Epistemology

"Epistemology." Now this is a word used in some strata of academia and which is another one of these things that no one bothers to ever check. And so of course, naturally, everybody is sure they know what the word means.

Okay...

So if you want to raise the dead though, or walk on water, or heal the terminally sick - then this is the word you need to understand in depth.

"Life's Rich Tapestry" a modern work inspired by Mondrian

Can you - right now - do any of these things? Can you?

How 'bout you, doc? You - Mr Science-Man; can you manage at least some of that list? ...Maybe turn water into wine, at least? Seems simple enough.

Okay so just how do we get though, from 'espisteme' (genuine knowledge) to the word 'faith' in modern religions? Because the word used in all the books is 'pistis.' Which doesn't mean 'faith.' It means sound, factual knowledge.

Oh dear. Jesus did stuff because he had 'sound, underlying factual knowledge...(?)' Actually, he even laughs at some of the disciples who were not able to heal one particular young boy when they tried to mimic what he was doing, and he told them 'ah, but you don't have the underlying basis (about the particular thing being looked at) to have that happen.'

Hmn. 

You see we don't any longer possess such highly discriminated types of words or explicit meanings, and it is only with some difficulty that we may look at what it was more learned people of deeper times were on about:

Epistemology comes about from a branch of rhetoric, concerned with being able to have and to communicate the necessary elements to induce true judgement about something, and hence also to give proof of a statement.

So what is rendered nowadays as the word 'faith' (pistis) is really something quite categorically different, and with more a much more complicated and long-winded 'meaning.' And there is another word that bears some scrutiny in relation to this whole thing too: proseuxomai. In doesn't really mean 'prayer' like we use that word now - it means prosecute, but not prosecute in the way we use that word either (lol), which is that people go to court and make a lot of accusations and so on...

A modern art photo called 'Neon Life'

No. Proseuxomai means persuading by having (possessing) the underlying factual basis in the correct logically connected steps so that there is only one conclusion to any given matter.

Modern human beings then, you have to admit, from your present basis of knowledge now, are pretty stupid, are they not. You can't say they are just ignorant - they all have incredible access to information and historical references; and they should know better.

I think, I suppose, if we continue to look at the religious context and the vast highway of religious tradition - that the most obvious question arises as to whether or not people at the time actually felt that Jesus was literally or actually doing any of these 'wonderous' (Italian/Latin - 'mirare'/'miror') things. Because if he was and people there thought it to be so from what they saw, then he was some kind of 'futuristic, super-scientist' really, who 'understood the correct underlying basis' of things and was able thereby to manipulate elements of those 'things' in order to secure particular outcomes.

Now this then is a bit different to 'The Secret' and this present-era concept about 'manifesting through the law of attraction. There might not be any such thing as a 'law of attraction.' 

The presumption, of the traditional religious texts is that there is a solution to every given problem and somewhere, some day, somebody will discover it. Assuming Jesus is God, then He must know each one of those solutions. I suppose the only unresolved matter is how come He doesn't just give everyone the solutions so that everyone can solve every serious problem that right know we don't know how to.

Mysteries and Treasures

I sometimes watch with some mirth, videos about the Sphinx of Egypt and that kind of thing, and listen to all the speculation about what else is or was there.

For me it's all rather amusing because the one thing it reveals is just how little of any of the actual ancient texts from which people regularly quote, is ever really read by any of them.

In those texts there are crystal clear and detailed descriptions of what was there, and why. How come people don't talk about that?! Sure the texts are quite austere and complex in the Greek but that shouldn't prevent really intelligent people from reading them fully.

Maybe, okay maybe, just maybe, there has been some consistent plan down through the ages to hide what is there, from most people. And rather successful it has been too!

But what's the point, really, of knowing what was there, or still is there, and what is meant to be there, unless it performs some sort of contemporary function today? If it's just a burial mound or a memorial to a ruler, or some completely mysterious building whose point and purpose no one knows any longer because it pertains only to functions of past societies - then it is just a relic; very large but nonetheless just a relic and a ruin. Pointless to our lives as they are today.

A depiction of the Goddess 'Night' from a scroll which had an
ancient poem written on it

That is not, of course, the case.

Yet exactly what the thing is - the whole complex of structures - I can guarantee you that very few people really know. Some people have suspicions, and they draw on them to make allusions in public but they definitely do not know.

And that is the way it should be - great treasures lie always undisturbed behind thick mists.

