C. INSTRUMENTS USED TO FORM A HEXAGRAM

ANCIENT METHODS
The yarrow-stalk method and the coin method are the two methods most commonly used at present in the Western world.

Fifty Yarrow Sticks
The yarrow-stalk oracle became popular about three thousand years ago during the Chou dynasty . In early Chou times, yarrow stalks and tortoise shells were consulted equally by the soothsayers employed by the Chou state, who continued as a class descended from their Shang ancestors until the tortoise shell oracle finally disappeared. The elaborate present-day method of consulting the oracle by manipulation of yarrow stalks was apparently not in use in early Chou times. At first, the yarrow stalk method seems to have been a sort of drawing of lots, in which long stalks meant a positive answer and short stalks a negative. Then, at some period of time when the two fundamental forces were seen to be of equal rank, two short stalks were made to equal one long stalk and, in accord with the still more ancient concept that heaven is one and earth is two, the two stalks were used together to represent the yin force.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) stalks were easier to use than animal bones and tortoise shells. The stalk of the yarrow was firm and durable and remained unwithered for a long time. It was tall and straight and could be prepared for use with little manual labor. The ancients came to consider it a divine gift bestowed upon humanity so that men could communicate with heaven. It was natural that yarrow stalks were chosen to be used for oracular purpose in ancient times. At that time yarrow grew wild in the commons that were set apart for sacred rituals. From the time that the commons no longer served this sacred role, it became customary to gather yarrow stalks from some other hallowed place such as the grave of Confucius or Mencius.

According to Chou tradition, people of different social strata received yarrow stalks of different lengths to divine with. According to The Book of Rites of the Chou Dynasty, yarrow stalks of nine chi (one chi equaling approximately one foot) were relegated to the emperor, of seven chi to a duke or prince, of five chi to a high official, and of three chi to a scholar. (No length was relegated to the common people in The Book of Rites.) At that time, divination was a social event, a ritual for seeking harmony between heaven and humans. People gathered to watch the diviner and his attendants. Later, when divination became a personal affair, the yarrow stalks became shorter. Today it is not easy to find fifty yarrow stalks, and people tend to use substitutes they are comfortable with.

Fifty yarrow stalks make the set used for consulting the oracle. One stalk is set aside at the beginning of the procedure and plays no further part. (Exact instructions for consulting the oracle through the yarrow-stalk method are available in nearly every modern English edition of the I Ching. These modern instructions are based on the instructions given in the Great Treatise that is attributed to Confucius, chapter IX.3–6.) Manipulating the stalks three times produces one line. For the six lines of a hexagram, one needs to manipulate the fifty yarrow stalks eighteen times. To obtain a six-line hexagram takes at least half an hour. Most modern commentators suggest that the thirty minutes it takes to consult the oracle using the yarrow-stalk method should be used to meditate, and they consider that the repetitive process of separating, dividing, and counting the yarrow stalks introduces a deeper level of awareness.

According to the specific method of triple counting used in the yarrow-stalk method, the stalks are counted off to obtain the number values 6, 7, 8, or 9 for each of the six lines of a hexagram. It is in this way that the numbers assigned to the lines in a hexagram—6, 7, 8, or 9—were derived from the yarrow-stalk oracle. The assignment of these symbolic numbers was the contribution made to the Changes by a school of natural philosophers from the end of Chou times who were in line with the tendency of their age toward systemization. Yang was given 7 for a symbol and yin was given 8; a yin and yang together made fifteen; yang transforms 7 to 9 and yin transforms 8 to 6, and together the transformed numbers also made fifteen; thus the sum of the symbol and the sum of the transformed symbol were the same. These numbers continue in use today to represent the changes.

Using the yarrow-stalk method, the mathematical probabilities are asymmetrical. There is a greater possibility of obtaining a resting line (7 or 8 ) than there is of obtaining a changing line (6 or 9).

