Space Adventures, Ltd. | Zero Gravity Flight

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Aboard a specially modified Boeing 727-200, G-FORCE ONE, weightlessness is achieved by doing aerobatic maneuvers known as parabolas. Specially trained pilots perform these aerobatic maneuvers which are not simulated in any way. ZERO-G passengers experience true weightlessness.

Before starting a parabola, G-FORCE ONEflies level to the horizon at an altitude of 24,000 feet. The pilots then begins to pull up, gradually increasing the angle of the aircraft to about 45 to the horizon reaching an altitude of 34,000 feet. During this pull-up, passengers will feel the pull of 1.8 Gs. Next the plane is pushed over to create the zero gravity segment of the parabola. For the next 20-30 seconds everything in the plane is weightless. Next a gentle pull-out is started which allows the flyers to stabilize on the aircraft floor. This maneuver is repeated 12-15 times, each taking about ten miles of airspace to perform.

In addition to achieving zero gravity, G-FORCE ONEalso flies a parabola designed to offer Lunar gravity (one sixth your weight)and Martian gravity (one third your weight). This is created by flying a larger arc over the top of the parabola.

G-FORCE ONEflies in a FAA designated airspace that is approximately 100 miles long and ten miles wide. Usually three to five parabolas are flown consecutively with short periods of level flight between each set.

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Space Adventures, Ltd. | Zero Gravity Flight

Harvard’s eugenics era | Harvard Magazine

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In August 1912, Harvard president emeritus Charles William Eliot addressed the Harvard Club of San Francisco on a subject close to his heart: racial purity. It was being threatened, he declared, by immigration. Eliot was not opposed to admitting new Americans, but he saw the mixture of racial groups it could bring about as a grave danger. Each nation should keep its stock pure, Eliot told his San Francisco audience. There should be no blending of races.

Eliots warning against mixing raceswhich for him included Irish Catholics marrying white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, Jews marrying Gentiles, and blacks marrying whiteswas a central tenet of eugenics. The eugenics movement, which had begun in England and was rapidly spreading in the United States, insisted that human progress depended on promoting reproduction by the best people in the best combinations, and preventing the unworthy from having children.

The former Harvard president was an outspoken supporter of another major eugenic cause of his time: forced sterilization of people declared to be feebleminded, physically disabled, criminalistic, or otherwise flawed. In 1907, Indiana had enacted the nations first eugenic sterilization law. Four years later, in a paper on The Suppression of Moral Defectives, Eliot declared that Indianas law blazed the trail which all free states must follow, if they would protect themselves from moral degeneracy.

He also lent his considerable prestige to the campaign to build a global eugenics movement. He was a vice president of the First International Eugenics Congress, which met in London in 1912 to hear papers on racial suicide among Northern Europeans and similar topics. Two years later, Eliot helped organize the First National Conference on Race Betterment in Battle Creek, Michigan.

None of these actions created problems for Eliot at Harvard, for a simple reason: they were well within the intellectual mainstream at the University. Harvard administrators, faculty members, and alumni were at the forefront of American eugenicsfounding eugenics organizations, writing academic and popular eugenics articles, and lobbying government to enact eugenics laws. And for many years, scarcely any significant Harvard voices, if any at all, were raised against it.

Harvards role in the movement was in many ways not surprising. Eugenics attracted considerable support from progressives, reformers, and educated elites as a way of using science to make a better world. Harvard was hardly the only university that was home to prominent eugenicists. Stanfords first president, David Starr Jordan, and Yales most acclaimed economist, Irving Fisher, were leaders in the movement. The University of Virginia was a center of scientific racism, with professors like Robert Bennett Bean, author of such works of pseudo-science as the 1906 American Journal of Anatomy article, Some Racial Peculiarities of the Negro Brain.

But in part because of its overall prominence and influence on society, and in part because of its sheer enthusiasm, Harvard was more central to American eugenics than any other university. Harvard has, with some justification, been called the brain trust of twentieth-century eugenics, but the role it played is little remembered or remarked upon today.It is understandable that the University is not eager to recall its part in that tragically misguided intellectual movementbut it is a chapter too important to be forgotten.In part because of its overall prominence and influence on society, and in part because of its sheer enthusiasm, Harvard was more central to American eugenics than any other university.

Eugenics emerged in England in the late 1800s, when Francis Galton, a half cousin of Charles Darwin, began studying the families of some of historys greatest thinkers and concluded that genius was hereditary. Galton invented a new wordcombining the Greek for good and genesand launched a movement calling for society to take affirmative steps to promote the more suitable races or strains of blood. Echoing his famous half cousins work on evolution, Galton declared that what Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.

Eugenics soon made its way across the Atlantic, reinforced by the discoveries of Gregor Mendel and the new science of genetics. In the United States, it found some of its earliest support among the same group that Harvard had: the wealthy old families of Boston. The Boston Brahmins were strong believers in the power of their own bloodlines, and it was an easy leap for many of them to believe that society should work to make the nations gene pool as exalted as their own.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.A.B. 1829, M.D. 36, LL.D. 80, dean of Harvard Medical School, acclaimed writer, and father of the future Supreme Court justicewas one of the first American intellectuals to espouse eugenics. Holmes, whose ancestors had been at Harvard since John Oliver entered with the class of 1680, had been writing about human breeding even before Galton. He had coined the phrase Boston Brahmin in an 1861 book in which he described his social class as a physical and mental elite, identifiable by its noble physiognomy and aptitude for learning, which he insisted were congenital and hereditary.

Holmes believed eugenic principles could be used to address the nations social problems. In an 1875 article in The Atlantic Monthly, he gave Galton an early embrace, and argued that his ideas could help to explain the roots of criminal behavior. If genius and talent are inherited, as Mr. Galton has so conclusively shown, Holmes wrote, why should not deep-rooted moral defectsshow themselvesin the descendants of moral monsters?

As eugenics grew in popularity, it took hold at the highest levels of Harvard. A. Lawrence Lowell, who served as president from 1909 to 1933, was an active supporter. Lowell, who worked to impose a quota on Jewish students and to keep black students from living in the Yard, was particularly concerned about immigrationand he joined the eugenicists in calling for sharp limits. The need for homogeneity in a democracy, he insisted, justified laws resisting the influx of great numbers of a greatly different race.

Lowell also supported eugenics research. When the Eugenics Record Office, the nations leading eugenics research and propaganda organization, asked for access to Harvard records to study the physical and intellectual attributes of alumni fathers and sons, he readily agreed. Lowell had a strong personal interest in eugenics research, his secretary noted in response to the request.

The Harvard faculty contained some of nations most influential eugenics thinkers, in an array of academic disciplines. Frank W. Taussig, whose 1911 Principles of Economics was one of the most widely adopted economics textbooks of its time, called for sterilizing unworthy individuals, with a particular focus on the lower classes. The human race could be immensely improved in quality, and its capacity for happy living immensely increased, if those of poor physical and mental endowment were prevented from multiplying, he wrote. Certain types of criminals and paupers breed only their kind, and society has a right and a duty to protect its members from the repeated burden of maintaining and guarding such parasites.

Harvards geneticists gave important support to Galtons fledgling would-be science. Botanist Edward M. East, who taught at Harvards Bussey Institution, propounded a particularly racial version of eugenics. In his 1919 book Inbreeding and Outbreeding: Their Genetic and Sociological Significance, East warned that race mixing would diminish the white race, writing: Races have arisen which are as distinct in mental capacity as in physical traits. The simple fact, he said, was that the negro is inferior to the white.

East also sounded a biological alarm about the Jews, Italians, Asians, and other foreigners who were arriving in large numbers. The early settlers came from stock which had made notable contributions to civilization, he asserted, whereas the new immigrants were coming in increasing numbers from peoples who have impressed modern civilization but lightly. There was a distinct possibility, he warned, that a considerable part of these people are genetically undesirable.

In his 1923 book, Mankind at the Crossroads, Easts pleas became more emphatic. The nation, he said, was being overrun by the feebleminded, who were reproducing more rapidly than the general population. And we expect to restore the balance by expecting the latter to compete with them in the size of their families? East wrote. No! Eugenics is sorely needed; social progress without it is unthinkable.

Easts Bussey Institution colleague William Ernest Castle taught a course on Genetics and Eugenics, one of a number of eugenics courses across the University. He also published a leading textbook by the same name that shaped the views of a generation of students nationwide. Genetics and Eugenics not only identified its author as Professor of Zoology in Harvard University, but was published by Harvard University Press and bore the Veritas seal on its title page, lending the appearance of an imprimatur to his strongly stated views.

In Genetics and Eugenics, Castle explained that race mixing, whether in animals or humans, produced inferior offspring. He believed there were superior and inferior races, and that racial crossing benefited neither. From the viewpoint of a superior race there is nothing to be gained by crossing with an inferior race, he wrote. From the viewpoint of the inferior race also the cross is undesirable if the two races live side by side, because each race will despise individuals of mixed race and this will lead to endless friction.

Castle also propounded the eugenicists argument that crime, prostitution, and pauperism were largely due to feeblemindedness, which he said was inherited. He urged that the unfortunate individuals so afflicted be sterilized or, in the case of women, segregated in institutions during their reproductive years to prevent them from having children.

Like his colleague East, Castle was deeply concerned about the biological impact of immigration. In some parts of the country, he said, the good human stock was dying outand being replaced by a European peasant population. Would this new population be a fit substitute for the old Anglo-Saxon stock? Castles answer: Time alone will tell.

One of Harvards most prominent psychology professors was a eugenicist who pioneered the use of questionable intelligence testing. Robert M. Yerkes, A.B. 1898, Ph.D. 02, published an introductory psychology textbook in 1911 that included a chapter on Eugenics and Mental Life. In it, he explained that the cure for race deterioration is the selection of the fit as parents.

Yerkes, who taught courses with such titles as Educational Psychology, Heredity, and Eugenics and Mental Development in the Race, developed a now-infamous intelligence test that was administered to 1.75 million U.S. Army enlistees in 1917. The test purported to find that more than 47 percent of the white test-takers, and even more of the black ones, were feebleminded. Some of Yerkess questions were straightforward language and math problems, but others were more like tests of familiarity with the dominant culture: one asked, Christy Mathewson is famous as a: writer, artist, baseball player, comedian. The journalist Walter Lippmann, A.B. 1910, Litt.D. 44, said the results were not merely inaccurate, but nonsense, with no more scientific foundation than a hundred other fads, vitamins, or correspondence courses in will power. The 47 percent feebleminded claim was an absurd result unless, as Harvards late professor of geology Stephen Jay Gould put it, the United States was a nation of morons. But the Yerkes findings were widely accepted and helped fuel the drives to sterilize unfit Americans and keep out unworthy immigrants.The Yerkes findings were widely accepted and helped fuel the drives to sterilize unfit Americans and keep out unworthy immigrants.

Another eugenicist in a key position was William McDougall, who held the psychology professorship William James had formerly held. His 1920 book The Group Mind explained that the negro race had never produced any individuals of really high mental and moral endowments and was apparently incapable of doing so. His next book, Is America Safe for Democracy (1921), argued that civilizations declined because of the inadequacy of the qualities of the people who are the bearers of itand advocated eugenic sterilization.

Harvards embrace of eugenics extended to the athletic department. Dudley Allen Sargent, who arrived in 1879 to direct Hemenway Gymnasium, infused physical education at the College with eugenic principles, including his conviction that certain kinds of exercise were particularly important for female students because they built strong pelvic muscleswhich over time could advantage the gene pool. In giving birth to a childno amount of mental and moral education will ever take the place of a large well-developed pelvis with plenty of muscular and organic power behind it, Sargent stated. The presence of large female pelvises, he insisted, would determine whether large brainy children shall be born at all.

Sargent, who presided over Hemenway for 40 years, used his position as a bully pulpit. In 1914, he addressed the nations largest eugenic gathering, the Race Betterment Conference, in Michigan, at which one of the main speakers called for eugenic sterilization of the worthless one tenth of the nation. Sargent told the conference that, based on his long experience and careful observation of Harvard and Radcliffe students, physical educationis one of the most important factors in the betterment of the race.

If Harvards embrace of eugenics had somehow remained within University confinesas merely an intellectual school of thoughtthe impact might have been contained. But members of the community took their ideas about genetic superiority and biological engineering to Congress, to the courts, and to the public at largewith considerable effect.

In 1894, a group of alumni met in Boston to found an organization that took a eugenic approach to what they considered the greatest threat to the nation: immigration. Prescott Farnsworth Hall, Charles Warren, and Robert DeCourcy Ward were young scions of old New England families, all from the class of 1889. They called their organization the Immigration Restriction League, but genetic thinking was so central to their mission that Hall proposed calling it the Eugenic Immigration League. Joseph Lee, A.B. 1883, A.M.-J.D. 87, LL.D. 26, scion of a wealthy Boston banking family and twice elected a Harvard Overseer, was a major funder, and William DeWitt Hyde A. B. 1879, S.T.D. 86, another future Overseer and the president of Bowdoin College, served as a vice president. The membership rolls quickly filled with hundreds of people united in xenophobia, many of them Boston Brahmins and Harvard graduates.

Their goal was to keep out groups they regarded as biologically undesirable. Immigration was a race question, pure and simple, Ward said. It is fundamentally a question as towhat races shall dominate in the country. League members made no secret of whom they meant: Jews, Italians, Asians, and anyone else who did not share their northern European lineage.

Drawing on Harvard influence to pursue its goalsrecruiting alumni to establish branches in other parts of the country and boasting President Lowell himself as its vice presidentthe Immigration Restriction League was remarkably effective in its work. Its first major proposal was a literacy test, not only to reduce the total number of immigrants but also to lower the percentage from southern and eastern Europe, where literacy rates were lower. In 1896the league persuaded Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, A.B. 1871, LL.B. 74, Ph.D. 76, LL.D. 04, to introduce a literacy bill. Getting it passed and signed into law took time, but beginning in 1917, immigrants were legally required to prove their literacy to be admitted to the country.

The league scored a far bigger victory with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. After hearing extensive expert testimony about the biological threat posed by immigrants, Congress imposed harsh national quotas designed to keep Jews, Italians, and Asians out. As the percentage of immigrants from northern Europe increased significantly, Jewish immigration fell from 190,000 in 1920 to 7,000 in 1926; Italian immigration fell nearly as sharply; and immigration from Asia was almost completely cut off until 1952.

While one group of alumni focused on inserting eugenics into immigration, another prominent alumnus was taking the lead of the broader movement. Charles Benedict Davenport, A.B. 1889, Ph.D. 92, taught zoology at Harvard before founding the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, in 1910. Funded in large part by Mrs. E.H. Harriman, widow of the railroad magnate, the E.R.O. became a powerful force in promoting eugenics. It was the main gathering place for academics studying eugenics, and the driving force in promoting eugenic sterilization laws nationwide.Davenport explained that qualities like criminality and laziness were genetically determined.

Davenport wrote prolifically. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, published in 1911,quickly became the standard text for the eugenics courses cropping up at colleges and universities nationwide, and was cited by more than one-third of high-school biology textbooks of the era. Davenport explained that qualities like criminality and laziness were genetically determined. When both parents are shiftless in some degree, he wrote, only about 15 percent of their children would be industrious.

But perhaps no Harvard eugenicist had more impact on the public consciousness than Lothrop Stoddard, A.B. 1905, Ph.D. 14. His bluntly titled 1920 bestseller, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, had 14 printings in its first three years, drew lavish praise from President Warren G. Harding, and made a mildly disguised appearance in The Great Gatsby, when Daisy Buchanans husband, Tom, exclaimed that civilizations going to piecessomething hed learned by reading The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard.

