Yellow Brick Road

Occulture episode 84 posted. We talk about spiritual maturation, selfhood, and the Wizard of Oz.

Support Ryan Peverly and his super sauce podcast Occulture via donation or his Patreon to help him reform his self. Episode comments:

"I will not lie to you, good people. The conversation you’re about to hear is one of the most enlightening and one of the most personal that you’ll ever hear on this show.

And I have to thank our guest Niles Heckman for that. He brought a really cool idea to me for the chat, and I had no idea what to expect before we hit the record button, but what transpired, I think, is pretty inspiring. Niles is a multimedia savant. He’s a writer, photographer, podcaster and the man behind the films Shamans of the Global Village and the forthcoming Transmutation. He’s also a frequent guest on my friend Ed Liu’s Psychedelic Milk podcast.

And what we did here was, we talk a lot about our own growth and maturation, how it applies to our creations and our art, and then looked at how a man named Lyman Frank Baum followed a similar path to create maybe the most recognizable fairy tale in the history of art, The Wizard of Oz. Some of you may have heard of that.

The Wizard of Oz part of this, though, is actually the second hour of the chat, and if you’re not supporting the show on Patreon, you’re only getting the first half of this. So, if you want to hear this in its entirety, head over to Patreon.com/occulture to support the show for as little as $2 a month. That’ll get you access to extensions like this one as I continue to enhance and expand my Patreon content. And this is the first time I’ve really tried the whole first hour free, second hour for patrons thing. It’s worth it too, because what we talk about in the first hour is really a blueprint for Baum’s creation of The Wizard of Oz and all the esoteric and occult symbolism found within it. And there’s quite a bit of it, actually."

Sports Fansmanship

WARNING: Contentious message ahead. As Mark Twain once said, "If you find yourself agreeing with the majority, take time to pause and reflect."

When growing up, adolescent sports are great for young rugrats to get exercise. It’s a light recreational group activity which teaches kids to work in teams to cooperate as well as instill drive and passion about goal accomplishment through physical activity. Individual physical accomplishments like running, cycling, skiing, or weightlifting are good because they create a dynamic where you are engaging in exercise with the only one you really need to compete with being yourself. It’s fun if it stays minor and lite, but things go weird when that dad on the side of the field at the little league game is really seriously emotionally involved in the game’s outcome. We here at the student of life essays have spoken on being process oriented over being goal oriented. Process orientation is expansive and leads to personal growth. Goal orientation is contractive and fueled by competitiveness. We’ve also discussed the child asleep robot factor of many who are essentially little kids in adult bodies. This overly invested little league dad is the prime amalgam of these two concepts and his personality type can be fractaled out into many other sheeple currently in manifestation worldwide. In no area is this more apparent than that of sports fans.

When sports go from being a few kids on the field to someone getting their own personal exercise for health reasons into collegiate, professional, or Olympic leagues with giant stadiums, annual statistics, audience in-fighting, doped up athletes, celebrity worship, corporate sponsorship, and exorbitant salaries than we have a big problem because they are too big. Not coincidentally it’s the same problems caused by big religion, big government, big science, and big corporations, which are ultimately all about the dollar signs and restrict human consciousness. Money is the partial root of all evil in its current centralized structuring, the pure profit motive is the core problem of professional “big everything”. Evident by the fact that the National Football League, which up until recently was a tax-exempt organization, making billions of dollars a year, has proven to care more about covering up the long-term effect of traumatic brain injuries of its players than their true long-term health and well being because the dollar signs are king.

American sports logos are red, white, and blue to try and subconsciously imply being a fan of your local city's team is patriotic. When in reality they are really there to stagnate human potential. If a sport player’s life growing up is so void of spirit that they are constantly fighting the boredom of small town USA or inner city urban unfortunateness that their only options other than working at the local minimum wage job are to try and excel into professional sports or join the military, then it’s time to upgrade the societies’ operating system to a new version.

Sports scholarships have a silver lining of a potential subsidized or even freeride schooling, which is good because all schooling should be free anyway. However, the college player’s life on the field is held to the highest importance regardless of their academic performance or behavior off the field. Ergo, the university that covers up the sexual abuse of female students at the had of a star athlete who brings in the big dollars for the university. The endless profit motive which ramps up at the university level and then skyrockets at a professional level conceals the innocence of the joy of the game by instilling an endless profit goal orientation motive. This is no more evident when watching a team which has lost a big game look like the sky has fallen. Even with all that back hard work by the players which is to be honored and respected, ultimately the championship trophy or ring they would attain means nothing to their soul growth. Professional teams themselves also do not bring economic prosperity or massive revenue to their cities. They instead enrich a few ultra-rich team owners in the current low bandwidth, heavily corporate chronic centralized capitalistic system which grossly mis-distributes wealth upwards.

The profit motive is not the real tragedy with grossly overinflated sports. The real tragedy is their ability to waist fans as individuals, groups, cities, and even the majority of entire countries’ time. Big money sports are there to waste your clock when consumed. They are consumption without creation events, soap operas without end, which ultimately do nothing, are void of substance, and have little to no ultimate importance to the society, to then only be recycled the next season. Professional sports are a very useful tool for the power pyramid of control because it knows an ignorant dumbed down populace loves the distractions being put in front of them. It takes exorbitant amounts of time to follow a team, and all its players, and even deeper their statistics. Romans called this “bread and circuses”. They have always been used as a tool to distract and mindlessly entertain. Since the days of the gladiators battling in the Coliseum of Rome, to modern day small town USA, the profane have always revolved around the sporting ring and it’s modern day oily tentacle arms of dive bars which broadcast sporting events.

Larger still are those at home who pop a beer and happily waist two to four Sunday hours watching the game in a larval like state. Watching TV is essentially the same as sitting sedentary staring at shapes and sounds given to you by the joker spirals of miss information while gazing at the wall. Then the remote viewer may also burn another hour or two watching a post-game show. Never in history have some many men talked about so little as a sporting post game show. Since I was a little kid and first heard about and saw friends and their parents doing a fantasy baseball team all I could think about is what a staggering waste of time it was and how boring it would be to be that invested in something with so little ultimate meaning and personal return.

During the days of the Wild West, American saloons have always been sad places of sorrow and personal destruction. Since the dawn of the don’t think tube, otherwise known as the television, one will usually always find a bar with a telly existing with a game on inside if not even an array of multiple televisions. European pubs have a more sophisticated and welcoming interior with a more family-friendly orientation over the seediness of an American dive bar, yet ultimately only result in the same dynamic of a business full of passion filled males watching European football matches while drinking copious amounts of mentally mind contracting sanctioned liquid drugs to make their guts grow.

Sports arenas are grossly low resonate places which waist yet even more time and energy. People can easily burn an entire day, commuting going to a game, tailgating in the parking lot, sitting at the game eating fecal filled processed Franken fried food such as hot dogs or rice based American beer. Then sitting in massive gridlock traffic upon conclusion of the event. Most sports tickets are three figure costs, so not only have you waisted three hours by watching at home, you’ve wasted nearly an entire day due to the planning, and travel. My parents once got free tickets to an NFL game and all my mom had to say about it was “it was such a long day and we don’t think we’ll do it again.”

Season ticket holding is the lowest common denominator. Someone who goes to every game, devoting time and time week after week, month after month. If you know a season ticket holder, it’s likely that person's whole life will only consist of their slave job and their sports team they are a fanatic follower of. The rest of their undeveloped cup will likely be shallow and empty.

Aleister Crowley wrote in the introduction to his seminal book The Book of the Law, “Consider the popularity of the cinema, the wireless, the football pools and guessing competitions, all devices for soothing fractious infants, no seed of purpose in them. Consider sport, the babyish enthusiasms, and rage which it excites, whole nations disturbed by disputes between boys.” Sports trap us in a juvenile and male-dominated nature of those days growing up on the field and collecting baseball cards. Through my young childhood, I continued to play sports for years beyond when I really wanted to because that’s what the other kids were doing. When I actually wanted to be reading comics, drawing, or doing something else that resulted in creating over just consuming. As I moved into my teens, I matured beyond sports and especially sports fansmanship consumption because of strong desires to continue passions and creating a body of artistic works. Which, sadly, many boys in grown men meat suits never do.

Imagine an entire sport stadium of fans spending that time in other healthy ways of comradery getting grassroots organized to help improve their local community, or getting locally politically active, building housing together like the Amish do, group exercising like large marathons, restructuring society via an event like a festival gathering, being in shamanic ceremony, or even engaging in a group meditation. Higher ladder efforts instead of just the base chakra cheering with primal lust at multi-millionaires running back and forth around on a field or ice rink.

I Know a dad who spent years of his son’s growing up being so into coaching, team organization, following college and pro seasons, only in his later life upon being asked “Hey Bob, are you still doing all that sports stuff?” with him maturely saying “no, I’ve got better things to do with my time now.”

So he grew up a bit later in life. Our society always can as well.

Accolades & Competition

The accolade was the central act in the rite of passage ceremonies conferring knighthood in the Middle Ages. From the mid-1800’s, the term accolade was then used much more generally to mean “praise” or “award” or “honor.” Awards are ultra-subjective, hierarchical, competitive, and egotistical, which are all things to avoid.

