By its very nature, Democracy is (supposed to be) a BIG Government because its premise is based on a "self-governing" ideology involving the entire citizenry... typically reduced to include only those who meet some defining character that is presently referred to in this era as voting eligibility. Though the citizenry is supposed to be THE government, this is not the case. Since its inception, the government has been formulated on limiting the means by which the Public can effect the laws of the land by their Collective Will... and leave the majority of decision making and making of that which is to be decided on, by a minority. (In other words, a few are not only enabled to make a final decision, but also choose what issues are to be included in a discussion.)
There is no way to make a "Peoples Government" smaller than what it is supposed to be unless the public is subjected to multiple "artful dictatorships" that attempt to carve out a niche of self advocacy by trying to persuade a given public to assist them in gaining a larger share of the domain they have their sights on... by attempting to convince the public their interests and motivations are primarily directed towards assisting the public in obtaining a greater freedom to pursue their own desires to improve the measures of their lives... like a pirate spokesperson offering a share of a booty to be stolen... or a law enforcement entity such as the S.E.C. (Securities and Exchange Commission) enabled with the means to effect a policy of Civil Asset Forfeiture against a public without any legal means of self protection, or delay the intervention of a criminal activity to allow it to steal more, in order to increase its coffers by way of increasing the size of its applied fines, at the expense of the public is should be protecting instead of insulting and offending with its policies and hired guns such as the Garden City Group which has little tact and exercises lousy communication skills when dealing with the public. However, the persuasions of such entities or individuals are a ruse because the underlying intent is to establish themselves as a leading advocate of positive change which increases their own goal of achieving personal entitlements. It is a tactic which has served Robber Barons well in different times and different places.
In order to make the government smaller than its already limited democratic practices do, the authority of small groups must be advocated to produce loosely organized guild-like factions that are financed by those attempting to exercise ("think as I think, do as I say") dictatorial power— without exposing themselves to public condemnation and being compared to an historical figure such as Hitler, though there are others who have practiced their own brand of fanaticism, in more distant history. Groups that are self-convinced they wield the power of truth with respect to one or more issues, are typically supported by a knowledge base that they then attempt to advance as the primary need for producing social change... but are often incapable of self reflection to incorporate the larger issue of democracy being practiced by limited standards and is the actual culprit behind a recurrence of needless social issues which perpetrate disharmony, despair and increases further instances of disenfranchisement through self-imposition because people feel their limited voting privileges are a waste of time. The government is designed to perpetuate a limited practice of democracy to enhance the vantage points of a few. Giving slaves welfare, social security, health care and other benefits, does not release them from bondage. The people must have full access to the liberty of developing, exercising and implementing their Collective Will.
To more definitively understand the perspective of a Democracy being a BIG Government, let us look at a description from the Encyclopædia Britannica (Ultimate Reference Suite):
Literally, (Democracy means) rule by the people.
The term is derived from the Greek de-mokratia-, which was coined from de-mos (“people”) and kratos (“rule”) —
in the middle of the 5th century BC to denote the political systems then existing in some Greek city-states, notably Athens.
In current American conditions, though the definition of Democracy has been extended to be represented by the phrase "a government Of, By and For (All) the people", it illustrates a HUGE (or BIG) government because of a large population base. While a democratic government is supposed to be a Big government since it involves the citizenry in its laws-making process, it is presently being practiced as a small one... thus exhibiting an unrecognized schizophrenia involving the whole of society; as defined by recurring ambivalences brought on by hypocrisy that can, for example, even be denoted in the Declaration of Independence... thus revealing that the nation started out on a schizophrenic (ambivalent) foot, and reflects a common mental currency exhibited the world over.
From the American Independence Declaration we can detail:
| ...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ---That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ---That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness... |
The usage of the phrase "all men are created equal", clearly disenfranchised women from this purported "equality" at the outset. No less, the exclusion of women, slaves, Native Americans and non-property owning white men from voting, was a segregationist form of discrimination that is still being practiced by permitting a Few to have the majority of voting power for most social issues, and the Many are expected to accept the "elected Representative" nonsense created by the Few; just as those in the past were forced to accept the logic of letting their "betters" run the government... because they defined themselves as such and used varying forms of intimidation to ensure the majority agreed. To those with the most power, their way of thinking is rationalized as being most logical and fair... so long as they remain in power. Hence, the present practice of rule by the People is an hypocrisy that the common sense of everyone else is supposed to defer to with rationalized justifications which create internal conflicts that become projected outward into debilitating circumstances which often wreak havoc on both our individual and collective lives.
Another hypocrisy can be seen in the announcement of a right by the people to overthrow the government, yet the Smith Act (18 U.S.C. § 2385), made it a crime to do so. You could be imprisoned for advocating the overthrow of the government. The law was used in the 1940s and 1950s to assist in the government's assault on Communist party activities in the United States... but it has never been rescinded as a violation of the People's Right as is stated in the Independence Declaration. Its retention as a valid law goes against the explicit right of the people to alter or abolish the government, because its presence enables the government to reframe the law according to its views for any given situation. While the Declaration does not say the people have a right to use one or another particular method in accomplishing such a goal, neither does it deny the usage of violent force. Violence is often the inevitability when a people are subjected to a government that controls the laws of action and speech as the United States government does. Freedom of speech and freedom of action are permitted as release valves of frustration, but they are not intended to permit the public exhibit efforts exceeding superficialities. Indeed, laws can become so ludicrous that the logic behind them is contorted out of an undisclosed prejudice, such as a person having to speak up about their right to remain silent when arrested or detained, because silence is not an acceptable admission of wanting to remain silent! The Supreme Court of today is full of such senility, and the people have no recourse to correct such nonsense. The usage of violent means to overthrow the government is the criteria the U.S. Supreme Court used in determining whether or not the law had been broken. In getting around the Smith law, some may want to claim they want to speak of social reforms instead of using the phrase "overthrow the government". Yet, the phrase may be relied on as a slogan so long as one does not advocate a usage of violent force.
