Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Hermes

"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be." ~Alan Watts
Seemingly called to mind… is the astonishment of wisdom
… Since truth, ladies and gentleman – especially in this tech-driven, media-saturated, frenetically-paced world of ours – is easily air-brushed… from the word clouds…struggling to paint us a picture.
As to what… or to whom… does one direct this thing… called trust… in such paltry articles of faith… this too we consider:
Mario Vittone: Instinctive Drowning Response
“Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning” [Like it Does on TV]
I want to broach the topics… of conspiracy… and of… this new spirit… of community.
They’re especially prescient… on this date… because, as you know… tomorrow marks the tenth-year anniversary… of 911.

“The most successful liars… are always cloaked…amidst the heaviest sprinklings… of truth. In this manner… are an entire people… subjected the boot…then erased from all memory. ”
~Lark In Texas

To be prescient is to have PRESCIENCE: a foreknowledge of events: a: divine omniscience b: or human anticipation of the course of events. Simply put: foresight. A kind of knowingness… a discriminating awareness… of a certain presence of mind.
It’s that gut feeling, ladies and gentlemen, that which was your endowment, before you were acculturated… to a language… and to authoritarian construct.
Now, you’ve heard it said… when all else fails… trust_your_gut!
To have awareness…means one can have conscious… or sub-conscious… awareness. While unconscious awareness is… akin to breathing – to be unaware– we as human beings are sentient, meaning we possess sentience… the capacity to feel something… beyond even… self-awareness. Beyond even… signs, symbols…the words and the labels… we are wont to attach them.
To know of suffering is to perceive empathy… for others. So you see, ladies and gentlemen, your enemies knew well… how easily… you could be corrupted… and molded… to their manipulation.

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” –Pogo
(A WWII cartoon creation by Walt Kelly)

I breathe with those who yearn to live free. Yet I live amongst those…who unwittingly propound… the virtue of community. As exemplified by this mock exchange… in a conversation… with myself:
“Why don’t you want to live as the rest of your neighbors do - in a nice community? Why do you live… as you do, instead… as a hermit?”
Because I’m an American - a oner, O-N-E-R. You too… are a oner – a unique… extraordinary person… or a thing. But then, given, you are not merely a thing; therefore, you must be too… one-of-a-kind… yourself… a oner.
“Lark, except that you spelled that word out, I would’ve thought… you’d said winner… and you had perhaps… misspoken. I’ve never heard this word oner before. Is it made up?”
No-no. Nowadays, the only place you see this word frequently… is in crossword puzzles… so if you’d never worked crossword puzzles… for any length of time… you wouldn’t likely have encountered this word.
And anymore, it’s seldom used in popular speech.
This be the case… the word oner… is integral to our discussion today… surrounding conspiracy…and community.
I take the view, BTW, of those who’ve contrasted… the accidental theory of history… with the conspiratorial theory of history
… And in this day and age… I try never to accept… anything…on blind faith alone.
Yes, it’s true. Accidents do happen – and they’re commonplace! All of us know this. We’re going to explore… what these words… today… conspire,conspiracy… and community… actually mean…

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But first… a side note or two… about Hermes… from which come… the English words… hermit… and hermeneutics.

From the Wikipedia entry:
Hermes was the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics and sports, of weights and measures, of invention, and of commerce in general. His symbols include the tortoise, the rooster, the winged sandals, the winged hat, and the caduceus.
Caduceus
The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography it was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the Roman gods, guide of the dead and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars and thieves.
As a symbolic object it represents Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations or undertakings associated with the god. In later Antiquity the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury. Thus, through its use in astrology and alchemy, it has come to denote the elemental metal of the same name.
By extension of its association with Mercury/Hermes, the caduceus is also a recognized symbol of commerce and negotiation, two realms in which balanced exchange and reciprocity are recognized as ideals. This association is ancient, and consistent from the Classical period to modern times. The caduceus is also used as a symbol representing printing, again by extension of the attributes of Mercury (in this case associated with writing and eloquence).
The caduceus is sometimes mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine and/or medical practice, especially in North America, because of widespread confusion with the traditional medical symbol, the rod of Asclepius, which has only a single snake and no wings.
Rod of Asclepius
It is relatively common, especially in the United States, to find the caduceus, with its two snakes and wings, used as a symbol of medicine instead of the correct rod of Asclepius, with only a single snake.
This usage is erroneous, popularized largely as a result of the adoption of the caduceus as its insignia by the US Army medical corps in 1902 at the insistence of a single officer.
The rod of Asclepius is the dominant symbol for healthcare professionals and associations in the United States. One survey found that 62% of healthcare professionals used the rod of Asclepius, while 76% of commercial healthcare organizations used the caduceus.
The initial errors leading to its adoption and the continuing confusion it generates are well known to medical historians. The long-standing and abundantly attested historical associations of the caduceus with commerce, theft, deception, and death are considered by many to be inappropriate in a symbol used by those engaged in the healing arts. This has occasioned significant criticism of the use of the caduceus in a medical context.
From the Stuart L. Tyson piece, "The Caduceus", in The Scientific Monthly:
“As god of the high-road and the market-place Hermes was perhaps above all else the patron of commerce and the fat purse: as a corollary, he was the special protector of the traveling salesman. As spokesman for the gods, he not only brought peace on earth (occasionally even the peace of death), but his silver-tongued eloquence could always make the worse appear the better cause. From this latter point of view, would not his symbol be suitable for certain Congressmen, all medical quacks, book agents and purveyors of vacuum cleaners, rather than for the straight-thinking, straight-speaking therapeutist? As conductor of the dead to their subterranean abode, his emblem would seem more appropriate on a hearse than on a physician's car.”
With Roman adaptation of the Greek religion, Hermes was identified as the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.
The Homeric hymn to Hermes invokes him as the "one of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, and a thief at the gates."
He protects and takes care of all the travelers, miscreants, harlots, old crones and thieves that pray to him or cross his path. He is athletic and is always looking out for runners, or any athletes with injuries who need his help.
Hermes is a messenger from the gods to humans, sharing this role with Iris. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes' name is the root of the word "hermeneutics", the study and theory of interpretation.