As a filmmaker, every time I look at another director’s website, I will usually always find a list of awards. All of which are secretly saying “look how great I am” because others have told me so and look how much better and popular I am than you because a sanctioned inner club has said so.

As young sprouts, we are taught to play organized sports, which are good for tribe building and exercise but bad for a “your team our team” mindset and the sense of “healthy competition” (which is really unhealthy competition) which they indoctrinate young minds into. The ladder climbing mindset of “I must have a gold medal and anything less is a failure” is considered greatness in an immature society which is grossly hierarchical, hence the youth trophy is something thought to strive for and excellence is claimed to be collecting gold stars in the classroom or on an Olympic podium. This system sucks ass because there can only ever be one winner while everyone else feels partially unfulfilled since ultimately one person wins while all the others lose. It also highlights it’s immaturity through being goal oriented, wanting a prise, like the little kid at the arcade pumping quarters into the claw machine to attain a cheap made in China stuffed animal. Compared to being maturely process oriented and simply enjoying the act itself without needing a sparkly price or piece of material gain. If you can find a little kid who cares about the act itself more than the reward, then good for them and they are on the future path to becoming a little zen buddha.

There is a massive difference between competition, which inspires fear and scarcity, and creativity for all, which inspires abundance. Here’s a quote from a man who knew a thing or two about this, Wallace D Wattles, regarding the mindset of competition vs the mindset of creativity.

“There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise, he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit.”

So the universe will only let you get so far in your development until you mature beyond competition. The biblical phrase “let thy will be done” not “let my will be done” highlights this through the mindset of help yourself first so only then you can help others.

A cheesy picture of Niles with 16+ gold statues from other folks he’s been associated with.

Since most folks can’t think for themselves and need others to tell them what is quality, entertainment industries for example, really seem to care about competitive awards. What’s that say about the industries? As someone who has actually won an award or two I recognize within the structures of an entertainment profession that they help your “career” and are important for allowing your material to be seen, and more secretly to egotistically be able to raise your rate, which equates to your time being more valuable — fair enough. However, the awards I have won have in no way been for my best projects.

A common theme in entertainment industries is striving for laurels. These are bestowed by a tiny few, such those who run a film festival, which have subjectively decided they are the critics to allow what they deem worthy through because they have self-created a business card with their name and on the line below it says “gatekeeper”. But are these gatekeepers life-long established professionals in their field who have created excellent bodies of work themselves in the field they are gatekeeping, or are they self-appointed critics who have given themselves the keys into the kingdom and you must bow to them in order to be let in.

Trying to give a stamp of approval or claim any piece of art better than any other is like trying to go into the Louvre museum in Paris and choose your favorite renaissance painting. That doesn’t work in that environment due to museums generally having a higher sense of sophistication than to allow a rotten tomatoes style labeling of such high-antiquity works. We all know the Oscars are not what is really the best renaissance paint on film emulsion created that year but instead what is in the category of “Oscar-worthy”. Which really just means “work established amongst the ranks”.

Bow to no one. Don’t have champaign red carpet dreams. Nice feedback is great and if you do receive a Pulitzer or a Nobel prize it doesn’t mean you are better than if you never receive any. Attention and respect from your peers or those who like your work are never to be under-appreciated, as all timeless works do want to be seen and no artist wants their work to only be recognized posthumously after they have exited their meat body. But the only person you should be in competition with is yourself. Intrinsically, you’re constantly winning a deluge of private awards within yourself if you’re creating a body of work which continues to inspire you as well as others. And that list is long.

PSYCHEDELIC MILK EPISODE 100 - UNCOVERING THE HUMAN POTENTIAL IN TRUTH

Joined Ed Liu on episode 100 of the Psychedelic Milk podcast to discuss the human potential and truthful living!

As a weekly podcast show host, Ed has had plenty of guests who are rubbish. So much to the point where he does not air certain conversations, he's recorded for future episodes or else only posts them only to his Patrons as "Rotten Milk" episodes. So it's an honor to have been on the show the number of times I have, to have great conversations which make the cut. 

Show Notes:

Who is Niles Heckman
Who am I?
What we're not
What we are
Why is it hard to know who we are
Introverted bias
Conscious vs subconscious
Living in a dream
Living the truth
Fear
Completing life's challenges
The Secret
New Thought

Continued in our PLUS+ Extension:

Thoughts influencing your actions
Discernment of information
Money and spirituality
Master key system
Changing the inner state to change the outer state
Messages of the subconscious
Depolarization
Integration of the shadow
Potential of human beings
Decentralization
Potential of the future

Evolve + Ascend on Transmutation

Lovely write-up over at Evolve + Ascend on Transmutation. Many thanks to Jennifer Sodini and Jessica Golich for taking the time out to do an actual real piece of film journalism on what's coming down. Film to be released VERY SOON at www.transmutationfilm.com!

The Alchemy of Human Experience: TRANSMUTATION

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Deep in the midst of actively or headlessly living out our singular human lives, it is often subconsciously dismissed that we are living on Planet Earth which inhibits over seven billion idiosyncratic human beings who are experiencing life in their own meaningful and individual way. Portraying a variety of worldly-wise perspectives and a wide range of emotions such as intimacy, grief, pain, suffering, happiness, mindfulness, enlightenment and depth, the manner in which Director, Niles Heckman, and Writer, Neil Kramer, examine human life throughout their documentary, Transmutation, from both a cinematographical and philosophical lens serves as  a mesmerizing and emotionally-charged source of inspiration for viewers of all walks of life. Blending the seemingly irrelevant with the divine within sweeping landscapes, prophets of perseverance and thought-leaders experiencing oracles of optimism envelop viewers with unshakable mesmerism that subconsciously draws the individual deeper into their center. Rooted from the cultivation of the willingness to seek beyond societal walls to reveal diverse ways of believing and being, Transmutation is a potent source for psychological healing.

It’s during those quiet and intimate moments surrounded by open natural spaces while within pauses of time when it’s easier to connect to our spiritual core and transport into a state of alignment that carries mystical attributes that we as human beings subconsciously extend outwards within our interactions. Rather than shrinking into places outgrown, the human connections and panoramic mental views that Transmutation shines a bright light on doesn’t steer from dark places, yet subconsciously reminds viewers that now is the time to dive in and work their way through, whether developmentally prepared to or not. Threatening the ways in which modern-society organizes reality and expressing perspectives from a place of bravery and conviction, Transmutation leaves the writing on the walls for viewers aching for a sense of equilibrium. Cognizant of their discomfort and the projections of fear that can sporadically arise from time to time, these human lives take pride in being there for themselves in the hole of the cosmic black and showcase both the capacity for and development of courage to live out a life of compassion.

Paradigm-smashing epiphanies stemming from connection with divinity leads human beings to challenge the familiar and known which in turn serves to broaden and awaken the whole. Transmutation showcases the art of tapping into someone’s mind and stepping in their shoes within an enlightening documentary and view that is abounding with soul-baring vulnerability.  Questioning the way in which both you and fellow individuals operate subconsciously leads to the opening of the mind and the refusal to stand for the ways of being that is correlated with modern man. The human experience is eternally a private experience, independent of external validation or expectations. We’ll leave the meaning behind this next line up to you – there is no such thing as a perfect landing, therefore, why not take the leap? It is time to exercise being your own safe space. Grant yourself an unreserved yes to take value-connected steps toward embodying your highest and truest self. Uprooting normality was the intention behind this documentary, Transmutation, but then again, what is normal?

Deep in the midst of actively or headlessly living out our singular human lives, it is often subconsciously dismissed that we are living on Planet Earth which inhibits over seven billion idiosyncratic human beings who are experiencing life in their own meaningful and individual way. Portraying a variety of worldly-wise perspectives and a wide range of emotions such as intimacy, grief, pain, suffering, happiness, mindfulness, enlightenment and depth, the manner in which Director, Niles Heckman, and Writer, Neil Kramer, examine human life throughout their documentary, Transmutation, from both a cinematographical and philosophical lens serves as  a mesmerizing and emotionally-charged source of inspiration for viewers of all walks of life. Blending the seemingly irrelevant with the divine within sweeping landscapes, prophets of perseverance and thought-leaders experiencing oracles of optimism envelop viewers with unshakable mesmerism that subconsciously draws the individual deeper into their center. Rooted from the cultivation of the willingness to seek beyond societal walls to reveal diverse ways of believing and being, Transmutation is a potent source for psychological healing.

It’s during those quiet and intimate moments surrounded by open natural spaces while within pauses of time when it’s easier to connect to our spiritual core and transport into a state of alignment that carries mystical attributes that we as human beings subconsciously extend outwards within our interactions. Rather than shrinking into places outgrown, the human connections and panoramic mental views that Transmutation shines a bright light on doesn’t steer from dark places, yet subconsciously reminds viewers that now is the time to dive in and work their way through, whether developmentally prepared to or not. Threatening the ways in which modern-society organizes reality and expressing perspectives from a place of bravery and conviction, Transmutation leaves the writing on the walls for viewers aching for a sense of equilibrium. Cognizant of their discomfort and the projections of fear that can sporadically arise from time to time, these human lives take pride in being there for themselves in the hole of the cosmic black and showcase both the capacity for and development of courage to live out a life of compassion.

