Category: Musings

Cagliostro – Erasing Personal History

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In a world obsessed with the curriculum vitae it makes “sense” to be able to account for our life, our training and our affiliations. We might even get a job on the basis of our CV. Historians may want to pin down where we were born, to whom and with whom we associated. That makes a story, a narrative of our lives, a his-story or a her-story. Human folly suggests that these stories are important when they are in fact impermanent and mutable. If someone knows our story we can be held to it.

“You said you are vegan and that meat is murder. How come you are eating a steak you lying bastard?”

Our stories make an expectation which people expect us to life up or down to. If we don’t behave as a good priest we could be chucked out of church for shagging a prostitute.

There is a Toltec technique called “Erasing Personal History”. In which one is encouraged to unpick, change and ultimately remove any legend or story we might have about ourselves. We become free of the bullshit we tell ourselves about who and what we are. We are liberated by rubbing out the story, erasing it. As an interim measure we might make a working story to use until such time as we have no story at all.

The CIA and MI6 allegedly prepare extensive cover stories for agents complete with passports and driver licences. The back story might be fleshed out in, inter alia, social media.

So why not invent a cover as Comte de Cagliostro?

It might infuriate those who want to try to pin you down to some identity or other. You are not playing fair if you do not stick to “normal” societal rules. Who is this charlatan?

Well maybe he was someone who was erasing his personal history forever reinventing how he behaved and how he presented himself. As he evolved as a spiritual being his story, his legend evolved with him. He was not a fixed and rigid being. He was not constrained by the stories others sought to tell and be adamant about.

Right now there is nobody who can give a good account of me. I have claimed that I used to teach chemistry to the nurses. Nobody has tested my knowledge. I could be a lying charlatan. Weirdly I might be able to talk about high resolution laser spectroscopy and how to use a two-stroke strimmer.

If your bloodline was dangerous to you. It might be wise to hide your pedigree. Having noble parents could mean your end. There are many motivations why someone might be vague about their birth.

They did not have DNA screening and biometrics back then!!

It is funny to watch people getting into a tizzy about who Comte de Cagliostro might have been. Then watch them present their theories, which have made it onto Wikipedia.

So obvs they must be gospel true.

The whole notion of wanting and trying to erase any and all personal history goes against what makes “sense” in the normal socio-political view of the world. A personal history can shackle.

Peoples lives are ruined now because once they made an ill conceived remark. Their careers can be trashed, cancelled, because of the recorded history of what they are alleged to have said.

Now like so many others I am writing off any trip to the USA because what I have written on blogs may be held against me and prohibit my entrance. There is no point doing the paperwork.

Having your history held against you is not very liberating…

I have not been to Malta for quite a number of years 😉

Cagliostro – History and Agenda

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

It is raining today. I’ll make some comments.

There is a lot of cut and past without attribution “stuff” on the internet. There is a lot of re-hashing

I’ll speculate that laziness has prevented good research.

I’ll comment that the level of scholarship may not  be high.

In this document seemingly in his own words.

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The man who takes on the name Comte de Cagliostro describes the fact that his place of birth was unknown and that he was initially raised in a Muslim household and that he visited Mecca. He was allegedly an orphan.  It is possible that amongst his  studies of the sciences he did optics and astronomy. He says that he learned many languages.

There is perhaps a Christian bias against Islamic science and scholarship which is promulgated in the easily available material. The fascination with politics and courtly goings on is emphasized in the available material, soap opera stories entertain. Elsewhere he describes a kind of power struggle with the Christian theocracy and power brokers.

1766 has him travelling to Rhodes and Malta where he takes on the name Cagliostro and adopts Christian dress. He is well received by the Knights of Malta. Later in the text he suggests that his date of birth was 1750 {by subtraction} and that he arrived in Strasbourg in 1780. From his narrative he had access to some high ranking and important geezers. Pretty soon he ends up in the Bastille. The memoire is dated March 1783.

“The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789.”

This text already differs from the Wiki page. He does say that he travelled to Sicily.

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In the text he glosses over travels in Egypt and Asia.  Which would have had him exposed to  Vedic and Buddhist thought . Other texts on the various masonic rites points at a Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda influence in Egyptian masonic traditions.