Yarrow Stalk Method Probability

Yarrow-stalk method probability	Yin / Yang	Number	Symbol
1/16	old yin	6
3/16	old yang	9
5/16	young yang	7
7/16	young yin	8

Three Coins
During the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE)—more than two thousand years after the I Ching was written—a simpler way to consult the oracle was devised, using three coins. The description of the process appears in the Tang-era book The Correct Significance of Rites. The coin method became popular during the Sung dynasty (1127–1279 CE) after it was promoted by Shao Yun, the most prominent I Ching scholar of this time. Traditionally, three of the old-type Chinese coins, with a hole in the middle and inscribed on one side and blank on the other, were used for this purpose. The procedure involves throwing three coins six times; each throw obtains a line. (Exact instructions for the coin method are found in nearly every modern English edition.) The entire procedure takes only a few minutes.

The coin oracle yields results more quickly than does the yarrow-stalk method; however, it too has a particular bias: the probability of obtaining changing yin and changing yang lines is equal, and the probability of obtaining a stable yin and a stable yang line are equal, but the probability of obtaining a stable line is greater than the probability of obtaining a changing line.

Three-coin Method Probability

Three-coin method probability	Yin / Yang	Number	Symbol
2/16	old yin	6
2/16	old yang	9
6/16	young yang	7
6/16	young yin	8

In addition to these methods, some modern commentators encourage even shorter methods that will result in only one changing line, so that the process and the interpretation are simplified (I would say over-simplified), so that the interpretation of the answer will not become too complex for modern Westerners who consult the I Ching.

The six-wand method dispenses with biased probability and returns to the changes of the I Ching equal dignity with stability.

Probabilities for Various Methods of Divination

< PART 4 >

The infrared image on the right reveals the ancient city streets of Tanis near modern-day San El Hagar. PHOTO: BBC

Over the past few days, reports have been posted on new findings of ancient pyramid sites, one in Sudan and one in Egypt.

Read the reports and leave us your comments:

Stephan Fuelling sent us this link posted on BBC World News:  “Egyptian pyramids found by infra-red satellite images.” Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt. More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show underground buildings.

Roger Weld linked us to this online article at the UK Daily Mail:  “Mini-pyramids of the kingdom of Kush: Archaeologists discover 35 burial chambers in Sudan desert with fascinating links to Ancient Egypt”

II. METHODS USED TO RECEIVE AN ORACLE

A. ARCHAIC ORACLES: BONES AND TORTOISE SHELLS
The practice of divination in China long predates the I Ching. At the ancient site of Yin in Hunan Province, once the capital of the Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BCE), one hundred thousand pieces of inscribed bone were discovered at the turn of the twentieth century and later identified as the royal records of divination of the Shang Court. The Court of Shang divined with tortoise shells. The Chinese scholar Alfred Huang explains (Huang, p. 2): “In matters of grave import, such as seasonal sacrifice ceremonies, expeditions, royal enthronements, weddings, and hunts, and even weather, the augur would be asked to divine whether there would be good fortune or misfortune. The procedure of divining with tortoise shells was complicated. In most cases the belly surface of a shell was used. The shell would be prepared by drilling and chiseling with a tiny stylus; then the shell was heated until cracks appeared. By reading the patterns of the cracks, the augur interpreted the oracle.” The auguries contained in the Tuan (Judgments) texts of the I Ching—”good fortune,” “misfortune,” “remorse,” “humiliation,” and others—are reminiscent of the tortoise oracle.

B. THE ANCIENT AND MODERN ORACLE: THE 64 HEXAGRAMS
The conceptual basis of the I Ching begins with original limitlessness and the principle of the One. The One is represented by the line. This line, which in itself represents oneness, at the same time posits the opposites: the positions above and below, right and left, front and back.

The 2 Lines
The first movement out of limitlessness is the world of polar opposites. These opposites are represented as an unbroken line: , called yang, and an open line:  , called yin. Each of these two lines has two states of being, one of rest and one of movement. In the process of change, these lines transform into their opposites. The balance of these opposites is in constant flux. At some time in antiquity, these two sorts of lines were given the names “firm” and “yielding.” The firm line (yang) has unity as its quality; the yielding line (yin) is open to receive. The names firm and yielding describe one of the aspects of polarity. In the older strata of the I Ching, these are the names given most frequently to the two fundamental forces. The Great Commentary makes frequent use of these two names.

