“How often have you seen your brother in a state of ecstasy, which he cannot describe? It is a state beginning in quiet bliss, flowing outward in bright radiance from an inner light, which can even illuminate the material darkness about him. He hears the music of the sacred spheres and sees the throbbing pulsations of life heaving about him, like waves upon the great sea. He becomes aware of an inflowing of unspoken knowledge from a surrounding power. It does not come from any one point, but appears to flow out of all things and to penetrate all things. … The spirit becomes lost in adoration and wonder in the beauty revealed in everything. The soul is aware of something glorious within all this and knows it from the spirit outflowing from its source.” ~The Kolbrin Bible (SOF:2:25)

Indescribable Ecstasy

“This state of ecstasy or enlightenment has been described by many, but not accurately. First, the person experiencing this state will color it to some degree with his own experiences and beliefs. That is why spiritual teachers tell us we must rid ourselves of all preconceptions in order to achieve true and complete enlightenment. Second, no worldly language is capable of describing this state accurately. Our languages do a good job of describing the world of matter, but they do not have words to properly describe the spiritual.”

Read the entire article online at spiritsun.net.

Original article posted by HAROLD BOULETTE on NOVEMBER 25, 2017

“Dr. Robert Stein, professor of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State Universe has long envisioned a day when he could use supercomputer programs to ‘see’ through the roiling surface of the sun and glimpse its dynamic interior. He describes his quest and offers ideas about what drives the violent outbursts known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, known to disrupt the electrical systems that power our civilization.”

< Watch the entire talk posted February 5, 2018 on YouTube (9:54) >

Link submitted by Stephan Fuelling

“But the life in the Cosmos, the life which carries the leading principle of the universe, still needs elucidation; does it operate without calculation, without searching into what ought to be done?
“Yes: for what must be stands shaped before the Cosmos, and is ordered without any setting in order; the ordering things are merely the things that come to be; and the principle that brings them into being is Order itself. …
“The leading principle of the universe is a unity—and one that is sovereign without break, not sometimes dominant and sometimes dominated. … And this governing unity must always desire the one thing; [unity].” ~Plotinus

Cosmos and Universe

“It is not clear when Plotinus speaks of the universe and the cosmos if he means them as two different things, or as two words that mean the same thing. A hint is found, however, in the fact that he writes Cosmos with a capital ‘C,’ and universe with a lower-case ‘u’. This indicates to me that he thinks of them as different, and the Cosmos is the more important of the two. I will assume, therefore, that when he says ‘Cosmos,’ he means the spiritual realms, and when he says ‘universe,’ he means the dimensions of matter. Still, some of what he says about the Cosmos applies more to the universe, and vice-versa.”

Read the entire article online at spiritsun.net.

Original article posted by HAROLD BOULETTE on NOVEMBER 28, 2017

This composite image of the Crab Nebula was assembled with arbitrary color scaling by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire electromagnetic spectrum: the radio emission representing the wind of charged particles from the central neutron star in red (from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array), the infrared including the glow of dust particles absorbing ultraviolet and visible light in yellow (from the Spitzer Space Telescope), the visible-light image featuring the hot filamentary structures in green (from the Hubble Space Telescope), the ultraviolet image in blue and the X-ray image in purple showing the effect of an energetic cloud of electrons (from the XMM-Newton Observatory and the Chandra X-ray Observatory).
Credit: NASA / ESA / NRAO / AUI / NSF and G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires)

The origin of cosmic rays, high-energy particles from outer space constantly impacting on Earth, is among the most challenging open questions in astrophysics. Now new research published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society sheds new light on the origin of those energetic particles.

“Discovered more than 100 years ago and considered a potential health risk to airplane crews and astronauts, cosmic rays are believed to be produced by shock waves — for example, those resulting from supernova explosions. The most energetic cosmic rays streaking across the universe carry 10 to 100 million times the energy generated by particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

“The Crab Nebula, the remnant of a supernova explosion that was observed almost 1,000 years ago in A.D. 1054, is one of the best-studied objects in the history of astronomy and a known source of cosmic rays. It emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma rays, ultraviolet and visible light, to infrared and radio waves. Most of what we see comes from very energetic particles (electrons), and astrophysicists can construct detailed models to try to reproduce the radiation that these particles emit.