{I have only scan read}

He goes to Rome incognito and is invited to see Cardinal Orsini…

“The Orsini are one of most important families in Italian history. At the height of their influence, in the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the Orsini were crucial players in Italian politics; they were closely allied to the Medici, with whom they were tied by several high-level marriages. The family produced three popes, about thirty cardinals and 62 senators of Rome, as well as several electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, and grand masters of the Knights of Malta.”

Of a Sunday morning one can see that quite a lot of stuff on the internet may have an agenda and a bias.

It is a bit strange reading 18th century French…

Vampire DNA at Imperial College and Hip Replacement Update

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I started watching “A Discovery of Witches” whilst in hospital after my total hip replacement. The other night we started series three. The main protagonists “academics” from Oxford University, also a vampire and a witch, had just gotten back from time walking to Elizabethan London in search of an alchemical text. They want to understand the vampire “blood rage” so obviously they go to Imperial College London to do some research. The TV programme had footage of the main entrance on Exhibition Road and drone views of the South Kensington Campus. The wife and I looked at each other.

There is no getting away from the place. It is everywhere like a rash. Like an antibiotic resistant STI it keeps popping up. Since the COVID days it is often in the news.

The story looks at the so-called vampire DNA of the de Clermont blood line and has quite a lot of London footage so-far including mews shots etc.. I do not look back at my interaction with that institution with fond memories. I am sometimes embarrassed to have been associated. And now it is in a bloody TV programme too!! FFS.

I am now four weeks into the time after hip replacement. I can walk around the house unaided, no crutches. Yesterday we walked the hills of Lannion centre and today my muscles ache. The actual joint pain in the hip is markedly reduced from before. There is enhanced flexibility and it seems that the functionality will continue to improve. There remains some problems with early morning-late nocturnal pain in the sacroiliac joints and where the sacral spine joins the lumbar spine. This kicks in around 5 AM. I am down to only one co-codamol a night taken around 2 AM. If I get up and move around, do some back stretches, I can sleep on a bit. I am sleeping through the night. We go to bed about midnight and I am up 6 – 6:30 AM at the moment.

It is not ideal though is tolerable. I could easily take some more dope – some more codeine. But I don’t think that is a good idea. When I am able to lie on my right hip, the operated one, I may be able to sleep better. The pain goes away within minutes of getting up and moving around. The incentive is not to lounge around like a hippie in bed.

The problem is I am not looking forward to going to bed. I am not looking forward to waking up in the morning. A non-ideal situation. Not sure what to do. I may try some back stretches later today. The pain may not go and I might have to resort to my previous medication which worked before the operation. Too early to tell.

There could be an enhanced vigilance at play. The last time I went to sleep, I woke up with an eight inch scar and a lump of Titanium…that is what happens if you doze off..

Luckily I know that many things do indeed pass. The hip progress seems OK. The sleeping and pre-dawn pains could be better.

On the whole the now is a whole lot better than the before….

Shamballa and Guardians of the Race

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Shambhala (Sanskrit: शम्भल, IAST: Śambhala), also spelled Shambala or Shamballa (Tibetan: བདེ་འབྱུང, Wylie: Bde’byung; Chinese: 香巴拉; pinyin: Xiāngbālā), is a spiritual kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Shambhala is mentioned in the Kalachakra Tantra. The Bon scriptures speak of a closely related land called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring.

The Sanskrit name is taken from the name of a city near the Ganges, sometimes identified with Sambhal in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, as mentioned in the Hindu Puranas. The mythological relevance of the place originates with a prophecy in Vishnu Purana (4.24) according to which Shambhala will be the birthplace of Kalki, the next incarnation of Vishnu, who will usher in a new age (Satya Yuga); and the prophesied ruling Kingdom of Maitreya, the future Buddha.

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Excerpted from Wikipedia

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In the blue books opus Kuhl makes numerous mentions of Shamballa and it is referred to in the Kalachakra Tantra. The obvious Lara Croft or Indiana Jones question is where? Where can I find this mysterious place which is perhaps imbued with secrets, power and treasure?

