random chance or hand of god the tree lies on the edge of a oval that is just short of a mile almost in fact the difference in terms of pi from being exactly 1 mile in circumference...it face the rear of ancient jewish temple and a church where Washington attended mass before Yorktown...on the edge of field where the men and women that have fought in every war we have had marshelled for deployment...and returned to sit in the sun after surving combat...who truly knows what it represents..in time the tree will blur the outlines and it will be absorbed back into the flesh of the tree...here for a moment then gone but not really gone...very much like jesus christ

Edward, I suspect we are all "a beautiful mind" when we allow ourselves the luxury, and thus become more Christ like. There are patterns of beauty and mystery in everything. I know this for a fact because if it were not so, only the mean and tyrannical would have survived. The fact that goodness and compassion have also survived tells me that there is more, and we are more lucky than we know. Was it Jefferson who said that he swore upon the altar of God to fight all tyranny? Thus is the duty for us all, to stand up and resist it. I sometimes wish that we sent into battle only the old, the seasoned, those who understand truly what it is we are fighting. But alas it is the young who have the energy, though not the wisdom, with which to combat evil things. I pray truly that some day none of this will be necessary, and that people all over the world will embrace a more Christ like energy than that of tyranny. Then the young innocents no longer will have to die for freedom, where compassion will be truly victorious.

If only it was so Ivan,

I watched waht amounted to children and junior NCO's with no understanding of culture or Islam violate the customs of Islam while in the middle east...out of ignorance,lack of discipline and a egoistic sense of cultural superiority...I suspect much of the trouble this country has had in the middle east stems from similiar problems...unfortunately it is the young who fight wars due to the fact that modern war is a young man's buisness....and requires strong bodies and fast reflexes....unfortunately by the time they learn what the old veteran's have learned about why we have rules, discipline, and religion many unfortunate incidents will have occured...like abu griab...and a host of others like My Lai in Vietnam

The Tree of Life symbolizes both God the macrocosm and Man the microcosm (of God). What a logically beautiful symbol of a person is the inverted tree with its roots in heaven. Our roots are not in the earth or physical but in the abstract spiritual planes, so a person's true growth is spiritual, from "the top", "root", Atman, Self, or Spiritual Consciousness. When a person's "spiritual root" is thwarted, or the abstract spiritual forces in them are suppressed, their true growth stops. The proverb "Fish rots from the head" applies. We are The Tree of Life and we are God in our collective spiritual essence.

The fruit of The Tree of Life is wisdom. The pathway to wisdom is a combination of two things. The first thing, knowledge, is, by itself, one of the most dangerous things there is. With knowledge alone, a person's "tree" is stunted; their ego grows apace with their knowledge and they become a self-aggrandizing "false God" with nothing to offer others. The second thing is Love characterized by compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. With knowledge one may know the reason for all things, including why certain individuals become monsters, unable to establish God's plan for peace and love for all in their lives. The basic answer lies in qualitative mathematics. Once we have knowledge of the reason for all things, it becomes part of one, and all our books can be disposed of as in Hesse's Siddartha. We are The Tree of Life or The Book of Life after all, and have all the answers within ourselves (read Self or Altman). The great characteristic of Love is forgiveness, which may be based on understanding. Understanding all things, one may forgive all things.

I don't claim to be wise. I think wisdom is more of a journey than a goal, because our (spiritual) growth should continue to the last breath. Wisdom cannot be taught; it can only be reached through Self-discovery; we contain "the full nature of enlightenment within" ourselves (Buddhist writing). There are many stories symbolically referring to the difficulty of attaining Wisdom and the ease with which one's attainment is lost. The Bible talks of the "straight and narrow way"; old and modern fables tell of perilous individual journeys through difficult passageways and high mountain paths. The only individuals who succeed on these quests are those with the greatest patience, humility and determination, seemingly "superhuman".

What makes us "superhuman" is Love -- learning and living the great and immutable spiritual law, The Law of Love. Love is the essence of our Reason of Being; it is manifested partly by following the Beatles' advice, "Let it be". The proud who believe that knowledge is power; that knowledge and individual will may guarantee their success are those who will fail. "Let life ripen and then fall, will is not the way at all." (Lao Tzu). The power comes from Love, which is God or Spiritual Consciousness Itself. The Buddhist Dhammapada relates how living The Law of Love is essential in its advice to have only loving, understanding thoughts for the robber who is hacking one's limbs off one by one. The Law of Love (and Forgiveness) must be demonstrated, or one may lose one's attainment both during life and after death, for our remaining mental energy goes to the relative mental plane it dwelled upon, most particularly at the point of death. To his credit, the late Pope John Paul II forgave the man who shot him; he had the opportunity to demonstrate The Bible's spiritual teaching, and he took it. The true person of peace will forgive ANYTHING because to them the alternative is unthinkable. A person of peace embodies Love, and "written in their heart" is the following: "indignation, hatred, bitterness and war stop here".

Lao Tzu related how the ignorant saw light as darkness and darkness as light. The alleged and symbolic man called Jesus, the "Prince of Peace", was a subversive because he taught The Law of Love. I am proud to be a subversive, and to speak of Love. As long as we are ignorant, the Universal Love of God will be regarded as subversive.

luxin
luxin729y@yahoo.ca
"Live unknown"

“I often thought that our mind in seeing, or feeling, or just being, influences some extremely subtle energies of reality of which we know absolutely nothing.”

Ivan,

Your statement on this subject prompted me to review some concepts I have been mulling over. Like you I believe in that it is possible to interact with a physical reality through the use of the mind. I have been very interested in this subject as part of my research into trans-dimensional phenomenon.