When eugenics reached a high-water mark in 1927, a pillar of the Harvard community once again played a critical role. In that year, the Supreme Court decided Buck v. Bell, a constitutional challenge to Virginias eugenic sterilization law. The case was brought on behalf of Carrie Buck, a young woman who had been designated feebleminded by the state and selected for eugenic sterilization. Buck was, in fact, not feebleminded at all. Growing up in poverty in Charlottesville, she had been taken in by a foster family and then raped by one of its relatives. She was declared feebleminded because she was pregnant out of wedlock, and she was chosen for sterilization because she was deemed to be feebleminded.

By an 8-1 vote, the justices upheld the Virginia law and Bucks sterilizationand cleared the way for sterilizations to continue in about half the country, where there were similar laws. The majority opinion was written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., A.B. 1861, LL.B. 66, LL.D. 95, a former Harvard Law School professor and Overseer. Holmes, who shared his fathers deep faith in bloodlines, did not merely give Virginia a green light: he urged the nation to get serious about eugenics and prevent large numbers of unfit Americans from reproducing. It was necessary to sterilize people who sap the strength of the State, Holmes insisted, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. His opinion included one of the most brutal aphorisms in American law, saying of Buck, her mother, and her perfectly normal infant daughter: Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

In the same week the Supreme Court decided Buck v. Bell, Harvard made eugenics news of its own. It turned down a $60,000 bequest from Dr. J. Ewing Mears, a Philadelphia surgeon, to fund instruction in eugenics in all its branches, notably that branch relating to the treatment of the defective and criminal classes by surgical procedures.

Harvards decision, reported on the front page of The New York Times, appeared to be a counterweight to the Supreme Courts ruling. But the Universitys decision had been motivated more by reluctance to be coerced into a particular position on sterilization than by any institutional opposition to eugenicswhich it continued to embrace.

Eugenics followed much the same arc at Harvard as it did in the nation at large. Interest began to wane in the 1930s, as the field became more closely associated with the Nazi government that had taken power in Germany. By the end of the decade, Davenport had retired and the E.R.O. had shut down; the Carnegie Institution, of which it was part, no longer wanted to support eugenics research and advocacy. As the nation went to war against a regime that embraced racism, eugenics increasingly came to be regarded as un-American.

It did not, however, entirely fade awayat the University, or nationally. Earnest Hooton, chairman of the anthropology department, was particularly outspoken in support of what he called a biological purge. In 1936, while the first German concentration camps were opening, he made a major plea for eugenic sterilizationthough he emphasized that it should not target any race or religion.

Hooton believed it was imperative for society to remove its worthless people. Our real purpose, he declared in a speech that was quoted in The New York Times, should be to segregate and to eliminate the unfit, worthless, degenerate and anti-social portion of each racial and ethnic strain in our population, so that we may utilize the substantial merits of its sound majority, and the special and diversified gifts of its superior members.Our real purposeshould be to segregate and to eliminate the unfit, worthless, degenerate and anti-social portion of each racial and ethnic strain in our population, so that we may utilize the substantial merits of its sound majority.

None of the news out of Germany after the war made Hooton abandon his views. There can be little doubt of the increase during the past fifty years of mental defectives, psychopaths, criminals, economic incompetents and the chronically diseased, he wrote in Redbook magazine in 1950. We owe this to the intervention of charity, welfare and medical science, and to the reckless breeding of the unfit.

The United States also held onto eugenics, if not as enthusiastically as it once did. In 1942, with the war against the Nazis raging, the Supreme Court had a chance to overturn Buck v. Bell and hold eugenic sterilization unconstitutional, but it did not. The court struck down an Oklahoma sterilization law, but on extremely narrow groundsleaving the rest of the nations eugenic sterilization laws intact. Only after the civil-rights revolution of the 1960s, and changes in popular views toward marginalized groups, did eugenic sterilization begin to decline more rapidly. But states continued to sterilize the unfit until 1981.

Today, the American eugenics movement is often thought of as an episode of national follylike 1920s dance marathons or Prohibitionwith little harm done. In fact, the harm it caused was enormous.

As many as 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized for eugenic reasons, while important members of the Harvard community cheered andas with Eliot, Lowell, and Holmescalled for more. Many of those 70,000 were simply poor, or had done something that a judge or social worker didnt like, oras in Carrie Bucks casehad terrible luck. Their lives were changed foreverBuck lost her daughter to illness and died childless in 1983, not understanding until her final years what the state had done to her, or why she had been unable to have more children.

Also affected were the many people kept out of the country by the eugenically inspired immigration laws of the 1920s. Among them were a large number of European Jews who desperately sought to escape the impending Holocaust. A few years ago, correspondence was discovered from 1941 in which Otto Frank pleaded with the U.S. State Department for visas for himself, his wife, and his daughters Margot and Anne. It is understood today that Anne Frank died because the Nazis considered her a member of an inferior race, but few appreciate that her death was also due, in part, to the fact that many in the U.S. Congress felt the same way.

There are important reasons for remembering, and further exploring, Harvards role in eugenics. Colleges and universities today are increasingly interrogating their paststhinking about what it means to have a Yale residential college named after John C. Calhoun, a Princeton school named after Woodrow Wilson, or slaveholder Isaac Royalls coat of arms on the Harvard Law School shield and his name on a professorship endowed by his will.

Eugenics is a part of Harvards history. It is unlikely that Eliot House or Lowell House will be renamed, but there might be a way for the University community to spare a thought for Carrie Buck and others who paid a high price for the harmful ideas that Harvard affiliates played a major role in propounding.

There are also forward-looking reasons to revisit this dark moment in the Universitys past. Biotechnical science has advanced to the brink of a new era of genetic possibilities. In the next few years, the headlines will be full of stories about gene-editing technology, genetic solutions for a variety of human afflictions and frailties, and even designer babies. Given that Harvard affiliates, again, will play a large role in all of these, it is important to contemplate how wrong so many people tied to the University got it the first timeand to think hard about how, this time, to get it right.

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Harvard's eugenics era | Harvard Magazine

Discover – Seychelles

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The Republic of Seychelles comprises 115 islands occupying a land area of 455 km and an Exclusive Economic Zone of 1.4 km in the western Indian Ocean. It represents an archipelago of legendary beauty that extends from between 4 and 10 degrees south of the equator and which lies between 480km and 1,600km from the east coast of Africa. Of these 115 islands, 41 constitute the oldest mid-oceanic granite islands on earth while a further 74 form the low-lying coral atolls and reef islands of the Outer Islands.

The granitic islands of the Seychelles archipelago cluster around the main island of Mah, home to the international airport and the capital, Victoria, and its neighbouring islands of Praslin and La Digue. Together, these Inner Islands form the cultural and economic hub of the nation and contain the majority of Seychelles' tourism facilities as well as its most stunning beaches.

This section provides comprehensive information about the geography, climate, history, society, government, people, language, religion, culture, cuisine, recipes, arts, architecture, folklore, flora and fauna of Seychelles, and the 6 island groups that, together, make up Seychelles' Inner and Outer Islands

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Discover - Seychelles

Flag of Seychelles – Wikipedia

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The flag of Seychelles was adopted on January 8, 1996.[1] The current flag is the third used by the country since its independence from Britain on June 29, 1976.[2] The colours used in the current flag are the official colours of two of the nation's major political partiesSeychelles People's United Party and the Seychelles Democratic Party.

The flag consists of five different coloured bands (green, white, red, yellow and blue) starting from one end and diverging towards the other end.[3][4] The oblique bands symbolize a dynamic new country moving into the future. The colour blue depicts the sky and the sea that surrounds the Seychelles. Yellow is for the sun which gives light and life, red symbolizes the people and their determination to work for the future in unity and love, while the white band represents social justice and harmony. The green depicts the land and natural environment.[3][5]

The original flag was adopted after independence on June 29, 1976. It had alternating blue and red triangles. Coincidentally the flag was almost identical to the Australian United Steam Navigation Company's flag.[5] In 1977, when president James Mancham was overthrown by France-Albert Ren, the old flag was abolished and the red, white and green flag based on the flag of the Seychelles People's United Party came into use, which had a district wavy white stripe. The only significant difference between the national flag and SPUP's flag was the depiction of the sun in the party's flag which was not used in the country's flag. When the party lost the majority in the elections, other parties demanded a change in the flag which led to a parliamentary approval of a new proposed design.[5]

Flag of Seychelles from 1961-1976-badge designed by Mrs. Alec McEwen of Toronto, Canada

Governor's flag 1903-1961

Governor's flag 1961-1976

Used from 1996, the national flag defaced with the Coat of arms on the upper right corner[3]

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Flag of Seychelles - Wikipedia

The Luciferian next door A modern face of satanism and …

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When I first walked away from this blog it was because I found myself at an impasse. With myself.

The systems I began resonating with and working within were seemingly at odds with one another. And it was around this point that my whole life crumbled. My health had started failing with no end in sight. Due to this I finally lost my job, yet couldnt get approved for disability, and wasnt seeing the improvement needed to land a new job I could sufficiently perform. I was out of prospects and hurtling toward inevitable homelessness. During this, my fianc left me, on my birthday of all days, while in a particularly private and vulnerable position. An intentional act of cruelty that took advantage of an altered state. This was the final straw. I broke.

The next 6-12 months were spent near suicidal. I would open my eyes upon waking in the morning then crumble into sobs because I wished I had died. I couldnt bear to face another day. Id lost my gods, my faith, my love, my job, my health, my sense of self, Id lost everything. I had ceased to be. I didnt care anymore. But the sun always rose, relentlessly, and I was convinced that something would be happy if I killed myself so I just endured out of spite. And so it repeated day after day after day.

I did not have context for much of what I had dabbled in. Like a kid in a candy store I was excited by all the options. It was all new to me and I tried my hand at almost everything. I trusted peoples word naively assuming they had to know better than me due to my lack of experience. I unknowingly said things I should not have, unknowingly posted things I should not have, and I didnt feel I understood my own practice any longer. There were others who I knew existed now, I had found them, seen their posts, read their books, listened to their musick, but I was still alone and isolated. My personal notes and myths crisscrossed with theirs in so many ways. I had no idea what to make of it. It was jarring, overwhelming, confusing, and I was completely lost.

Until their first manifestations in the form of this blog and the other (now closed) social media groups and sites, my beliefs and practice had always been hidden and in secret. My run ins with church authorities throughout my youth were never because I blabbed or spoke my mind about these practices. I had hiding spots for my notebooks. Even the symbols of my faith were hand designed between myself and the primary spirit I worked with so that I could have something to hold onto that others wouldnt violently react to if they saw it. All of my theories, notes, communications, etc., had been between only myself and the page. Often at least partially written in code and shorthand so that even if the notes were found they would be indecipherable to others. I denied everything. Always. After the Satanic accusations were started by my mother in my early teens I outwardly denied belief in anything at all and claimed to be an atheist who didnt believe in any gods or devils (despite my own continued private practicing), but it was to no avail. She just kept insisting that during prayer God, specifically Y-H in this case, had told her what I was involved with.

So after all of this, after reaching out to find anyone else, albeit virtually, I came to a point where I dejectedly thought, what the hell am I doing? What else but harm would possibly come from continuing to talk about this? Clearly, Ive gone massively wrong somewhere. What if I cast this information in a false light simply out of my own ignorance? Would that not be disrespectful to my own gods? To their systems? To their practitioners? Have I already done so? Is that why people are behaving as they are toward me? What if I point others in a bad or unsafe direction? This isnt to say my own writing stopped. Ive filled another 2-3 notebooks during the interim, but I did not feel it would benefit anyone to read those thoughts or theories.

***

Fast forward to current day. After having rebuilt my life on December 24th, while driving to a friends holiday dinner, I was victim of a hit and run collision. A drunk driver came tearing down the surface street I was on at freeway speeds. I was stopped at a red light waiting to turn into the neighborhood. I heard the squealing of brakes behind me and looked up at my rearview mirror to see white smoke billowing up from the tires of a truck skidding towards me. I gasped, and before I had time to do anything else BAM he slammed into the rear of my car. Then pulled up alongside me, looked straight at me, and sped off around the corner leaving a trail of radiator fluid from his smashed front end.

I mention this because in the aftermath of this event I found myself running in the same circles as I had when I had decided to walk away from my practice and realizing that has led me back to this blog.

Two days prior to the accident I had brought offerings to a protection spirit who I had called upon as a shield back when my practice and life were both crumbling. Recently, in hindsight, I was able to see footprints of this spirit and felt he was due an official thank-you for much that has occurred since then. I hoped to thank him for his previous unseen assistance. I wanted to hopefully build a working relationship with one another moving forward if he was open to it. I had been thinking up different offering ideas but not really feeling pulled to any one thing or another. I figured Id push it out of mind until something felt right.

With it being winter I decided to try my hand at making stew that day. Id let it cook in the crock-pot all day so the house would get all delicious smelling and cozy. Within a few hours the impression that he wanted stew was constant and impossible to ignore. So the next day when I had the house to myself and could do so unnoticed by the mundane I reheated it in the crock pot, built him an altar with fresh candles and his charged sigil, brought him a bloodstone in a silk bag as a symbol of his protection and brought him a big bowl of hot stew with a few slices of fresh bread. I laid this out, called to him and spoke a short but heartfelt message of thanks and of my intent to him then invited him to enjoy the offerings.

As human nature would have it, following the accident I was angry. Some protection I mumbled and kept thinking about how I was going to give him an earful once I was back home. As despite having insurance I could still be stuck in a bad situation.

I knew it! I thought. This system is at odds with my beliefs, these spirits wont ever protect me and I was stupid to think they would.

I started convincing myself that those footprints I had thanked him for were just me connecting dots that werent necessarily connected. Wishful thinking I told myself, You should know better than to believe anyone has your back.

Then as the night went on and I was better able to grasp what had just happened I stopped and took stock of the fact that physically, aside from some major soreness, I was fine. When the truck was barreling toward me in the rear view mirror I just knew my face was going to be smashed through my own windshield, yet it wasnt, I was fine. Not a scratch, not a broken bone, not a drop of blood on me. And suddenly it occurred to me, this could have been, and looked like it was going to be, a hell of a lot worse.

But this brings me to a strange place as a practitioner. The only context I have for these thoughts is my Evangelical (Pentecostal) Christian upbringing, where every bad event is explained away as God working in mysterious ways (or demonic influence) and every time things work out God is thanked as having helped. This is not a context I am comfortable with or willing to work within for obvious reasons. Aside from the fact that I dont share their God, it seems like an intellectually dishonest position to hold.

Despite working with entirely different gods in an entirely different manner, I came to think, am I not doing the exact same thing? When calling upon spirits for aid with specific issues or short-term projects its pretty easy to gauge their influence, if any. But with more broad concerns like protection, health, etc., how on earth can we ever know where to draw the line? How can we possibly quantify or measure their influence? I assume most mature adults understand that no one can be protected at all times. It seems more logical to assume all is chance a la Chaos Magick, but if were engaging with spirits, wouldnt this view disregard any work they actually are doing on our behalf?

Since this blog originally started as a place for discussions, to brainstorm, and just to talk with others who might function within similar worldviews I feel like this is a good topic to come back with. As most of you who will see this are practitioners yourselves, how do you walk that line? How do you avoid blaming spirits or magick for bad luck? How do you avoid giving them undo credit for good luck? Where and how do you find that balance?

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The Luciferian next door A modern face of satanism and ...

Australian Libertarian Society

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The Australian Libertarian Society (ALS) is the central portal for information about the libertarian movement in Australia.

Active since 2000, the ALS supports free-markets, individual liberty and the promotion of peaceful, voluntary interaction between people. The aim of the ALS is to bring together the many different strands of libertarian thought spread through Australia, including objectivisists, Rothbardians, classical liberals, anarcho-capitalists, moderates, pragmatic libertarians, Austrian economists, free-marketeers, and anybody else who believes in freedom.