About The Smith Act Trials
Encyclopædia Britannica: Smith Act
Legal Definition of Smith Act
Retrospectively, with regard to the origin and meaning of the word Democracy, the city-states of ancient Greece (with small populations), may have practiced their idea of Democracy similar to that seen in the Direct Democracy formula being used by Switzerland today— or they may have used some other fashion that was not accurately described nor interpreted by historians. Regardless if Democracy was fully practiced as an Actual or emblematic Ideal Democracy or not, the current script of Democracy today is to place the public in a subsidiary position as one might view a poorly paid movie "extra"; with no accreditation given, standing on the sidelines, and might be used to enhance a dramatic scene (such as a riot or referendum)... or temporarily fill some void with bits and pieces of comedic distraction for a viewing audience whose attention span has been trained to be short-lived for any one subject. In the present practices of government, let us call it a movie entitled "American Democracy", the majority are cast in the role of a beggar who is dependent on a few to provide direction upon which corner to stand, what sign may be held up or worn like a dog tag identifying them as a person having slipped through the cracks of viable economic standards, how much can be earned, and then take two-thirds away from them as a protectionist tax. If people were allowed to have a license to practice beggary, there might then ensue turf wars like those which occur amongst prostitutes claiming a piece of sidewalk as their entitled "real" estate protected by a pimp who will use force if necessary to keep their serfdoms economy-generating entities.
Many of our present social problems began at the Nation's beginning when the Declaration of Independence used the phrase "We The People", but defined it in very narrow terms; just as the forefathers defined the phrase "all men are created equal", in equally narrow terms. While some readers may want to be defensively supportive and argue that the traditional usage of the word "men" included women (because "men" exists in the word "wo-men", thus defining them as the property of men), the word "people" would have been better in terms of denoting an equality in our humanity. Nonetheless, despite the argument-provoking semantics, we can see another instance of this narrow-mindedness being presented when the forefathers excluded women, blacks, Native Americans and non-property owning white men from voting.
This mental narrowness perspective is evident today in that most of the voting on most of the topics involving all of us, takes place by an extremely few people in governing positions by way of a practiced narrowness of thinking involving a so-called "Representative" or "Proportionate" formula of government. However, in as much as it might seem for some the need to particularize that the phrase "governing positions" is a generalization meant to include those who may influence the government and society from unrecognized or deliberately concealed backrooms, corridors and even very open public places, other readers have no such need for this type of intellectual hand-holding. Nor do they need for the obvious to be pointed out, that every single person can be enabled to fully participate in their government if it is designed accordingly. The American, British and Canadian governments for example, are not formulated to permit the people to experience the practice of a freed (Actual) Democracy. If this generation does nothing else, it must pursue the greatest Civil Rights Measure ever attempted, because it involves all peoples everywhere. The present practices of democracy are like many different pieces of fruit being dangled from a string attached to a pole, with the public treated as an unknowing beast of burden harnessed to the commercial enterprises of a few primarily for their interests.
The forefathers of the American brand of Democracy did not want everyone to be enabled to make decisions effecting their lives, they wanted to have the dominant voice to themselves alone and used their rationale to convince the public they would be better served by a single strong and articulate voice advocating the best interests of the people... even though the public understood how deeply engrained ulterior motivations played out. The people at the time were neither concentrated communicatively enough nor mentally practiced at exercising a Collective Will of alternative considerations. A practiced deferment to the Will of those in Authority was the main public frame of mind in vogue as it is for many in the present day and age. Those who want to practice exclusionary principles of government insist upon providing and defending a structure that is conducive to their interests. And just as the people of the past accepted the one-sided logic of those in governing positions who viewed themselves as our "betters"... which prevented most of the people from exercising a full expression of Democratic self-rule, we of today can witness the same idiocy of deferment by one or another rationalization to accept a modernized form of this same narrow-minded self-importance being practiced by those in government.
Democracy means BIG Government, because it is supposed to involve all of us. Yet, some erroneously think we need to reduce the size of government because it is too BIG, and that by doing so we can solve many, if not all of our social problems. But those holding such a view, called Conservatives, need to more clearly define what they mean when they say the government is too BIG. Some of us may assume that such an idea literally means we need to make it smaller in size by way of reducing the number of departments and employees. Others interpret it to mean that those in government authority should have their abilities curtailed so that they have a limited means of developing laws and policies which produce conflict against one or another aspect of society, such as business activity. Yet, there are other views to consider.