“The new study, by Federico Fraschetti at the University of Arizona, USA, and Martin Pohl at the University of Potsdam, Germany, reveals that the electromagnetic radiation streaming from the Crab Nebula may originate in a different way than scientists have traditionally thought: The entire zoo of radiation can potentially be unified and arise from a single population of electrons, a hypothesis previously deemed impossible.”

Read the entire article posted September 4, 2017 at sciencedaily.com

link submitted by Frieda Nelson

“The descent into materialism was necessary in order that the fifth epoch might fulfill its mission It was essential that astral and spiritual clairvoyance should grow dim in order that the intellect might develop by  precise, minute and mathematical observation of the physical world. Physical science must be supplemented by spiritual science.
“Our fifth epoch will be followed by another, the sixth. This sixth epoch will see the development of brotherhood among men, clairvoyance and creative power. … To the priest in the mysteries before Christ, there was harmony between science and faith. Science and faith were one and the same. …
“Now that the attention of men is wholly directed to the physical world, faith has need of a refuge, of religion. … In the sixth epoch, the two streams will again unite. Mechanical science will become spiritually creative. This will be Gnosis-spiritual consciousness.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Fifth Epoch

“I’m not sure Mr. Steiner is correct in saying that the descent into materialism was necessary. We cannot deny, however, that it has happened.

“It is certainly true that there are forces in the material world which act upon us in different ways. Without getting into the details that are reserved for spiritual students, some forces act to lift us and make us grow, while other pull us down deeper into matter and materialism. You might think of these forces as being the two wolves in the old Native American story. The wolf that is fed is the one that grows strong. In the last several centuries, the wolf we have fed is clearly the forces that pull us deeper into matter. We have reached a point where the materialistic scientists have become like priests to some. And to many, the existence of anything other than matter is laughed at. Fortunately, the fantasies of materialism do not change the reality.”

Read the entire article online at spiritsun.net.

Original article posted by HAROLD BOULETTE on NOVEMBER 29, 2017

“Archaeologists in Guatemala have uncovered an unprecedented network of 60,000 ancient Mayan features such as palaces and elevated highways, according to an exclusive report by National Geographic. The discovery is being called a ‘megalopolis,’ and suggests that we’ve been vastly underestimating the sophistication of the Mayan civilization at the height of its power 1,200 years ago.

“Researchers owe the breakthrough to the cutting-edge remote sensing method Light Detection and Ranging, better known as LiDAR. Usually taken aerially, LiDAR recordings channel light into laser pulses that measure the distance from the air down to a given point on the surface of the Earth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

Read the entire article online at msn.com.

Read a second article on the discovery and go through a gallery of the actual LiDAR images with captions at nationalgeographic.com. >

link submitted by Gene Savoy Jr.

“A traditional Kabbalistic view is that although the creation is in a damaged and imperfect state the Kabbalist, by virtue of his or her state of consciousness, can bring about a real healing. … When Moses first received the written law he also received certain laws orally. These were not written down but only ever transmitted down through the generation by word of mouth, and then only to the initiated. The oral law is sometimes referred to as Kabbalah. Incidentally, there are several different spellings of this word, because some letters in Hebrew have more than one representation in English and they have different magical vibrations with greater or lesser impact.

“Much of the magical language that we use today has come down to us from the Kabbalah. It was recognized that there were certain ideas that the ordinary layman was capable of understanding and others which only the initiated were capable of assimilating. … If anything was written down it was recorded in such a way that only those with the required knowledge would be able to decipher the true meaning. The writings were therefore in code.” ~Bernard Simon

Kabbalistic View

“The Kabbalistic view is not unique. It is the same as that taught in the mystery schools of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and other places. The words used, the parables and allegorical tales may be different, but the meaning is the same. In other words, different codes were used in different places and times, but the actual meaning is the same. And it remains true today that discerning that meaning is nearly impossible except to the initiated.”

Read the entire article online at spiritsun.net.

Original article posted by HAROLD BOULETTE on DECEMBER 2, 2017

“Now when those experiences [of vivid dreams] during deep sleep first come to the notice of the student his next task must be to sense them as clearly and vividly as possible. At first this presents great difficulty the perception of these experiences being exceedingly slight. The student knows very well, on waking, that he has had an experience, but is completely in the dark regarding its nature. The most important thing during the initial stage is to remain quiet and composed, and not for a moment lapse into any unrest or impatience. The later is under all circumstances detrimental; it can never accelerate development, but only delay it. The student must cultivate a quiet and yielding receptivity for the gift that is presented to him.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Remembering Dreams and Visions

“Dreams, flashes, and visions can come to us is various circumstances. They usually happen during sleep, but can happen at any time. They almost always happen only when we are very relaxed and receptive.

“In the classic Science Fiction Movie Forbidden Planet, Walter Pidgeon as Dr. Mobius states, ‘What man can remember his own dreams.’ He doesn’t ask it as a question, but states it as if saying ‘no man can remember his own dreams.’ In actual fact, it is a question. The answer to the question is ‘Spiritual adepts, among others.’ The spiritually trained student tends to remember his dreams more than the average person. And anyone can increase their chances of remembering their dreams by simply telling themselves before they doze off, “I will remember the dreams I have tonight.”

Read the entire article online at spiritsun.net.

Original article posted by HAROLD BOULETTE on DECEMBER 5, 2017

“Far sighted were the initiates of antiquity. They realized that nations come and go, that empires rise and fall, and that golden ages of art, science, and idealism are succeeded by the dark ages of superstition.

“With the needs of posterity foremost in mind, the sages of old went to inconceivable extremes to make certain that their knowledge should be preserved. They engraved it upon the face of mountains and concealed it within the measurements of colossal images, each of which was a geometric marvel. Their knowledge of chemistry and mathematics they hid within mythologies. … They wrote in characters that neither the vandalism of men not the ruthlessness of the elements could completely efface.” ~Manly P. Hall

Ever Changing World

“In the constantly changing world of matter, the ancient wise men understood that things happen in cycles. Periods of wisdom followed by periods of stupidity. Periods of rising up followed by periods descent into materialism and the great lie. In addition, they knew that it is the nature of governments, once formed, to act like a living creature concerned with protecting its own existence above everything else. Such governments will oppose anything which they consider to be a threat to their authority. That usually means that they see spiritual schools and spiritual movements as threatening to them.

“Actually, the spiritual schools were not trying to destroy anything except ignorance. In fact, the spiritual schools saw the need for governments to keep those who remain unenlightened under some limited control. Many  ignore a spiritual leader telling them they endanger their immortal soul by their actions. Yet they will listen to a government that threatens to jail them or put them to death for it.”

Read the entire article online at spiritsun.net.

Original article posted by HAROLD BOULETTE on DECEMBER 11, 2017

It is tradition in the Far East to view the first sunrise of the year. It is for good fortune and happiness in the new year. In recent years past, my wife and I would view the first sunrise together from atop our apartment building. We were usually there alone and enjoyed it together in prayer. We have since moved from that apartment and had an addition to the family, so we decided to do it a bit differently coming into 2018.

We found a place about 2 km away that was a mountainside near a college. There would be no school that day so we thought it would be perfect. The morning of, as we drove in that direction, it was clear that others thought that location was perfect as well. There was traffic leading to the one road up the mountain. It got so bad at one point I thought we may miss the crowning of the Sun over the horizon. We finally got halfway up and decided not to risk driving higher and parked at the next available spot. The view would be just as good since there was nothing blocking our view. When we got out of the car the blistering cold hit hard against any bare skin that was uncovered. It did not stop us or the hundred or so of others who found that same location. We rushed to a good viewing spot and I noticed a few buses pulling in that had brought in loads of other people as well.

I began taking pictures and trying to ensure that my wife and newborn son were as warm as they could be. The weather was below freezing. Finally the big moment was soon to arrive, and everyone stared and waited. As soon as a spark of sunlight glanced above the horizon the crowd let out an “aaahhh” as did I. Just then, a short older Korean man rushed past me, barely halting before possibly tumbling down the edge of the section of the mountain we stood on, and he clapped his hands together and began to pray. I held my wife a son and said a prayer as well.

It was amazing to watch a sunrise with so many others there. If only they knew the true beauty and benefit of doing this all the time, the world would be a different place.

by Frank Gadson