The main activities of the ALS is to arrange occasional events, maintain the ALS blog thoughts on freedom, to provide commentary and analysis from a libertarian perspective, and to support other organisations and projects which share a libertarian agenda. If you would like to be involved, the easiest way is to become an active contributor at the ALS blog. The most recent articles are shown on the right column >

The ALS was a co-sponsor of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), hosted by the Heartland Institute. ALS representatives have spoken at the ICCC and also at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (Sydney). The ALS also hosts the original australian political quiz. Some articles from the ALS blog are also published at the online mens magazine get frank. If you want to re-print ALS material, have a libertarian project in Australia, or need a libertarian perspective on any issue, please get in touch.

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Young Australian libertarians may be interested in the liberty and society sessions, hosted by the Centre for Independent Studies, and the Kennard Freedom prize run by the Institute for Public Affairs.

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The ALS is an Associate Supporter of The International Coalition Against Prohibition (TICAP), which fights for individual self-ownership and believes that the State has no duty to forbid or mandate what substance goes into the body of a person by his own will, regardless of consequences for the user.

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Australian Libertarian Society

Shir Ishii – Wikipedia

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Surgeon General Shir Ishii ( , Ishii Shir, [iiio]; June 25, 1892 October 9, 1959) was a Japanese army medical officer, microbiologist and the director of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army involved in forced and frequently lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (19371945).

Ishii was born in the former Shibayama Village of Sanbu District in Chiba Prefecture, and studied medicine at Kyoto Imperial University. He was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1921 as an army surgeon, second class (surgeon lieutenant). In 1922 he was assigned to the 1st Army Hospital and Army Medical School in Tokyo. There his work impressed his superiors enough to gain him post-graduate medical schooling at the Kyoto Imperial University two years later. During his study at the Kyoto Imperial University, Ishii would often grow bacteria "pets" in multiple petri dishes. His odd practice of raising bacteria as companions rather than as research subjects made Ishii notable to the staff of the university.[1]

In 1925, Ishii was promoted to army surgeon, first class (surgeon captain) and by 1927 he was advocating the creation of a bio-weapons program. Beginning in 1928, he took a two-year tour of the West. In his travels, he did extensive research on the effects of biological warfare and chemical warfare developments from World War I onwards. It was a highly successful mission and helped win him the patronage of Sadao Araki, Minister of the Army. He received promotion to senior army surgeon, third class (surgeon major), in January 1931.

In 1932, he began his preliminary experiments in biological warfare as a secret project for the Japanese military at Zhongma Fortress. He was promoted to senior army surgeon, second class (surgeon lieutenant-colonel) in 1935. In 1936, Unit 731 was formed. Ishii built a huge compound more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers outside the city of Harbin, China. The research was secret, and the cover story was that Unit 731 was engaged in water-purification work.

Ishii was promoted to senior army surgeon, first class (surgeon colonel) in 1938. On 9 February 1939, he gave a lecture on bacteriological warfare in the War Ministry Grand Conference Hall in Tokyo. One of those attending was Prince Yasuhito Chichibu,[1] (the brother of Hirohito, the 124th Emperor of Japan), who also watched vivisection demonstrations by Ishii.[2] He was decorated with the Order of the Golden Kite, Fourth Class, in October.[3] From 1940, Ishii was appointed Chief of the Biological Warfare Section of the Kwantung Army, holding the post simultaneously with that of the Bacteriological Department of the Army Medical Academy,[4] and was promoted to surgeon major-general in March of the following year. In 1942, Ishii began field tests of germ warfare agents developed, and various methods of dispersion (via firearms, bombs etc.) both on Chinese prisoners of war and operationally on battlefields and against civilians in Chinese cities. Some historians estimate that tens of thousands died as a result of the bio-weapons (including bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and others) deployed. His unit also conducted physiological experiments on human subjects, including vivisections, forced abortions, and artificially induced strokes, heart attacks, frostbite and hypothermia.[5]

From 19421945, Ishii was Chief of the Medical Section of the Japanese First Army.[4] He was promoted to surgeon-general in March 1945 and in the same month planned to launch biological weapons against San Diego, California, by utilizing kamikaze planes (see Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night). In the final days of the Pacific War and in the face of imminent defeat, Japanese troops blew up the headquarters of Unit 731 in order to destroy evidence of the research done there. As part of the cover-up, Ishii ordered 150 remaining subjects killed.

In all, more than ten thousand people,[6] of which around 600 every year were provided by the kempeitai (Japanese secret police),[7] were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731. These were called by Ishii and his peers maruta (), or "logs," a term originating in the cover story told to locals that the facility contained a sawmill.[citation needed]

Arrested by the US occupation authorities at the end of World War II, Ishii and other Unit 731 leaders were to be thoroughly interrogated by the Soviet authorities.[8] Instead, Ishii and his team managed to negotiate and receive immunity in 1946 from war-crimes prosecution before the Tokyo tribunal in exchange for their full disclosure of germ warfare data based on human experimentation. Although the Soviet authorities wished the prosecutions to take place, the United States objected after the reports of the investigating US microbiologists. Among these was Dr. Edwin Hill (Chief of Fort Detrick), whose report stated that the information was "absolutely invaluable", it "could never have been obtained in the United States because of scruples attached to experiments on humans", and "the information was obtained fairly cheaply".[8] On 6 May 1947, Douglas MacArthur wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence."[9] The deal was concluded in 1948.[citation needed] In this way Ishii was never prosecuted for any war crimes.

Richard Drayton, a Cambridge University history lecturer, claimed that Ishii later went to Maryland to advise on bioweapons.[10] If Ishii did travel to Maryland, it was most likely to advise at Fort Detrick, a well known major biomedical experimentation facility in Frederick, Maryland.[citation needed] Wilfred Burchett wrote in 1953 that Reuters had reported Ishii as arriving in South Korea in 1951. This was at the same time that North Korea was alleging the US had used biological warfare in the Korean War.[11] Another source says he stayed in Japan, where he opened a clinic where he did examinations and treatments for free.[12] Ishii was especially concerned with the health of children.[citation needed] He kept a diary but it did not make reference to any of his wartime activity.[13] He died of throat cancer at the age of 67, having, according to his daughter,[citation needed] converted to Catholicism shortly before his death.[14]

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Shir Ishii - Wikipedia

Hyperrationalism

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From time immemorial philosophy has captivated man as no other subject has as it deals with the very things we find most important and pertinent to human existence. The word philosophy was first coined by the mathematical, universal genius Pythagoras, sometime in the 6th century BC, and means friend or lover of wisdom. Even before Pythagoras, men of wisdom were contemplating the issues which still interests modern philosophers to this very day. For Pythagoras however, philosophy wasnt just a subject to be used to answer a question, only for it to be deposited out of mind until a future problem arose which needed answering. No, Pythagoras coined the term based on an actual, literal love of philosophy, which permeated throughout his life and formed the basis of his actions and goals. Pythagoras in this sense, was a full time philosopher and everything he done was a direct response to his philosophical ideas.

Today, modern philosophy has been consigned to the rubbish heap of academia, and is regarded as nothing more than a joke in scientific circles. A philosophy degree is seen as wholly impractical and pointless, because of its impracticability and is usually used as a show of intelligence to gain employment in other sectors, out with philosophy.

Philosophy is deemed useless by society because it isnt directly concerned or involved in making money students choose degrees based on which one can make them the most money. They dont choose the subject that they like best because more than anything they like money best. Capitalisms values have already been internalised at this young age for most people, and so it transfers into academia and beyond. But this is not the full extent of the truth as some philosophical skills such as critical thinking and predicate logic are valued because they can be utilised in the wider workplace. Nearly every British prime minister and senior member of the the Tory party has taken the same group of subjects at University, known as P.P.E philosophy, politics, and economics. The power elite realise the value that philosophy plays in the wider world, but this only extends as far as what is practical in purely monetary terms Cameron et al utilise philosophy as a means to an end, that end being the power of others in matters of argument and persuasion. Philosophy will never be taught in the current school curriculum because a critical thinker is a danger to the prevailing establishment. Imagine a whole school year being taught critical thinking on mass, and taking that knowledge into the world, then imagine every subsequent school year being taught this year after year within 10 years the world would have a definite rational revolution on its hands.

How hypocritical are our leaders when the very subjects they took at university are the subjects they conspire against in their political tenures? Instead of P.P.E being promoted in schools, subjects such as home cooking, woodwork and physical education are pushed to the fore. No one is going to change the world by becoming a world class cook or athlete, or carpenter (although that one is contestable), and the power elite know this fine well. On top of that, modern philosophy has become an absolute joke, more concerned with if the king of France is bald, rather than with absolute knowledge. The joke that is modern philosophy can be categorised into three groups:

Historical Philosophy, which deals with all pre-modern philosophers and ideologies, and seeks to only summarise philosophical views, their historical developments and how they influence future philosophers and systems of though. Historical philosophy is the gate keeper for everything thats not modern, no new developments are produced my this group. They keep everything in the past, where it cant trouble anyone. Historical philosophy thinks that nothing new can be said, thats not previously be said before, and is more focused on historical placement than any form of present application or synthesis.

Semantic Philosophy, in academic circles, primarily deals with understanding human expression through the analysis of language. However rather than the field dealing with deep philosophical concepts such as semiotics or other psychological uses such as proxemics. It is instead involved in pedantic pursuits such as whether the king of France is bald or not. Yes, this semantic paradox is actually taken serious, and a lot of time is spent on it in academic philosophy.

finally, philosophy of science is the hidden sin non qua of empirical science, as it deals with defending and promoting the empirical experimental paradigm throughout the academic, and intellectual. Empiricism as a worldview is never challenged, only certain experimental models, methods are analysed and contrast against other competing models in regards to reliability and whether it matches our empirical senses best. No prominent philosophy within the field of P.O.S will ever critique the empirical method because he would be attacking his own livelihood and thats where the problem lies for modern philosophy, and by extension the whole world the age of the specialist has replaced the universal genius. Subsequently academics based within a specialised field dare not question the prevailing paradigm for fear of ostracisation from the community, or loss of senior positions at universities. Specialisation runs rampant within every sector of modern life. With the advent of the internet with unlimited knowledge at everybodys fingertips, and everybody is becoming more specialised and selective within their own range of exacting knowledge.

The great problems in this world will never be solved if the extent of human knowledge is compartmentalised with specific subject fields that care more about money than truth. The geniuss of the past were universal in their knowledge and applications Pythagoras coined the term lover of wisdom to denote ones interests in all fields of knowledge. A grounding in philosophy should be fundamental to all disciplines Students horizons should be broadened not specialised. How can one possibly know their calling in life if they havent experienced at least some of it?

Its time for the resurgence of the universal genius, the concept of the renaissance man should be plastered on every university, on every campus and library in the world. The universal genius is concerned more with knowledge and truth than option and material possessions. Universities should be producing student formed in the mood of Pythagoras not Keynes or Buffet. Philosophy has to be at the centre of all intellectual institutions if this world is to truly progress in a way that will benefit all of its inhabitants, not just the rich and their scientific enablers.

Pythagoras first institution of learning was the predecessor upon which all modern universities were built on, but instead of taking his pursuit of ultimate knowledge to a higher level, they have instead turned it into a place were societies lowliest values are conditioned into its brightest minds. In effect, they have turned what was a God factory into a zombie factory, where capitalism reigns supreme. Most academics can be considered to be nothing more than part-timers half their time is dedicated to their specialised field, the other half to making money. The full time philosopher is either seen as a madman or someone not to be trusted. The pursuit ofAcademia truth and knowledge has been replaced with the pursuit of mammon. Where are the renaissance men and women? Where are the universal Geniuses? Where are the system builders? Who is concerned with truth and knowledge over money and prestige? Education should be about lifting ones mind to a higher place perfecting an individual and teaching them about whats most important in life. Modern education does the exact opposite it encourages memorised, verbatim learning and a closed mind, thats conditioned to accept the materialist paradigm without question. Even within the most open minded subject of all; philosophy empiricism goes generally unquestioned, as most are unable to move beyond their sense perceptions, because the vast majority of the intellectually inclined are sensing types rather than thinking types. This worldview is then continually reinforced throughout our culture which in the end amounts to an entirely faith based position, akin to any form of Abrahamism. The difference is today, that Abrahamism is only critiqued in modern societies whereas materialism isnt.

Academia wouldnt be in the place it is today if real philosophical integrity had stayed at the heart of the intellectual world. It woundt have sold out to capitalism and it certainly wouldnt have allowed such absurd contradictions as lifeless atoms giving birth to conscious human beings. Metaphysics and epistemology are completely in thrall to materialist models of reality, and no challenge to them is even considered. And this is all dictated by illiterate autistic physicists how havent done a days work in philosophy in their lives. Humanity must promote the concept of the full-time philosopher once again. Its time for metaphysics, politics, epistemology, rationalism and most importantly mathematics to return to their rightful place as the greatest subjects known to man. Its time for the new, modern renaissance man, whos educated in every field of practical knowledge, whos life is dedicated to being a full time philosopher of reason, knowledge and truth. To be rational is not enough, you must live that rationality, every second of every day to become Hypperrational: one who embodies and applies mathematical rationalism in all aspects of their lifes. For those of you unfamiliar with the Illuminist concept of Hyperrationalism I will be dealing with it in my next post.

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Hyperrationalism

What is Spiritual Enlightenment? – Home – I AM …

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So what exactly IS spiritual enlightenment anyway?

Simply put, spiritual enlightenment is a concept mostly associated with Buddhism and Hinduism, but it also has unrecognized connections into most other religions as well. Enlightenment implies complete understanding of life and the universe, which usually is accompanied by a detachment of all things impermanent and a complete awareness of everything that is, at the moment that it is. The spiritual belief purports that non-enlightened life is full of suffering produced by desire and other emotions that attach the mind to worldly things; suffering is the inevitable result of attachment to these necessarily transitory things. A person thus becomes enlightened when they remain in the world yet becomes free of attachment to it. Enlightenment is considered the end of a beings spiritual journey, be it within one life or across many.

In Buddhism, enlightenment is called nirvana. Nirvana is believed to be a state of peace and unity with the cosmos. Different forms of Buddhism teach different techniques for achieving nirvana. Orthodox Buddhists, for example, try to directly follow Buddhas teachings: in particular, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. Others, such as Zen Buddhists, may use challenging mental exercises, such as koans, which are solutionless riddles designed to jerk ones mind out of conscious thought into enlightenment. Most forms of Buddhism also use regular meditation as a central element of the path to spiritual enlightenment.

Hinduism also uses the concept of nirvana, called moksha, considering it a representation of freedom from desire and other worldly passions. Spiritual enlightenment is also part of the conclusion to the Hindu cycle of reincarnation. In this belief, souls enter many different bodies through the course of their existence. In each of the lives they lead, they develop spiritually. The ultimate goal of this spiritual development is moksha, a liberation from the system of earthly suffering, which includes the idea of spiritual enlightenment.

Christians who have passed through the portal of enlightenment have historically been deemed by the church to be mystics; one who through direct communication with God commands a mystical understanding of God and all things spiritual; one who has a mystical understanding beyond those who have spent a lifetime in religious study and servitude to God. But the two other major Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Islam have enlightened congregants as well. In fact, both religions have subset sects who focus on the attainment of enlightenment as their primary goal. Judaism has Kabballah. In Islam, the Sufis chase the mystical experience. It is because of this non-denominational foundation that enlightenment is generally considered a mystical concept. That is, it contains the promise of a spiritual clarity lying beyond description by words and attainment by action, regardless of religion. For example, one cannot become enlightened by reading, even if one can recite the words of every religious sage. Enlightenment is a potentially universal experience, but each being comes to it through a unique path. Teachers may provide assistance and provocation along the way, but they cannot impose enlightenment on their pupils; one becomes enlightened alone.