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Hermeneutics
In religious studies and social philosophy, hermeneutics is the study of the theory and practice of interpretation. Traditional hermeneutics—which includes Biblical hermeneutics—refers to the study of the interpretation of written texts, especially texts in the areas of literature, religion and law.
Contemporary, or modern, hermeneutics encompasses not only issues involving the written text, but everything in the interpretative process. This includes verbal and nonverbal forms of communication as well as prior aspects that affect communication, such as presuppositions, pre-understandings, the meaning and philosophy of language, and semiotics. Philosophical hermeneutics refers primarily to Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of knowledge as developed in Truth and Method, and sometimes to Paul Ricoeur. Hermeneutic consistency refers to analysis of texts for coherent explanation. A hermeneutic (singular) refers to one particular method or strand of interpretation. See also double hermeneutic.
The terms exegesis and hermeneutics are sometimes used interchangeably because exegesis focuses primarily on the written text. Hermeneutics however is a more widely defined discipline of interpretation theory including the entire framework of the interpretive process and, encompassing all forms of communication and expression; written, verbal, artistic, geo-political, physiological, sociological etc.
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When one looks closely at words… like conspire, conspiracy…and community… it’s instructive to thoroughly examine… hermeneutics.
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Aristotle offers an early understanding that lays the groundwork for many contemporary theories of interpretation and semiotics (the study of signs):
“Words spoken are symbols or signs (symbola) of affections or impressions (pathemata) of the soul (psyche); written words are the signs of words spoken.
As writing, so also is speech not the same for all races of men.
But the mental affections themselves, of which these words are primarily signs (semeia), are the same for the whole of mankind, as are also the objects (pragmata) of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies (homoiomata).” [homo –eeh-o-mata]
—Aristotle, On Interpretation
Sociology
In sociology, hermeneutics means the interpretation and understanding of social events by analyzing their meanings to the human participants and their culture. It enjoyed prominence during the sixties and seventies, and differs from other interpretative schools of sociology in that it emphasizes the importance of the context as well as the form of any given social behaviour. The central principle of hermeneutics is that it is only possible to grasp the meaning of an action or statement by relating it to the whole discourse or world-view from which it originates: for instance, putting a piece of paper in a box might be considered a meaningless action unless put in the context of democratic elections, and the action of putting a ballot paper in a box. One can frequently find reference to the 'hermeneutic circle': that is, relating the whole to the part and the part to the whole. Hermeneutics in sociology was most heavily influenced by German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer.
The field of marketing has adopted this term from sociology, using the term to refer to qualitative studies in which interviews with (or other forms of text from) one or a small number of people are closely read, analyzed, and interpreted.
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Here’s a peek… inside the mind… of a socialist community (communitarian) thinker – one who deigns it… within his purview… to also think for you. In “Errorism Versus Terrorism”, he asks:
Erroneous with respect to what? How is this condition to be understood in the light of the insight of Chuang Tzu (The Pivot):
"Tao is obscured when men understand only one of a pair of opposites, or concentrate only on a partial aspect of being.... each denies what the other affirms, and affirms what the other denies. What use is this struggle to set up "No" against "Yes," and "Yes" against "No"?... When the wise man grasps this pivot, he is in the center of the circle, and there he stands while "Yes" and "No" pursue each other around the circumference.”
“What is this larger framework to which the dynamics between errorists and terrorists point? How does an errorist comprehend that framework when one of the characteristics of errorism, as a hegemonic mode of thought, is to assume that its values are necessarily universal?”
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[Our storyteller-writer is a retired United Nations academic, by trade and socialist convention. His value to the globalists… is that he entrains his reader… to the song-and-dance rhythms… of his own inner voice. In so doing… he demonstrates himself to be... the true believer… for which he was groomed. ~Lark]
Laetus in Praesens (Joy in the Present)
Anthony Judge
Mr. Judge is the former Director of Research and Communications, as well, the Assistant Secretary-General… of the Union of International Associations, a non-profit non-governmental organization researching, under UN mandate, the global civil society and publishing information on international organizations, international meetings, world problems, etc. Headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium. Founded in 1907 by the 1913 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Henri La Fontaine, and Paul Otlet, a founding father of what is now called information science.
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So, let’s begin our examination of this word community… as adapted from international law… as in the contract clause styled… the Supremacy of Communitarian Law… as it’s employed in the schemes of those free trade scammers… who’ve betrayed the highest aspirations… of their own countrymen… in their plans to make nation-states - like America – obsolete.
In The Spirit of Community (the title of a book by Werner Falk, Herr Doktor Amitai Etzioni… his Hebrew name meaning “Tree of Knowledge from Zion”)…all capitalists, fascists, communists & socialists… are entrained to Talmudic groupthink… and so have become…communitarians. The school of thought being foisted… upon this whole wide world…and upon all Americans, ladies and gentlemen--- is communitarian-ism.
http://nikiraapana.blogspot.com/2010/10/niki-raapana-talks-to-herself-about.html

Niki Raapana Talks to Herself about Communitarianism

Herr Doktor Amitai Etzioni né Werner Falk
Guru, Zionist, Fabian, CFR, sociologist, founder of communitarianism, father of socio-economics
By Niki Raapana, April 2003, last updated October 4, 2005