For example, one of these views is to consider that criminal organizations also want a smaller government so that its enterprises are not affected. If we reduce the functions of government, who then will make and enforce laws against those who want to engage in exploiting the public? Yet, it is easily understood why the public can become an adversary against the government when they are subjected to law enforcement organizations such as the S.E.C. (Security and Exchange Commission) who wants a mandated license to keep much, most, or all of the assets it collects from those they want to fine as law violators... though it did not receive such an ability from Congress, yet it nonetheless is enabled to practice a means of theft without being subjected to prosecution... called "civil asset forfeiture" (your money or other property can be taken). Agencies and departments which use this theft tactic, are like those gangsters who practice a protectionist racket mentality. In other words, they could force you to pay for their protection, or engage in behind the scenes efforts to perpetrate offenses against you or force you to engage in measures of self-defence that could then be defined as illegal; whereby your assets can be taken from you anyway. It's a Catch-22 style of rule still in wide-spread use by the military, both internally and externally. (The Catch-22 rule in this application: A situation arises that you can not take because it has consequences, yet in not doing so you invite similar consequences, only because you are in a situation you were forced to indulge in... and neither the situation nor the consequences are directed towards you personally, but will effect you as such, unless you can alter the situation and your placement in it.)
But proposing an end to some mis-defined "BIG" government is not going to stop the behavior of a perceived bad social circumstances from occurring, if those who are left to run a "small" government are permitted to exercise a more narrowly-margined selfishness as a substitute. This is why simply changing one politician for another one does not guarantee corrective changes in bad social policies will ensue, or that they won't be replaced by alternatively bad policies under a different name, application or structure. Whereas these few will have to be more selective of those they wish to select in helping them carry out their personal interests against the public, they will have no problem in accepting the situation of being permitted to be more greedy. Policies must be termed as being "against the public" instead of "for the public", so long as the public itself is not permitted to voice its Collective Will without an elected go-between (Representative).
If we acknowledge that because the whole of the public "is supposed to be" the government, and this then identifies Democracy as a very BIG government, a reduction in its size can mean that a lot of people are to become non-participants, or have their participation significantly reduced. While some say this event is already taking place because there is an increasing departure of public involvement by way of not voting, those who don't vote might well claim that voting practices do not address the problems in society because the political system forces them to choose between the lesser of two or more evils... that in any case means they will not receive the leadership that is required to improve the overall situation of increasing social problems... many of which are being created by those elected to office who should not rightly be in office, but were the lesser of the evils amongst whom the public was provided to choose from. In addition, those elected to public office might claim they must follow the established rules of law, yet they don't then see this statement as evidence that the underlying government structure plays a part in perpetrating social problems.
In any case, regardless of how someone may want to define the word "Reduction" when applied to BIG Government, what we see is an absence of addressing the issue of Correcting problems created by those few in Government, who must apply their efforts within a very fallible set of Congressional rules and regulations related to a Constitution that is frequently amended; within the framework of increasing the practiced value of Democracy. By liberating the constraints imposed on Democracy, on the ability of the people to rule themselves, we can decrease the problematic conditions of a large government being run by a few, by way of letting it be run by everyone... by a democratic public. We must all join in a protest to:
By practicing MOre democracy because it is the JOb... the duty— of a democratic citizenry to do so, we will be effecting a social "MOJO"; if one might be permitted to use a colloquialism in describing the beneficial effects such an event can produce because it is a principle by which a populous situation can produce a cohesion through the promotion of a greater independence derived by individual decisions collectively oriented. The usage of colloquialisms, simple comparisons and more abstract analogies can be a useful form of toolage in an effort to reach a larger breadth of the public. Different subject matter from different perspectives, from the elementary, to the scholarly, including divergent applications into esoteric realms— can be beneficial.
Denoting such a style of writing is necessary not only to make a provisional introduction to a traditional narrative, but allow the idea to take on an alternative representation without being subjected to those whose frame of mind does not easily adapt to a change in thematic imagery. Some people have difficulty in going from one topic to another because they are else-wise preoccupied either consciously or sub-consciously; like some of those who quit school because their mentality may not be of a conveyor belt process of thinking, and find it troublesome in having to deal with different subjects during different class periods, such as those having creative minds partially structured by serendipitous events of perception. Such a situation occurs much more often than people think. While some may be able to use different hand-held tools, their mind is not so well equipped at using different subject matter for inter-connectivity or overlap. They practice what in psychology has been called "functional fixedness"... where, for example, a specifically named hammer is used for a specific hammering or nail extracting application and is never thought of in alternative terms such as being applicable as a paper weight, nut cracker, door stop, tire thumper, engineering form, art form, etc., or seen in basic construction terms such as the type of metal (metallurgical composition), wood type, ergonomic design, fiberglass, or plastic being used. (The latter example is more applicable to toy tools for kids.) In short, without an explanation, some people are not readily capable of making the discernment of applied analogy being used in a conversation by someone whose mind is flexibly adept at doing so. Their insistence on explanation interrupts the flow of thought that others of like-mindedness would otherwise contribute to in their own fashion.
With the foregoing in place, let us look at our social situation of democracy from the perspective of applying a biblical theme in order to describe the current social structure as a functioning Lazarus Society. Yet, even if many people are aware of the existence of the bible, they may not be familiar with the story of Lazarus. They may fall by the wayside unless they will take the time to review some synopsis thereof. I am inclined to continue for those who are already mentally practiced with the story. In so doing, let me say that the current model of Democracy is a brain dead, zombie-like individual whom we may call Lazarus, even if you prefer to interpret Lazarus as a person who was dead or just unconscious. The metaphors I am using are applicable...