The concept of spiritual enlightenment in Buddhism and Hinduism is related to but distinct from ideas such as salvation and transcendence associated with Christianity. Whereas most versions of Christianity emphasize love of Jesus Christ as a prerequisite to spiritual completeness, enlightenment usually implies liberation from teachers and doctrineone famous Zen koan suggests: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! Enlightenment also does not involve the existence of a heaven distinct from earth, although it is also noted that even Jesus mentioned there may not be a separation of the two in the Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic gospels. It places more emphasis on a transformation of the souls relationship to the world of objects. The enlightened being continues a corporeal existence after having gained awareness of the illusory nature of reality. There is no separate space to which one ascends.

As a person who has passed through the portal of enlightenment, I can say that there is a huge difference between simply deciding to reject worldly suffering and attachments trying intentionally to be enlightened compared to actually passing through the experience of spiritual awakening that is most commonly called enlightenment. There is an actual experience where you tap into the universal intelligence and energy that transcends our own lives and individual existences. It grants spiritual knowledge, wisdom, and ultimately inner peace. It grants immediate universal understanding of God, the Universe, the meaning of your own existence. Most importantly, it answers the question why.

To answer the question of HOW one achieves enlightenment. the answer is to simply stop all conscious thought in your mind, while listening for God. I say the word simply very tongue in cheek, because frankly, it is not a simple task to accomplish at all. But it is the process of stopping conscious thought that allows for the process of enlightenment to occur. You must cease the voice in your head to hear the voice that comes without sound. You must stop thinking about today, tomorrow, yesterday, what youre going to watch on TV, that youre hungry right now, or thirsty, or that theres a dog barking, or that you thought this answer to this question was too ambiguous, or too simple to be plausible. Stop all thoughts of color, of noise, of the fact that youre trying to clear the thoughts in your head. It is only when you silence the sights and sounds within your mind that you will see and hear what exists just beyond your minds grasp. The Energy, the Intelligence, God.

Let me clarify further:

Numerous people globally have found enlightenment in many various ways throughout history many spontaneously without even searching for the phenomenon. But the one common denominator that has not been noticed (until recently) is that every instance of enlightenment almost always come from a place where the mind has been stilled within the person who has experienced it.

Numerous methods have been the catalyst for the engagement of the enlightenment experience. Meditation, Yoga, Contemplative Prayer, Martial Arts Katas, Pilgrimages, Fasting, Dancing, Quaking/Shaking (ref: Quaker and Shaker religions), Exhaustion, Sweat Lodges, Psychadelics (Psilocybin Mushrooms, Peyote, LSD, DMT), Deep Emotional Despair, Near Death Experiences, etc. And in all of these, and all of the others not mentioned, there comes a point when the conscious mind is silenced.

In meditation, the point of the exercise itself is to silence the mind. In Yoga, you focus on the movements and the breathing, which quiets the mind down to thinking about just a couple things (close to a point of thinking of nothing). In contemplative prayer (Google it), you silence yourself, and listen for God. Through martial arts katas, you learn them so well, you dont have to think about them (reducing conscious thought). In fasting, you deprive your body of nourishment that helps the brain function at a higher level, which clears your mind. Through exhaustion or sweat lodges, you physically stress your mind into shutting down (not recommended). The same is true with the drug induced experiences they inhibit your brains ability to operate normally, ceasing conscious thought (however they also inhibit your ability to process and understand the experience when it actually happens not a preferred method). The latest studies on psilocybin that include live fMRI and PET scans prove this is more than just theory. Some people have found enlightenment through experiencing depression or deep emotional despair where their mind is so filled with pain, that it snuffs out other conscious thought. Near death of course narrows brain and thought activity. All these have been common catalysts for people attaining enlightenment.

So whatever path you choose, choose one that ceases your minds activity, and God will then touch you directly, and it is then that you will understand everything there is to know. And you will know it when enlightenment happens, because it will change your life forever. If you think youve had a universal-type everything is one experience previously, but arent sure if you experienced enlightenment, you have NOT passed through the enlightenment portal. You have experienced what is called an awakening, which is a less dramatic and less profound experience, but one that gives you a peek into the secrets of divinity and the truth about God and all existence.

In comparison to having an awakening experience, to attain a full enlightenment experience you must clear your mind of all conscious thought, reach out and LISTEN for God without thinking ANYTHING. Then if youre lucky, and can maintain a TOTAL thought void, God will touch you with a drinking-from-a-fire-hydrant experience of pure love, pure spirit, pure intelligence and pure knowledge that you will never, ever forget. And then you will know everything there is to know.

Where do people find enlightened teachers? The most popular answer to that question is India. There are tons of Gurus there. But there are also many false Gurus who believe they know the path but dont, or who know they dont know the path and who are intentionally pulling the wool over your eyes for monetary gain. Outside India, more and more of us human beings are becoming enlightened, and some of us are selecting the path to become spiritual guides. In our communication age, you should be able to find an enlightened teacher whom you can connect with intellectually rather easily without leaving your desk.

For instance my free video podcast series answers many questions like these and the others connected to the topic of enlightenment (IAMSpirituality.com). Ive tried to make it a no-BS format that speaks plain answers without the typical enigmatic riddles that spiritual guides usually use.

So how do you know when someone is enlightened? Tough one. But I think you will know it when you hear it. But as a warning, you will NOT know how to identify the unenlightened until you hear the messages from one whom is truly enlightened, so I suggest listening to people who are widely accepted as enlightened, such as the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Eckhart Tolle, and to a lesser extent, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, etc. There are also some very good Indian Gurus on YouTube now. Keep searching until you find someone you can connect with whos approach keeps you interested.

Stay away from anyone who wants to charge you money for spiritual assistance. I like to keep all my stuff free, except where there are production costs (like with apps, books, etc.). We may accept donations for bandwidth, but beyond that, information on how to connect with God directly to get your own answer (I think) should be free whenever possible.

Ill stop here in the hopes that this article helps answer a few questions about spiritual enlightenment if you had any.

As always, Peace and Love to you.

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Justice League: Cyborg’s Movie Powers Explained

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Now thatJustice League is in theaters, Cyborg has finally entered the DCEU but what exactly can this version of Victor Stone do? Last yearsBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice offered fans a tease of Vic, but its been the lead-up toJustice League thats shown the full extent of the young hero and his abilities. While the proposedCyborg solo film will fully explore the character,Justice League does a good job getting fans up to speed on the cinematic take on the hero.

When we first meet the reborn Stone, the majority of his body has been replaced by cybernetic parts. As he explains to his father Silas, the failed experiment that led to Vics near-death is connected to the Change Engine otherwise known as one of the three Mother Boxes in the film. Augmenting his body with its tech, Cyborg is in a constant state of flux and learns new abilities each day. WhileJustice League never provides a full rundown, we know a number of Cyborgs powers thanks to what he does in the film and what he can do in the comics.

Care of Cyborgs upgrades, hes both super strong and incredibly durable. We even see him stitch his body back together after Steppenwolf literally rips him in half. Cyborg can also interface with any form of technology, from Batmans Knightcrawler to Supermans Kryptonian ship. We can also see him hack into the Batcave on autopilot, tap into military computers with a thought, and track systems all over the world. He can even project holograms to add a little flair to his abilities.

Along with his technopathy, Cyborg hasa slew of offensive and defensive capabilities. His body is constantly changing, and even adapts to threats as they appear. We see him at various points deploy an energy cannon, a rocket launcher, a freeze ray, and even a shield that can withstand Supermans heat vision.

Though Cyborg has been around since the 80s, often fighting alongside the Teen Titans, its his revised origin in the New 52 that the film takes inspiration from. There, his father Silas was experimenting on a Mother Box when his football-star son shows up. Their relationship is contentious, with Silas wanting Victor to use his vast intelligence to become a scientist as well. When an accident causes an explosion, Vic is torn to shreds and only saved once hes bonded with the Mother Box. Most of his movie abilities remain, but he also gains the power to summon Boom Tubes, the portals Steppenwolf uses to get around in the movie.

Like in the film, the New 52 version of Cyborg is similarly changing over time shifting his powers and appearanceas he further bonds with his technology.Justice League, however, pulls a little from the Jamie Reyes version of Blue Beetle. He too has an alien set of armor, but it adapts to situations into near-infinite combinations. It also has a mind of its own, something we see Cyborg struggle with when Superman appears. Still, these concepts fit nicely with Cyborgs alien connection and provide even more tragedy for the character inJustice League.

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Justice League: Cyborg's Movie Powers Explained

The Dharmasar Solution Enlightenment through Extropian …

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pivoted, and restarted development of his teaching at least 3 or 4 times, depending on how you keep score. Immediately after forming the intention to benefit all conditioned beings by teaching the Noble Path, he concluded;

And what may be said to be subject to aging illness death sorrow defilement? Spouses & children men & women slaves goats & sheep fowl & pigs elephants, cattle, horses, & mares gold & silver [2] are subject to aging illness death sorrow defilement. Subject to aging illness death sorrow defilement are these acquisitions, and one who is tied to them, infatuated with them, who has totally fallen for them, being subject to birth, seeks what is likewise subject to aging illness death sorrow defilement. This is ignoble search.

So rejecting the household life, he went forth into the homeless life of a bhikkhu. That was the first pivot. Then he approachedAlara Kalama:

Having thus gone forth in search of what might be skillful, seeking the unexcelled state of sublime peace, I went to Alara Kalama and, on arrival, said to him: Friend Kalama, I want to practice in this doctrine & discipline.

When this was said, he replied to me, You may stay here, my friend. This doctrine is such that a wise person can soon enter & dwell in his own teachers knowledge, having realized it for himself through direct knowledge.It was not long before I quickly learned the doctrine. As far as mere lip-reciting & repetition, I could speak the words of knowledge, the words of the elders, and I could affirm that I knew & saw I, along with others

The Dhamma I know is the Dhamma you know; the Dhamma you know is the Dhamma I know. As I am, so are you; as you are, so am I. Come friend, let us now lead this community together.

But the Buddha was not satisfied with Alara Kalamas teaching and moved on to Uddaka Ramaputta. This was the second pivot.

In search of what might be skillful, seeking the unexcelled state of sublime peace, I went to Uddaka Ramaputta and, on arrival, said to him: Friend Uddaka, I want to practice in this doctrine & discipline.

When this was said, he replied to me, You may stay here, my friend. This doctrine is such that a wise person can soon enter & dwell in his own teachers knowledge, having realized it for himself through direct knowledge.

It was not long before I quickly learned the doctrine. As far as mere lip-reciting & repetition, I could speak the words of knowledge, the words of the elders, and I could affirm that I knew & saw I, along with others.

Finally the Buddha saw the limitations ofUddaka Ramaputtas teaching and left him to perform severe austerities alone in the forest. This was the third pivot.

In search of what might be skillful, seeking the unexcelled state of sublime peace, I wandered by stages in the Magadhan country and came to the military town of Uruvela. There I saw some delightful countryside, with an inspiring forest grove, a clear-flowing river with fine, delightful banks, and villages for alms-going on all sides. The thought occurred to me: How delightful is this countryside, with its inspiring forest grove, clear-flowing river with fine, delightful banks, and villages for alms-going on all sides. This is just right for the exertion of a clansman intent on exertion. So I sat down right there, thinking, This is just right for exertion.

But wracking austerities did not deliver the enlightenment the Buddha was seeking either. So, drawing on his childhood experiences of meditative pleasure in jhna, he pivoted again:

Then, monks, being subject myself to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, seeking the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke, Unbinding, I reached the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding. Being subject myself to aging illness death sorrow defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging illness death sorrow defilement, seeking the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less, unexcelled rest from the yoke, Unbinding, I reached the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding. Knowledge & vision arose in me: Unprovoked is my release. This is the last birth. There is now no further becoming.

Then the thought occurred to me, This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. [3] But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality & dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding. And if I were to teach the Dhamma and others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me.

Then Brahm appeared to him and begged him to teach for the welfare of the world. We could regard this as a sixth pivot:

Then, just as a strong man might extend his flexed arm or flex his extended arm, Brahma Sahampati disappeared from the Brahma-world and reappeared in front of me. Arranging his upper robe over one shoulder, he knelt down with his right knee on the ground, saluted me with his hands before his heart, and said to me: Lord, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma! Let the One-Well-Gone teach the Dhamma! There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are falling away because they do not hear the Dhamma. There will be those who will understand the Dhamma.

That is what Brahma Sahampati said. Having said that, he further said this:

In the pastthere appeared among the Magadhansan impure Dhammadevised by the stained.

Throw open the door to the Deathless!Let them hear the Dhammarealized by the Stainless One! All quotes from: Ariyapariyesana Sutta

So if even the Buddha himself had to pivot and reorient his search several times, then what about us? We know enough about innovation to understand that it rarely succeeds on the first try. Thomas Edison trying thousands of formulas for the incandescent light bulb comes to mind.

And developing something like a light bulb or other piece of technology is simple compared with attaining enlightenment. So if you fail, fall down, make mistakes, switch methods, switch teachers, switch ontologies, you are in good company: the Buddha himself also pivoted several times before attaining his goal.

Im always suspicious when some monks bio reads that he found his teacher at an early age and stayed on for years or decades, finally becoming his successor. Its too neat; it doesnt sound like the way it really is; it sounds like they were set up, and he whole thing was planned out. Made men in the monastery.

When I was first starting out I sampled so many spiritual teachers available on the US West Coast, both eastern and western. Most I rejected immediately; it was clear they faking it. I kept those with a clear disciplic succession (parampar) who were faithful to their roots.

I joined several traditional organizations, large and small, Christian, Hindu, Budhist and so on; took the initiations, ordinations and empowerments they offered, and hung around long enough to find out what was really going on.

Sad to say, most were just money-making and power schemes. That doesnt mean there were no intelligent, truthful, pure-minded people with deep knowledge and profound practice. But they were very much in the minority. I made it my business to make friends with them and keep in touch over the years, as part of my valuable spiritual inheritance and fortune.

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The Dharmasar Solution Enlightenment through Extropian ...

Can the AltRight be a modern alternative? Immigration …

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The American Alt-Right is at an important juncture in history. America is not that far from becoming majority-minority. It is difficult to map out a set of policies that could restore the historic American nation. One could suggest a complete end to all non-white immigration; a reversal of the incorrect interpretation of a constitutional amendment that gave rise to birthright citizenship; the encouragement of mass immigration from Europe; expulsion of Puerto Rico from US control; and an end to the reception of refugees in America. One could also add bringing in official English (with all states and cities prevented from providing services in other languages); an end to positive discrimination; an end to the collection of any data on racial disparities (which data are used in Left-wing agitation); the routine use of the death penalty (without years on Death Row) in all serious crimes; and the criminalisation of the promotion of multiculturalism in any company or educational establishment. Ultimately it would be desirable (but probably unfeasible) to remove citizenship from people without European ancestry.

None of these things would definitely produce a sustainable white majority. They might delay minority status. They might ensure that white identity survived minority status, so that the white minority was able to advance its own interests over the longer term in America. But one thing is for sure: there is a relatively limited window of time to implement any of this. The significance of Donald Trump and his presidency is that it has led to the rise of a genuine sense of white identity. At the moment, whites are a majority, and a majority ethnic group with a strong identity could achieve much to cement its position over the longer term. Yet there is little sign that the AltRight, centred on the AltRight.com website, is equipped to advance a white-identity movement that can seize the opportunity now presenting itself to them.