Kuhl suggests that initiates of a certain degree { 3 and above} can go “there” as members of the blue or white lodges. Here the term lodge has perhaps been adopted for the benefit of those inculcated into freemasonry. A lodge is hardly a Himalayan notion. He suggests that Shamballa acts as a kind of planetary chakra. It is “at” Shamballa that certain members of the so-called hierarchy meet and meditate. This so-called hierarchy correlates with those Théun Mares refers to as “The Guardians of the Race”. The notion is that these beings have since the beginning of humanity been looking over us and revealing various teachings to help humanity evolve. They distribute “energies” which are both causal and facilitative.

In this school of thought beings who have taken the fourth initiation no longer have a causal body which is blown off during the act of initiation. These beings are no longer required to incarnate by the laws of material karma. If you accept such a notion, if only as a working hypothesis, it should be reasonably clear that a being who no longer needs to incarnate will be markedly different to one who must. Technically they no longer have a reincarnating Jiva or Soul. They have transcended. They are now something else.

If you are not even partially soul infused it might be difficult to comprehend someone/something who has gone way past where you might find yourself now. It might be tempting to suggest that this is a bunch of codswallop and made up fairy tales.

To look for a physical plane manifestation of Shamballa would be a sign that one only believes in physically measurable physical materiality. The absence of stones or ruins mighty be deemed proof of the non-existence. History suggests that many things “proven” by humanity are subsequently found incomplete, inaccurate and wrong. Yet humanity remains adamant and vocal about the completeness of current “proof”. The soap box beckons. There is an in public alignment with the currently accepted dogma.

Shamballa is probably not a Disneyland style magic castle in the air…

As it is described it is an operative “sacred” thought form, a place of work and/or meditation. It is “there” that a gathering of consciousness occurs. Over a long while this thought form has been built refined and shared. One cannot construct it, imagine it, unless one is already able.

The thought form is more complex and extensive than one might imagine. Certain “areas” are available only to relatively few. One might say that physical limitations like brain and noisy mind can limit access.

The way Kuhl describes it is by analogy perhaps to some kind of temple in which there is an inner sanctuary open only to those evolved enough to enter. There can be found, depending upon the needs of the time, the three Buddhas of activity, the senior members of the hierarchy and the Sanat Kumara.

To expect a corporeal from, human shaped, points at the endless anthropomorphic ideation of humans. The one which casts God as a geezer on a cloud. Human imagination has a bit of a meat, bricks and mortar, fetish.

Not all members of the externalising hierarchy are linked or tied to Shamballa, according to Kuhl. One might take the published writings as merely a taster of a much wider plan. It is by way of, perhaps, a “for instance”.

He suggests that those working with the Shamballa impulse are developed meditatively in a particular way, trained to work therein and therewith. They may well be in a physical incarnation; there are others which are not.

The notion of a disincarnate being working on “energies” pertaining to the planet, is not currently provable, nor might it be swallowed easily by the modern omniscient scientist. These putative contemplatives are formless to mundane eye. The notion of a formless intellect or consciousness is an anathema to a neuroscientist who must publish and put dinner on the table. MRI machines cost shit loads and these must be justified. They could not measure a formless contemplative.

To accept that things which cannot be measured using the instrumentation based on The Standard Model exist, is not easy to accept. Yet dark matter and dark energy are mooted.

The more that minds construct the Shamballa thought form the more “concrete” and “real” it becomes.

If a lot of people think of “Gangnam Style” then one can be easily infected by a brain worm, which is difficult to shift. Thought forms have a non-material existence in the “aether” for want of a better word. We can easily tap into them whether we might wish to or not.

Shamballa then is by way of a meditative and intuitive “thought form” which has a non-material existence and “where” meditation and work can be carried out in a group like manner, in formation and en rapport…

EUV Jobs in China?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This morning I came upon this article on Reuters:

“Exclusive: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips

SINGAPORE, Dec 17 (Reuters) – In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned.

Completed in early 2025 and now undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or EUVs, according to two people with knowledge of the project.”

Click here for full article

It seems the semiconductor industry in China is offering good salaries, monthly housing allowances and accelerated visa clearances. It is trying to attract inward highly technological immigration. It is not trying to stop or limit talent from other countries.

As someone who designed an EUV prototype it makes me wonder what took them so long. Maybe I might be employable after all…

The article goes on to suggest that there has been recent Chinese patent filing in EUV. Huawei are involved as is the state. ASML have literally hundreds of EUV related patents, which cannot easily be enforced globally.