The polarity of these two forces is built into the I Ching. It does not indicate rigidity or a pole around which cyclic movement turns but rather a dynamic energy field, like the polarity of a magnetic field, that determines the process of change and evokes it.

The 4 pairings
The four (2²) possible pairings of these two lines represent the initial interaction of the opposites, which are commonly called yin and yang.

The 8 trigrams
The four pairs of lines recombine with the primary yin and yang lines to express a further level of complexity (2³). This set is called the eight trigrams.

The 64 hexagrams
The number of the eight trigrams squared (8²) generate the sixty-four hexagrams. The sixty-four situations of the I Ching are each represented by a complex of six lines in which each line carries a polar tension and expresses this tension, and the sixfold combination of the polar forces defines the situation.

The Early Heaven hexagram arrangement, of unknown antiquity, follows a binary number sequence and is attributed to the legendary Fu Hsi (mid-29th century BCE).

Early Heaven Arrangement

This illustration, based on a drawing by the Sung philosopher Shao Yung (1011–1077 CE), depicts the binary scheme of the Early Heaven sequence generated from yang (white) and yin (black) lines. On the left are the six yang lines that generate Hexagram 1. On the right are the six yin lines that generate Hexagram 64 in the Early Heaven sequence.

The Early Heaven sequence was later revised. The revised sequence, known as the Later Heaven sequence, is attributed to a feudal prince of the Chou era (1046–256 BCE) posthumously known as King Wen.

Later Heaven Arrangement

The Later Heaven sequence remains in present use. In this sequence, the hexagrams are arranged in pairs of opposites. Overall, the Later Heaven sequence begins with the opposite pair of all yang lines (Hexagram 1) and all yin lines (Hexagram 2) and ends with perfect alteration of yin and yang lines (Hexagrams 63 and 64). The sixty-four hexagrams have names or titles. It is not known whether King Wen named them or whether he used preexisting names.

The hexagrams represent situations; the appended names characterize the situations; these names and the linear complexes to which they are appended frame the subject matter of the book. Each hexagram in the I Ching has three core texts:

1. The Statement or Judgment: The brief text at the beginning of each hexagram, often rhymed, called Tuan, sums up the situation. Tuanis translated into English tentatively as “Judgment” or “Decision.” This text is attributed to King Wen.

2. The Line Commentaries: A second text, Yao, adds words to each of the six lines of each hexagram. This text is attributed to King Wen’s fourth son, the Duke of Chou (mid-11th century BCE).

3. The Image: A third text, of more recent date, called Hsiang, “Image,” starts from the meaning of the linear complex and applies the meaning of this complex to a human, social, or cosmic situation in the form of advice addressed to a “noble one” or “superior man.” This text is attributed to Confucius (551–479 BCE).

< PART 3 >

On July 19, 2012, SDO captured images of a solar flare in numerous wavelengths. PHOTO: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

Spacedaily.com has posted some new information on what is actually happening on the surface of the physical sun, all possible because of new atmospheric imaging technology.

Read the posts and let us know what you think:

“Solar Dynamics Observatory Provides First Sightings of How a Coronal Mass Ejection Forms” by Karen C. Fox for Goddard Space Flight Center
“On July 19, 2012, SDO captured images of a solar flare in numerous wavelengths. . . .”

“Why Sun’s Corona Is Much Hotter Than Its Surface”
“Scientists at Northumbria University have for the first time begun to unlock the mystery of why the outer edge of the Sun is much hotter than its surface. . . .”

links submitted by Frieda Nelson

I. APPROACHING THE I CHING

A. WHEN TO APPROACH THE I CHING
The Book of Changes contains a fourfold tao of
the holy sages. In speaking, we should be guided by
its judgments; in action, we should be guided by its
changes; in making objects, we should be guided by
its images; in seeking an oracle, we should be guided
by its pronouncements.
Therefore the superior man, whenever he has to
make or do something, consults the Changes, and he
does so in words. It takes up his communications like
an echo; neither far nor near, neither dark nor deep
exist for it, and thus he learns of the things of the future.
—Great Treatise, chapter X.1–2

The I Ching is not a fortune-telling book. It is a book of oracles, so it should be used only for answers to important problems. It is a book of wisdom, and it can help you make the right decision in harmony with the natural laws of the cosmos. The questions you ask of the I Ching should relate to your life as a solar adept. The decisions given are for your betterment and the betterment of the world community. In this sense, it is a book of proper conduct, moral codes, and ethics. When you already know what you should do in a situation, you should not consult the I Ching. Consult the I Ching only for important questions and events and never for mean purposes or with selfish motives.