Paradigm-smashing epiphanies stemming from connection with divinity leads human beings to challenge the familiar and known which in turn serves to broaden and awaken the whole. Transmutation showcases the art of tapping into someone’s mind and stepping in their shoes within an enlightening documentary and view that is abounding with soul-baring vulnerability.  Questioning the way in which both you and fellow individuals operate subconsciously leads to the opening of the mind and the refusal to stand for the ways of being that is correlated with modern man. The human experience is eternally a private experience, independent of external validation or expectations. We’ll leave the meaning behind this next line up to you – there is no such thing as a perfect landing, therefore, why not take the leap? It is time to exercise being your own safe space. Grant yourself an unreserved yes to take value-connected steps toward embodying your highest and truest self. Uprooting normality was the intention behind this documentary, Transmutation, but then again, what is normal?

Deep in the midst of actively or headlessly living out our singular human lives, it is often subconsciously dismissed that we are living on Planet Earth which inhibits over seven billion idiosyncratic human beings who are experiencing life in their own meaningful and individual way. Portraying a variety of worldly-wise perspectives and a wide range of emotions such as intimacy, grief, pain, suffering, happiness, mindfulness, enlightenment and depth, the manner in which Director, Niles Heckman, and Writer, Neil Kramer, examine human life throughout their documentary, Transmutation, from both a cinematographical and philosophical lens serves as  a mesmerizing and emotionally-charged source of inspiration for viewers of all walks of life. Blending the seemingly irrelevant with the divine within sweeping landscapes, prophets of perseverance and thought-leaders experiencing oracles of optimism envelop viewers with unshakable mesmerism that subconsciously draws the individual deeper into their center. Rooted from the cultivation of the willingness to seek beyond societal walls to reveal diverse ways of believing and being, Transmutation is a potent source for psychological healing.

It’s during those quiet and intimate moments surrounded by open natural spaces while within pauses of time when it’s easier to connect to our spiritual core and transport into a state of alignment that carries mystical attributes that we as human beings subconsciously extend outwards within our interactions. Rather than shrinking into places outgrown, the human connections and panoramic mental views that Transmutation shines a bright light on doesn’t steer from dark places, yet subconsciously reminds viewers that now is the time to dive in and work their way through, whether developmentally prepared to or not. Threatening the ways in which modern-society organizes reality and expressing perspectives from a place of bravery and conviction, Transmutation leaves the writing on the walls for viewers aching for a sense of equilibrium. Cognizant of their discomfort and the projections of fear that can sporadically arise from time to time, these human lives take pride in being there for themselves in the hole of the cosmic black and showcase both the capacity for and development of courage to live out a life of compassion.

Paradigm-smashing epiphanies stemming from connection with divinity leads human beings to challenge the familiar and known which in turn serves to broaden and awaken the whole. Transmutation showcases the art of tapping into someone’s mind and stepping in their shoes within an enlightening documentary and view that is abounding with soul-baring vulnerability.  Questioning the way in which both you and fellow individuals operate subconsciously leads to the opening of the mind and the refusal to stand for the ways of being that is correlated with modern man. The human experience is eternally a private experience, independent of external validation or expectations. We’ll leave the meaning behind this next line up to you – there is no such thing as a perfect landing, therefore, why not take the leap? It is time to exercise being your own safe space. Grant yourself an unreserved yes to take value-connected steps toward embodying your highest and truest self. Uprooting normality was the intention behind this documentary, Transmutation, but then again, what is normal?

Occulture Podcast 2018

Epic chat with Ryan Peverly over at the Occulture Podcast to be posted soon.

As the years go on, I use social networks less and less and enjoy talking on podcasts more and more. Which is a good goal to strive for since having a good long-form conversation on a podcast usually requires having your own attainment, developed communication skills, and personal insights instead of just sharing those things which have been developed by others on a somewhat anti-social network. Podcasts also have the capability of being heard decades later rather than just the 2-minute attention span of crap social media feeds. Hence, I always try and make each podcast appearance where I am a guest timeless and life-changing.

The conversation is focused on "finding your occult self." Otherwise known as "you must become fucking awesome in order to create things fucking awesome." The first half of the chat focuses on Ryan and I's lives as examples of where we are at in that process and then we get into the work of Lyman Frank Baum who did the same in order to create the quintessential American fairy tale, The Wizard of Oz. 

Occulture is a great podcast. Much in the vein of The Higherside Chats, it's a podcast I enjoy and listen to as often as possible, so it's a gem to be a part of it. Keep up the great work Mr. Peverly.

You’re Talking To Yourself

These essays of course all start out on the page. The early days of reading them out were not as audio only but were actually us monologuing into camera. This was good because it’s nice to put a face to the voice but that technique was eventually jettisoned for numerous reasons. 

Firstly, doing them on camera is much more difficult. We have a little teleprompter for talking into camera documentary work, but you still inevitably fumble a word here and there and that requires editing. Which is way easier to do with voice only. Otherwise, in order to cut with video and be professional, you have to change camera position to make an edit work smoothly. So you don’t have what’s called a jump cut where one can clearly see a jump over a single talking head on camera shot which would have an abrupt jump cut should you do even a single edit on the footage. Thus you really need to shoot any talking head video piece from two camera angles or else get insert shots, or cutaway shots to be able to have enough to edit with. 

Secondly, because it's good to not be subservient to anyone else’s platform such as YouTube where your whole life is your YouTube channel inside their castle walls. As anyone who’s reading or listening to this is in the know regarding, should you say anything too politically polarizing, fundamentally hateful, or unfortunately, truthfully paradigm crushing, you might risk censorship within the newspeak rules allowed within their castle. 

Thirdly, because audio files are more easily transferable and shareable over the long haul. How many old Alan Watts lectures have you heard and how many have you watched? One advantage of those “on camera days” though is we were a face on camera which said “hello self” at the beginning of these essays because much like standing in front of a mirror, We were standing in front of a camera, talking into a lens, which if a few others watch that's great. As of 2020 our audio outputs average around 1000 to 5000 listens, but mainly, there are me talking to myself. In a sort of audio journal since. And we would still find the time to do these spoken word essays if the watcher-ship was just me myself and I.

This doesn’t mean talking to myself in the sense of the homeless crazy vagrant with diarrhea filled pants rambling incoherently. Oftentimes such behavior can be seen in the person with little to no inner monologue at best or schizophrenia psychosis at worst. So this is being mentioned not from a “one is sick” perspective but from a “one is helping themselves” perspective. This is a mental health issue not only from a socio economic or psychological perspective, but from a spiritual one.

Everything you say to someone else, you are really saying to yourself.

As well as everything you think about someone else, you are actually really thinking about an aspect of yourself. The universe will show you things based on your life experience and it will put you in situations, events, and circumstances to show you those things based on your own behavior.

So if you are saying or thinking or doing ill will, disdain, or hate to others, you don’t like yourself. If you are projecting gratitude, appreciation, respect, and love to others, you appreciate, respect, and love yourself. And even if everything said here is BS, isn’t this a beautiful exercise in being kind to one another? For treating those you know and those you have not formally met with mutual admiration and mutual respect.

There is a difference between identifying problems and constructive criticism, golly gee we certainly do a ton of criticizing of cultural and societal structural problems, but at a higher level, whatever you see wrong out there is what is wrong within yourself. Whatever cause you hold most sacred, has to do with your elevator down into the cavern of yourself and your past ripples in the pond of your back life story. This can fractal out into a much larger discussion about the structure of reality, the spatial model of the cosmos, the growth of the soul, as well as synchronicity, but ultimately this simple but easy life lesson is one of the most important life lessons to be conscious of and act on in your day to day life and the way you interact with others.

It’s really not hard to see that if you're a sour old curmudgeon who hates everyone and everything, you likely sit at home alone picking your nose and don't have many friends. Or if you're the life of the party in all social situations, yet are vain, shallow, narcissistic, and superficial, you may have many perceived fake friends that are on your same wavelength, party people, but who carry similar negative character traits. What you put out you attract and the frequency you vibrate at is the same frequency you get back. So if you are excellent, humbled, enjoyable to be around, light-hearted, and a good listener, you will be drawn toward others who are the same and will be slowly but surely building a network of other sophisticated and slightly more enlightened women and men who you can contact or rely upon for connection.

These are difficult and rather deep concepts to really practically digest in modernity, but nothing I’m saying here, or in any other narration, script, or essay I write is really new but more or less re-hashed from the ancient material of cycles past which also knew these things. Which are not as many things but could more accurately be said as truths.

Hermeticism, also called Hermetism, is a spiritually philosophical, occulted, and esoteric tradition based primarily upon writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. That will also be unpacked many more times in future words spoken here, but one of the main principles said in three seminal Hermetic works, The Corpus Hermeticum, The Kybalion, and the Emerald Tablet, all very very very very very worth your time is the phrase:

“As above, so below, as within, so without.”