As such, let me continue by saying that the American and other democracies of the world, because of their imposed constraints, are animated forms of Zombification; though Communism, Socialism and Religions create their own dysfunctionalities as well. The people are like a walking dead in their ability to rule their own government. By extension, we might say that each of us lives in our own enclaves that may be interpreted as caves or an entombment; or as the chained slaves in Plato's cave whose lives consist of the embodiment of truth based on the shadows of knowledge we take time to interpret and embrace into a manufactured reality that a few join with a like-mindedness because of social links in a similar bondage of deferment and acceptance that becomes a self-defined fate.
Image source: The Zombie Blog.net
Although some may find the above image in a humorous light, it is a rather serious metaphor for those whose philosophical sojourns enable themselves the vantage point of this Relativity. In an alternative perspective of this, there are those predisposed to a psychology which enables them to witness individuals, households, communities, businesses, sports teams, Nations and the whole of the human species in terms of an analysis which invites the considerations that they are walking, working and living amongst individuals and different groups with various psychiatric disorders, or "missed"-orders, (in that some people or groups exhibit behaviors like a mutt whose makeup is a mixture of one or another would-be pedigree with a dominate exhibition of a particular breed); in terms of their mental and behavioral traits. A Communism, a Democracy, a socialism and any other organization (business, religion, etc.), exhibit their own psychology as an expressed philosophy of control perpetrated by a practice of an "artful dictatorship".
While different images and captions could be used to portray the social conditions of economically depressed and resourceless peoples of the world who routinely call out for some measure of relief from a wide-spread bondage, like those who marched with and distant others who were sympathetic and empathetic to the protesting Occupy groups— many will quickly apprehend the portrayed example as having some measure of affinity to the plight felt by many throughout the world. Needless to say, the use of the "Zombie" reference is a generalization to be viewed as a metaphor, though the activities of some peoples lives is more zombie-like than others. Zombie movies are caricatured projections of what people see in themselves and others but are unable to conversationally articulate because of the present superstitious state all languages exist in and prevent the development of enhanced perceptions; as well as being a reflected prediction of an increased zombie atmosphere to come (due to increased limitations placed on Democracy and its associated social control mechanisms seen in businesses and religions), called a Zombie Apocalypse.
Yet, since some of those reading this may have been unknowingly infected with a type of target-specific (smart bomb) Zombieism for their particular social enclave and are thus too brain-dead to recognize how wide-spread the Zombie culture is, it is of need to point out a few of the many captions which can be used...
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We (Zombies) Represent:
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And yet, in making a statement that zombies are brain-dead, why then is their a preoccupation (amongst script writers) to effect a necessity of shooting them in the head? It would seem more probable that script writers of zombie movies are unconsciously projecting what they perceive to be that which they are experiencing in their purview of reality. In other words, everywhere they look they are seeing expressions of wide-spread zombieism, as if one is able to see time slowing down while they remain "accelerated" in their frame of reference to everything else. They see a zombie world about them and long to be rid of it, because the disturbances in thought overwhelm them... whereby the can see only one recourse which is to be shot in the head. It gives the impression of being a suicidal gesture turned outward.
While some writers describe zombies as slowly evolving towards achieving what some may describe as a greater conscious-like activity, they don't follow up with this idea in the typical 90-minute length story. Instead of wanting to re-create conditions where current idiotic governing systems will flourish by getting rid of the zombies, movie after movie invariably depicts zombies achieving dominance, with a few stragglers of so-called "normal" people (who invariably act as dumb as the zombies do, as if having never seen a zombie movie before)— seeking out some refuge that gives the writer a chance to engage in some ridiculously recurring soap-opera situations that makes the audience want to help the zombies get rid of the nutty "normal" people who act brain dead themselves. If many of us were to find ourselves in a Zombie situation with the "normal" characters as depicted in movies, our first task would be to kill them so that we could get some rational act accomplished.
Writers must honestly think that audiences will identify with all the "normal" idiots they write into a script, because they remind them of those they encounter in their own day-to-day zombie world. While a few zombie scripts do show some differences in the storyline, there is a recurrence of indicating that the old governing systems do not readily return, if at all... or some sort of martial law is imposed; and the zombies are becoming more animated over the time period of the film feature... thus giving the impression that zombieism is a type of disease with incubation periods and changes in underlying biological effects related to our immunology; and all the stories end with showing us how zombie-like the thinking of so-called normal people actually is. And it is of interest to point out that we don't witness a usage of animals shown as being affected. One must wonder if a zombie dog, mouse, cat, horse, ant hill, or snake would slither about like zombies characteristically do; though the zombies in the "World War Z" script being the exception... and making one highly suspicious of Joggers... though a bicycle riding zombie may appear in some future script since they already exist in the Tour de France and other bike racing contests because of all the unpublicized doping that takes place in them and other sports (including martial arts, fencing, wrestling, boxing, etc.). We are all living in an artificialized world.
What we are now practicing is a limited (artificialized) formula of democracy achieved by a minimalist form of "proportioned" Representation. In a sense, the public is being kept in the dark, or if you prefer, the majority of society is engaged in shadow boxing... a pretended participation of an actual democracy. It is a representation which becomes increasingly dysfunctional and at odds with the public because the public's participation in its own democracy is extremely limited. Those few who are supposed to represent the many do not actively seek out the public's collective council and then vote on legislation accordingly. Instead, Representatives rely upon their own ideas or those derived from biased polls or ulterior motivated media reports. The people are treated like Lazarus in the Biblical story recited in John (11:18, 30, 32, 38). A figure whose "entombment" and "rebirth" can be claimed to be metaphors, though many in subsequent eras, including today, construe the event of Jesus raising him from the dead in a literal sense.