B. WHO SHOULD APPROACH THE I CHING
In the Book of Changes it is said: “He is blessed
by heaven. Good fortune. Nothing that does not further.”
The Master said: To bless means to help. Heaven
helps the man who is devoted; men help the man
who is true. He who walks in truth and is devoted in
his thinking, and furthermore reveres the worthy,
is blessed by heaven. He has good fortune, and there
is nothing that would not further.
—Great Treatise, chapter XII.1

The I Ching is a religious book, alive with a soul that puts man’s Consciousness in contact with forces outside the range of the rational mind, and it is only as reliable as the individual into whose hands it is placed. To cast a hexagram and read the commentary on that hexagram does not mean that you understand the I Ching or that it is working for you. The I Ching in the hands of an adept is one thing; the I Ching in the hands of a person who approaches it with no understanding is something else.

The I Ching teaches that a person’s first duty is to live in accordance with heavenly laws. Knowledge of these laws is always taught by a School of Light. A person who lives in accordance with heavenly law and wishes to know whether it is right or wrong to make a movement or to make a decision on an important matter may consult the I Ching. The I Ching is not to be used indiscriminately. If the I Ching is approached properly with ritual and ceremony, it will never fail you.

C. WHAT THE I CHING IS
The Master said: The Changes, what do they do?
The Changes disclose things, complete affairs, and
encompass all ways on earth—this and nothing else.
For this reason the holy sages used them to penetrate
all wills on earth and to determine all fields of action
on earth, and to settle all doubts on earth.
—Great Treatise, chapter XI.1

Nature and man can and do influence one another. The ancient Schools of China taught a System by which each student became adept at collaborating with nature and harmonizing with its forces and, above all, knowing when to act and when not to act. Fortunes, health, and accidents are all determined by timing; so knowing when to act and how to act is important. If you know how to act, you can to large degree dictate what happens to you. Learning how to pace yourself and live in accordance with natural law determines how happy you are going to be, what you are going to get out of life, and what you can give back to it. This is the secret of the I Ching.

In the proper hands, the I Ching is an oracle book and a book of wisdom that can assist an individual to project his or her Consciousness into the cosmos. Like dreams, the I Ching uses symbols. Its exact workings is a profound psychological study in itself. The I Ching goes beyond the range of the rational mind, ordinary consciousness, and awareness of the ego. The I Ching deals with cosmic Consciousness and the deep layers of the psyche. When one enters the world psyche or the world of cosmic Consciousness, one goes beyond the rational concepts of beginning, middle, and end, and one enters into a world where past, present, and future are one and the same.

All life is like the time continuum: it is an interrelated superstructure of psychophysical mind. The ancient Chinese used a cryptic symbology and allegory to signify these interrelations. The Chinese System organized heaven and earth, sun, moon, and stars into divisions of symbols and signs. The sages recognized that nature worked in a certain way; they knew how to act and when to act, and everything they did was done in accordance with the force they wanted to bring out. When the adepts wished to know whether it was right or wrong to make a movement or decision on an important matter, they would consult the I Ching.

If you do not have the key, you cannot understand the writings. Much of the ancient teachings was handed down orally, and much has been lost in the literal translation of the works. To cut through the coding used by the writers, one needs to insert the keys of The System of our own School of Light.