I want to examine the AltRights attitude towards homosexuality, and its inability to keep focus on the key issue of white identity. Some parts of the AltRight trace their origins to neo-fascist organisations or other organisations that openly admire central European leaders of the 1930s and 1940s. Others have seemed to project a more modern image. Richard Spencer, in particular, comes across as urbane, presentable, and aware of the need to be able to appeal to a broader sense of white identity than simply the assorted remnants of tiny fringe parties. I admire Spencer and the tone he has taken in all of his videos and podcasts on the Internet. He is hard to smear as simply a neo-Nazi. He has also on a number of occasion expressed a willingness to work with a number of non-traditional elements on the Right, such as the occasional homosexual. I think he had to row back pretty strongly after Milo Yiannopoulos comments on his (Milos) molestation by a older man as a teenager. But before that, Spencer did appear to see the value of the work being done by Milo.

I would like here to draw a distinction between a party with specific goals on the one hand and a broader counterculture that contains varying interests and disparate groups focusing on different issues on the other. The Left is a broad movement that includes a wide range of groups, from Communists to Greens to libertarians of various stripes. Racial, sexual, gay and now transgender groups are all present. These groups may not all see eye to eye on everything. The Muslims and the transgender activists are not really on the same page. But the Left has depth in that there are a wide range of groups that all advance their own causes. The Left is not just a political party or parties, but a thriving culture, including films, TV programmes, magazines, art, captured educational establishments, etc.

A Right counterculture appears to be in the very embryonic stages of being formed. Not all elements in the Right will support each other, and ultimately if some of the wilder elements of the Right got their way there would be something of a reckoning between them. A key issue is the AltRights disdain for the AltLite, people who dont go as far as them, but have in fact done much more to create the grounds for white identity than anyone around Richard Spencer has. Let us think of who these people might be. Milo Yiannopoulos is one: as a gay man, he can fly under radar to a certain extent, making comments that a straight, white male would not get away with. The fact that certain people can say more and get away with it reflects the dominant identity politics narrative on the Left and is a major problem for us. Ultimately, it shouldnt matter who says what; what should matter alone is the quality of the argumentation.

We are confronted with an absurdity. Milo would not be welcome in Richard Spencers ethnostate. Yet he opposes Black Lives Matter, controls on free speech and the nonsense of feminism much more effectively and with a much greater public profile than anyone on the AltRight. The AltLite and Milo in particular have played a vital role in expanding political space for wider discussion. One approach would be to accept the role of such people on certain issues as part of the wider counterculture, but not to accept that these people are or could be part of a white ethnostate. But Milo is white. Why wouldnt he be admitted to the white ethnostate if he chose to move within its bounds and submit to its regulations?

A number of other people with colourful sexual orientations are prominent in the counterculture. In the US context, you could cite Jack Donovan, a gay man who has rejected the gay culture. If I understand it correctly, he would still be someone who likes men (an androphile), but not someone who will be told which hairstyle and pop music he must like, and not someone who would approve of gay marriage either. Greg Johnson, the editor of Counter Currents, has come in for personal attacks by the AltRight for publishing on homosexuality, including the book The Homo and the Negro. It is stated on AltRight forms that he is gay, although Im not aware that he has put his sexuality into the public domain, and I cant think of a reason why he or anyone else should feel they have to do so. In Europe, there are analogues. The flamboyant gay politician Pim Fortuynmurdered for opposing the Islamisation of Hollanddid more to create a movement against Muslim immigration than any neo-Nazi, and ended up being smeared as far-right by all and sundry himself too. The English gay historian, David Starkey, has often upset black groups by making truthful comments on TV. Another English gay, Douglas Murray, is also personally doing much to oppose immigration and Islamisation as deputy editor of the Spectator. In Germany and France, Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD)and Le Front National receive considerable support from homosexuals reluctant to fall under Islamic shariah law. The AfD is led by a lesbian, and an Irish lesbian recently fairly narrowly failed to win the leadership of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) on an anti-Islam platform.

We can also cite involvement in Right-wing politics by those not classifiable as white Christians. Paul Gottfried, a Jewish academic, in fact invented the term alternative right, and has written many articles about the vindictive tone of organised Jewish groups (note: I do not say all individual Jews, and Im always careful to treat people as I find without prejudging them) towards white identity. The admirable Jewish speaker Ben Shapiro is one of the best speakers of the AltLite, making campus visits across the country and speaking out on issues such as gay rights, transgender rights, Black Lives Matter and gun control from a perspective that many Right-wingers could not fail to agree with. American Renaissance, led by the splendid Jared Taylor, also hosts Jewish speakers at its conferences. Other podcasters, such as Stefan Molyneux, appear to have to work overtime to conceal some Jewish ancestry to retain a hearing on the Right. The Jewish Stephen Miller is also doing what he can to defend Americas borders from within the Trump administration. Jared Taylor was recently interviewed by a great black lady, who goes by the name of Tree of Logic on Youtube. She appears favourable to white identity politics. An Iranian man, Jason Reza Jorjani, was until recently on the board of AltRight.com and argued for a bizarre plan to realign Iran with Europe.

It is in the nature of any broad counterculture that it will allow participation from many groups. I wouldnt reject allies where they can be found, particularly as there are only a certain number of years left in which to build support for policy changes that could reverse demographic transformation in America (and many other European nations). Nevertheless, the reality is that many of these AltLite figures will always cleave closer to the mainstream than much of the AltRight. Their participation may serve to dilute the Right or to wean it away from its principles. We saw this recently in the Jorjani episode, when the Iranian kept promising money from anonymous monied backers, before flouncing out and denouncing the whole thing because he was not allowed to control the AltRight corporation. I dont know whether Greg Johnson is gay or not, but an article on AltRight.com claimed he wanted to control Arktos media publishing, and attacked Daniel Friberg, who ended up in control. There seems to be a degree of turmoil in the cricle around Richard Spencer on AltRight.com, and Im not sure any account on that site will be accurate. If Johnson is gay, a Rightwinger could infer a gay hissy fit in his behaviour. Or possibly an attempt to recruit the AltRight and turn it into the AltLite. Certaintly, the argument in The Homo and the Negro that somehow gay men are central to the revival of the West appears aburdly overstated. Johnsons own views are not notably centrist (he appears more rightwing than the AltLite as such)he recently stated on camera that Jews in America should be deported en masse to Israeland his falling out with the AltRight may reflect, not an attempt to water down the AltRight, but rather frustration with the domination of the AltRight by people failing to focus on the key racial/demographic issue.

To varying degrees, the incorporation of non-traditional Rightists into the alternative right will rub up against an unwillingness of many on the Right to modernise their views on some issues in order to focus on the main task at hand. Here we face a difficult problem: what to do about more extreme groups that the media will realise are part of the Right, and whose presence simply holds everyone back. To a certain extent, everyone who is opposed to immigration will realise that extreme acts by some young Rightwingers are an inchoate response to a situation contrived by the Left, that of our national dispossession. We can think of people like Anders Behring Breivik in Norway and James Alexander Fields in the US (who knocked down a woman after the Charlottesville protest). But while these peoples crimes are a response to a situation the Left had no right to bring about, these people are poison to the movement. We have to face the fact that a small number of mentally imbalanced people can play an outsized role in discrediting opposition to immigration. If Richard Spencer and the AltRight want to accomplish anything at all, they have to focus on creating a movement that can realistically achieve something. This means rejecting the participation of the few real extremists. Yet their website has recently insisted that Fields may be innocent. AltRight commenters argue the woman he knocked down may have deserved it because she was obese. Against this background, it is understandable that more rational voices have sought to rein in the AltRight on to more defensible territory.

There is much discussion on the Right of the left-wing habit of refusing to punch left. The Left refuse to condemn Communists, or the Alt-Left, or Antifa. It is suggested that we should refuse to punch right, and thus not be cornered into condemning neo-Nazis and the like. I would argue refusal to draw a line at criminal acts such as murder is both bizarre and wrong. For a start, the Left is in power, and their refusal to punch left is glossed over by the authorities. A failure to be clear on our part that murder is not what we are seeking will only be seized upon with glee by the media and the courts. Some point out that multiculturalism may in fact be pushing us towards civil warEnoch Powell made this pointbut that is not to say that this is a desirable outcome. We need to be clear that we advance immigration restriction to prevent this outcome. In a real civil war, the extremists might make themselves useful, as a civil war becomes a thuggish free-for-all, but how much better to adopt policies that provide for long-term political stability!

This unwillingness to break with the (very, very small) groups of real extremists who hold the movement back marks something of a dividing point between the AltRight and the so-called AltLite. There are people on Gab and the Daily Stormer (Andrew Anglins Hitler-admiring organ) that openly celebrated the death of Heather Heyer at Charlottesville. I will agree the Unite the Right should have been allowed their rally, and that the Charlottesville police and Virginia governor conspired to foment violence on the day by pushing the AltRight into the arms of Antifa, waiting with baseball bats and pepper spray. As far as I know the AltRight gave the Antifa more than they bargained forand why not, in self-defence? But those who celebrate the knocking down of a woman have some kind of problem mentally or psychologically. Those who condemned the murder are not cucks or normies, but decent human beings.

I would argue the AltRight should not dally with extremism, and should welcome the contributions of all the groups I have mentioned above, including gay men, Jews, blacks and others. They are all part of a counterculture that can create space for a white identity. Whether, in the very unlikely event that an ethnostate were created, all of these groups would be welcomed to join in is another question, and really one that cannot be answered right now. For a start, should an ethnostate be 100% white? or would a small and stable minority of around 1% of traders and restaurant-owners be accepted? Would it be North Korea (with no interaction with the outside world) or somewhere like China (an ethnostate that trades globally, with small numbers of foreigners allowed in on extendable business visas)? It may be that small and stable numbers of well-disposed members of the ethnic minorities (enough to staff ethnic restaurants, teach language skills and facilitate international trade, and no more) would be allowed, but in any case we are not in the position to draw up the constitution of a state unlikely to ever be built. Even those on the Right who are obsessed with the role of organised Jewry should put their prejudices aside and accept any contribution by people like Ben Shapironot on every issue, but on specific issuesat least to the extent of being prepared to talk to the guy. Such people are proving useful, and that should be recognised. Right-wing websites like Vdare.com, which I greatly admire, also host articles by a variety of well-disposed minority writers, including Paul Gottfried and others (I recall an American Indian who used to write there). We should be clear that nationalism is about valuing our race and traditions, and not hating others as such.

When it comes to white homosexuals, the argument for seeing a role for them on the Right is even stronger, as they are part of the white race. Note that Im not ignoring the fact that homosexuals are said to be less than 2% of the population, with relatively few of even them willing to come all the way over to the Right. Yet individual gay men can prove rather impervious to strictures on speech, weaponising flamboyance in order to breach speech codes. As pointed out above many gay men do say the unsayable on cultural/racial issues. The few who are genuinely making a clear contribution in discrete areas (Milo et al) are often much more culturally significant than their numbers indicate. It doesnt make any sense to refuse to see such people as part of the wider culture were trying to create.

I have to agree that there is a problem with people like Milo, in that he fails to maintain public decorum and frequently speaks of his love for black cock. In my view, it is unpleasant to hear someone speaking in this smutty manner at public gatherings. The fact that he meets black men for sex is for me a non-issue; the fact that he loves to taunt audiences with this is. Although he may be accepted as part of a broad and deep counterculture along with the AltRightas a broad counterculture will include elements we dont fully agree withhe couldnt really be AltRight until he accepts that such smuttiness is not acceptable. His recent gay marriage also rules him out of the AltRight as such, although he can still serve as a useful idiot expanding the bounds of what is sayable on other issues. Important requirements for genuine membership of the AltRight ought to be opposition to gay marriage; opposition to gay adoption of children; and opposition to employment tribunals to police discrimination against gays. Children should not be exposed to gay propaganda in schools. There should be no sex-change operations. Toilets and other changing facilities should always be single-sex. If a homosexual man agrees with all of that, he is potentially AltRight. A white ethnostate ought not to be governed by a version of shariah law. Private behaviour in the bedroom should not be policed.

There is a good reason why the family has to be the centrepoint of national survival. We have a culture that doesnt wish to survive. Homosexuality, abortion, feminism and divorce work together to promote a culture of hedonism and low birth rates. While the English have less than 2 children, their Pakistani neighbours have 5 or 6. They have a culture that is set to survive and flourish and even overtake ours. For this reason, a man who can be straight would be best advised to be straight and to have English children. Im not sure it makes any sense to tell men who are strongly on the homosexual end of the spectrum to get married and have children: would that be fair to the wives? But those with ambiguous sexuality who could cope with a relationship with a wife should reproduce.

We understand male sexuality better than when we were under strict Christian laws. A recent survey in England showed that only 46% of 18-24-year-olds claim to be exclusively heterosexual. There is only a small number of exclusively gay men, but a continuum of bisexuality in between. While it is true to say that homosexuality is not the norm, neither is being exclusively heterosexual a statistical norm either. Most men are mainly attracted to women, with some limited degree of attraction to men: that is the norm. Having said that, there is much to be said for the view that homosexuality is a barren lifestyle that is a dead-end for the individuals concerned and for their nations. Anecdotal evidence shows that gay men in his 40s or 50s are likely to be single, often without ties to their biological families, without any connection to younger gay men, and with no children and grandchildren. Propaganda about gay pride aside, they will be aware of the essentially sad and unfulfilling nature of the sexuality they have espoused. Gay sexuality is a young mans culture, in other words, a culture whose negative side unfolds itself gradually over the decades of a mans life, until he is left in his old age in a nursing home with no visitors.

Homosexuality is thus a microcosm of what is happening to white culture more broadly, as our societies choose not to survive. Nevertheless, to the extent that a man with a colourful sexual past accepts the primacy of the family and chooses to work for the survival of his nation (albeit a nation that will survive without his descendants among them), it would be counterproductive to reject his service. particularly in the case of an individual who (unlike Milo) maintains decorum in public. This is because many gay men are highly motivated and intelligent propagandisers. Gay men are not normies in the sense that they have already stepped outside social norms, and are often willing to reject the liberal pieties on race and culture. A question arises as to the availability of leadership roles on the Right to men who dont have families. The role of Jorjani shows that non-traditional fraternisers of the Right can be a problem. What has been written of Greg Johnson by the AltRight is also presented as another example of the potentially disruptive nature of involvement by gay men. I think it only natural that gay men have to prove themselves in the nationalist movement.

However, none of us knows who the gay and bisexual men among us are. If they are truly 54% of the whole (when people who are marginally bisexual are included), then the idea of imposing a sexuality test on the right becomes absurd. The chances are greater than even that any individual member of the AltRight will have some degree of attraction to men. We have traditionally been able to provide social roles for homosexual men (e.g. as priests), suggesting there is something artificial about advocating a restoration of a form of white culture that never really existed. In mediaeval England, homosexuality faced penalties administered by the church, but some researchers have claimed the punishments were trivial, on a par with those handed out for being drunk. The reality is that this form of behaviour was largely regarded for centuries as a foible. In a moral sense, a man who cheats on his wife is risking an impact on the lives of his children, and if homosexuality is to be banned, then should not adultery/fornication be regarded as even more worthy of proscription? Adultery is much more nation-destroying than homosexuality. Yet we do not read of any attempt by the AltRight to drum fornicators out of their ranks. In fact, appetite for a restoration of Christian morality appears very low in all the European nations.

A much more sensible approach would be to focus on the main issue of demographic survival. All who are willing to work for that are genuinely part of the Alternative Right, if not part of AltRight.com. Those who oppose propaganda on feminism, sexuality and transgender issues are working for the survival of our nations. This amounts to a broader understanding of what it means to be Right than is common among the remnants of the Klan and tiny neo-Nazi grouplets, but one more likely to be able to take root in the newly more favourable environment for white identity. How can I emphasise the point? Gay rights is not an issue that is consistent with the survival of the Western nations, but in the end, white men are part of their white nations. Racial survival means exactly what is sounds like: all white men should be able to rally to that standard. If Richard Spencer, in a bid to deflect accusations that he has engaged in homosexual behaviour, cannot keep focus on the main demographic issue on AltRight.com, then I think he is failing to modernise the alternative right in a way that would be clearly marketable to a wider swathe of the American white population. The alternative right may be in danger of becoming large enough as a subculture to provide a comfort zone or zone of enjoyment for its leaders, a subculture large enough to allow its leadership to coast and enjoy their lives doing so. The trick now is to move the national question out of a subculture into the mainstream white population.