America, like Britain and Canada and many other Democratic nations, practice what may be called a Lazarus Society, because the limited practice of democracy forces the public into a death-like immobilization or incapacity to effect its Collective Will on a sustained basis. While some believe Lazarus was actually dead and was actually brought back to life, others read the story from different perspectives based on their experiences and personalized scholarship. For example, the so-called "death" can be interpreted to represent a type of sleep or unconsciousness, perhaps in terms of a naiveté, stubbornness to accept an idea, or something along the lines of a biological and/or organic-physiological consideration which caused Lazarus' lack of comprehension or acceptance to a given (religious) perspective. In other words, for whatever reason, Lazarus was affected by an inability to "see the light" of a given comprehension, such as the dominant religious faith at the time. In more modern colloquial terms, we might describe this as a person being "brain dead", "out of it", "in the void of some zone", or some other such phrase indicating a person is 'out of touch' with a reality that others think is of pertinent importance.
For whatever reason... chemical abuse or accidental over-dose, nutritional imbalance, food poisoning, dementia, being love struck, experiencing a concussion, preoccupation, etc., Lazarus was "absent" from the shared reality of the living, though the head-shrinking professionals of today might label him as being insane, as might any of us do if we judged those in the past by today's standards of rationality... and those of the future may think of us. Insanity was a convenient tool used by those in the past who wanted to take the fortune of a spouse and get rid of them... with the aid of a doctor who might get a share of the money. With respect to Lazarus, he may have held an enviable social position that another sought to possess, and could do so only if Lazarus was viewed as being 'dead', in body or mind.
In another era, at least as can be interpreted from motion pictures, Native Americans might view a neurotic person as someone partially living in a different world of their own and describe them as being on a "journey", which denotes an event of familiarity and acceptance amongst them. A person out of touch with the reality being shared by others in a given social group could very well be interpreted as someone who is "asleep" or "dead to the world of the living"... just as we of today are 'dead' to the reality of an Actual Democracy being practiced. While we of today may not use such a description, different people using different colloquial references may well describe someone who appears to be "out of touch with reality", as "someone having fallen over the deep end". The shadows seen on the cave walls of Plato's narrative are a useful description of the shadows we of today see of the real Democracy... though many have concluded the shadows are the foremost reality and have circumscribed their lives accordingly.
Image Source: The Allegory of the Cave
While the above image and associated comments are meant as a metaphor for the present discussion, it has been this writer's experience that the idea is not readily understood without some extended parallels being made for those of today. To such an end it is high time that the allegory of the cave was made more applicable to today's standards of imagery production, even if an appreciable grasp of the finer details of Plato's intent is "lost in translation". Nonetheless, it is of need for us to find some measure of reproduction of the previous image to be cast onto the projected screens of idealism noted by old and young alike in the present era. The following image is an effort to do just this. Our thanks for the image to the "artist" who was quite museful when undertaking the task. And it should be said regarding the allegory, Plato may have been applying a premonition about the future, in a contemporary context and manner of his era; to which he might allude to the forth-coming modern cinema without inviting derisive comments that he was engaging in discussing a fairytale... with respect to the idea of "real images" and not just shadows— being cast on a wall. Instead, the "shadows" he spoke of were more easily apprehended then if he tried to convey the image of shadows representing actual characters in his thought exercise.
While we do not know what prompted Lazarus' society to ostracize him in terms of referencing him as someone being dead or asleep, as lack of a conscious self might be described... (or that he felt guilt and embarrassment for some real or imagined wrong-doing and thus sought out some place to lick his wounds like an injured animal); it is understood that such an event of social exclusion frequently spelled out doom because most people were (and still are) highly dependent on society for subsistence. It is further appreciated, in this context, that the "death" of Lazarus can refer to a social and not actual one. During those days of Jesus, the social death of a person may have occurred due to a disfigurement caused by a birth defect, or a disease such as leprosy.
In terms of madness or more specifically definable psychiatric issues, it is difficult for a society to recognize the presence of a wide-spread occurrence if it forms the basis for defining normalcy. For example, ancient Greeks who heard "voices" and interpreted them as the speech of gods, though they may or may not have been experiencing hallucinatory content due to a disease or an undeveloped maturation of the brain; might well have interpreted such a situation not as a mental illness, but as an indication of a person's uniqueness because they were chosen by the gods to receive their "message". Such a favorable description was no doubt useful because such an occurrence was experienced by those in authority. In other words, the "hearing voices" event occurred often and used as a means to encourage a person to perform actions the ordinary person wouldn't do, thus helping the person make a name for themselves. Had those in authority not been affected directly by a "hearing voices" experience or believing such was the result of a god-communication, anybody claiming to "hear voices" might be defined as a loony bird and promptly tossed into a cage or used for one or another public example. (Julian Jaynes' account of the "Voices" in the Iliad and the Odyssey poems as described in his "The Origin of Consciousness in the Break down of the Bicameral Mind" is an interesting exhibition. Some readers may find the following link of some interest: An exploration into Language, Religion, and Brain development.... though other sources are available elsewhere.