The rational mind works with the forms and images of the sensory world; it cannot fathom the language of the Unconscious. The trigrams and hexagrams of the I Ching represent archetypal symbols that are allied more with intuition than with rational awareness. These symbols are coded, and although they are deciphered by the psychic faculties, the rational mind is not always able to grasp their meaning—and it is actually not important that it does. So to prevent unnecessary conflict in the perpetual battle between the psyche and the rational mind, we recommend that you follow the suggestion made in The Project “X” Solar Teachings of China and do not be overly concerned initially with trying to understand the workings of the oracle book. The essentials for approaching the I Ching are presented in that Project “X” symposium. This supplement provides further background on the I Ching and detailed instructions for casting hexagrams with the six-wand method and reading the hexagram that is cast.

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, has been used for many thousands of years, and it is still being used today in both East and West. In the English-speaking West, the standard text most often used is the Wilhelm/Baynes edition. This is the translation referred to and quoted from in this supplement. It is recommended that you study this standard text and various other books that comment on the I Ching for a better understanding of how the System of the I Ching works.

< PART 2 >

Saturday, February 16, 2013
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RR Gene Savoy Jr.
Lector: RC Robert Petrovich
Cantor: Rev. Francine Petrovich
Reader: Rev. James Elliot
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

 Sunday, February 17, 2013
6:50 AM NEW DIVINE SERVICE
Church of New Epiphany
Leave: 5:45
Gate: 6:26
Sunrise: 6:56
RR Gene Savoy, Jr
Concelebrant: RR Sean Savoy
Assistants:
RC Roger Weld
Rev. Ted Staver
RM Carol Ann Crabb
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Church of New Mt. Tabor                    RM Carol Ann Crabb
Church of New Mt. Carmel                   Rev. Michael McIntyre
Church of the Universal Theocracy                   Rev. Jim Elliot

Wednesday, February 20, 2013
12 N COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
Rev. Robert Roy

Friday, February 22, 2013
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
RC Robert Petrovich

Alfred Russel Wallace (1913) near the end of his life.

Wallace’s striking example of a species that perpetuates itself abundantly without large broods requires some historical emendation and, in my view, expansion. The corollary of Wallace’s theory states that a constant supply of wholesome food is almost (a fateful qualifier) the sole condition requisite for ensuring the increase of any species. In 1858, when Wallace wrote the passage in which this corollary appears, the number of individual members of his exemplary species was estimated to be in the billions. By 1870, an advance of a mere twelve years, the number had dwindled precipitously, and by 1914, to zero, as a result of the unrestrained attacks of man. Wallace, in his time, was perhaps too optimistic to foresee this possibility or to admit the morbid power of the predatory nature of humans.

Just as the eradication of the passenger pigeon had always been a potentiality, so has the extinction of the Eternal Race always been a danger, and in all regions of the world where it has appeared in the past, all of them locales where the supranatural Food spoken of was no less abundant than elsewhere. ⁵

It appears that members of this Race gathered in great cultural concentrations of thousands and tens of thousands for the last times on earth among the communities of Israel and Egypt around the opening of the Common Era and in the Americas, where the remnants of once vast spiritual cultures remained for a time after they were conquered by the Incas and Aztecs, until they were finally annihilated together with their conquerors by the invading Spaniards some five hundred years ago. A list of spiritual peoples, the conditions of their destruction, and the names of their destroyers would no doubt serve to indicate the vast scope of the one-time existence of the Eternal Race and its all-time destruction; but such a list is not possible in this brief note. It should be obvious, however, that the increase of any endangered species requires more than a constant supply of wholesome food. It requires an additional condition: the protection of a nation or nations.

Endangered species of plants and animals are protected in the United States by the Endangered Species Act and internationally by the acts and charters of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Similar provisions are presently being enacted to protect endangered indigenous peoples. ⁶ The Eternal Race requires the same protection. The legal encouragement of freedom of religion by nations of the past, however imperfectly conceived or applied, provided this protection with varied success in previous times. ⁷ These are the precursors to what is required today.

To encourage the spiritual variety of human, a nation must be protected itself by perfect and unequivocal spiritual freedom. Such is the experiment actively pursued today, first and foremost, by the peoples and in the laws of the United States of America. In San Francisco in 1962, The Universal Proclamation of Human Spiritual Rights, the most extensive statement of spiritual rights and freedoms made to date, was ratified by the International Community of Christ, Church of the Second Advent; in 2000 it was adopted by the Advocates for Religious Rights and Freedoms. The adoption of this Universal Proclamation by an entire nation, or by several nations, and the protection of its principles, may be all that is needed to ensure the future increase and development of the spiritual variety of the human—the Eternal Race—because the Food is provided, and all are invited to the Banquet.