Stephen Fry On God

The entertainment identity and occasional journalist, Cambridge man Stephen Fry, poses the straightforward question which is at the heart of all human inquiry into Cosmic moral existentialism - the question often termed 'the problem of Evil': 'How can a good God permit bone cancer in children, or the existence of tiny parasites whose entire life cycle involves burrowing into human eyes and eating them out from the inside making the victims blind.' And Fry adds, 'how dare he!' (In other words, how dare God claim to be Good when he creates or allows such pointless evil).

And so, we have at least established as an existential fact, to the satisfaction - albeit depressed - of most normal human beings, the reality of Evil.

Man in the rain of Stephen Fry's question!

Reality however, is the most elaborate of things. We, as humans care to know mostly, what our senses relay to us, and what intellectualizing we make from those sensations and feelings, and moreover we are positioned inside a fairly small perimeter of our 'now' or momentary consciousness bouncing off a very relatively small stockpile of memories from one personal lifetime, and the limited visions about the future, from our creative, imaginative mind.

Even so, Fry's argument is quite a fair one. There is no moral equivalency between some putative Being that has consciousness BEYOND the simple 'now' combined with limited memory and even more limited imaginings -, and the constrained consciousness of the human being.

And so I go back to what I also just said: namely, that reality is most elaborate. And even among those who recognize this fact, it is their own elaboration (means, 'presentation or explanation of their view') of why there is the presence of a grand Cosmic Evil in the material Universe of sentience (many sentient beings) while at the same time declaring the existence of a Good and Supreme Divinity, that trips itself up often, and becomes confused and unable to convince objective and discriminating people. 

Fry should know better, though, since he is a Cambridge graduate. He should know that Christianity, for instance, within its ACTUAL source texts in Greek, does not teach a 'Creator God;' it does NOT teach that God created EVERYTHING. The words 'In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth' are not even very close to what the actual Hebrew and Greek texts say.

'Ba Ra Sheth, Aleph-Tov.' And this means 'God contains (is 'around'/'surrounds') everything.' And there are very elaborate, more detailed and complete explanations of what this means to say and also imply, but we don't need to go into that here.

On a quest? Or after having found?

You see, I'd like to say just this to you: it may be, for instance, that there are aliens - Extraterrestrials - who have space ships parked on the Moon - like the chief engineers and scientists from the old Douglas Aeronautics (Division of Douglas Aircraft Company) are rumored to have claimed. And it may be that there are such things as a kind of Reptilian (Alien) species which advised Adolf Hitler and gave him some technology. These things are all 'possible,' within the concept of God being 'around' all other things. And it doesn't make either the Reptilians the source of all Cosmic Evil, nor does it make God somehow complicit in a violent struggle in the Cosmos between material 'armies' of advanced Alien species, some of whom are 'Good' and some of whom are 'Evil.' This is good stuff for Star Wars movies but it isn't reality.

Well, it isn't reality in the sense that it does not represent the 'Grand Scale' of Morality and Ethics in the Cosmic Universe of all things material and non-material. 

If you take a Sine Curve profile of let's say, all moral levels of things, all points along the curve, let's call it - then you are confronted with an idea that says 'everything is there; it's there in potential but sometimes it is also there as a material fact.' Pain is there, suffering is there, insanity is there, pointlessness is there too. Reality is multi-faceted and multi-dimensional; things exist, they cease to exist, and some come back into existence, others have great longevity, others yet, like certain ideas from Physics seem to be eternal. But 'everything could be there' is not the same thing as saying 'everything that could be, is there.' Yet again, even so, Fry's argument still stands in this way - why not 'all good' and 'wonderful;' why any evil at all? But I don't think human moral self-awareness is sufficient to quickly grasp any complete answer. 

You see - Sentience is one thing, but sentience with power is quite another thing. Human beings are forever on this path of hope - vainly, mostly, seeking some glimmer of hope that somewhere, out there, or deep underground even, there is power greater than what we have commonly speaking, and then then if we but might grasp that power, then we could apply the best of moral standards and use the highest ethics.

We want power.

Very few of these around - not lost,
but very 'distant,' and fairly isolated

Mankind is after power above all other things.

Now here is a word that I throw to you, and which is never used in religious discussions: 'Thuroros.' Now it's better for you that you find out for yourself, and to your own personal satisfaction what this word means.

But if you are able to locate a 'Thuroros' and are able to communicate with it, you will learn what skills are necessary to be able to master the power of the Cosmic Forces - and then you will be able to do anything. And yes Mr Fry, this means even you - but then, what will you do? And will you yourself not be motivated by the demands issued from your own ego? a la - worship me, for I go about the world curing all children of bone cancer, and saving the sight of African babies and old people. Or will you just go about doing it and telling no one.