Even a person experiencing the voices of reason and truth might be regarded as suspect, if everyone around them was unable to perceive the voice of (a) god and the "light" (illumination) of truth bestowed on them. For someone to "see the light" while everyone else can only see the shadows cast on the social cave walls by the presence of the light, the differences of Relativity need to be elucidated in a written exposé. Otherwise, more and more of us are going to become like Charlton Heston... in the original "Planet of the Apes" movie saga based on a novel (with the same title) written by Pierre Boulle, who... in his imposed captivity, screamed "It's a Madhouse!" and was referred to as a freak by his captors. It is another story that can be used as a metaphor for describing present human society experiencing a death-like mental darkness because it remains in a jungle of ignorance. Thus, it should come of no surprise when the Democracies of the world are just different wards in a Sanitarium where different forms of restraint are used. Present practices of Democracy subject us all to a "Mad Society", even if many of its inhabitants can see themselves as one of the Cuckoos in the nest.
"Mad House" Image source: www.youtube.com
If we wish to describe a biblical account of the topics of sleep and death and rebirth as metaphors: (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) Paul describes death as sleep until the Day of the Lord, when the dead will receive glorified bodies upon the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15). Source: Wikipedia: Rich man and Lazarus. If we compare the pre-Jesus common sense with that which he preached, believers might want to say that the former ideas were part of a social illness or "sleeping sickness" which caused the population to live out their lives as a walking dead. They were not actually dead but unconscious. A reference to the analogy between death and unconsciousness may be found here: Revelation 16: Lazarus was not dead, only unconscious. In the following image we see Lazarus portrayed in a stylish mummy outfit which describes the artist's interpretation of the Biblical story in a literal sense. The idea that the account may have described an old linguistic referencing tradition in the same manner that someone today may describe someone as being "dead tired", or in sleeping soundly they are "dead to the world", may not have crossed the mind of the artist nor anyone in their communicated social exchanges.
Image Source: The Resurrection of Lazarus by Giovanni di Paolo
In modern terms, we might describe a person who watches too much television as someone who is involved with a "boob tube" make-believe reality, and that so-called "reality TV" is itself the occasions of real people (acting out unrehearsed roles in front of an artificial audience called the camera crew)... all of whom are put into artificial surroundings of raw reality... just like the artificial practice of democracy inclines many to conclude that recurring social problems are "reality" but not that this reality is the result of a poorly constructed (practiced) democracy.
No doubt those of the past had their own pastime which contributed to a "dumbing down" of society that went unnoticed. And it is no doubt that a society which practices such a dumbed-down perspective as if it were the foremost reality, can find themselves thrust against the views of those whose reality is better equipped to take advantage of available resources; particularly if that reality has a means of forcefully exerting a dominance... though the "force" could be in the form of a disease such as small pox or measles and not the introduction of horses such as when the Conquistadors landed in South America or when mechanization of one type or another was introduced in combat from battering rams and flaming arrows to tanks and so-called smart bombs.
Hence, common themes of right and wrong have been embellished with salesmanship narratives. Analogies have provided a means by which different people could see the same thing from different perspectives, using very simple models of explanation. In the above example about Lazarus, we have death and rebirth indicated as metaphors and not necessarily actual events involving biological dimensions. Even today we have people who are "born again" from the death-like life they led prior to "seeing the light" of the biblical lord or some other philosophy that retrains the mind by involving behavioral repetition such as practiced breathing or annunciation of some mantra, prayer, or other sound. In comparison, we can describe the whole of society as a Lazarus figure who is asleep, or dead, but can rise again if democracy is liberated. It must be set free from the ball and chains secured into place by the forefathers.
If God is truth, and democracy is being practiced as a lie because it keeps the people in a bondage like a wrapped mummy, and in so doing we are being buried alive in a social entombment like indentured servants buried with their master; then in order for us to see the light of the Redeeming ideology, we must liberate Democracy. We The People must be freed from the bondage of a falsified democracy. And if we should expand upon our usage of metaphor and claim that Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha are symbolic representations of a developing human consciousness of a collective self, then their ideas are vague representations of a greater realization awaiting humanity to be re-born out of its present death-like social sleep. "Set Democracy Free!" is akin to the announcement made to the Pharaoh by Moses who said "Set My People Free!".
Most people may not even appreciate that they are being forced to live an existence of Democratic bondage. Like those who were slaves long ago who did not have a sense of themselves as an individual to make a distinction, and thus were unable to even realize they were slaves. Later on in history when people did acknowledge slavery, some felt forced to accept their plight and creating personal philosophies which permitted them to willingly defer to the direction of others without feeling twinges of a consciousness that might otherwise feel regret, shame and pain. Yet, in the time of Moses, when the people were freed, many turned to worship a golden calf, that may be symbolized by a Bull used as an American stock market emblem. Such a situation depicted in the Biblical tradition of Moses and the Freed People, may well turn out to be a scene practiced by some in our present history, when democracy is first freed from its fetters of limitation. Many people will not know what to do with such freedom except to return to some former grasp of practiced behavior, and will need to be instructed on how to pursue a life beyond such a commercialized perspective. They will have to be taught their role of responsibility with such a freedom in hand because they will have difficulty in seeing beyond their own fingertips. —An instruction which begins with comments such as these. Democracy must be set free. Set Democracy Free!