Robert G. Petrovich 2000, 2010

FOOTNOTES

5. I will use the bare records we have of the life of one of its peoples, the one perhaps least strange to us today, that of ancient Judea, to provide an example of the pattern of extinction. The pattern is dramatic and cyclic: retreat into the wilderness under a righteous teacher to avoid unrighteousness and a return a marked time later to restore righteousness, the return followed by genocidal persecution of a wicked priest under the political rule of a man of lies. One such sequence played out in the eighth century BCE: The prophet Isaiah leads a community of the Sons of Light into the desert wilderness to avoid the rule of the evil king Manasseh; the king captures Isaiah and brings him back to the city, where he is executed at the hand of the false prophet Balchira, who had first accused Isaiah to the king; upon the death of Isaiah, his disciples follow his instructions and flee to the lands of Tyre and Sidon. The story is told in The Ascension of Isaiah:1–5, a noncanonical recount and expansion of events reported in 2 Kings: 21. Another version of the archetypal cycle of events is told in the Pesher Habakkuk and Damascus Document of the Dead Sea scriptures: Sometime in the first century BCE, a congregation of the Sons of Light returns again to the cities of Israel and Judah under a messianic “Teacher of Righteousness” (who is not named) to free the people from the domination of the new priests of the Jerusalem Temple; the Teacher is put to death by a “Wicked Priest” (also unnamed), and a long period of persecution follows; the congregation, again driven from the land, withdraws to the north, into Syria, and to the south, into Egypt, to avoid extinction under the Hasmonean kings. Decades later, the Herodian kings, who are the successors to the Hasmoneans under the Romans, execute the messianic forerunner, John the Baptist, judicially murder the Aaronic Messiah Jesus and his brother James, and kill a great many of the new messianic community as well as those of the old community. The new community, forced into exile by the persecutions of Agrippa I and his high priest Ananias, retreats under Peter to the north, there to establish settlements in Syria and in the Roman province of Asia (present-day southwestern Turkey). Other remnants of the Nazarenes and Essaei seek refuge in Tyre and Sidon and beyond the Jordan in Peraea. These final acts are recorded in the canonical and noncanonical New Testament books and in the first-century histories of Josephus. Over the several centuries that follow, the sacred knowledge of the Eternal Race, which had been entrusted into the care of these remnants, is shattered, and its members are hunted down to extinction by Roman authorities.

6. The Nukak of Colombia are represented by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia. The Mansi of Russia are protected by the Association to Save Yugra. The Nomlaki people of Northern California have been restored to full tribal status and given the ability to acquire land by the federal government of the United States. The government of India would protect the few hundred Sentinelese of the North Sentinel Island but is prevented by the violent resistance of the Sentinelese to outsiders. Certainly there are other such peoples in other locales.

7. There had been the policy of religious freedom permitted throughout the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century BCE and documented on the Cyrus Cylinder, the freedom of religious worship established in the Maurya Empire of India by Ashoka the Great in the third century BCE and encapsulated in the Edicts of Ashoka, the free practice of religion decreed by the emperors of Tang China during the seventh and eighth centuries CE, the religious freedom declared by Muhammad in the seventh century CE in the Constitution of Medina, the religious freedom permitted by nearly all rulers of India until the invasion of the Indian sub-continent by Islamic sultanates in the thirteenth century CE, the toleration of all religions throughout the continent of Asia during the reign of the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the religious tolerance practiced in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily under Roger II and his heirs in the thirteenth century, the free practice of religion extended in Romania by the Transylvanian Diet of Turda in 1568, the long tradition of religious freedom in Poland officially recognized at the signing of the Warsaw Confederation in 1573, the personal freedom of religion declared in the Netherlands by the Union of Utrecht in 1579, the peace between Protestants and Catholics in France formalized by Prince Henry IV in the Edict of Nantes in 1598 and in force until the Edict was repealed by King Louis XIV in 1685. There was the freedom of religion applied as a principle of government for the first time in the founding of the colony of Maryland in 1634, the freedom of religion guaranteed in New Amsterdam (present-day New York) by the Articles of Capitulation when the Dutch city surrendered to the English in 1664, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1779, and the guarantee of religious freedom in the Bill of Rights of the United States and in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789. There is in our time the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, established by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to investigate violations of the principle of religious freedom; there is the constitutional protection of religious freedom provided by numerous states throughout the modern world; and there is the religious affirmations of religious freedom made by the International Religious Liberty Association of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, by the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, and by the official position of the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate; there is the contentious debate over religious freedom among the modern schools and states of Islam; and there is the protection of the freedom of religion and belief in international law that has been enforced by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1976.