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Can the AltRight be a modern alternative? Immigration ...

Black Violence Against Whites: A Recent History past …

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On January 4, 2017 in Chicago, a mentally disabled white man was abducted and tortured by a group of black teenagers, supposedly for being a Trump supporter. The young man was beaten, his mouth duct taped shut, his scalp cut and the wound used as an ashtray, while the black hooligans around him laughed, insulted him, and aped about, saying Fuck white people, fuck Trump. His evil idiot captors streamed his torment live to Facebook, resulting in their quick arrest. View the full, disturbing video here.

Its the same old story. Blacks engage in appallingacts of violence and depravity towards whites, and the media tries to smother the outrage instead of whipping into a frenzy like they would if the victim was black.

Amanda Blackburn, 28, mother, 3 months pregnant. Morgan Harrington, 20, student, artist. Jessica Chambers, 19, recent high school graduate, jewel of her fathers heart. These threebeautiful blonde women havea ghastly thing in common: they were all murdered by black thugs. Unless you were following local news or Internet fake news, you will not have heard ofthese tragic stories. They arent worthy of national conversations about race.

Amanda Blackburn, a pregnant mother, was shot in the head while her pastor husband was at the gym, byLarry Jo Taylor, Jr., 18, and Jalen Watson, 21, in 2015. Amanda fought back bravely, desperate to defend her three year old son who was also in the house, but Taylor and Jalen made short work of her.They shot her in the head, stripped her, and watched her bleed.Amanda died the next day, along with her and her husbandsunborn baby.

Morgan Harrington, a sensitive and talented young artist, was abductedon her taxi ride home from a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, VA, in 2009.The driver, Jesse Matthew, dragged Harrington into a field wherehebrutally raped and murdered her.Matthewlater went on torape and murder Hannah Graham, an 18 year old UVA student, before being caughtin 2014. Though Matthew was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences, Morgansparentsstruggle to proceed in a world devoid of joy.

Jessica Chambers, 19, was burned alive on the side of the road in her car. Her killer, Quentin Tellis, a 27 year old black thug who Chambers hadrecently broken upwith,doused her in gasoline, squirted it up her nose, and poured accelerant down her throat. Tellisthen set her ablaze inside of her car and left her to burn to death on the side of the road. Jessica was found wandering near her car, her body entirely covered in burns except for the bottoms of her feet. Jessicas father said of her, She was so bubbly. You never had a bad day around her. She was always cracking jokes. She was full of life and joy. She had no enemies. Today, I feel like I am in a dream.

17 black male criminals were arrestedas a result of theinvestigation into Chambers death (18 including her killer). Blacks in Panola County were remarkably uncooperative with law enforcement: We were all amazed at the total lack of information coming from our street sources, said Champion. In fact, moronic blacks in Panola County accused Chamberss father of her murder. Teanna Rudd, a black girl and one of Jessicas former classmates, expressed her general opinion on whiteson Facebook:

Somebody needs to rape all they kids in front of them then set them on fire there learn then white bitches need to be dead.

Whydoes the media cover up that living with blacks is so dangerous? Why are blacksso enthusiasticabout sadism against whites? Why do they hurt usfor fun?

You probably havent seen this videofrom Rowlett, Indiana, either:A young white woman sitson a park bench with her friend and three year oldniece, minding their own business, whenthey are accosted byagroupof black teenagers barking at them to leave. That they are in thewrong park. The ringleader black commands the girl holding the baby,toput down the baby and fight. The black boys filming snicker in the background: She keepin that baby cuz she dont wanna get her ass beat.

The black teen screechesGET UP!, before suddenly lunging forward and attacking the white girl, pulling her off of the bench and smashing the toddlerinto the concrete.The little girlthwacks her head on the stone, her wailsof terror and pain competing in the audio with the excited amusementof the videographer.The little girlflees desperately as her auntis flung around in midair by her hair and beaten savagely in front of her.

A black onlookerdoes a little jig as the girland toddlerscream.

All mainstream media coverage of the video carefullyomitted the race of the perpetrator and denied any possible racial motive for the crime, except to deny that it was racially motivated. In the interest of sacred equality, we must ask ourselves: If premature speculation on motives is kosher for some perpetrators, why is it not kosher for all?

The unnamed juvenileattacker, whose parents were initially not cooperating with law enforcement (big surprise there), was charged with misdemeanor assault and felony assault of a child. She is variously described as US girl (Daily Mail), Texas teen (New York Daily News), and girl (Fox News). Fox News quoted a detective who ruled out the possibility of racial motivation for the crime:

In the now viral video, two teenage girls are outside an elementary school when theyre confronted by some classmates. Its not clear why.

While the police and the media werein cahoots to deny racial motivation for the crime, the white public was not so easily fooled.The majority of the over 300respondentsto the Rowlett County Police Departments post on the matter (describing the girl and her family as having gone into hiding, rather than evading arrest), see the crime as clearly racially motivated. The comments sections attest to most white Americans having negative experiences with racially hostile blacks, and being outraged atthe glaringdouble standard of brushing the story under the rugwhen whitesare the victims.When the commentary isnt carefully controlled by the (((media))), the truth about race and crime comes out.

Dont take it from me that uncivilized behavior is canonizedin urbancommunities. Take it from Reverend Charles Harrison of the Ten Point Coalition:

This is glamorized, this is glorified, this brings them street cred, this brings them notoriety, ya know? Shes tough, shes going to beat somebody up, said Harrison. Its almost like they plan these fights, they want these fights to be on tape where they can put it on social media. This is horrible.(Fox News)

Its not horrible to them. Its entertainment.Abducting a mentally disabled white man, taping his mouth shut with duct tape, cutting his scalp and making him drink toilet water is how they get their kicks.

Violent tests of dominance and subjugation are integral to hood culture. Being skurred (scared) is grounds for, ironically, beatings. Anyone who has lived in the same area ashoodblacks,or gone to public schools they attend, has profited overabundantly from the delightful enrichment they offer to civic life. Those who dont adopt the affectations of hoodculture for self-defense are threatenedin the hallways, the cafeteria, and the classroom alike.Why would blacks observe a culturalimperative to subjugate white people? A dangerous question, with an even more dangerous, if patently obvious, answer. The New Black Panthers are here toenlighten you that white deaths arejustice, not tragedy:

We gonna have to kill some cracker babies. To hell with what National Geographic puttin out, Im tellin you to your face tonight, we gon have to kill some little Penelopes, and some little Robbies. You wanna be free, dont you?

In the link appendix at the bottom of this article, you will find three instances of blacks killing white babies and children, honoring theblack nationalist call to arms. The Confederate flag burns in South Carolina as Malik Shabazz calls for a white genocide in the capitol shadows. This is what we have to show for equal rights.

White Americans have been systemically brainwashedthat the underprivileged and underservedare a nobly oppressed group to whom they owe the fruits of their labor for the sins of their ancestors; that black rage is righteous; that it is racist to observe personal safety precautionsaround young black men,despite their record of being responsible for the majority of homicides in this country despite accountingfor only 13% of the population. Not only are blacks responsible almost exclusively for black homicides, they are responsiblefor the majority of interracial violence as well.

Here are the real HateFactson interracial violence, dropped by everyones favorite blonde bugbear, Ann Coulter,andcurated byKathy Shaidle:

In a country of more than 300 million people, everything will happen eventually. That doesnt make it a trend. Go up to any ordinary, sentient person and ask: Which race assaults the other race more? ()

Ask around. You might be surprised at how many whites you know have been physically attacked by a black person at least once in their lives. The FBIs crime victimization surveys tell a very different story, one more in line with a normal persons life experience.

In 2008, the most recent year for which such data seems to have been collected, FBI surveys show that, out of 520,161 interracial violent crimes, blacks committed 429,444 of them against whites, while whites committed 90,717 of them against blacks.

In other words, blacks commit more than 80 percent of all interracial violent crime.

Impromptu street assaults have increasingly been wielded as a racial weapon against non-black Americans. Polar bear hunting, that is, tracking down and beatingwhite people, is one popular pastime, as writers like Colin Flaherty and Thomas Sowell have revealed. An example can be found inthis disturbing Richmond, Virginia videoof a group of young black malessavagely beatingan unlucky single white male who made the mistake of walking home while white. The videos of the beatingsareposted to social media for bragging rights. Herea white teenage girl is assaulted on a bus ride by a group of blackteenagers to the excitement of those filming and participating. Trading fight videos gets blacksturnt up:

Had theyoung people whose grisly deaths I must reluctantly addressnot been kept purposefully in the dark about the realities of black crime and hatredof whites, they might have taken more precautions. If they had been encouraged by their parents and schoolteachersto discriminate white from blackinstead ofnot to see color,they may be alive today.You probably havent heard of these unsung young lives, prematurely ended in the name of righteous black rage (as Brittney Cooperat Salon, AKA Professor Crunk, would claim):

Texas A&M students Denton James Wardand Tanner Giesen were entertaining their lady friends on a date night on the town. They stopped at a McDonalds to use the restroom, and exited their vehicle and went inside despite the hundreds of milling black males congregated in the parking lot and inside the establishment. This would prove to be a fatal misjudgment. Ayoung black male threatened Ward and Glieson: Youre in the wrong neck of the woods, cowboys. The two young white menwere then both savagely attacked. Ward wascurb stomped within an inch of his life until the girlfriends managed todisentangle him from the mob and drag himback into their SUV.

The students fled the areain a panic, fatefully runninga red light. Wards girlfriend, Lauren Bailey Crisp, who was desperately trying to keep him upright in the backseat, was killed in the crash. Ward was declaredby multiple pathologists at trial to have died from the injuries sustained by his mass beating. Gieson and his girlfriend survived the crash with injuries.

Or have you heard about the cold-blooded rape and murder of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian? I am loatheto evenwrite about it out of respect for their families. The young Tennessee lovebirds were walking to their friends apartment when they were attacked by a malicious gang of blacks. Newsom was bound, gagged with a sock, sodomized, beaten, shot in the neck and consequently paralyzed, and eventually murdered viaan execution-style shot in the head. Christian was brought back to a house, repeatedly raped and beaten for hours, force-fed bleach (this is how theythought they couldget their DNA off of her), and stowed away in a garbage can for hours, where she asphyxiated.

Theirtorture and deathsdid not receive (((mainstream media))) attention and weremostly covered by online bloggers and conservative news sites, with the unlikely defender the Daily Mail positing that political correctness was to blame for the cover-up. Leonard Pitts, a black syndicated columnist, callouslydeclaredof the shocking, ghastly case: Blacks and Latinos are underrepresented in news media as victims of crime and significantly overrepresented as perpetrators, and white Americans who felt victimized by the perceived underreporting could cry me a river. His sentiments are eerily similar to those of Nobel Prize Winner Toni Morrisons recent race comments: I want to see a cop shoot a white unarmed teenager in the back. The black literary genius doesnt stop there. Senselessly celebrated New Jersey Poet Laureate and black radical Amiri Baraka bloodthirstilywrote, Rape the white girls. Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers throats.

Black killers can explicitly state that hatred of whites is their criminal motivation, and self-styled tolerance warriors will not bat a steely eye. When Ferguson, MO burned, Bosnian immigrant Zemir Begins black assailants screamed, Fuck the white people, kill white people, as they bludgeoned him to death with hammers after dragging him out of his car ashis blonde fianc stood helplessly by in horror. The St. Louis Bosnian community furiouslyinsisted the racial hatred element of the crime was being deliberately covered upby the media. While nary a blasphemous peep shook the hollow chests of the (((media elites in New York))), even the normally well-trained BBC wondered,Are the media ignoring another St. Louis killing?

He loved America, his sister, Denisa Begic, 23, told the newspaper. We come from Bosnia because we were getting killed and our homes and families were getting destroyed. Never in my life did I think he would get murdered. (Huffington Post)

The Bosnians (and in general, everyone else who lives apart from blacks) underestimate the ethnic strife in the United States, becausethey have no experience of it and the issue is ferociously suppressed. The right is too afraid to lose elections over it, and the left is a moral cesspool. Both are to blame for the third world that the United States is becoming. The Bosnians thought they escapedbeing political targets in Bosnia, only tocome to the United States to remain political targets as whites.

White violence (usually self-defense) against blacks is over-reported and always a cause for a national conversation about so-called systemic racism against blacks. However, black violence against whites is seldom reported, though it is far more frequent, and more grotesque. The media that everyone despises is owned and operated not just by leftists, as is commonly thought, but by an ethnoreligious group, the Jews, who regard whites as their politicalenemies, and who use their control of the media as a weapon against us. The Jews use blacks as their shock troops, stirring them to violence using their media monopoly. It may sound shocking, but I challenge you to take thisinformation with an open mind. Im a millennialwoman who discovered all of this with disbeliefat first, just like you. Do your own research. Start asking yourself the ethnicity of the writer the next time you see anti-white propaganda in the media.

Follow the #altright for ways to protect yourself and your family from the deck that is stacked against us.

WHITES HAVE TO STICK TOGETHER.

For more HateFacts about black on white violence and media complicity, reference these:

>Group of 40 black Americans recorded jumping 5 white people; No national attention

>Mob of 60 black Americans recorded rioting in suburbs during Baltimore riots, targeting white Americans homes; No national attention

>Black mob of 30 beats white family in Alabama; No national attention

>Group of at least 20 black Americans during Baltimore riots recorded beating a 61 year old man man to an inch of his life; No national attention

>Group of five black Americans carjack, kidnap, rape, sodomize, torture and burn alive a white couple while the torment went on for days; No national attention

>White man stops a robber then a crowd of black Americans jump him, chanting Trayvon; Also recorded on tape, also no national attention

>9 black Americans attack a single white teenage girl on a bus; No national attention

>Black Americans murder a baby in stroller because he looked White; No national attention(Were still investigating the motive; were trying to turn every stone to make sure we get a motive)

>Manager for the Department of Homeland Security publicly says white people need to die in order for black people to live; No national attention

>Black American bus driver for a school coaxed the schoolchildren to attack a white family when they dropped her kid off, then allowed them back on the bus to escape; No national attention

>Black American kills 6-year-old white child, claims child was racist as his defense; No national attention (Child was murdered on Christmas Eve)

>Black American tortures and murders 2 white teenagers makes Black Lives Matter speech in court; No national attention

>White family attacked for being in the Wrong Neighborhood in Baton Rouge, La.; No national attention(Theres those words again: youre in the wrong park, youre in the wrong neck of the woods, youre in the wrong neighborhood)

>3 Black Amerians murder pregnant white woman in Detriot; No national attention

>Three black Americans are accused of tormenting an autistic child at a school bus stop; no national attention

>A 30 year old Black American, Naeem Davis, pushed a 58 year old Korean man into an oncoming train; No national attention

See the rest here:

Black Violence Against Whites: A Recent History past ...

Natural vs Synthetic Drugs & Entheogens | Animam Recro

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I want to add something to my last post. And yes, I get this right from being a multi-dimensional transpersonal monochromatic knight of the inner realms. Or maybe its just because Im a geek.

The following point really merits more posts or more like its own book. I mention that the Viking Youth discuss various methods of trance induction that are not catalyzed by psychoactive chemicals and that dreams could be naturally induced non-ordinary states of consciousness.