Sleep can be misinterpreted as death, as can be seen by the scratch marks made by frantic fingernails of horrified individuals put inside coffins in former centuries, after exhumation. Such an example attests to the fact that some people were buried alive by being declared dead, though they were exhibiting a condition that those of a given era were unable to detect as a "sign of life" by the conventional means and methods for defining life in a given era. A person's pulse and breath may slow down so as to give the impression that they are dead, but actually have an interval of "expression", a peculiarly slowed biological rhythm which enables a person to remain alive and from which they can eventually "rise from their death". (The obverse corollary of this condition is when a person's biological rhythms fall to life threatening levels which influence wakefulness by "instructing" disturbing thoughts or images to emerge... sometimes called nightmares.) With respect to Jesus' interaction with Lazarus, his role might more appropriately be viewed in terms of a social worker, psychologist or physician, who knew how and when to get Lazarus to come out of his imposed dwelling... that may have been alternatively interpreted as a grave (or entombment). Hence at the time, the persuasiblity of Jesus was defined as that of a miracle worker who brought Lazarus back to (a socially viable) life "amongst the living", just as some reclusive teenagers who may receive a call (from a parent, friend, relative) to do something, or they come out of their rooms to use the restroom, get something to eat or drink, or peer out from beneath a hoodiet (like a sweatshirt with a hood) to see what time it is.
We can continue the analogy by saying that the majority of people today are being treated as if they are a Lazarus... a character who is being ostracized and needs a leading figure or epochal event, such as Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha were to become— so as to liberate the people from the constraints (death-like entombment) imposed by the present practices of a limited democracy. As in days of yore when prophets spoke of a coming Saviour to free the people from their bondage, we of today need a means of being able to freely exercise an Actual Democracy. We The People are in need of a liberator... to free us from the constraints of a governing formula that limits our practice of a true Democracy that will exponentially increase the size of the government... to the size a democracy "is supposed to be", as defined by its face-value (rule by the people) image.
Be it (the liberation) due to a Messiah (deliverer) in the form of a Moses to part the very deep and green (money) waters of those wanting to keep the public in bondage to serve them as patriotic conscripts; or a Joan of Arc to lead the charge towards liberty (but guard against betrayal); the people are in need of a leader who speaks of a genuine means of liberating democracy from its narrowness of expression (practice). However, just as in the biblical tradition where it is taught to beware of false prophets, so must it be noted that history has provided us with those expressing the ego of a Messianic personality... only to prove themselves harboring an internalized preoccupation with a do-or-die destructiveness; in which all those about them are to be sacrificed in their attempts to achieve glorification, or if they don't get what they want... to destroy everything, such as Hitler gave orders for, when his empire was falling apart.
As an after-thought to the story of Lazarus, we must wonder if Lazarus was the only "dead" person in the community or was he given special treatment because he was the brother of Martha and Mary. Is the story describing an act of "unequal miracle treatment" by an "authority" figure, such that Jesus was in his own respect? Was Jesus practicing a discrimination by way of selectivity? Surely there were other "dead" people to "resurrect"... to aid in their "rebirth". Furthermore, is this the type of resurrection that the Second Coming of (a) Jesus describes? Can the Spirit or Holy Ghost Resurrect the Son to show the path and "light" of the Father... all of which may itself be an ancient reference to the three moments of the Sun (dawn- noon- dusk)... which is "born again" when the Sun rises... then immerses (baptizes) all with its warmth and brilliance... before revealing its spirit at dusk prior to the forthcoming Resurrection by "plunging" into the abyss of darkness? Surely solar mythology plays a greater part in religion and other ideas than most people realize or would even admit, because it would describe them as simple animals acting with impulsiveness and reflex than a fully alert consciousness. (See Footnote 1)
Not only can we find links between religions of today and their early influences from nature, but also the usage of such ideas to exert great force to promote a Collectivity of Will over a populace. Whereas we can readily denote the Solar influence to the ideas of Christianity and the Moon's influence in Islamic theology, though such a connection to the latter idea is not intended to be portrayed in this present account, nor the accompanying considerations of Moon = Lunar = Lunacy, since no disparagement is intended, but religious ideas were and are still used as a political force of motivation to unify disparate threads of consciousness into some manner of concentrated orientation... be they viewed right or wrong by those who have not embraced the ideology that typically promotes itself as a practicality of common-sense. And yet, the word "division" describes the actions of both Jesus and Mohammed. Jesus forthrightly said he did not come to bring peace, but division, and those who practice Islam frequently find a point of interpretation to promote contention and use varying methods of persuasion to get others to see things as the believers do. Those who do not share in the belief are disparaged against, either by way of overt violence or by way of social/workplace subtleties that affect one's livelihood.(See Footnote 2)
Democracy is very much a part of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, though pervasive ideas in other theologies and philosophies can be seen as well. However, with respect to events in nature being the influence of ideas, it is extremely necessary to point out with increased emphasis that these religious ideas and their counterparts in associated political views are changing because the events of origination in nature are undergoing changes. To wit: the Sun is expanding towards its eventual burnout and consummation of the innermost three planets, at the same time that the Moon is receding from the Earth (and affecting the washing machine activity of ocean waves). It does not matter how sophisticated political theorists, philosophers and theologians attempt to make their perspectives in order to obscure the pristine origins of their ideas in remote history, such presumed sophistication is still subject to changes in the environment and will have to adapt their perspectives accordingly.