“There’s a lot of buzz in the news about a new scientific study that statistically supports the idea that our known universe is actually a grand computer simulation. This is mainstream science, and the idea isn’t as wacky as you might first suppose. . . . This news, by the way, also supports the idea of a Creator who brought this universe—and everything in it—into existence by design.

“A new scientific paper published in arXiv and coauthored by Silas Beane from the University of Bonn reveals strong statistical evidence that our reality is, indeed, a grand computer simulation. The title of the paper is ‘Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation.’”

Read the entire article by Mike Adams online at naturalnews.com, then share with us your thoughts and comments. If this becomes the standard world view, how would you address it?

link submitted by Robert Anderson

Alfred Russel Wallace (1913) near the end of his life.

First Corollary to the General Theory of Natural Selection Applied to the Spiritual Variety of Homo sapiens sapiens ¹

It is a corollary of Wallace’s Theory of Natural Selection ² that the procuring of a constant supply of wholesome food is almost the sole condition requisite for ensuring the increase of a given species. The statement of this corollary appears in a passage of Wallace’s first essay on natural selection, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type” (1858) following a long discussion of examples from nature. The passage is excerpted here for reference (emphasis is my own):

. . . It would appear that, so far as the continuance of the species and the keeping up of the average number of individuals are concerned, large broods are superfluous. This is strikingly proved by the case of particular species; for we find that their abundance in individuals bears no relation whatever to their fertility in producing offspring.
Perhaps the most remarkable instance is that of the passenger pigeon of the United States, which is said to rear generally but one young one. Why is this bird so extraordinarily abundant, while others producing two or three times as many young are much less plentiful? The explanation is not difficult. The food most congenial to this species is abundantly distributed over a very extensive region. . . . This example strikingly shows us that the procuring of a constant supply of wholesome food is almost the sole condition requisite for ensuring rapid increase of a given species, since neither limited fecundity nor the unrestrained attacks of man are sufficient to check it.

It may be somewhat unexpected to common sense that large numbers of offspring are not a requirement for the increase of a species, but the example clearly shows the validity of Wallace’s statement.

There is no reason to doubt that the corollary would not apply as well to the species Homo sapiens sapiens. In these pages, I would like to show briefly how this corollary applies to the special variety of human identified in the first century CE by Pliny the Elder and described in some detail by Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus. (We will follow the suggestion of Pliny and employ the term “Eternal Race” to refer to the collective representatives of this human spiritual variety irrespective of place and time.) ³ These first-century scientists and historians persuade us that the Eternal Race is a separate variety of human, distinct from common historical human cultures but capable of being derived or produced from all or any of them: a spiritual variety. ⁴ They also tell us that the customs and practice of this Race in their time indicate that its members were able to procure a supranatural Food but were not permitted to reveal to the uninitiated either its nature, or its source, or how it may be procured. The observations of Philo and Josephus suggest, however, that this spiritual Food was supremely accessible and abundant. We know it to be found in sunlight, in the spiritual nutriment or information that light carries—the Light of light. What food could be more “constant” or more “wholesome”? Yet the ancient Race described by Pliny and Philo and Josephus is no more.