The whole argument of synthetic drug (LSD) vs. natural drug (Morning Glory) and substance induced (drug) vs. naturally induced (meditation) altered states is riddled with misconceptions and ambiguities. If you listen to the Viking Youth Power Hour they mention a natural way to induce an altered state is by using pain to flood the brain with endorphins which are endogenous opioid biochemical compounds. Essentially, there is no way to avoid some sort of chemical process going on the brain that is not natural to the brains normal state, hence non-ordinary state of consciousness. Endogenous means that the compound originates naturally in the body but there are also synthesized drugs which are psychoactive by altering the level of endogenous compounds in the brain. There are even endogenous cannabinoids (from the word cannabis) found in the body.

When a shaman ingests magic mushrooms which contain psilocybin it is converted into psilocin in the body. There are only subtle differences in ingesting synthesized psilocin and naturally occuring mushrooms such as potency and whatever other chemicals can be found in the mushroom. It is possible that this subtle difference may make all the difference for shamanic a purpose, thats a complicated area of inquiry. But Albert Hofmann and Maria Sabina may offer some insight:

When I was in Mexico on an expedition with my friend Gordon Wasson in 1963, in search of a hallucinogenic plant, we also visited the famous curandera Maria Sabina in Huautla de Jimenez. We were invited to attend a nocturnal mushroom ceremony in her hut, but as it was late in the year and no more mushrooms were available, I supplied her with pills containing synthetic psilocybin. She took a rather strong dose corresponding to the number of mushrooms she usually ingests. It was a gala performance assisted by a number of people of Maria Sabinas clan. At dawn when we left the hut, our Mazateca interpreter told us that Maria Sabina had said there was no difference between the pills and the mushrooms. This was a final proof that our synthetic psilocybin was identical in every respect with the natural product.

-Albert Hofmann (discoverer of LSD)

In regards to dreaming there is an interesting assessment of DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) by Dr. Rick Strassman in DMT: The Spirit Molecule. The book is based on his project that took place for five years in which he administered approximately 400 doses of DMT to 60 human volunteers. This research took place at the University of New Mexicos School of Medicine in Albuquerque. Dr. Rick Strassman thinks Dimethyltryptamine may be connected to the hallucinogenic aspects of dreaming. It is an endogenous hallucinogenic tryptamine which is hypothesized to be produced by the pineal gland. This gland is also referred to as the third eye, the seat of the soul by the philosopher Rene Descartes, and Ajna or the sixth chakra in yoga. DMT is a schedule 1 drug even though we all have it in our brains. What is the fine line between experiencing the state after ingesting it for shamanic use, which is illegal in many countries, and simply going to bed?

To return to the topic of natural vs. synthetic:

I think the fear of synthetic chemicals is twofold. Our culture is at the point where its beginning to fear that which is not natural because of a number of reasons, specifically our environment being in decline and the partial responsibility of the synthetic for this. The idea of mimicking the ecstatic experience by ingesting something from a lab is somehow more threatening than something originating in the forest. However, this fear might not be completely unwarranted.

A method in assessing the toxicity of a substance or its potential harm to the body/mind when one doesnt have access to a lab is by focusing on the numbers of years and in what ways it was used through out history. Most, if not all entheogens (psychoactive substances taken in a religious or shamanic context) have been used for hundreds and thousands of years. If people have not been harmed by such use, its fairly safe to say that it wont be detrimental to your well being. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said by all synthesized substances, including some new pharmacological drugs which are used with modern psychotherapy. Please see the Mind vs. Body post and future posts on this topic. An example would be the withdrawal symptoms and addictive properties of Paxil.

I also mentioned the way entheogens are used for a specific reason as well. The ritual aspect of the use of psychoactive substances may have been an imbedded failsafe mechanism which prevented them from being used too frequently, the effects of which still need to be studied.

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Natural vs Synthetic Drugs & Entheogens | Animam Recro

Human Gene Therapy

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Editor-in-Chief: Terence R. Flotte, MDDeputy Editors, Europe: Nathalie Cartier, MD and Thierry VandenDriessche, PhDDeputy Editors, U.S.: Barry J. Byrne, MD, PhD and Mark A. Kay, MD, PhDHuman Gene Therapy Editor: Guangping Gao, PhDMethods Editor: Hildegard Bning, PhDClinical Development Editor: James M. Wilson, MD, PhD

Latest Impact Factor* is 4.187 *2016 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2017)

Human Gene Therapy is the premier, multidisciplinary journal covering all aspects of gene therapy. The Journal publishes in-depth coverage of DNA, RNA, and cell therapies by delivering the latest breakthroughs in research and technologies. Human Gene Therapy provides a central forum for scientific and clinical information, including ethical, legal, regulatory, social, and commercial issues, which enables the advancement and progress of therapeutic procedures leading to improved patient outcomes, and ultimately, to curing diseases.

The Journal is divided into three parts. Human Gene Therapy, the flagship, is published 12 times per year. HGT Methods, a bimonthly journal, focuses on the applications of gene therapy to product testing and development. HGT Clinical Development, a quarterly journal, serves as a venue for publishing data relevant to the regulatory review and commercial development of cell and gene therapy products.

Human Gene Therapy was voted one of the most influential journals in Biology and Medicine over the last 100 years by the Biomedical & Life Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association.

Human Gene Therapy, HGT Methods, and HGT Clinical Development are under the editorial leadership of Editor-in-Chief Terence R. Flotte, MD, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Deput Editors Europe Nathalie Cartier, MD, INSERM, andThierry VandenDriessche, PhD, Free University of Brussels (VUB); Deputy Editors U.S. Barry J. Byrne, MD, PhD,Powell Gene Therapy Center, University of Florida, College of Medicine and Mark A. Kay, MD, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine; Human Gene Therapy Editor Guangping Gao, PhD, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Methods Editor Hildegard Bning, PhD, University of Cologne; Clinical Development Editor James M. Wilson, MD, PhD,University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Gene Therapy Program; and other leading investigators. View the entire editorial board.

Audience: Geneticists, medical geneticists, molecular biologists, virologists, experimental researchers, and experimental medicine specialists, among others.

Human Gene Therapy and HGT Methods provide Instant Online publication 72 hours after acceptance

Indexed/Abstracted in:MEDLINE;PubMed;PubMed Central;Current Contents/Life Sciences;Science Citation Index Expanded;Science Citation Index;Biotechnology Citation Index;Biological Abstracts;BIOSIS Previews;Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition;Derwent Drug File;EMBASE/Excerpta Medica;EMBiology;Scopus;Chemical Abstracts;ProQuest databases

The views, opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations set forth in any Journal article are solely those of the authors of those articles and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the Journal, its Publisher, its editorial staff or any affiliated Societies and should not be attributed to any of them.

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Human Gene Therapy

FACT – Freedom Against Censorship Thailand …

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[FACT comments: Readers should be aware that Thailands MICT is continuing its plan to consolidate the current ten international Internet gateways (IIG) into a single gateway to facilitate monitoring and censorship.

Even worse, the official Thai government documents leaked by TNN show that MICT is implementing plans to compromise encrypted SSL Internet transactions to pursue Thailands Great Firewall strategy.

If this still does not worry the ordinary person who relies on the Internet every single day, SSL is what makes online banking secure, among many other sorts of Internet transactions and all online commerce possible.

Put away that credit card!]

Single Gateway .... SSL

Thai Netizen Network: May 26, 2016

“Single Gateway” ?????? ?.?????????????.?.?.????? ??????????????????????????????? SSL

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163/2557 ( . () 12/2557 19 .. 2557) (SSL : Secure Socket Layer)

163/2557 4 1. (SSL : Secure Socket Layer) 2. (International Internet Gateway)

163/2557

Man-in-the-Middle Attack

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nzmargarita | South Pacific cruise by catamaran

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We arrived at Opua yesterday at 12.30 pm. 5 days from Fiji. Yeah! ( and 23.5 hours). On our way to Auckland now. Just caught the first fush of the trup. A kahawai and a trevally. We have re-stocked the potatoes you know whats for dinner.

Thanks for following this blog. It now goes into recess for its summer vacation. Just like politicians only longer.

Talk to you again next year.

Bruce & Dinah

We are about 100 miles north east of the Bay of Islands and should arrive tomorrow morning. Margarita is rolling along, all possible sail set, in a light northerly. The seas are calm, the moon is full but the water is cold after the spa pool temperatures of Fiji and the tenants are having toilet trouble again. Life is never perfect. Even so we all agree the sailing is rather pleasant. And we will beat that cold front to Opua.

Alls satisfactory onboard.

Da crew

Late on Sunday the wind will switch to the southwest so the race is on to reach Opua before the souwester. The cloud band ahead of the front is slowly advancing and getting lower bringing sense of gloom that could settle over us like a wet blanket if we let it.

Only 296 miles to go and still too fast for fishing.

Alls alright onboard

For the avoidance of doubt we have passed the half way point between Vuda Point and Opua and are due north of Opua. Its all down hill from here folks! The weather continues to be favourable if a little sporty. The days run to noon was 218 miles. Close to our pb of 225. The wind eased and backed a little in the pm and for a while we hoisted the screecher. The crew have their sea legs. Washing has been entertained (or even attempted) and a few rounds of Rummikub have been played. Sadly our speed prevents any fishing. Life is hard! ETA Opua is some time on Sunday.

The situation onboard? Well theres nothing wrong with it.

Within minutes of posting last night the long promised and long anticipated easterly arrived and looks set to speed us South for two more days. The wind has steadily increased to about 25 kts with occasional squalls. With the wind on the beam Margarita is honking along revelling in the fresh conditions and averaging 10 kts for much of today. In the interests of a good nights sleep have just put in the third reef. We are now abeam of the Minerva Reefs and If the forecast holds we will be in Opua on Sunday.

Alls well onboard

Bruce, Shaaron, Martin & Adrian

We continue to motor roughly in the direction of New Zealand snatching the occasional passing zephyr to help out. The promised wind seems to be retreating faster than we advance and our attempts to engage have so far come to nothing. Its still uncomfortably hot. Like the wind the temperature isnt as forecast. Oh well mustnt grumble. Better too little wind and too much heat than the other way round.

Alls well onboard

Da crew

We continue to motor roughly in the direction of New Zealand snatching the occasional passing zephyr to help out. The promised wind seems to be retreating faster than we advance and our attempts to engage have so far come to nothing. Its still uncomfortably hot. Like the wind the temperature isnt as forecast. Oh well mustnt grumble. Better too little wind and too much heat than the other way round.

Alls well onboard

Da crew

With all Fijian bureaucrats and reefs safely navigated we leave our shore crew (Dinah and Alan) to recover our tools from a Chinese interpreter who apparently doesnt understand lend and I must have them back tomorrow morning. Its keeping them from further liver damage while we head south.

We are now 23 miles south of the pass motoring slowly southward into a very gentle south westerly breeze on a calm sea. Tonight, once we are clear of Viti Levu, the wind should swing to the east and we can get moving

Alls well onboard

Martin, Shaaron, Adrian & Bruce

We have left Fiji for New Zealand. Onboard we have Adrian, Martin, Shaaron and me (Bruce). Dinahs flying. The weather is looking good for a quick passage, easterlies most of the way. Heres hoping! Its about 33 C and we are all hanging out for just slightly cooler conditions.

Alls well onboard.

On 30 September Bruces parents, Mary and Leon, were in a crash at their forest farm at Mercer, near Auckland. So sadly, Mary died and Leon was helicoptered to Auckland Hospital. He hung in there for four days, long enough for him to talk to all his children and grandchildren.So on Monday 9 October their joint funeral was held in Auckland. A fitting ceremony full of love and respect for Mary and Leon. We will miss them.Margarita was in Saweni Bay while we waited to get into Vuda Point Marina to fix the broken port engine. To pass the time Bruce had just pulled out the whole wiring system and was was reconfiguring it much more tidily and logically. He managed a temporary repair to get us going again. We worked until midnight to get it done. It was good to have a distraction from the terrible news.Vuda was very helpful when they heard our news. They found us a berth and we tied up there. We were back in Auckland by Sunday afternoon.Still reeling from what had happened we returned to the boat after two weeks.Engine fixed, wiring restored oh so neatly and we headed out to the Yasawas. First stop Navadra where we had a fire on the beach. Grilled crayfish, no less. Hand caught. Locals hand over crayfish, we hand over $25.We met up with Joao from Zazoo and his girlfriend, Kirsty. Good company as usual.On to Somo Somo where we did the walk over the island to snorkel on the sunken Spitfire. The highlight of this trip is always meeting the elderly couple with their traditional thatched hut. We had come to know them well and they used to greet us with warmth. The huts were all locked up and had been for some time. We wish them well.The weather looked a bit dodgy so we are now safely tucked up at Blue Lagoon.Tomorrow Martin arrives to sail with us. On Thursday Shaaron and her husband Allan arrive for the trip back to Vuda. Adrian, the remaining crew member will meet us in Vuda.The weather is definitely turning to summer here. Hot, windy and rain threatening. Time to head home.

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nzmargarita | South Pacific cruise by catamaran

The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of …

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The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of Intelligent Design

"He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13).

According to Darwinism, all life on earth arose by natural variation and selection of the most fit. But many questions raised by Darwin's contemporaries remain unanswered today. These problems are compounded by the unique DNA sequence information now in from the human genome project (Venter, 2001; Lander, 2001) and our understanding of the irreducibly complex function of biological systems (Behe, 1996). Intellectual honesty will soon force many scientists to abandon Darwin's theory of the evolution of species in exchange for intelligent design or outright Biblical creation.

Studies of outward appearances of organisms led Darwin and his successors to propose elaborate phylogenetic trees in which man was placed on a branch common to apes and monkeys. Major limbs in the animal trunk contained the fish, giving rise to reptiles, birds, and mammals. At the root are three major divisions of true bacteria: "old" bacteria (archaebacteria), and organisms with nuclei including plants, fungi, and animals. Discoveries in biology over the last half of the twentieth century at first seemed to support Darwinism. All organisms were found to contain the same building blocks for the genetic code in DNA. All used the DNA to transcribe RNA and all used ribosomes to make protein from the RNA. Many proteins and RNA's were similar from one life form to another, even between bacteria and man. However, these data support intelligent design by a single set of principles just as well. Furthermore, recent multi-gene comparisons of the amount of divergence between different organisms now provide better support for a complex relationship between different organisms, a relationship that first looked more like a shrub, with many more early branches. Now the trend seems to be toward nearly independent origins, a model more like grass. This model is consistent with the independent origins of major kinds of plants, sea life, and animals described in the Genesis account.

If Darwinian evolution applies at the molecular level, the gene sequences of all organisms should resemble each other because of descent. Closely related animals should have the most closely related gene sequences. On the other hand, if there were independent origins for major kinds of animals, then a large portion of the genome should be original, unique sequences not present in other kinds of organisms. In 1997 scientists reported the complete 4,639,221 base DNA sequence of E. coli (Blattner, et al., 1997), a common bacterium in our intestines. As each gene sequence is discovered, it is placed in the GenBank database. By comparison of a new gene to all others in the database using the BLAST program (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), scientists can determine how similar one gene is to another. In comparison to Haemophilus, Synechocystis, and Mycoplasma bacteria, of the 4,288 coded proteins in E. coli, there are only 111 proteins (2.6%) in common with these three eubacteria. Sixty percent of the E. coli sequences are completely unique, with less than 30% common to the sequences of these other bacteria. Thirty-eight percent of the E. coli genes have no known function. Examining all the organisms in table 1 shows a surprisingly high percentage of genes with no match in other organisms. The average for bacteria is 29% unique. That's 29% unique genetic information with no known origin, no possible descent. In the case of a fly, a worm, and a human, 50-60% of the genes are unique or with no known function. Most of the emphasis has been on how similar genes are in man and bacteria, with little attention to the differences. Where did this unique genetic information come from? Unique genes do not come from small numbers of base changes that scientists routinely produce in the lab or by breeding or by gene rearrangements. These data provide better support for the alternative hypothesis of independent origin by intelligent design than for evolution by descent.