We are certainly NOT alone, this I must tell you though, leaving the tongue out of the cheek for a brief moment. We are most certainly NOT alone.

If It Wasn't So...

I wouldn't say it.

So, yup. Bitcoin is something that took off - a lot.

I mean what's the point of someone like me continuously having to say things like 'told ya so?' ...I don't want to do that. It's very frustrating, not about having to say this kind of thing (because I don't have to), but to see the same inane critiques of something new, anything, really, by people with the same mindsets you will find among aggressive-toned, and actually aggressive, but otherwise fairly ordinary individuals. 

Bitcoin was always going to 'take off.' It had the numerical coverage in 'a' market and it possesses innovation that permits a certain 'ease of use,' and it has a function in the digital product marketplace for sure. It improves on 'standard' money forms and formats for the kind of new marketplace which exists, obtaining for a new type of product category. Bitcoin is a thing; it's a thing. 

Let's sell our Bitcoins and go First Class,
on 'Oud Airways.' 

So it's time to get over it and move on and not become fixated if at some point there are temporary and relative price retracements.

But you see, one of the things that is an issue, is that there is so much opinion out there, so much noise, in fact, that it becomes ever more difficult to 'see' anything clearly these days.

For me a current example of the sort of widespread nonsense and meaningless describing of things people don't really know about, but insist on claiming to be experts on, is oud. 

Oud is this wood thing that they use in the Middle East as a kind of household scent or fumigation. It's absolutely disgusting and yet clever people have been marketing it to the point that you cannot go to any fragrance counter anywhere in the world today and not find some of it, and at atrocious sums of asking money.

Okay some people might like it - I don't like it. It doesn't smell pleasant at all!

Why didn't 'oud' trade take off in England?
You know, back when Sir Richard Burton was translating
that salacious 1000 Nights And 1 Night (correct title). 

But the point I would argue is that you will find absolute gibberish and utter rubbish spoken about the subject, all over the internet and everywhere - television, in literature, in Wikipedia; everywhere.

What the bloody hell are they talking about?! You will interminably hear these descriptions: barnyard, skanky, earthy/woody (if you're lucky, they'll include that) - and then worst of all 'incense-y.' It's not incense-y. Some people do include it in incense sticks yes, but then incense sticks are in the first place not 'incense!!!' People are just taking, hiving off, words and names and applying them wherever they like.

And then another one - fecal. Jesus H. Muhammad!

We used to have this saying in Malaysia, about the dumb people - 'lagi bunghi lagi baik.' Means, the 'louder' the better, as in, the more blaring, the noisier, the more over-powering...

Yes, oud hangs around as an odor and you can almost never get rid of it, so, if you think paying stupid money is justified because of longevity, then sure, oud. Oud = Hillary Clinton! Must do.

See the thing is - and let me be direct here, even if there will be members of the dumb ordinary public who will hate me for saying this kind of thing: there's people, regardless of how much money they have, just plain simply do not know, and never will know because they don't come from the class that teaches them.

I have not seen anyone anywhere on-line - and I defy someone to show me - 'experts' telling you straight what this thing is indeed like, but not truly like. Oud is a fake thing, in a way, in that it is near to something significant, but it is not that particular thing.

But oud is extraordinarily expensive. Don't waste your money.

Here is the real deal, and why:

Even Wikipedia is all over the place about it - on the one hand it says 'attacked by a beetle,' and in the same paragraph says 'inoculated with the fungus.' Fungus? What fungus? 

LOL

There's fungus involved. Yep. That's part of it.

How about we shift over to truffles...

Ha-hah!

No one ever mentions that now do they, when it comes to oud!

Some aloeswoods (oud) some, not all, are a source of more or less penicillin, and it is used, and has been used, for centuries to render a cure to various diseases from infection. That is why aloeswood is important in ancient cultures. 

People who have never been raised around really big money society have no idea about truffles, and they make up stuff. Truffles are only very vaguely odorific in their natural state. People talk a lot of rubbish about truffles. The only time you will really become aware of the scent of truffles is after you have eaten the things. And it helps if you have ingested some alcohol into your body as well.

A depiction of the Arabic chemist 'Al Kindi' - Muslims
love to make much of this guy, except they killed him when he was
an old man! They don't put that in too many current compendiums. 