They aim to produce chips in a few years – no mean feat!!

Archaic Deity – Archaic Iconography…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Many depictions of deity are a tad dated. They arose in times when the power of kings and emperors was quasi absolute. The iconography has “radioactive” halos around sainted beings, chariots, swords and thrones. There are arguments about who stands or sits around the throne and on which side various beings are to be found. There are crowns and often a patrilineal succession of power. Humanity obsesses about organisational flow charts of the heavens and in the past who had career advancement amongst the Gods depended upon level of obedience and sycophancy. The celestial “human” resources department had severance packages to negotiate.

Fear of God put bums on seats and pennies on the collection plate.

These days the power of kings is much diminished. We don’t drive roman chariots all that much. The machete has replaced the short sword. The Heckler and Koch automatic has replaced the spear. The ultimate symbol of mundane power is a ginormous nuclear powered aircraft carrier equipped with stealth bombers. Thrones are old hat.

In constructing a deity and a pecking order of them, whether that be of Gods and angels or Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the notions are related to the mundane order of things. The iconography perhaps an aid for the illiterate. In many cases the “clergy” asserted power over flock and encouraged supplication therefrom. The “clergy” encouraged a notion that they were higher, perhaps better and more revered than the lay. The churches and temples extracted wealth and called it meritorious. It might help your journey in the afterlife to fund the claret of a bishop. It was a good pitch. People can read and think now.

I am not sure older notions of Gods and Buddhas wash as well these days. Despite what fragrances Unilever might add. Subscription to religious providers it probably falling all over the world.

There is a glaring difference in iconography between the seated tranquil garden statue Buddha and the tortured crucified Christ bleeding from his crown of thorns. This despite much similarity in their teachings. Man has emphasised the suffering of Jesus over his peaceful message. It prefers to show images of internecine cruelty and suffering rather than brotherly love. In our time there is much need both for tranquillity and for love.

Religious iconography is very often chavvy and overly ornate. It is showy and “look at me”.

“We have shit loads of gold! We the clergy must be powerful! Kneel pleb!”

Modern military power does not lend itself to very personal, even familial iconography. There is no big hearted daddy on the throne. Rather a couple of old men, fingers above a red button, ready to embody Shiva the destroyer aspect of deity. It is not an image of fatherly love. It is one of pendant wrath and nuclear winter.

Notions of deity need updating in a manner more suitable for modern mind, modern living. And no I do not mean a Marvel escapist universe. The sublime needs divorced from the family drama and the incestuous and the Machiavellian.

Spirit and consciousness needs to evolve away from the zoomorphic whilst retaining the feelings and value. A new form of understanding might spring from where we find ourselves now, so very obsessed with corporeal image and public relations spin-bullshit. Petabytes of images are quite a quagmire for the minds of mankind.

Yup…I think the old forms of iconography and depictions of deity are looking rather dated and may no longer be fit for purpose.

We may even need a thorough review of what we imagine deity and/or a God to be.

I wonder how might we imagine and create a God 2.0 ?

Hip Replacement – Three Weeks In

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Last night following the themes of Metatron and Seraphim which have cropped up in my dreams we watched a film “Legion” in which a disappointed God sends his angels down to cleanse the world of humans. In that Michael goes against God’s orders. He chops off his wings. He ends up fighting Gabriel and a human baby is saved from slaughter, to provide hope. The film was OK…the plot was a bit formulaic.

What is clear to me is that in the collective consciousness there is vast speculation and extrapolation for only a very few verses in religious scripture. Humans have invented vast tracks of images and iconography to do with angels, the messengers and perhaps heralds of God. Most of those images are very idealized with virginal female angels and muscular homo-erotic male ones. Angels have caught the imagination. Angels, it seems, are rarely ugly. There are no middle aged men angels partially shaven and with beer guts. Although perhaps wise, angels rarely have advancing age. In modern psychology visions of angels might be treated as psychiatric illness. Though they have been a part of religion and hence historically a cause for war over the centuries.

The notion of angels pervades into modern culture. Highfalutin beings with special powers are popular in the “mind”. Supramundane entities are nevertheless anthropomorphic and made in the more idealised aspects of our physical images. Just as we might make God an old geezer, we might make an angel a pretty hunk with flowing locks and wings.