< PART 6B >

FOOTNOTES

1. All the essays of Wallace quoted herein may be found in Natural Selection (1891).

2. For a discussion of Wallace’s theory, see Part 1: “First Theory of Natural Selection.” For a discussion of the general principles of this theory as they apply to humans, see Part 5: “The General Theory of Natural Selection Applied to Homo sapiens sapiens.”

3. The Eternal Race was represented by the peoples collectively called “Essenes” in the locale of Judea, and in Egypt, “Therapeutae.” Early in the first century CE, this Race was found in many places throughout the known world, in gardens or villages or lonely bits of country outside the gates of cities. The most adept of the Race journeyed to their centers: in Judea, to one of the major settlements on the west side of the Dead Sea just out of sight of Jerusalem, and in Egypt, to a place finely situated above Lake Mareotis near the Mediterranean seaport of Alexandria. Philo estimates their number in Judea at 4,000, a number corroborated by Josephus. Philo gives no numbers for Egypt, but he reports that the Race abounds in each of its nomes (departments) and especially around Alexandria. Pliny provides an explanation for their numbers: new adherents, weary of the ephemeral battles of life, are drawn by their divine doctrines to keep up and renew the numbers of “this solitary race . . . strange above all others in the entire world. . . . Thus for thousands of ages (strange to tell) the race is perpetuated, and yet no one is born into it” (Naturalis Historia, 5:17). Josephus provides additional details on the mysterious increase of this race, obviously not productive of large broods: “They [the elders and highest orders of Essenes] neglect wedlock, but choose out other persons’ children . . . and esteem them to be of their kindred, and form them according to their own manners”; these children, he tells us, are of “another order of the Essenes, who agree with the rest as to their way of living, and customs, and laws, but differ from them in the point of marriage” (Wars of the Jews, Book 2, 8). In Egypt, too, their communities were populated both by men and women of childbearing age and by elders who had divested themselves of their possessions (On the Contemplative Life, “Fourth part Concerning Virtues” 2:18, 3:32). In Judea it was the custom of the Race to hold all in common and to share common meals, to commune with God through the sun each day at its rising and to labor through the day at the arts in which they were skilled, and on the seventh day to leave off work and meet in their synagogues (Wars of the Jews, Book 2,8:2–14). For the Egyptian colonies of this Race, we have the firsthand account of Philo: “The Therapeutae desire the vision of the Existent and soar above the sun of our senses. They keep the memory of God alive and never forget it, so that even in their dreams the picture is nothing else but the loveliness of divine excellence and powers. . . . Twice every day they pray, at dawn and at eventide. The interval between early morning and evening is spent entirely in spiritual exercise. . . . None of them would put food or drink to their lips before sunset. . . . Some only after three days. . . . Others only after six days. Still they eat nothing costly, only common bread with salt for a relish and their drink is spring water. . . . For six days they seek wisdom by themselves in solitude. But every seventh day they meet together as for a general assembly. . . . The common sanctuary in which they meet is a double enclosure, one portion set apart for the use of the men, the other for the women” (On the Contemplative Life, “Fourth part Concerning Virtues,” 2:11, 3:26–30, 3:32, 4:34–37).

On the Essenes see: Philo of Alexandria: Quod Omnis Probus Liber, Hypothetica, 11:1–18; Flavius Josephus: Wars of the Jews, Book 2, 8:2–14; Antiquities of the Jews, Book 13, 1:5, 5:9, Book 15, 10:5, Book 18, 1:5. On the Therapeutae see: Philo of Alexandria, On the Contemplative Life, “Fourth Part Concerning Virtues,”1–4 (1–39), 8–11 (64–90).

4. This special variant of the human has been called by various names at various times and in various cultures in Persia, Greece, Egypt, India, China, the Americas, England, Ireland, Germany, Russia, and elsewhere. In ancient Judaea alone, local variants of the Eternal Race have been known to ancient authorities and to modern historians by many names: Zadokites, Baithusians, Simseans, Hiketeans, Assideans, Hasideans, Hemerobaptists, Nazarenes, Essenes, et cetera.

 The 2013 Convocation will be held Monday September 30 through Sunday October 6, 2013. You will receive more information about the agenda and events planned in the weeks ahead.