The cliff notes version of this is saying that the higher and the lower, as well as the exterior and the interior, are correlated. So much so that one could say they are projections, or derivatives, or almost mirrors of one another. More conversation will continue to be had in due course in regards to the higher and lower, and what that actually really means, but we will focus on the as within so without section of this axiom of wisdom for the time being.

We’ve spoken of "mirror mirror" before, which is essentially saying that until you wake up, or start doing the work, or begin living truthfully, or start walking the yellow brick road of a spiritual path, or become somewhat actualized, or cease to be a robot, or starting moving towards excellence, the reflection of your inner and outer world is back to front and upside down. Which is revealed in the realization that nearly everything handed to us from modern economic normality which was built on the backs of slaves is 180% backward and esoteric teachings will mirror that back to front. That’s read inner spiritual growth is so damn hard. You have to be a salmon swimming the opposite way from the stream.

Working with others, watching their outer life improve, one can see as it reflects the shift in their inner reality. “As within, so without.” It really does work! Everything is connected to everything else, and undertaking personal change, doing the inner work to become more conscious leads to greater happiness, fulfillment and a clearer sense of life purpose and direction.

Personal experience of the magic of the Law of Correspondence may be necessary before most people will believe it. So if you’re out of your comfort zone, arguing with someone, let’s say your partner. Just tearing into them saying venom filled spiteful things. You have work to do. Always better for the mature mind to realize that if outer life isn’t working well, look within and work on the inner reality, so as to change the outer. And you will cease to put yourself, by your own admission, into relationships, contracts, and situations that are not correlating with your inner invisible, but very real, and paramountly important, inner landscape - yourself.

Health Is Wealth

Health is physical, mental and social well-being and not only the absence of disease. It is truly your most precious possession.

At the time of writing this essay, this author has been in numerous days of physical pain. In my infinite wisdom, I went off-roading on a densely wooded property my family has and got severe poison oak below the waist, arms, torso, and even some on my face. I somehow managed to get it on my eyelids as well which have succumb to swelling and thank goodness have been in the process of de-swelling for the last few days.

It takes moments like this in life to really remind you that every day you feel good is a good day and to appreciate those days. When alive and healthy and feeling physically well, it is truly a good time for your astrology. It allows you to see why those who are in prolonged constant pain, perhaps into their golden years, just want to go to the state of Oregon which has assisted suicide and wrap it up on their own terms.

When health is absent wealth is essentially useless. Those who are monetarily wealthy may not always be healthy but the healthy people always have aspects of wealth. Mental and physical well being are worth more than gold and silver. Living in poverty in the first world can mean subsistence and struggle. Which is rough and is never to be downplayed. But if your poor and healthy, you have the option to still live life ok. Young kids in poorer parts of South America for example, may live in a cinder block hut and kick the football around the dirt lot half the day, but still be having fun growing up with the minimal amounts of comforts in their small village. And by football I mean European football, soccer as it’s called in the US of A, which is the real football as American football should really be called handegg, because it’s an egg shaped ball the players hold with their hands and the European version is a ball they kick with their feet. But anyway, I digress.

If one does have all the money in the world and has not done all they can to be the best version of themselves which they can be, the money doesn't matter because they are in mental sickness which will be followed by physical sickness. There are physical reflections on what is actually mental misalignment in which case they end up in a Steve Jobs type situation where all the money in the world can’t save them.

My mother had primary biliary cirrhosis of the liver in the early 2000’s and got about as far as humanly possible before the universe gave her a liver transplant, but she was so physically miserable up until that point that she started to occasionally confess things to the family such as “I’m not sure if I want to go on living anymore”. She was very lucky and was successfully transplanted and is subsequently still alive at this time, but with an endless litany of various physical health issues. Which are constant and never ending and ongoing, which get’s very old for her her old bones. So it really takes being sick, or not feeling 100% to appreciate all the days we are healthy. Especially when you’re young, we don't fully respect our health or even take advantage of how good we feel via teenage / young adult shenanigans. Such as eating fecal filled fast food barf in a bag, binge drinking out of red plastic college party cups, sleeping around to get HPV or herpes - the physical gifts which keep on giving , etc…

A consistent lifestyle starting in your youth of healthy living (via the two main reasons you’ve always heard - diet and exercise) not forgetting a healthy environment, strong relationships, economic well being, proper personal hygiene and good old laughter. So you never have to have a traditional medicine doctor (quack or not) give you a diagnosis of a dark and stormy rain cloud one day. So you then only start really changing your bad habits when the grim reaper is knocking at your door.

Food industries need to be incentivized to provide healthy natural foods and not high fructose corn syrup, factory farmed, chemical sprayed, process crap to maximize their output and profits. Same story as every private industry, bla bla bla, while healthcare systems need focus on induced health over just corrective healthcare. Imagine a country where you get paid every time you do anything to increase mental or physical health such as meditate, get cardiovascular exercise, do yoga, or go to the gym, for example. So everything is focused on prevention rather than back-end treatment. Which would cost less than the current black hole money pit, works fabulous if your wealthy but bankrupts you if your not, dumpster fire that is the American healthcare system. And since our esoteric development comes to show us many things are mirrored back to front, we know much if not all of the healthcare system is actually an American sick care system. Not to mention the potential to decentralize industry innovation and creativity in providing many alternate healthy living solutions.

So although it sounds a bit corny and slightly syrupy, its really true that health is wealth. Life of a healthy woman man is they long-lasting wealth. It makes him able to enjoy life to the fullest. This is an immersive and simple phrase which has very deep truth to it. Just like many other phrases which have occult meanings and will surely be future essays such as, “Mind over matter,” “Where there's a will, there's a way, and “merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream”.

Ultimately, this really boils down to quality of life vs standard of living. Where standard of living is do do with income, class, stress, affordability, infrastructure, crime, and a bunch of other economic and cultural aspects which factor into your ability to have time to carry into your conscious health choices. But at the same time may sever you from nature and your natural environment. While quality of life is to do with freedoms. From physical or mental slavery, privacy, spiritual practice, thought, vote, education, etc. Much of which we’re way more advanced in ancient times. The main difference between standard of living and quality of life is that the former is more objective, while the latter is more subjective.

Regardless of your subjective angle you approach this from due to culture or cultural programming, the real measure of both health and wealth is your time. Your time for yourself to pursue your interests and passions. Time to be in service to what instills that natural drive within yourself and will allow you to have the time to then be in service to others. Which, when in alignment for, allow you to live a lower stress life of your own schedule and your own terms which has rewards that money can not buy.

2018 Mad Science Project

Alfred Hitchcock once said, "I don't make slices of life, I make slices of cake." Well, I am interested in slices of life. 

As a documentarian and gorilla independent filmmaker, it's important to be a self-sustaining entity. One of the ways I do that is by occasionally being my own cinematographer. A way to set your work apart from the rest is to find your own unique shooting style which develops over many years of doing. Hardware should cater to that style, not the other way around. So as a documentarian who does a lot of talking about life, I'm also not above the occasional shallow tech wonk post. Especially to highlight the last anamorphic rig build! 

The who, what, where, when, why of that style of hardware and shooting can be found in this previous post. But here are the exact deets on the update you see here:

Panasonic GH5 + Metabones Speedbooster 0.67X + Helios 44-2 lens + 49mm to 52mm adaption ring + Rapido v2 Clamp + Kowa for Bell & Howell + HTN Lock Ring + Rectilux Hardcore DNA + 86mm to 95mm adapter + 95mm Bower variable neutral density filter + (optional not seen) Vivitar series 1 close focus diopters. Most of those major items are a bit difficult to acquire.

The key I have always found is small and lightweight is Queen. Behind the quality of the image of course - which is King. As a self-shooter, I need to get into places where you otherwise wouldn't be able to easily access with a giant rig. I've previously discussed this in a prior video essay, but to simply, the more you can strip down the better. Thus you do not have obstacles your way in terms of mobility, so you can truly be gorilla tactical. 

Many thanks to Ben Wong, Tito Ferradans, Jim Chang, and John Barlow for their help bringing this into manifestation.

A New Definition of Greatness

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a truly beautiful human being. Although he was certainly not perfect, he was a perfect example of a religious person working within the structures of Orthodoxy as a reverend who wasn't purely externalizing everything like sadly so much of religious systems do. He knew and understood much deeper notions, realizations, and truths about how at the inner beautiful core of religious structures, the ones rarely seen, there relates messages not outside of oneself or about corporealized deities, or an old man in the sky with a celestial penis, but instead everyone, internally, esoterically. Because of that he was quite a philosopher and was embodied with spirit.

Much of my personal passion project work is spiritually philosophical. As a somewhat esoteric documentary filmmaker, whether it be stills or moving images, I self-shoot footage personally to serve that purpose. Another major part of what I also do is shoot footage for various projects for others. I often times if not always have either a still camera or video camera with me from travels and am constantly documenting moments for my film work on a whim. Much of my travel footage I license out via a site I'm a member of called Filmsupply. As a full-service licensing agency, they partner with leading filmmakers to bring footage from their passion projects to you through their highly curated catalog.

Filmsupply is great and I really am happy to be part of their team and they have some really world-renowned filmmakers onboard the venture. I am very uncommercial and have come to know what I'm good at and not good at and they are a perfect venture to be affiliated with because all I have to do is shoot great stuff and they basically deal with the rest. Studios, companies, brands, well-known names throughout the world, go to them for licensing extra footage if they need to pick up shots here and there for their own various projects. Since the content of my personal work is quite esoteric and paradigm destroyingly awesome, as you can tell by the themes I talk about and the content I direct contains, when I send them footage it's open season for anyone to buy it. And I have no real say or control over that which is how the process of stock type imagery works. Sometimes I see footage is purchased for something I'm not personally in alignment with but that's okay. Regardless, it's nice to see things pop up that you shot in other projects that deemed your footage of excellent enough quality to purchase. So I will say that I'm happy to see some footage I shot unexpectedly pop up in a 2018 Super Bowl spot featuring a voiceover by Martin Luther King Jr. A commercial during the most watched moment in television, which goes to show the quality of the material visually is deemed worthy for the highest budget advertising. Here's the spot in its entirety.

There is a major separation between the underlying content of what I shoot footage for and similar footage used in a different context for a corporate ad. This ad is an anomaly because it has a controversial element of it essentially using the voice of the amazing American the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. To essentially sell cars. I.e. one comment beautifully says "witnessing the bastardization of a great humanitarian by seeing him posthumously reduced to a corporate shill".

As someone that's worked in and out of ad agencies in Los Angeles in my former “career”, I know that creating an emotional moment correlates to memorability - which is what the ad is obviously trying to do. A major American auto manufacturer and their advertising agency they hired to make the spot is saying here’s a product to be sold by the powerful words and the historic Legacy of somebody that was very un-corporate military industrial expansion of the machine, on the front lines of fighting against the status quo. MLK’s work was not just about racism but a higher moral message about social injustice. Saying other lines like “A nation which continues year after year to spend more money on military defense (which is really military offense) than programs of social uplift, is approaching spiritual death". So Dr. King got it. He knew a few things and his spirit is why he has been shown to have been on the right side of recent history and why words spoken by him are just a pertinent and powerful 50 years later. Oftentimes old words are reused a new especially if they are words of substance and depth that philosophically can stand the test of time. Much of what MLK said during his life absolutely aligns with that way of being and one can say that using or reusing these words in a new context whatever that contacts maybe, it allows people access to those original words said when they may not have otherwise ever heard them. And his message of a new definition of greatness is to not look up to those at the top of hierarchies as great. Instead, those who are in service to others are truly the greatest because they are not concerned with ego expansion and ladder climbing but instead everyday people who help one another in life. So hooray to that re-defining of the term in the grammar/logic/rhetoric since.

This ad is very obviously polarizing in their use of Dr. King. The message being said is the most important part of the spot though and the attempt is to portrayed the message in slice of life America moments. I actually interpret Dodge/Chrysler's thoughts on the spot to say that the truck is meant to be at your service, America, as an American car manufacturer. But this spot aside, a great ad does serve multiple boxes and should be memorable. I always do see a disconnect in advertising these days that may achieve those things but then have little to no correlation with the product. So any final logo could be put on at the end whether or not you even remember it. Marketing ploys are a good example of why one could look at these things and acknowledge them as the light weight fluff that they are purely to sell a product, but at the same time there is a lot of artwork put into quite brilliant advertising and it can be a way for people to make profits off their skill set when those options aren't otherwise necessarily available. So the debate about the spot rages on.

Let’s not forget another beautiful philosophical soul who’s passed on who words also strongly live onto today, Bill hicks said that If you work in marketing or advertising you should seriously consider killing yourself. Which I find hilarious and I recently played for a marketing major and the conversation didn't go to well. That’s a bit harsh of course, but the underlying message is spot on, so maybe instead of suicide, if you work in advertising a job change would be in order? That will help the world by having the entire marketing + advertising cacophony which tries to get Larval puppet people sitting in front of the televisions to buy crap they don't need to recede into the shadows of time. Via an economy that not based on milimiliarism and consumerism but more freedom, security, transparency, prosperity for all. Themes King was an advocate of. A soul generated by love.

Childish Asleep Robots

Warning: Contentious message ahead - If you are easily offended, have conventional political views or are a stark dogmatist, please turn this off now.

Most human beings in the realm of Earth are nice people. They are good-hearted folks who just want to live their lives and do the right thing. Credit is given where credit is due. However, because we are at a low point and the cell phone bars of consciousness going from let’s say 2 bar in the scale of a potential 5 bar signal with our entire society being a product of empirical expansion, it has left much of our fellow mankind in the modern world in a reduced state. This reduced state is evident in the behavior of many human beings on spaceship Earth at this time space vector. With every single individual who leaves Plato’s Cave, there are a thousand more who have no interest in doing so. Yet, we could say the times they are a changing.

A term one could oftentimes use for the average person, Joe Sixpack or Sally Soccer mom, who’s we’ve already established as not being malicious, and likely quite well-intentioned, is a Childish Asleep Robot. This term may sound a bit harsh but is very applicable for usage because if you are really honest and see things transparently and objectively, one can recognize that most people exhibit behavior which is acting juvenile, while being in a state of waking sleep, engaging in machine-like behavior.

Neoteny is a term to describe childlike traits in adults. These are not so much applied to physical traits but more mental. While oftentimes responsibility is associated with growing up it’s also misconstrued with having the joy and play of the innocence of youth sucked out of you IE — grow up so you can have the responsibility, take the enchantment out of youth play, and live a rinse and repeat lifestyle of paying your bills. We're not so much talking about being

responsible and setting noble goals to accomplish things, especially related to work, whatever your work may be however authentic it is or not. We're talking about neoteny in the sense of “adults” not having their own experiences to gain direct knowledge and wisdom via personal experience but instead always having it given to them by others, mainly authority figures. We have a schooling system which doesn’t educate and have little to no real initiations into adulthood such as a spirit quest or shamanic initiation like the native Americans and indigenous peoples oftentimes do. Where you must have an experience, which usually involves extremely trial and hardship which you must surpass yourself out of, on your own, to move from childhood to adulthood. So few people in technological first world modernity have their own experiences. Whether or not you were educated in the public or private school system, if you attended public elementary school to high school before attending a private university, perhaps you were able to see through the charade of always being subservient to a parent like adult figure to tell you what to do or what great they deemed worthy of you based on their own opinions of your performance, how well you conformed, and their narrow spectrum short-term memory of multiple choice standardized testing. All under rigorous robotic routine scheduling dictated by the bell. Unless you are living in a cabin in the woods being 100% self-governing while living off the land, it’s likely that this outsourcing of your own ability to be an independent operator continues through your entire life, even into your, 40’s 50’s, 60’s and upward.

Whether you're polarized more liberal and may look at the government as a mother figure to help those in need or polarized more conservative and think of it and corporations as a father figure who needs to protect you, you are still reliant on an authority to tell you what to think. True adulthood comes from when you actually begin to formulate your own thoughts, notions, and ideas. For the most part, that can only come directly through self-sufficiency or multicultural, oftentimes multilingual, and sometimes even multidimensional travel and interaction.

Men oftentimes stay in a partial child-like state over women. This is especially evident by an urban influence 45-year-old man who wears a basketball jersey and a baseball hat. A mature woman in a relationship can oftentimes be a good help for a male to stop wearing baggy pants, tuck in their shirts, buy more than one suit for the occasional wedding he will attend, and get those suits tailored. A suit appeals to a man while a sports jersey appeals to the young immature boy. Extend that into the love of adolescent sports, designed for adolescents, continued all the way through adulthood. Aleister Crowley once said, “Consider the popularity of the sport, the babish enthusiasm that it excites, no seed of purpose in it.” While sports are one of the numerous entertainment outlets, and we all enjoy our forms of entertainment here and there during some rest & relaxation time, deep down we know that these outlets are contractive and not expensive. Resulting ultimately in only mindless escape over betterment of self through a development of a skill or a craft.

We may have a friend who dresses to impress. When asked by another friend “do you iron your shirts?” he responds “you mean like an adult?” All fashion aside, the man in the business suit driving the BMW may look like an adult on the outside, extrinsically, but get him out of his comfort zone, lets perhaps say by rear-ending that piece of German engineering and see how quickly he devolves into schoolyard childishness in terms of confrontation. This certainly doesn’t apply to every gal or guy in a business suit supporting their family through their role in a workforce but it applies to the majority. A similar trueness within them can be derived with their behavior on comment threads on articles or political discussions, in which the keyboard and screen amplify negative traits through their separation and anonymity. Evident by those threads being 98% echo-chamber or flame war regurgitating the talking points their camp has handed down from on high and 2% open-minded discourse and original thought.

As an extension of this, much of our outdated societal operating system gets folks to consent to things they don’t need to consent to. Their minds are so front-loaded with assumptions that they think they know what they really do not know. They have been conditioned throughout life in a culture and society which

gets massive amounts of these not quite mature beings to consent to their overlords. A good test for this is the apophatic question “do you know what color the sky is?” The correct answer is not “blue” but instead “yes” because the question was not “what color is the sky?” but instead it was “do you know what color the sky is?” Another example being when the police officer has stopped you by the side of the highway and asks you the question “do you understand?” what he’s really saying is “do you stand under my authority?” 999 out of 1000 people will say yes while that one who has left Plato’s Cave will know to say “Officer, I thank you for your service to the community, however, I overstand, and do not stand under your authority.”

Achieving a level of being a conscious and awake woman man is key. Folks think that waking up is realizing that the world is not as you thought it to be. That from a social-political standpoint much of what you once thought is eventually realized to in fact often times be the opposite. While that is certainly a step along the way, one can go further. Future essays will laser beam more deeply on that specific channel at a later time, but much of what the not fully mature woman or man will be doing prior to their stairsteps up toward deep knowledge, the gal or guy driving that BMW to their office, is to behave in a machine like way just as the school bell indoctrinated them to be day in and day out. Repeating the same patterns and occurrences. Thinking that their life could never be a bohemian life of uniqueness, enchantment, and originality, doing what feels right for them and them alone, living in the moment day by day, but instead what society expects of them. Go to college, get a job, have children, pay your taxes, and tell yourself you are free. When in reality you may not be free, because you are behaving like a robot and can sense the title wave of boredom always overtaking you.

They may be more like a cold refrigerated human asleep in their matrix pod who is not the slightest bit awake to the potential true nature of reality and how magical the world is, but is instead concerned with their role in empirical commerce - the buying and selling of commodities or having the standard 2.4 kids while themselves never achieving real adulthood. Children raising children

and societally we are still in the sandbox of maturity. The majority are not awake. They may be a bit 5-since conscious but are multidimensionally unconscious to the much deeper and greater possibilities of the wizards which they are perfectly capable of becoming with great deals of inner work to more align with the great word. They are in an artificially induced state of consciousness which resembles sleep. They do not see that all is a reflection of the internal, that there is no separation, and that they have a direct connection to divinity, that they are all that has ever been and all that will ever be. As the Arminian Sufi mystic, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff once said in regards to most of humanity, “machines they are born and machines they will die.” So it’s not that the species as a whole is irretrievably flawed, but instead, that’s it’s not expected to see massive amounts of progress on a planet with the vast majority of its inhabitants being asleep.

But you are not entirely all those things are you? You realize some gradation of each of these traits may have been pushed on you in the past by the system of low resonance but doesn’t represent all that you are or all that you are interested in. You are reading or listening to these words because you know that the balance of these traits discussed - childishness, sleepiness, and robotic-ness don’t totally define you. You are aware of that part of you may need to behave these ways on occasion if you phase in and out of unreality, but these things in no way totally encapsulate all that you are. You are thus optimistic about the future because you see that optimism in yourself.

The state, the culture, the country may treat you like a robotic sleeping child until you, yourself, take it upon yourself to do certain things to prove to both them and you that you are ready to self-govern, that you are truly educated, that you can honestly hand on heart see what your overarching importance is here, and how you as a most woke version of many of our brethren may not see, perhaps much of our shadow occulted systems of commerce law, business, banking, and government are actually designed to get you to continuing growing up and taking your own responsibility into your own hands.

Schooling is Not Education

Every woman man has two educations, one they’re taught by others and the other they teach themselves. Sadly, most folks don't teach themselves that much. They go through the structured schooling system and then stop at some point and that’s the end of their learning once they slot into a role in their soul-crushing desk slave job. So they end up not knowing that much about the wonders of this magic world but instead their role in a tiny sliver of commerce. Even if one has a Ph.D., they may not be educated because schooling is vocational instruction for employment via hive mind, groupthink, and established way of doing things while a real education is real authentic life practical and truthful knowledge learned. Hence education and schooling are two very different things. School is solely for employment and real-life education is about the ascendant course of life betterment and discovery. So, if an elder teaches you a practical trade that’s education, if an authority figure schools you a mainstream version of American history, that's schooling, if an elder teaches you how to be responsible with your finances and what they used to call balancing your checkbook, that's education, if an authority figure schools you in short-term memorization in whatever subject to pass a rubbish test which you’ll later forget all the answers about a week later, that's schooling. If an elder teaches you how to catch a fish or ride a horse, that’s education. If an authority figure schools you in sitting in a desk with some other robots in training and the more you conform the more stars you get up on the board, that’s schooling, if an elder teaches you the esoteric occult inner mysteries of the mind and how to practically use them, that’s education.

Even though there are some great teachers out there who deserve, praise, recognition, acknowledgment, and salaries 10x more than what they are, most schooling in modernity is rubbish. If you’re going through metal detectors and fearing for your well being every day, that’s tragic and adds to a destructive path breeding and environment where you end up in a minimum wage slave job, or barely able to read, or headed toward a life of crime, or destined for prison. However, even if you’re in a nice school district, it’s still latent path paint by numbers handed down from the board of education of the day. So many insightful young people are bored out of their minds in school because unless you have a very special teacher who transforms the material into something tangible, relevant, and practical, it’s dreadfully bland. And that’s with decent budgets into the arts and extracurriculars, let alone starving budgets. And to throw a wrench into the mainstream reality tunnel gears, one could say this has been intentional because corporate consumer capitalism doesn't need intelligent free thinking lucid conscious powerful individuals who are truly educated, they need obedient wage-slave consumers who have been schooled to a certain level.

In the old one-room schoolhouse days of the 1700s and 1800s hundreds they would teach children the 7 liberal arts of grammar logic and rhetoric. More on that in a future essay but the beauty of that system, which if followed, is that it would build a foundation to allow the child critical thinking, to then give them a toolset to them be able to continue teaching themselves. Give someone a fish is a single gift vs teaching them how to fish is a gift for a life. So there can be a beauty in something like homeschools if your parent does it out of a conscious knowing of some of these things I’ve briefly mentioned, not because they’re a dogmatic nut. More personal one on one schooling methods allow the new fresh mind inquisitive little person room + if given a healthy balance of extracurricular activities which allow for a social life, you are actually getting education mixed in amounts schooling. The process of unschooling is a beautiful example of this. Which is essentially allowing a child to learn practically, out in the world, not in classrooms, what they want to learn at their own pace. For the mind to develop and unfold on its own terms, instead of standardized testing terms. I know some excellent folks who homeschool and unschool with a proper balance of being non-nutters themselves and as a result, their children are much more vibrant and alive because they’ve gotten a mixture of enjoyable “unschooling” with practical real-world education so they are motivated strong readers studied in the arts, sciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, etc…

If you are today an adult and eager to learn cool and interesting shit but didn’t really like high school, you already subconsciously know all these things. Mark Twain understood this as well and once said, “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Because he was an educated man who could see through the distractions and illusions of the machine. The machine that sends young minds into its gears and turns out square head hats holding minds inside boxes thinking that their trainers have been responsible, being taught to perfect activities, and master routines. That instead of growing up educated through practical experiences where you have been responsible for your actions, imposed your own disciplines, become well rounded for many outcomes, and learned to critically think.

And this is not even getting into the public vs private debate of social class let alone the grossness of student debt caused by getting a formal higher education thus making you more susceptible to needing to go work for the man to pay off your debts rather than pursue a more creative path. A real education doesn’t need to cost anything more than your time, your travel, and your ability to access the good aspects of the internet, the modern day library card.

A Reflection on California in 2017

We've been prepping new hardware for episode #2 of Shamans of the Global Village with our buddy & cinematographer Ben Wong. Here's some of our recent work together as a visual reflection on California in this closing year 2017. Featuring your's truly at the intro...

CHRISTMAS AWAKENING WITH SHONAGH HOME & NILES HECKMAN | ASTROLOGICAL ROOTS, CORPORATE TAKEOVER

Festive conversation with friends Shonagh Home and Ed Liu over on  Psychedelic Milk. We here at nilesheckman.com can't get enough of Ed's podcast since this is our 4th appearance over there this year. Super fun Ed my man!

Discover the psychedelic origins of Christmas and see through the facade of corporate manipulation!!!

Shonagh Home is a shamanic therapist, teacher, author and poet. Shonagh holds the feminine voice for the reverent use of the sacred mushroom, authoring a book on the subject titled, 'Love and Spirit Medicine'. Shonagh was on episode #19 of my podcast as well. 

Show Notes

• What is Christmas?

• Mainstream narrative of Christmas

• Paganism

• The days of the week and its meanings

• Remembering our past

• The corporate takeover of Christmas

• The Great Depression and its effects on modern day consumerism

• Edward Bernays

• Astrological aspects of Christmas

• The significance of the winter solstice

• The anthropomorphism of nature

• Mushrooms & Mankind

• Knowing your astrological perspective

• Who is Santa Claus?

• Amanita muscaria

• Mycorrhizal symbiosis

• Entheogen, the divine within

• John Marco Allegro

• The Sacred Mushroom Of The Cross

• Shamans of Siberia

• Does it make sense to pass psychedelic particles through urine?

• Flying reindeer and Rudolph's red nose

• Christmas stockings

• When did western culture adopt the Christmas traditions of today?

• Who are the people keeping the true story of Christmas from the public?

• Invitation of the tree spirits of spring

• Capitalism and its influence of mindset

• Reclaiming your ancestral rituals

• Etymology of words

• Decisions between consumerism or withholding
  
  Continued in our PLUS+ Extension:
  

• Triple crown of commerce

• Christmas consumerism dilemma

• Recognizing seductions

• Knowing thyself

• Collectivism and individualism

• Educating the self

• Recognizing your spiritual journey

• Why ask ourselves the hard questions to ascend if we're only here for a limited time?

• Things you can do start ascending

• Targets of corporations

• Seeing through the the artificial overlay on nature

• Steeped in WiFi, and harmful signals

• Bypassing the corporate hack and seeing clearly

• Begin the journey to awaken from the illusions of our surroundings

• Education through learning from wise elders

• Process of growth and learning

Student of Life

Recently, a listener to my podcast, has contacted me several times to leave some very heartfelt comments in regards to previous essays. He very proactively and professionally corrected a date which I got wrong and also left some other nice insights on his pro and con thoughts in regards to cryptocurrencies as well as the potential for hemp to continue to re-loop back around as a major engine of economic growth as it has always been for thousands of years. Hemp is more American than apple pie, the declaration of independence is written on it, and it has always been known by wiser cultures than our current unconscious unwinnable war on some drug Nixon backwards political landscape of the last 50+ years. Hemp is able to supply food, fuel, and medicine. William Randolph Hearst, The dark sorcerer, American newspaper magnate, monster castle builder, and the man the quasi-biographical film character Charles Foster Kane, from the film Citizen Kane was based off of, had hemp outlawed so he could cut down massive swaths of American forest, which take the better part of 100 years to grow back to maturity, vs the three months it takes hemp to grow and provide even better quality paper, so he could sell his propaganda newspapers. Beautiful hemp can heavily treat and or fully heal around 700 health ailments especially in the form of cannabis oil. Which is one of numerous secret cancer cures the pharmaceutical industry has long surpassed so they can continue their sick care system of endless dollar sign generation from not healing but treating. A future essay on that later. Not to mention the many possibilities hempcrete can do, a crop of which can yield structures in those mere months. So take everything i say with a bit of a grain of salt, because its shooting for 90%+ accuracy and is perhaps 10% off kilter, off the mark. We accept that. But at least it was put out there in their first place. As a learning, and teaching, but really more learning process. Because we shouldn't ever let that hold us up from sharing what we do know. As sharing is caring and we really learn the most from teaching, even if that teaching is slightly imperfect at times. Always a student.

A former guest on the podcast, and I won't say directly who it is because she's a bit neurotic, use to have her father beat her when she was little and she got something wrong - IE not to the liking of his skewed reality tunnel. That is tragic and sad and she, of course, didn't deserve that. Like the majority of child abuse does, it carried into her adult life with a continued imprint of being afraid to be wrong at times. So much to the point that she let all the little details of potential imperfection prevent her from sharing her deep knowledge base, thinking that same resonance of somehow being punished would re-occur. But don't give into fear the mind killer. Fear of having others correct some part of what you said. If they do it reactionarily then ignore and move on but the proactive and non-condescending way this listener Ben corrected me was excellent because he learned something from listening to me, I learned something from listening to him, and I could tell he was contributing because he cared.

I am glad he has added to this conversation, and you can too dear listener. This podcast URL is aninfinitepath.com which just auto-forwards to my website at nilesheckman.com/podcast and it is nice to get feedback on these episodes. So if you have some proactive comments to share, feel free to drop them into the comments section at the episodes there, because I usually hear fuck all, and that would be nice to adjust into more interactions with you who have ears to hear.

We are all many things. Being a documentary photographer and filmmaker are two main focuses which are partially my hobbies and partially my professions. However, before either of those things, I am a student of life. Anyone who's curious about the nature of existence is one as well. All of those who are inquisitive, introspective, and curious are students and will always be students, no matter what level of mastery in a specific area is achieved, they will always be students when it comes to this thing call life because in reality, next to no one knows what life is really all about. The ancients studied this in the past just like those inquisitive ones do now, and this study of the student is not only passed on by occasional and rare wise elders but is self-taught by the autodidact. The most important thing to emphasize though is that whether your teacher is someone else or yourself or both, by you always being inquisitive, you never stop learning, hence never stop being that student who's constantly asking questions of those around them, not conforming to the old patterns of old ways of doing and being, but most importantly always asking inside yourself why?

Many of the things I share, I do because they help me learn. They act as both a journal as to what I've put out and a barometer to look back on and know where I’ve been. But I know next to nothing like the rest of us because I doubt to ever claim to be a wise spiritual philosopher or expert occultist or esotericist but more a student of life. It's very healthy to never think you've reached the mountaintop. To stay humble and to always continue to look up and out for the mystery that lies ahead. So anything I say in the future can be looked back on as being mostly on the ball but perhaps some small percentage of what was conveyed at the time maybe missed the mark a bit. Hence why I sometimes will give a disclaimer that everything shared is “at my current level of understanding”. Which is okay because I'm not a guru nor a scholar either, but a student.

So things don't have to be perfect, none of these essays are perfect, they are always in motion, in development, any praise or criticism received is fair enough and is being sent from neophyte to adept and there are always more rungs to the ladder of learning. That ladder of education, not schooling but education.

Life is a beautiful thing and to have 100 good years in corporal form may be there to be a gift give to each of us for that learning. Because learning is growing and mistakes and "failures" are also learning. So don’t be afraid to take on a task knowing it won’t be perfect, everything is in motion and is a work in progress. And mistakes are those bumps in the road which must be gone over to continue that motion because you either win or you learn.

The camera bag man purse

When traveling, we carry a bag. Whether it's back and forth to the slave job daily or if you're in transit on holiday, we have some amount of "stuff" we carry with us.

As you turn into the roving samurai and have less materialistic crap, it's good to only live with what you need and travel with things you really need daily for your work. The items about are what's in my happy man purse sack by ONA. 

Items to collect images and store images, a few handy tools, and the bare necessities for modernity outside of your fashion. As a journalist or documentary photographer, you have to have a great camera with you at all times. Phones seem to have good cameras in them but in reality, they look good on the phone's screen but are still very so-so in quality when you load them onto a computer or try and print them out. Hence why the Leica M collection is so wonderful. World class quality in the smallest package. Ready to go, as soon as the opportunity presents itself. 

All one really needs in there living environment are the tools of survival, some clothes on your back, and these base need items to get your work done which you carry around every day. Joy.

Psychedelic Milk #79

Co-Hosted a nice chat with Miguel Conner on episode #79 of the Psychedelic Milk Podcast with Ed Liu.

Miguel Conner is a garage philosopher, hedge theologian, and general madman across the waters. His life quest is to take his audience from ancient connections to modern meaning. He is the host of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio, author of four published books, and writer of hundreds of articles in various publications. His ventures include Voices of Gnosticism and Other Voices of Gnosticism (Bardic Press) and the post-apocalyptic vampire epic series, The Dark Instinct Trilogy (Warner Books/AB Press), as well as fantasy novel, The Executioner’s Daughter (Solstice Publishing). Miguel's articles and fiction have appeared in such publications as The Gnostic Journal, The Heretic, Mindscape, Reality Sandwich, The Cimmerian Journal and many others including being an Author of the Month for Graham Hancock’s website.

Gnosticism is a deep well of knowledge based on personal experience or perception of which films such as The Matrix, Dark City, The Truman Show, and Groundhog Day owe their themes. 

Part #2 of the conversation gets extra juicy with my philosophical ramblings. It can be listed to on the extra plus section of the podcast. Available if you support it for a nominal fee on Patreon.

From Centralized to Decentralized

With humanity, there aren’t so many bad people but more bad systems. One of the worst parts of our current human operating system is how centralized many things are. So in our current cycle of coming out of a bottom barrel state of the deep timeline of humanity, we have been awash in centralized systems. Meaning systems of power which are controlled by the few in a centralized way. Gatekeepers of power rely on having structures of control to continue their opaqueness; unaccountability, corruption, inefficiency, nepotism, and stagnation. This has been going on for thousands of years and it has been no different in the last century with our corporations, banks, and governments. Otherwise known as corporatized governments controlled by the bankers. Since the dawn of the internet and world wide web, this has gotten better through net neutrality allowing anyone with access more of a voice, it’s also been beautiful at forcing sliminess from the past to go, such as gatekeeper record industry labels who use to charge $18 for you to listen to music on a compact disk, to adjust their ways, by force, as the gates have been dissolved by file sharing. Even with the internet era, there are plenty of gatekeepers, such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, as well as YouTube. Another wing of the Googlepus. Youtube, A tech company, which has ultimate control of their system, as an ad revenue a creator-controlled by the few at the top of the centralized corporatized hierarchy. But centralized corporatized hierarchies create jobs you say, well sure, but that’s within the mainstream robotic culture of empire which is not fulfilling to the natural human who should be in nature, living in tune with the land, organic farming, relaxing, and creating art in small villages by day ingesting tryptamines around the stone dolmans uploading to astral dimensions to expand their consciousness by night.

Now, when you upload digital content to social platforms, they get to make the vast majority of the ad revenue. Facebook is another one, where you have to pay their shitty narrow aspect system to get more interest and eyeballs on your material. You are David and these systems are Goliath and it is backward because you create the content and then get measly compensation at best or have to pay them at worst. And it should be the other way around where you are compensated based on the value of what you create and share with others.

One of the main fractal backs to centralization of awfulness is money. Which on one level is just a measure of energy when it’s done right, but on another, it’s a spell used to reduce and control and the root of all evil. Fiat unbacked by anything paper money is the king of centralization. Since the late night Christmas eve skulduggery of Congress in 1933 the federal reserve act was passed. Creating a centralized location of nefariousness called the federal reserve. What it does is tightly lock down the control of the US dollar through inflation and deflation and essentially prints money out of thin air for bankers pleasures. With rooms of small centralized un-honorable tales from the crypt Crypt-keepers controlling it. The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel who is not federal nor does it have any reserves. It sucks 36 million dollars an hour off the current horrible system and Rockefeller was one of the original investors and JFK had the back of his skull blown out because he dare suggested it be abolished.

What money really has become is a whole other story which entire documentaries have been made off of and will be further discussed in later chats here. The cliff notes version summary is, since the Financial Services Modernization Act of the late 90’s which, abolished key parts of the Glass-Steagall Act, there has been a dissolution of the separation of commercial banking from investment banking. Now resulting in nearly all commercial and investment banking institutions being systemically corrupt up to all the highest levels with the wall street investment banks being purely parasitic with behavior leading to ongoing situations such as the financial services meltdown of 2008. Many of the ills of which were pointed out beautifully in the slogan “we are the 99%” by occupy wall street because unless we have major corrections to capitalism we are left in a system where less than 1% of the population have the vast majority of the money and some 8 families have half the wealth on the planet. So feudalism never really went away.

In a previous reality tunnel essay, I gave hint to a suggestion of humanity “moving onto better systems”. So as an example, after the 2008 crash, a little thing called cryptocurrencies were being incubated. Cryptocurrencies are beautiful because they are decentralized, meaning controlled by every node on the network and the larger that network, the less centralized it is and naughty bankers are then obsolete. They are capable of buying into massive amounts of crypto and becoming crypto whales in the network node ocean but them doing so would only add value to that new operating system of money. When you are a part of this system, you store your own digital money in analog or cold storage so you are responsible for your own actions. So anyone using cryptocurrency is essentially unbanked, which is where we all want to be so we have the power and are not giving it to others. Because over the last 1000+ years amplified by the last 100+ years, whenever things are centralized, systematic corruption runs rampant.

Now cryptocurrencies are actually not the most beautiful part of the decentralized equation. Behind these technologies are a genius operation called the blockchain. Which is a ledger, a recording system, controlled by everyone and no one specifically which allows for full transparency? And many things can be done on top of the blockchain foundation. Further applications can be used for disrupting any industry that has tight control systems in place, such as energy, entertainment, network sharing, agriculture, voting, trade, etc… Imagine a scenario where you provide content and are then paid proportionately for doing so. Or as your internet bandwidth sits idle all day, you can be paid by the bandwidth you lease out to others who need faster bandwidth at that time. Same with your solar power you generate. You sell it to others directly when not using it. Or imagine a future style decentralized voting system where you have a direct vote on a specific piece of legislation, which is then upvoted Reddit style in the community, each with one vote, directly votes on a specific proposed rule thereby we would no longer need representatives who actually don’t really represent. We would have an ocean of direct peer to peer communications and interactions and not be landlocked to massive islands of control. So even though all these technologies are just one electromagnetic pulse away from going down and we are still very much in times of extreme polarization, be very happy to be alive in such exciting times.

And that’s just the beginning of what Blockchain type structures are capable of and they have snuck up on the machine which is working really hard to keep a lid on them, but it can not. This type of system is something old paradigm corporations and governments, which really means corporatized governments, have never allowed. So corporatized governments and the status quote have first ignored it, then laughed at it and are now hugely threatened by it. Because Rome is burning.

Since everything in the mainstream reality signal of falsehood is back to front and they don’t want free thinking minds, they want obedient wage-slave consumers, you have been conditioned. Because you are supposed to be in abundance and wealth, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be but instead have been conditioned to 9/5 (more like 8/7) slave jobs to think we need to be in protestant work ethic struggle of centralization all our lives until we die. Which we do not. Not like material wealth equals happiness but it does equal time and ease and we should be freed from our unpleasant jobs to do real fun work which fuels our passions. So I highly highly recommend looking into blockchain technologies and getting involved in it and cryptocurrencies in whatever tiny or large way you can. Think of converting some of your fiat dollars into crypto coins as your protest and public service all in one. The community is really excellent as well. There are hundreds of folks freely sharing information online because sharing is caring.

Power to the people. Power to each individual. Decentralize the world.

Psychedelic Milk Podcast episodes #66 and #70

More of my philosophical ramblings can be heard on episode #66 and #70 of the Psychedelic Milk Podcast.

#70
http://www.psychedelicmilk.com/podcast/nilesheckman-philosophica-photography

#66
http://www.psychedelicmilk.com/podcast/knowthyself2017

The podcast is hosted by my buddy Ed Liu. Ed is one of the first people who’s just let me talk in a broader sense about spirituality and the ascendent path of walking the walk on top of talking the talk. In this chat, we encapsulate a breakdown of walking the yellow brick road of life wisdom into the container of studying to becoming a Jedi. Quite standard stuff. Ed and I will have much more chats in the future together. 

Show notes:

Niles Heckman is the director of the documentary series Shamans Of The Global Village. He is also a filmmaker and street photographer with a background creating visuals for high-end commercials, games cinematics, and Hollywood. He has overseen plate photography with New Line Cinema, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios, and is a member of three Academy Award winning teams shared between the animated feature and visual effects categories and a VES Award recipient for outstanding achievement in virtual cinematography. He directed and shot the pilot episode for Shamans of The Global Village in 2015 and his feature directorial debut for a documentary film entitled Transmutation is due for completion in 2017.
    •    Director of Shamans Of The Global Village
    •    Filmmaker & Street Photographer
    •    Worked with New Line Cinema, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios, and more
Show Notes
    •    Concerns raised in PS17 about Niles' documentary Shamans Of The Global Village
    •    Living in a culture of criticism
    •    What is Spirituality and how we should define it
    •    Making advancements in spirituality
    •    Muggles of the spiritual world
    •    Processing through spiritual growth
    •    Our human value based on commercial success
    •    The lack of spirituality in mega churches of Texas
    •    Practical ways to become a jedi?
    •    Starting with the internal-self
    •    The detrimental effects of watching the news
    •    Mind, heart, and will
    •    Joining a side
    •    Our thoughts manifesting into real life
    •    The healing capabilities of the mind
    •    The vibrations of the mind
    •    A practical approach for the law of attraction
    •    Being "heart based" and what it means
    •    Taking risks to gain rewards
    •    5-MeO DMT magic and synchronicity
    •    Puffers in the spiritual world
    •    Time as a limited asset
    •    How mental mastery is simplicity
    •    Tony Robbins
    •    How to start self mastery?
    •    Finding wise elders
    •    How teachable are you?
    •    Who you listen to matters
    •    The discernment of information
    •    The training balance scale
    •    Engaging your life to make things happen
    •    The practice of non-worry to manifest things into your life
    •    The Four Levels Of Competence
    •    Drawing different conclusions from the same message
    •    The polarization of the mind and finding the balance
    •    The Kybalion, the Jedi manual
    •    The analogy of "Going into the forest" 
    •    Drinking the kykeon
    •    What are the 7 hermetic principles?
Continued in our PLUS+ Extension:
    •    The mental construct of the universe
    •    The correspondence of the internal self to the external universe
    •    The secret painting in the Sistine Chapel
    •    The vibrancy of material reality
    •    The rhythmic flow of the universe
    •    The practice of opposites
    •    The balance of masculinity and femininity within the self
    •    The precognitive abilities in the spiritual practice
    •    Doing the spiritual work and being rewarded with magical occurrences
    •    How to handle the "fake news" in spirituality
    •    How would you know what "level" you're on in the path towards being a Jedi?
    •    The powerful act of giving and receiving in a natural environment
    •    The polarity of light and dark
    •    The sun as a dimensional converter and the projection of reality
    •    Manly P. Hall
    •    The combination the spiritual work with the plant medicine to generate the best results
    •    Decoding the Jedi codes of The Corpus Hermeticum and The Way of Hermes
    •    The biggest takeaway from this episode
 

Aurora-Lab Website

The website of my personal production company has been updated at www.aurora-lab.com.

Domains for websites are so crucial I cannot overly express the importance of keeping track of them and always making sure they stay in your control. Especialy if you've build previous back catalogues of other works linking to a particular site.

This was a URL that I had actually LOST a couple years ago. A life lession which was a huge learning experience suffice to say. Having registered it a horrible godaddy.com who's CEO shoots exotic african animals in the face, I made the grave error of having my junkmail address set to alert me when it was getting time for domain re-registration and it was allowed to expire against my wishes because I never saw the single notification e-mail. Savy folks can set it up so they auto grab your domain names if you give up ownership for them for even one moment.

Anyway, life lession learned and it was a great excuse to protest by taking my buisness elsewhere. The best way to make your voice hear is often with your dollar.