To begin life as we know it, cells would need to have a genetic program of DNA or RNA. They would need to protect their genome from degradation from outside with a lipid membrane, and they would need the machinery to transform chemical energy into metabolic energy to replicate. This machinery requires pre-existing proteins to catalyze the reactions of metabolism and replication. And the synthesis of proteins requires other pre-existing proteins and a small factory called the ribosome. Take away any of these components and life doesn't exist. All this complexity is required at the same time and place for the most simple single-celled life. Michael Behe (1996) has termed this requirement irreducible complexity. Life can't evolve by the gradual addition of one of these components at a time. Life and its requisite requirement for replication needs it all. Not only is irreducible complexity required for the start of life, but each complex system in our bodies: the eye, the kidney, blood coagulation, red blood cells . . . the list goes on and on. Though scientists are familiar with this complexity, they fail to realize and accept the requirement for intelligent design. Furthermore, decades of experiments have failed to demonstrate an origin of any life from organic molecules, much less evolution of protein synthesis or DNA replication. Also, decades of genetic manipulation of bacteria and other organisms have never produced a new species like Darwinism would require. Although the universal negative (that evolution of species is impossible) can never be proven, enough evidence has amassed that funding agencies will no longer support organic origin of life research, and those trying have moved on to other subjects. The death of Darwinism will be a hard pill to swallow because it requires replacement by intelligent design, a paradigm outside the box of naturalism that many scientists embrace.

Theories are to be modified or abandoned when they are inconsistent with one significant fact. Based on relationships of similar genes, large numbers of unrelated genes and irreducible complexity, Darwin's evolution of species needs to be replaced by intelligent design. According to the Bible, the Designer was God with more than adequate intelligence and power to create all the major kinds of life in a short period of time. While we will never be able to prove the singularity of creation by God, the evidence better supports faith in God, rather than faith in Darwinism.

* Dr. Brewer is Professor of Neurology and Medical Microbiology at Southern Illinois University.

Cite this article: Gregory J. Brewer, Ph.D. 2001. The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of Intelligent Design. Acts & Facts. 30 (11).

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The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of ...

FitzRoy, Captain of the Beagle, Fierce Critic of Darwinism

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FitzRoy, Captain of the Beagle, Fierce Critic of Darwinism

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Background

Admiral Robert FitzRoy is better known as the Captain of HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Darwin on his famous voyage. FitzRoy was born into a notable royal family line and gained command of a ship at the young age of 23, mainly through his exceptional ability, and only partly from his lineage. He could in fact trace his ancestors back through the Royal line of Charles II, and Barbara Villiers, the Duchess of Cleveland, and he was also a nephew of Lord Castlereagh. He was later nominated to fellowship of the Royal Society for his hydrographic and chronographic survey, and was also chosen as the first Chief Statist of the newly formed Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade in the UK (Now the UK Meteorological Office). Throughout his life he had a strong sense of Christian duty and desire to protect life, especially the lives of fellow sailors, and he was a pioneer in the development of a system of storm warnings around Britain following the Royal Charter naval disaster, and was the first to produce and issue regular weather forecasts.

FitzRoy was born on July 5, 1805, at Ampton Hall, Suffolk, and trained at the Portsmouth based Royal Naval College, formerly the Royal Naval Academy founded in 1733. He gained the distinction of being the first student to win the gold medal from this long established institution with a 100 percent pass rate, demonstrating the ability of an extraordinary scholar.1 Supporters of Darwin later tried to rubbish his reputation, but FitzRoy is now recognized as a man of exceptional scientific ability.

In 1828 he took command of HMS Beagle, and three years later in 1831 he began his most famous second voyage. This was the journey that carried the naturalist Charles Darwin on expedition to South America and the Galapagos Islands. FitzRoy also became a more devout Christian and was later a major critic of the theory of evolution following the publication of Darwin's book The Origin of Species, in 1859.

The voyage of the Beagle was commissioned and organized by Admiral Francis Beaufort and left Plymouth on December 27, 1831. However, the original plan of FitzRoy had been to arrange a trip at his own expense to carry three natives back to Tierra del Fuego. Lavallee has previously shown in an Impact article how these three had been brought to England from the previous voyage, and FitzRoy's plan had been to educate them as Christians and send them back with two missionaries.2 The Navy took over the organization of the trip, and it was to last much longer than any had expected. Its main naval purpose was to survey the coast and waters of South America, so that accurate charts could be drawn of the southern passage, this for reasons of maritime safety.

Beagle Voyage

The young Darwin joined the Beagle as the ship's naturalist and companion of the Captain, following the recommendation of his former Professor, John Henslow. FitzRoy and Darwin remained friends for many years after. While FitzRoy was examining the coast on this long trip, Darwin was expected to survey the surrounding geology, flora, and fauna. Both FitzRoy and Darwin wrote up the exploration of the Beagle in a three-volume work, known as the Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle. FitzRoy wrote the first two volumes with Darwin the third (although the first volume mainly used edited material from Parker King and Pringle Stokes). What unfolds from FitzRoy's account is that he seemed at first unsure of the truth of Genesis and was in fact responsible for giving Darwin a copy of Lyell's book Principles of Geology to read on the long voyage, a decision he later bitterly regretted. Despite his early years of doubt, FitzRoy later became a strong Christian and humanitarian. He commented,

I suffered much anxiety in former years from a disposition to doubt, if not disbelieve, the inspired History written by Moses. I knew so little of that record, or of the intimate manner in which the Old Testament is connected with the New, that I fancied some events there related might be mythological or fabulous, while I sincerely believed the truth of others; a wavering between opinions, which could only be productive of an unsettled, and therefore unhappy, state of mind.3

Some have suggested that marriage to a devout wife changed FitzRoy's view from doubter to preacher, but from the Narrative it seems that the geological evidence observed first hand on the voyage was a major influence in changing his mind to accept the literal truth of Genesis. In April and May, 1834, FitzRoy commanded a trip up the Rio Santa Cruz in whaleboats to survey the river course with Darwin a passenger. On his return to England, FitzRoy reported these findings to the Royal Geological Society and wrote up his survey in the Narrative showing him to be an able geologist. FitzRoy comments,

Is it not remarkable that water-worn shingle stones, and diluvial accumulations, compose the greater portion of these plains? On how vast a scale, and of what duration must have been the action of those waters which smoothed the shingle stones now buried in the deserts of Patagonia.4

Though the bed of the river is there so much below the level of stratum of lava, it still bears the appearance of having worn away its channel by the continual action of running water. The surface of the lava may be considered as the natural level of the country, since, when upon it, a plain, which seems to the eye horizontal, extends in every direction. How wonderful must that immense volcanic action have been which spread liquid lava over the surface of a vast tract of country.5

From these observations it appears that FitzRoy was beginning to see catastrophes at work in shaping the landform, both in terms of the action of water and volcanoes. But it seems that evidence of shells found in mountain rocks was foundational for FitzRoy in coming to accept the literal nature of the Genesis Flood.

It appeared to me a convincing proof of the universality of the deluge. I am not ignorant that some have attributed this to other causes; but an unanswerable confutation of their subterfuge is this, that the various sorts of shells which compose these strata both in the plains and mountains, are the very same with those found in the bay and neighbouring places . . . these to me seem to preclude all manner of doubt that they were originally produced in that sea, from whence they were carried by waters, and deposited in the places where they are now found.6

After the voyage FitzRoy continued to visit Darwin at Down House in Kent regularly until the spring of 1857,7 but their friendship became severely strained following the publication of Darwin's book in November 1859. FitzRoy became a major critic of his friend's work, and although he suffered from depression and a sharp temper he never bore grudges and showed compassion to those he disagreed with. In December 1859, FitzRoy began an exchange in The Times criticizing the dating of stone tools found near the river Somme, these dated to 14,000 years BP. This exchange was under a pseudonym Senex, from the Latin nemo senex metuit louem, meaning, "An old man should be fearful of God."8

1860 Oxford Debate

In June of 1860, some six months after Darwin published his Origins book, a famous debate took place in Oxford, England, with notable speakers Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley. The Bishop, the son of the anti-slave campaigner William Wilberforce, was not a scientist, but instead was briefed by Richard Owen, founder of the Natural History Museum in London. This meeting was held by the British Association and was attended by a packed audience of some one thousand people. Things turned sour, and followers of Darwin and Huxley later claimed victory, although the evidence does not really support this and exactly what happened and who won is still open to debate. Times were changing and Huxley's rudeness to a leading Bishop, with his fierce, rhetorical style won him popularity from the audience.

FitzRoy also spoke at this emotionally charged meeting. At the end of the meeting FitzRoy is reported to have held a heavy Bible above his head like an Old Testament prophet and "implored the audience to believe God rather than man,"9 commenting that Darwin's work caused him "the acutest pain."10 The official report in The Athenaeum records FitzRoy as saying that ". . . [he] regretted the publication of Mr. Darwin's book and denied Professor Huxley's statement that it was a logical arrangement of facts."11

FitzRoy seems to have been shouted down for his comments, and Lady Brewster, overcome by the heated atmosphere and passion created, fainted and had to be carried out.12

FitzRoy's contribution to the debate seems to have been most memorable. Julius Carus in a private letter to Darwin some six years later comments that,

I shall never forget that meeting of the combined sections of the British Association when at Oxford in 1860, where Admiral FitzRoy expressed his sorrows for having given you the opportunities of collecting facts for such a shocking theory as yours.13

Sir David Brewster, a co-founder of the British Association was also a strong opponent of evolution and in private correspondence to FitzRoy, commented that,

Darwin's book and the essays and reviews are most alarming proof of the infidelity and rashness of distinguished men.14

Some time later in another correspondence with Brewster, FitzRoy referred to Revelation 13 likening Darwin's theory of evolution to the "beast rising up out of the sea . . . opening his mouth in blasphemy against God."15

FitzRoy was an exceptional scholar and scientist, and a fierce and important critic of Darwin's theory of evolution, disputing the facts that Darwin presented. Supporters of Darwin later attacked FitzRoy's reputation because it was recognized that the Captain of the Beagle's comments could do enormous damage to the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, FitzRoy was a notable scientist and supporter of Flood geology and Special Creation.

Endnotes

* Andrew Sibley is a Meteorologist working for the Met Office in the UK. He has a Masters of Science and is a Council member of the Creation Science Movement.

Cite this article: Andrew Sibley, M.S. 2005. FitzRoy, Captain of the Beagle, Fierce Critic of Darwinism. Acts & Facts. 34 (11).

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FitzRoy, Captain of the Beagle, Fierce Critic of Darwinism

Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s …

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Does the past matter? When confronted by facts that are uncomfortable, but which relate to people long dead, should we put them aside and, to use a phrase very much of our time, move on? And there's a separate, but related, question: how should we treat the otherwise admirable thought or writings of people when we discover that those same people also held views we find repugnant?

Those questions are triggered in part by the early responses to Pantheon, my new novel published this week under the pseudonym Sam Bourne. The book is a thriller, set in the Oxford and Yale of 1940, but it rests on several true stories. Among those is one of the grisliest skeletons in the cupboard of the British intellectual elite, a skeleton that rattles especially loudly inside the closet of the left.

It is eugenics, the belief that society's fate rested on its ability to breed more of the strong and fewer of the weak. So-called positive eugenics meant encouraging those of greater intellectual ability and "moral worth" to have more children, while negative eugenics sought to urge, or even force, those deemed inferior to reproduce less often or not at all. The aim was to increase the overall quality of the national herd, multiplying the thoroughbreds and weeding out the runts.

Such talk repels us now, but in the prewar era it was the common sense of the age. Most alarming, many of its leading advocates were found among the luminaries of the Fabian and socialist left, men and women revered to this day. Thus George Bernard Shaw could insist that "the only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man", even suggesting, in a phrase that chills the blood, that defectives be dealt with by means of a "lethal chamber".

Such thinking was not alien to the great Liberal titan and mastermind of the welfare state, William Beveridge, who argued that those with "general defects" should be denied not only the vote, but "civil freedom and fatherhood". Indeed, a desire to limit the numbers of the inferior was written into modern notions of birth control from the start. That great pioneer of contraception, Marie Stopes honoured with a postage stamp in 2008 was a hardline eugenicist, determined that the "hordes of defectives" be reduced in number, thereby placing less of a burden on "the fit". Stopes later disinherited her son because he had married a short-sighted woman, thereby risking a less-than-perfect grandchild.

Yet what looks kooky or sinister in 2012 struck the prewar British left as solid and sensible. Harold Laski, stellar LSE professor, co-founder of the Left Book Club and one-time chairman of the Labour party, cautioned that: "The time is surely coming when society will look upon the production of a weakling as a crime against itself." Meanwhile, JBS Haldane, admired scientist and socialist, warned that: "Civilisation stands in real danger from over-production of 'undermen'." That's Untermenschen in German.

I'm afraid even the Manchester Guardian was not immune. When a parliamentary report in 1934 backed voluntary sterilisation of the unfit, a Guardian editorial offered warm support, endorsing the sterilisation campaign "the eugenists soundly urge". If it's any comfort, the New Statesman was in the same camp.

According to Dennis Sewell, whose book The Political Gene charts the impact of Darwinian ideas on politics, the eugenics movement's definition of "unfit" was not limited to the physically or mentally impaired. It held, he writes, "that most of the behavioural traits that led to poverty were inherited. In short, that the poor were genetically inferior to the educated middle class." It was not poverty that had to be reduced or even eliminated: it was the poor.

Hence the enthusiasm of John Maynard Keynes, director of the Eugenics Society from 1937 to 1944, for contraception, essential because the working class was too "drunken and ignorant" to keep its numbers down.

We could respond to all this the way we react when reading of Churchill's dismissal of Gandhi as a "half-naked fakir" or indeed of his own attraction to eugenics, by saying it was all a long time ago, when different norms applied. That is a common response when today's left-liberals are confronted by the eugenicist record of their forebears, reacting as if it were all an accident of time, a slip-up by creatures of their era who should not be judged by today's standards.

Except this was no accident. The Fabians, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and their ilk were not attracted to eugenics because they briefly forgot their leftwing principles. The harder truth is that they were drawn to eugenics for what were then good, leftwing reasons.

They believed in science and progress, and nothing was more cutting edge and modern than social Darwinism. Man now had the ability to intervene in his own evolution. Instead of natural selection and the law of the jungle, there would be planned selection. And what could be more socialist than planning, the Fabian faith that the gentlemen in Whitehall really did know best? If the state was going to plan the production of motor cars in the national interest, why should it not do the same for the production of babies? The aim was to do what was best for society, and society would clearly be better off if there were more of the strong to carry fewer of the weak.

What was missing was any value placed on individual freedom, even the most basic freedom of a human being to have a child. The middle class and privileged felt quite ready to remove that right from those they deemed unworthy of it.

Eugenics went into steep decline after 1945. Most recoiled from it once they saw where it led to the gates of Auschwitz. The infatuation with an ideahorribly close to nazism was steadily forgotten. But we need a reckoning with this shaming past. Such a reckoning would focus less on today's advances in selective embryology, and the ability to screen out genetic diseases, than on the kind of loose talk about the "underclass" that recently enabled the prime minister to speak of "neighbours from hell" and the poor as if the two groups were synonymous.

Progressives face a particular challenge, to cast off a mentality that can too easily regard people as means rather than ends. For in this respect a movement is just like a person: it never entirely escapes its roots.

Twitter: @j_freedland

This article was edited on 18 February 2012 to amend the final paragraph.

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Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left's ...