Truffles - why they are of interest to these olden days clever clever and rich people, is that they are like MSG once inside the human body. And yet, they tend to enhance only two things - the male chemistry in the male, and the female chemistry in the female. Fact. Take it from me. Like oud, truffle increases in power over time - unlike oud, truffle increases in intensity inside the human organism. Oud increases in intensity in the air, after contact with the skin. Truffles more or less smell like mushroom, like fungus, and a little bit antiseptic - oud smells just plain sickly awful albeit it does have a certain toxic, penicillin-like sense about it. Think old fashioned plasticine (therefore aliphatic acids), and possibly poisonous mushroom, and almond. Oud is really strong, truffle is not that strong. Truffle is a LOT MORE subtle.

There are secrets about how to use truffles to their fullest value. I have talked about it before, maybe a long time ago now though.  

Oud doesn't enhance anything in particular - it just stays, cloyingly, around. It is sickly, vaguely antiseptic at best, albeit alongside this unpleasant maybe cyanose, sort of vaguely almondy-poisonous odor with hints of something literally not too good. It isn't uplifting and it certainly isn't anything at all like incense. For incense you want to be thinking Omumbiri Myrrh, and of course, Frankincense. 

But - bu-u-u-u-ut - there are all these marketing places that will take your money off you and try to convince you oud is this wonderful amazing, blah blah blah, thing. It isn't. Forget it.

What you are smelling is the chemistry of ascomycota, a fungus which previously we all knew from the red colorant 'cochineal.' Except with oud it is related to a resin produced by the tree, as a defense against either the bugs that can infest it, or the fungus which can get into it. It's a kind of a gas reaction that is taking place that causes you to smell something, and for that smell to seem to grow and grow and also to hang around. Even cochineal is quite pleasant in a way, and especially compared to oud, which is not pleasant because of its strong hint of something poisonous about it.

Ah gawd almighty. What the idiot world thinks and does and behaves like... I dunno. SMH (Shake My Head).

Oud is certainly not an aphrodisiac. That's for sure.

Words Of Mystery And Magic

To the actual people who live there, 'Egypt' is not called Egypt, but Masr.

'Masr' is a peculiar, ancient word that few, even among the locals know the true meaning of.

Some people say it is just the word for 'city,' others 'civilized' or 'civilization.' While these are broadly true, the essence of its meaning is 'to blend or meld together as in a crucible.'

Egyptology in its formal suit, agrees that in the times of the Pharaohs themselves, the place was known as 'Km't.' And today, this is written and said: 'Kemet.'

Kemet is however, superficially merely a descriptive phrase that suggests that the land there has soil that is dark or black and thus, fruitful.

The real 'name' for the place is: 'Ka-Ra-Sar-Atnapishtim.' Or, Karasart-Utnapishtim.

A scene from the movie short 'La Legende de Shalimar.'

Utnapishtim is, according to the Sumerian legend or epic narrative, the only person to survive the Great Flood designed by superhuman beings to destroy the world and all of Mankind. He build an ark which protected him and this was eventually lodged on Mount Nisir. 'Nisir' though, means a place of seclusion or mystery, inaccessible, hidden. One of his future offspring, Gilgamesh, searches for some item that has the property of bestowing eternal life - which he eventually finds at the bottom of the sea.

The component 'Sar' can mean an Epoch over which a Cosmic 'king' will rule. This is the, let's say, phonemic reason there are such people who are called 'Tsars,' and also 'Caesar.'

So you can see that if you go by what I am saying, there is some vague similarity to this modern popular film - Zeitgeist's - ideas that have largely been taken from the books of Zecharia Sitchin. 

Today, these very ancient folkloric stories are used in modern marketing - of things like, for example, the House of Arabian Oud's premium perfume 'Kalemat Black Arabian.'

'Kalemat' is taken to mean in this context - 'words of magic,' and the word has the same essential idea behind it that the Greek word 'Logos' has.

'Kalemat' means: 'Spirit of Universal Power in the Material Realm.'

The word found on hieroglyphic inscriptions for the composition of some kind of special perfume made by the Court of Cleopatra - in modern times translated as 'Calamus' or 'Calaminth...' is actually 'Ka-El-Ma't.' Physically, materially, it describes the physical item ambergris, but also there is a philosophical dimension, namely that it engages a force in the mind that comes about through the harmonization of human thinking and ideas with sensations given rise to from the burning of ambergris. And these ideas are not human ideas...

The analogy is that of a plant growing, in a dark, inaccessible, hidden and mysterious Earth-bed, and which comes to life, develops, and at a point, bears fruit, having been given its energy to grow from the fire of the Cosmic stars.

There is nothing, that is available or capable of being made in the material realm, whose doors cannot be opened, and whose very existence not exploded into being - 'kun faya kun.' (The ancient Aramaic and also now the Arabic for 'Be, and It Is.'

Morvan - And She Smiles (Moonsouls Remix)