I believe that the Bible and other holy books document the phenomenon you speak of, hence my studies of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions. I also point out that during the Cold War we and the Soviets poured millions of dollars into research into this subject. It was an outgrowth of our research into the area of mind control and behavior modification, which in the West was grouped under the project known as MK-Ultra. It interesting that MK-Ultra was linked in itself to experiments pursued during WW II in an effort to match research conducted by the Nazis as part of their effort of creating a, “Master Race” of super soldiers.

Experiments in telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing and a host of other areas were explored during the Cold War in an effort to harness the energy you speak of, both by us and the Soviets. Data on the program is fragmentary. Most records were destroyed by the CIA and other participating agencies following investigations by the Church Commission into abuses of humans and illegal human experimentation by the CIA and DOD.

The program used drugs, (LSD in particular) direct brain stimulation, hypnosis and other methods to achieve an altered state of consciousness with the end goal of being able to allow an individual to the ability to manipulate, influence and or remotely view matter and aspects of our reality for national security purposes.

The program, from my analysis, did achieve some results hence why it was continued for almost 50 years from initial experiments by the Nazis with mescaline and meth- amphetamines during WW II. By all accounts the results were unreliable and unpredictable. Eventually Congress shut it down following a number of scandals. At its height the program overlapped with Project Blue Book, the US Air Force’s search for and investigation of UFO’s, and NASA’s experiments with telepathy on the Apollo mission. As you can imagine having a being with the capability to influence matter, like Uri Gellar was considered to be a high priority. The implications for national security were tremendous if the force could be harnessed and directed.

As to results, I suspect that given the length of the program, the vast sums of money spent and the number of records destroyed following the Church investigation that results were achieved that both scared the researchers and proved that they had crossed all ethical boundaries in their research efforts. What they found during those experiments will never be known, although, what they found, I suspect is what religion knew all along with regards to this phenomenon and why most if not all religions, Islam in particular, have proscriptions against use of drugs and occult practices of mind control and enhancement.

Unfortunately, while we have abandoned this practice, it appears those that we oppose, terrorists and a host of others are still employing them. I note that a number of detainees at Gauntonimo in Cuba have been confirmed to be drug users and a number of terrorists killed by the Russians had levels of drugs in their systems that were at or exceeded toxic or lethal levels. From my experience as an intelligence officer this indicates to me that AL Queda and its affiliates have continued in their version of MK Ultra, in an effort to turn out Jihadists and suicide attackers with enhanced stamina, no compulsion against killing or dying, much like the old Nazi storm troopers of WWII.

As we move into the future I suspect that we will once again be forced into exploring the area’s the CIA forayed into and with drew during the height of the Cold War. How we will deal with developments in this area is unclear at this point, however, I believe that the Bible, Koran and other Holy Books offers us guidance on the subject, something I suspect the CIA failed to take into account during its MK Ultra experiments. As to the future I suspect that as we move forward we are going to move once again into a Universe of Mind we left long ago and into one that our science fiction writers have been exploring for a long while. I have found the most notable author on this subject to be Frank Herbert, who I expect drew some of his inspiration from the Bible, Koran, MK-Utra and the current War on Terror.

Just some food for thought.

All My Best

Ed Chesky

Just a correction on the Apollo Telepathy Experiemntm it was not sanctioned but overlapped during the cold war with the CIA's work. All such data was funneled to the CIA researchers for use in MK Ultra.

Food for thought.

A telepathic experiment conducted during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 proved distance is not a barrier. The experiment was not authorized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), nor was it announced until the mission was completed. Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell conducted the experiment with four recipients on Earth, 150,000 miles below. Mitchell concentrated on sequences of twenty-five random numbers. He completed 200 sequences. Guessing 40 correctly was the mean chance. Two of the recipients guessed 51 correctly. This far exceeded Mitchell's expectations, but still was only moderately significant.

http://www.noetic.org/

Following his Telepathy Experiment Dr. Mitchell went on to found the The Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1971.

In that year Nations throughout the world had galvanized around the exciting frontier of space exploration. The potential for scientific understanding of our world seemed unlimited to a naval air captain named Edgar Mitchell. He was a pragmatic young test pilot, engineer and scientist; a mission to the moon on Apollo 14 was his "dream come true." Space exploration symbolized for Dr Mitchell what it did for his nation as a whole—technological triumph of historical proportions, unprecedented mastery of the world in which we live, and extraordinary potentials for new discoveries.

But it was the trip home that Mitchell recalls most. Sitting in the cramped cabin of the space capsule, he saw planet Earth floating freely in the vastness of space. He was engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness—an epiphany. In Mitchell's own words: "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes. . . . The knowledge came to me directly."

Mitchell faced a critical challenge. As a physical scientist, he had grown accustomed to directing his attention to the objective world "out there." But the experience that came to him in space led him to a startling hypothesis: Perhaps reality is more complex, subtle, and inexorably mysterious than conventional science had led him to believe. Perhaps a deeper understanding of consciousness (inner space) could lead to a new and expanded view of reality in which objective and subjective, outer and inner, are understood as co-equal aspects of the miracle and mystery of being.

After his safe return "home," Mitchell sought out others who likewise felt the need for an expanded, more inclusive view of reality. They resolved to explore the inner world of human experience with the same rigor and critical thinking that made it possible for Apollo 14 to journey to the moon and back. In 1973, this small group of explorers founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences—derived from the Greek word nous, meaning something close to "intuitive ways of knowing." (Dr Mitchell's story is told in the book The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds).