The Book of Secrets and the Sparkling stone

white stone

 

“The Spirit of our Lord speaks thus in the Book of the Secrets of God, which St. John wrote down: to him that overcomes, He says, that is, to him who overcomes and conquers himself and all else, will I give to eat of the hidden manna, that is, an inward and hidded savour and celetial joy; and will give him a sparkling stone, and in the stone a new name is written which no person knows saving the one who receives it. This stone is called a pebble, for it is so small that it does not hurt when one treads on it. This stone is shining white and red like a flame of fire, and it is small and round, and smooth all over, and very light. ….

“Now to him who overcomes and transcends all things, this sparkling stone is given; and with it he receives light and truth and life. This stone is also like a fiery flame, for the fiery love of the eternal Word has filled the whole world with love and wills that all loving spirits be burned up in love.” ~John of Ruysbroeck

Book of the Secrets

The “Book of the Secrets of God”, better known today as “The Secret Book of John,” or “The Apocryphon of John) is a Gnostic book that talks about God being the One who rules all and the Pure Light, among other things. It is surprising that Ruysbroeck references it since he was not known to be particularly gnostic in his beliefs and teachings.

Overcomes and Conquers

What it means to overcome and conquer yourself is that you are able to control your animal instinct, and your ego, and put the development of spirit and soul above all else. That may seem like an impossible task in today’s materialistic, capitalistic world, but it can be done. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a normal job but must live in a monastery. You can have a normal life, but with the idea always in front of your mind that the spirit comes first and the Laws of God come before those of Man. And spiritual development techniques only need to be practiced for five to fifteen minutes a day, so should be doable by all.

Hidden Manna

There are two kinds of Manna. There was the manna given to the starving Jews in the desert that was a physical bread to nourish their bodies. There is another manna that is spiritual and available to those who seek it in love and humility. That second manna is God’s Light that comes to us through the spiritual sun. That manna is the hidden manna that awakens and nourishes the spirit and soul. Nothing physical can do that.

Sparkling Stone

Ruysbroeck says the awakened person receives a sparkling stone that is shiny, white and red, and does not hurt. So he is saying in an indirect way that this stone is not something physical like the Sorcerer’s stone in the Harry Potter tales. I have left out a section of the quote from Ruysbroeck because I think it is misleading. Ruysbroeck goes on to say that the stone is actually Jesus Christ, who is the savior of all. Those who are spiritual students generally know better. The Sparkling Stone, also known as the Philosopher’s Stone, is our own inner Christ that is awakened with spiritual practice. That is what Jesus meant when he said we should follow him. He meant that we should awaken our own inner Christ, our own Sparkling Stone. It is only by doing so that we are able to reach up to the highest level of consciousness known as Heaven, and become one with the All.



“Michael Clarage: Solar Gamma Rays—Not So Much | Thunderbolts”

 

 

The Sun puts out very few gamma rays as detailed in “The Sun Is Spitting Out Strange Patterns of Gamma Rays—and No One Knows Why” posted on Scientific American. It seems there are very few gamma rays in the entire Universe, at least in comparison to the number of photons that we see with our eyes.

Astrophysicist and Lead Scientist of The SAFIRE Project, Michael Clarage, PhD—reviewed Donald E. Scott’s and Hannes Alfvén’s models of the Sun’s electrical connection to its larger environment, and discussed gamma ray data with Wal Thornhill—explains how electricity can help us think through the gamma ray mystery.

 

Watch the entire video posted December 25, 2021 at youtube.com. (18:54)

 

SOURCE STORY: Scientific American, Space & Physics – 03/28/2018, “The Sun Is Spitting Out Strange Patterns of Gamma Rays—and No One Knows Why” 

 

links submitted by Robert Petrovich

 



“Searching for the sunken kingdom of Dwarka”

 

 

The city of Dwarka is one of the seven holy pilgrimage centers in India. It is the only place which is contemporary with the events described in the epic Mahabharata, where it is described as the ancient kingdom of Krishna. It is written that upon Krishna’s death the city was sunk beneath the Arabian sea.

Today, archaeologists searching for the lost kingdom believe they have found evidence of its existence off the coast of the modern-day Dwarka, and are trying to understand what could have caused it to be lost beneath the sea.

 

Watch the entire video posted December 16, 2021 on bbc.com. (7:10)

 

link submitted by Gene Savoy Jr.

 



The Wrong Approach to a Spiritual Life Leads to Bad Results

religious intolerance
 Returning a headstone for a Jewish person that had been torn down by vandals.

 

“I have never failed to come to the aid of the poor and lowly. I have ever obeyed the laws of God and Man. Goodness has always been honored in my heart, and I have consistently read the sacred writings. Yet never have I found these things consistent with mortal wellbeing. Because my tongue did not turn around corners and twist back on itself, because the words I spoke came from my heart, undiluted with any malicious thought, because I chided the rich for their selfishness and inconsideration, their wasteful living and meaningless activities, they became my enemies. Because I called upon the powerful to live according to the laws they professed to uphold and the words declared to be sacred, I was seized and imprisoned. When I protested the injustice to the ears of the people, I was beaten with rods, I was branded as one who seeks to destroy the stability of the land. I, who tried to set an example of goodness, to lead a life dedicated to my God, to convert the wicked to righteousness, am myself declared wicked by the workers of evil. Why is this, O my God? Have I, to my sorrow and undoing, weighted the values of life wrongly?” ~The Kolbrin Bible (MAN:19:8)

To Aid the Poor and Lowly

To aid the poor is certainly a good thing, although not always done properly. When done with humility and a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, it is a good thing. When done to show off how much better a person you are and to boost your ego, it isn’t.

Obeyed the Laws

It is usually a good thing to obey the law, but there are exceptions. Sometimes, the laws of Man conflict with the Laws of God. When that happens, the spiritual person must put the Laws of God before the laws of Man. Between those two are the laws of nature. We would also be wise to obey the laws of nature as much as possible, even when they conflict with Man’s law. We don’t need to worry about the laws of nature conflicting with the Laws of God, they never do.

Reading Sacred Writings

Like obeying the law, reading scripture is usually a good thing, but not always. If you read scripture with no comprehension of what it means, or your read it without even trying to understand it, then reading it is pointless. Perhaps even worse than reading sacred books without comprehension is reading them with a false comprehension, something which is unfortunately common today. Most of humanity has become so material oriented that we interpret everything in a material and literal way. When you do that with scripture, you almost always end up wit nonsense. The holy ones who wrote scripture knew that true spiritual teachings were dangerous in the hands of materialistic or evil people, so they generally wrote in allegory or other kinds of code. If you don’t have some understanding of the codes they used, you will get a false understanding.

Tongue did not Turn

I think this allegory is one that is easy to understand. When the author says his tongue “did not turn around corners’” he is simply saying that he did not lie, but always told the truth as he knew it. While this is definitely a good thing, there may be occasions when telling the truth is not the best thing to do. If telling the truth will hurt another person’s feelings, it may be best to tell a white lie or say nothing at all. If corrupt authorities ask you about the location of some innocent person they want to arrest, it is best to not answer, or tell a white lie. When the early Christian Martyrs were arrested, they were often tortured to get them to reveal the names and locations of other Christians. Most refused to do so, and that was as it should be.

Chided the Selfish

Here is where the person in the quote went wrong. Chiding the rich and powerful is rarely a good idea. If you are not in a position that prevents them from taking revenge, it is a bad idea. It is not that greed is acceptable, but trying to teach people something they are not ready to learn is pointless and likely to get you into trouble. Instead of chiding the rich and selfish, you could gently suggest to them that there is great joy in sharing, otherwise, it is generally best to keep those beliefs to yourself. Of course, it is always acceptable to speak in generalities and say things like “greed is not a good thing,” but don’t mention individuals or classes of people when doing so.

Likewise, chiding government officials for not doing their job can get one in trouble, depending on the type of government you are under.

Ego Trip

Most of all, when your idea of spiritual practice is to complain about the greedy, the corrupt, and those who oppose spiritual development, you are feeding your ego, not your spirit. That is why much of what this person did was not moving him forward in a spiritual way. The ego is not an enemy that needs to be destroyed, but it does need to be kept under control by an awakened Soul.



The Longest Days Begin the Shortest Season

 

sundial

 

We generally think of the Winter Solstice as the shortest day of the year, but that is only if you’re just talking about the period between sunrise and sunset. If you are talking about the entire day, from noon to the next noon,  you get a different result.  View a video with more details here.

Shortest season

On the other hand, the Winter Solstice starts the shortest season of the year.

Here are the lengths of the astronomical seasons:

December solstice to March equinox: 88.99 days
March equinox to June solstice: 92.76 days
June solstice to September equinox: 93.65 days
September equinox to December solstice: 89.84 days

See the video here.

Both videos from EarthSky News



“Donald E. Scott: Probing Parker’s Solar Probe Data | Thunderbolts”

 

 

Electric Sun predictions are being verified by the latest data from the Parker Solar Probe. However, NASA invents phrases such as ‘pseudo-streamers’, ‘funnel structures’ and ‘switchbacks’ to describe what they see and find everything new to be “enigmatic.”

It’s not enigmatic. It is what the Electric Universe Model has been predicting for decades as an alternative to the gravity-only, lock-step narrative of the Standard Model.

Author and electrical engineer Donald E. Scott, PhD, deconstructs the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center press release of December 14, 2021 announcing new results from the Parker Solar Probe. Dr. Scott presents a clear, accurate understanding of the real properties of electro-magnetic plasma dynamics that are being observed on our Sun.

 

Watch the entire video posted online January 15, 2022 at youtube.com (14:44)

 

link submitted by Robert Petrovich

 



Why We are Born with Our Spirits Dormant

  
  

   

 

“Beloved Soul, if thou will be earnest without intermission, thou shall certainly obtain the favor of a kiss from the noble Sophia (or Divine Wisdom) in the Holy Name of Jesus; for she stands ever before the door of the Soul, knocking, and warning the sinner of his wicked ways. Now if once thou desires her love, she is ready for it and kisses it with the Beams of her sweet Love, from whence the heart receives joy. But she does not presently lay herself in the marriage bed with the Soul, that is, she does not presently awaken the extinguished Heavenly Image in herself, which disappeared in Adam in Paradise. No, there might be danger in that; for if Adam and Lucifer fell, having it manifest in them, the same may easily happen to Man, who is still so strongly enthralled in Vanity.

“The bond of thy promise must be firm and steadfast. Before she will crown thee, you must be tempted and tried. She lets thee stands as it were aloof, and answers thee not so much one look of her love. For before she will crown thee, thou must be judged. … Thou must come before the gates of Hell first, and there show forth the victory for her in her love, in the strength where she upholds you in opposition to the Devil’s influence.” ~Jacob Boehme1

Earnest Without Intermission

Boehme doesn’t say here what it is we must be earnest in, but since his writings are all about spiritual growth and development, we can assume that is what is meant here. Being earnest in our spiritual development techniques means that we don’t think of it as some game or something to occupy space-time, but rather the most important thing in our lives. After all, most of us spend hours a week caring for our temporary bodies in one way or another, shouldn’t our eternal spirit get at least as much recognition and care?

Kiss from Sophia

What Boehme is calling “a kiss from the noble Sophia” is just another way of saying God’s Grace or God’s Light. It is through awakening and developing our spiritual faculties with the help of that Light that eventually leads to the Wisdom of Sophia that the Gnostics call Gnosis. This should not be confused with intellect. It is a Wisdom of the Soul unknown to the brain, it is consciousness, not intellect.

If One Desires Her Love

While it may be true that Sophia tries to warn the sinners of their errant ways, it is clear that they have closed those channels of communication and don’t hear her pleas. On the other hand, the one who truly desires to awaken and develop their spiritual faculties, Sophia is ready to help. More accurately, God’s angels and Holy One who have left the Eathly plain offer their help first. Sophia comes somewhat later.

Beams of Her Love

This is an important choice of words Boehm has made her hint at something he couldn’t say outright without getting into trouble with the religious authorities of his time. Sending beams of Love is his way of telling us that Light is involved, as it is Light that travels in beams. Specifically, Sophia’s Kiss comes in the Light of the Spiritual Sun that awakens and nourishes the spirit.

Before She Will Crown Thee

This is another case where Boehme has carefully chosen his words to hint at something he couldn’t say outright in his time. It would be nice if those who had awakened the Gnosis within were chosen as the leaders of the world, but in this materialistic age, it is simply not so. But before political leaders in the form of kings and queens stole the idea of wearing a crown of gold, they were worn by the high priests and prophets of the great spiritual schools to symbolize their closeness to God and to Sophia. The gold crown with the points on it represented the sun, so such priests were showing that they were one with the Spiritual Sun. So Boehm is telling us that if we want to be “crowned” by the truth and wisdom of Sophia, we must turn to the Spiritual Sun. It was, after all, the Light of the sun reflecting off a metal bowl striking him in the eyes that gave Boehm his spiritual awakening.

 

1 – I have replaced some of the old English in the quote with modern English for readability.



“Early Results from Parker Solar Probe: Ushering a New Frontier in Space Exploration”

 

PHOTO CREDIT: NRL/NASA. Movie processed/compiled by Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher (NRL).

 

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has flown closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before. Over 24 scheduled orbits, PSP will journey closer and closer to our star with the aim of flying as close as 8.86 R? from the solar surface by 2024. PSP, which launched on 2018 August 12, was designed, built, and now operated for NASA by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. It has completed the first 3 of its 24 scheduled orbits about the Sun (perihelia on 2018 November 5, 2019 April 4, and 2019 September 1). All three orbits had roughly the same perihelion distance of 35.7 R? from the Sun center. On 2019 December 26, the spacecraft flew by Venus for the second time since launch. This maneuver reduced the perihelion to 27.8 R?, which was achieved on 2020 January 29.

The main science goal of the PSP mission is to determine the structure and dynamics of the Sun’s coronal magnetic field, to understand how the solar corona and wind are heated and accelerated, and to determine what processes accelerate energetic particles. PSP explores the near solar environment through in situ and remote sensing observations of the magnetic field, plasma, and energetic particles to: (i) trace the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the solar corona and solar wind, (ii) determine the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind, and (iii) explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles. Understanding the heating and acceleration of the solar wind plasma as well as the energization and transport of solar energetic particles has been sought for decades. By exploring the source regions of these fascinating phenomena, PSP will not only help us make major strides in our understanding but will also lead to unforeseen discoveries.

Over the past year and a half, PSP returned an enormous amount of science data that drew a new picture of the source region of the solar wind. The first discoveries of the mission were reported in the Nature magazine on 2019 December 4. This special issue of the Astrophysical Journal Supplement series consists of over 50 science papers that provide more detailed analyses of the data from the first two orbits. The number of discoveries is more than anyone has anticipated.

 

Read the article and watch the movie (00:14) online.

 

 

link submitted by Michael McIntyre

 



Difficulties Encourage us to Grow, Learn, and Get Strong

Philadelphia, United States – July 5, 2013: The Love Sculpture by the pop artist Robert Indiana was placed in Philadelphia’s “Love Park”, officially named JFK Plaza, in 1976 as part of the U.S. Bicentennial celebration.
  
  

   

 

“If you study without Love, your success will be problematic and temporary. Whatever work you do in the world, if you do not put the Divine in it, your success will be problematic and temporary too.

“All those who love God succeed. All those who fail, fail in their love of God. …

“Why is there suffering? Suffering is a refresher. If you have no suffering, twice bigger mishaps will come to you.

“Love is the quality that will connect you with God. A greater good than love you cannot find. And a greater mishap than to lose love you cannot get. When you lose love, you will find death.

“They say: No one can go to God if he is not pure. No one can go to God if he is not good, merciful, and reasonable.

“All tests that we get are to enable us. The difficulties and the stumbling blocks that you meet are an education means. Without suffering and tests, you cannot have any gains.

“In ‘Divine Love,’ I understand the following: I realize that all beings, whatever they may be, have equal rights to Divine Good. That kind of understanding is Divine Love. If you do not understand it like that, it is not Divine Love.

“Happiness can be achieved only when we realize that goal that God has put in life—and that goal is Man’s life in God.” ~Biensa Douno

Study Without Love

When you study materialistic subjects without love, you may have some success, but it will be limited, and incomplete. Only with love can you grasp the full truth of the matter. When you study spiritual subjects, it is unlikely that you will have much success at all if you lack love, especially the love of God.

Put the Divine in Your Work

There is an old story about a wealthy man who hires a local home builder to build a home. The builder does good work, but has not had a lot of success and so does not have much money. He decides to cut corners while building the house for the wealthy man so he will make more profit. When the house is finished, the wealthy man pays for it, then tells the house builder that the home is for him. “I know you work hard but don’t make a lot of money so I decided to build this house for you.” So the builder finds out that the house built in an inferior way is his own.

The point of the story is that we are all building our own homes, our own lives. If we cheat and look for shortcuts, it is ourselves we cheat the most. If we have love and put Divine Love in all we do, that would never happen. We would do our best in all our work. Most importantly, I think Douno is mostly reminding us to do our best with our spiritual growth and spiritual life. To mess up our physical life with bad karma is bad enough, but physical life is short, while spiritual life is eternal.

Connect With God

While some may think of it differently, the goal of spiritual development is to connect with God, learn from God, and ultimately become one with God and one will All. If that is not what we are trying to do, then it isn’t real spiritual development. The spirit is not a part of the body or the mind and it can’t be developed by our efforts alone in the realm of matter. It is only through that connection with God, primarily through the Spiritual Sun, that the spirit can truly awaken and grow. Just reading holy books isn’t enough. Just posting memes about how spirituality is so much better than religion isn’t enough, in fact, it is an indication of egotism, the opposite of spiritual development. So look to the Spiritual Sun and seek that connection with God.

All Beings Have Equal Rights

Douno says that with Divine Love we “realize that all beings, whatever they may be, have equal rights to Divine Good.” I can agree with that. It is important to note that he says all beings, not all humans, not all animals, but all beings which include plants as well. So the holier-than-thou vegans are not doing anything to encourage the growth of their souls, as they to are saying that some beings are more important than others, and eating some beings is just fine, but not others. That is not the truth.



“The asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs struck in springtime”

 

An artist’s impression of the Tanis river site in North Dakota moments after the asteroid strike that doomed the dinosaurs to extinction 66 million years ago.

 

Picture a calm spring day 66 million years ago in what’s now North Dakota. Perhaps a Triceratops was lying in the sun, while in the river freshwater paddlefish, mouths gaping, were foraging plankton.

Seconds later, a 10-meter-high (33-foot-high) wall of water rushes in from the east and then spheres of glass start to rain down from the sky — some of them still on fire as they hit the river.
These could have been the very last moments of the dinosaur era, which came to a cataclysmic end when a city-size asteroid struck the shallow ocean off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, killing off three quarters of all species on Earth. According to a new study of fossilized fish that were found at North Dakota’s Tanis fossil site and perished as a result of the devastating impact, the asteroid hit in springtime.

 

Read the entire article posted February 23, 2022 at cnn.com.

 

link submitted by Gene Savoy Jr.