I am genuinely surprised as to the extent of extrapolation from only a few words in religious text.

Far out…

Back here on earth yesterday I managed to walk for around a kilometre with only one crutch along the seafront up at the coast. Because it was a nice day there were others taking their disabled and spastic relatives out for a spin. There were a few wheelchairs, one of which looked off road. As the lunchtime witching hour passed more locals were wheeling out their disabled. It was a nice day and the sound of the waves a pleasure on the ear.

Overnight I have my first night without getting up for a shit-TV and KitKat break. I am sleeping upstairs and had a cumulative 6-7 hours with only four wake breaks last night.

This morning I have been out in the garden. In a 2 acre garden it is easy to walk far. We inspected the damage done by the wild boars and looked at the repair to the fence which the wife made. The little buggers have not been back since the hunt visited. Maybe some families had boar for tea. I used the leaf blower to clear the oak leaves from the gully by the pond. I was able to re-tension the five strand electric fence, the coypu deterrent. If we keep them at bay the lotus display next spring-summer will be ace. As winter deepens they come to ours for food. I have indoor and outdoor crutches now. One of which is now very muddy.

I have started to think about doing a small plumbing job.

There is some semblance of normality returning. I did a roast chicken dinner on Friday night and today we have lamb chops in a teriyaki marinade.

The scar is healing well. It is a bit itchy but no longer raised. The pain levels during the day are fine. The flexibility is already better. I can pick stuff up off the floor without kneeling…It is pretty weird feeling a hip joint click and not having painful bone on bone grind. It will take a while to become accustomed. I am happy with the progress at three weeks. I can walk unaided around the house when not tired. It is easy to imagine things getting better.

It is hard to know how well I am doing relatively speaking. We had prepared for more difficulty which has probably made things easier.

As usual preparation nearly always pays off…

My normal physiotherapist will probably freak at how far he can stretch my right leg when I see him next week!!

There is a semblance of normality returning…

two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

Pink Floyd

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The {western} world lacks courage to even begin to question the way it “lives”. It is largely comfortable, though bored. It is comfortably numb. It goes through the motions of life; it exists as opposed to lives. Life is repetitive. There is not enough entertainment generated by {AI} algorithm on Netflix and the like. Net-fix can be had from the data pushers at around ten euros a month. There is a repetitive mediocrity similar to the 1970s middle of the road, which at least gave painful birth to punk. The world is in a “safe” doldrum numbed by the opiates of social media and endless trite imagery. It slices itself with plastic surgery, fills itself with chemicals and scars with tattoo. Allegedly mental health is in decline. The notion of being offended and entitled is pervasive. Complaint is all around us. And all we hear about these days upon the high altar is “deal” none of which are permanent, nor worth the paper upon which they are written. The insidious mantra percolates. A deal is professed as the answer.

The fear of being cancelled is a new 21st century one. Incorrect usage of Newspeak has the baying mob of vigilante thought police at the door. A polished glossy fake mediocrity is the ticket to fame and fortune. We have grey as a pervasive life tone. Table turning, upsetting the apple cart or boat rocking, are taboo. Against this the quasi-fascist nationalist right wing grows more vocal and separative.

Remember folks we tried nationalist fascism last century and it did not go so well…

People who are generally comfortable are very risk averse. They fear missing out on the latest trend or fad. They dread being shunned by whichever tribe they imagine a belonging to. It seems human folly is more addictive than ever. They will not twist; they stick with the cards they have. Because the erroneous notions of guarantee and proof beforehand, have taken hold. No bodhisattva has ever given a Tripadvisor five star rating for their journey. Click on to the next web page. There is no proof it will work. There are no “reliable” ratings.

I’ll speculate that humanity is indeed lost and directionless. While comfortable there is no compulsion to do anything whatsoever. We can sit on the sofa with our home delivered food clicking through hundreds of channels of shit on the TV and internet. Maybe we find something that piques our interest for the first series. We watch the second series knowing well that it will not be as good. Like a coke-head, the subsequent lines do not give the same hit. The novelty has worn off.

So what do we do? Maybe a little more retail therapy? Perhaps some more inane social media posts? Or we can eat drink and shag ourselves stupid. The NHS will clear up the mess…

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We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

Pink Floyd

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