There are upheavals in religion and politics (as well as business) because there are severe climatic changes occurring in the environment affecting the whole of the planet. Just because most humans are unable or unwilling to accept the existence of concentric reverberations (like a repeating echo), does not diminish the effects. Subtle changes in large environmental (also planetary) events can have profound changes in/on human/biological behavior, even if humans are unable to detect one-to-one correspondences without the assistance of machines which increase human awareness because they are then enabled to detect the alterations... and even though they may not have the appropriate knowledge or language/words to make an accurate interpretation.
Humans are still in a very primitive stage of development because they refuse to cut the necessary umbilical cords to free themselves and become an identity unto themselves. When early humans devised animistic religions according to simple associations seen at ground level, they did not know that such ideas would one day be overshadowed by associations with objects detached from the Earth, such as the stars, Moon and Sun; ideas which were (and are) played out in respective social themes of organization and functionality. Animism was replaced with solar and lunar-influence theologies and their influence on political themes is all but lost amongst the many distractions probing at the various senses from which the present day states of consciousness must translate and decipher into some meaning, however superficial and marginal many are. And likewise, in order to progress beyond the ideologies of present theology, philosophy and politics, humanity must divest itself of its ties to the Earth, this Solar system, and eventually the galaxy as well. Freeing Democracy from its present fetters will be a step in this direction. The distance to be measured between Animism and Buddhism, Christianity, Islam as well as many other philosophies, is but a minuscule fraction of the distance that humanity has yet to travel beyond these present ideologies which influence the many variations of politics.
One of these cords is the practice of a falsified Democracy. For example, just because we can not feel nor directly see solar flares, or solar irradiation, they do have an effect on life. Likewise, the many forms of life which are affected by the passage of the Moon and its phases. Again, small changes on large environmental/planetary events can have profound changes on biological behavior that has been trained to make adaptations and interpret changes according to various personifications that often do more to conceal, than reveal, yet the manufactured concealment is (erroneously) viewed as a revelation!... like the popularity of a new style of clothes causing a social state of envy, greed, and one-upmanship mimicry... a path ventured onto by way of secrecy, simple-mindedness and sensationalism.
The following are two examples of religious ideas involving the three solar "moments", as a token bit of evidence that peoples distant from one another in the ancient past were involved in a similar formula of thinking, that some might want to say had been "resurrected" or transferred into the overall social structure within a tripartite pattern such as Georges Dumezil in his "Tripartite Ideology of Indo- European Peoples" has suggested... though his idea may be part of the three-part thinking landscape to be used as a "threes" example by later researchers as well; and is reflected in the American usage of a three-branch government structure, even if those reviewing this page have difficulty in making any conventional correspondence between the Sun's three moments, the Christian Trinity and the Three branches of government.
- 3 ancient Egyptian gods for solar "phases": Horus (morning) ~ Ra (noon) ~ Atum (dusk)
- 3 Indian deities for solar "phases": Apollo (rising) ~ Hari/Vishnu (midday) ~ Indra (setting)
In Egyptian religion, (the "rising sun" was an) amulet conveying life and resurrection to its wearer. It was made in the shape of a sun disk rising on the hilly horizon and was the symbol of Harmakhis, the epithet of Horus as god of the horizon. This amulet, often found with or on the mummy, provided the dead person with the assurance of resurrection in the afterlife. [Source: "Rising Sun." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite. 2013.]
It may be of some interest to a few readers to note the following ideas as if they were a descriptive equation:
- Amon (Amen, Amun) was a primeval Egyptian personification of air and breath.
- This idea was "fused" with Ra :(the giver of life, the light of day).
- These two produced a combined Amon-Ra (Amen-Ra, Amun-Ra).
Like any mathematics equation where one number is added to a second number to produce a third value... such a sequence of maturation is frequently over-looked as a three-part structure. The third item, the result, is like a spirit, a ghost. The second value in the equation plays an important role of change and reproduction to bring the third into being. The first entity though it may be referred to as the father, the second the mother, and the third the child as a conventional family trinity, it can also be seen as something newly born, like a symbol created to represent a singular quantity... as a number concept. Hence, alternative relationship associations can be derived, but the similarities to the daily solar events remains unmistakable, as metaphors.
The usage of "Amen" in the preceding "word problem-equation", remains as a surviving entity to this day when one recognizes its usage at the end of a prayer, though to some readers it may sound more like "Ah-Men", or "Aw-Men". Nonetheless, it is an example how an ancient orientation can be retained for centuries, altered to adopted standards, like the basic pattern of the wheel or usage of fire. Another of its usages is to be found in the "OM" meditation mantra of religions, particularly in India. The written representation on a more basic scale is displayed as "AUM", with the A and U coalesced to produce the "O". Instead of saying "Amen" at the end of a prayer, the usage of "AUM" (OM) is used like a solar pattern— before, during and after... the latter appearing as a reflection brought about by a memory that echoes in one's consciousness. The physics of the physical has its own metaphysics.
Alternatively, the same can be said for vestigial biological or physiological characterizations as well. The retention of such may suggest that we are a host. For example, because so many life forms have DNA, it is DNA which is an important survivalist, and life forms are merely different types of vehicles (with and without related road rages on any scale that may be entertained). Road rage may not be solely a human characteristic. And yet, humans do not have to survive in order for DNA to continue. Flowers, butterflies and turtles might due a better job in some circumstances, just as roaches, rats and rattlesnakes may be more useful elsewhere. DNA and RNA and Proteins are very "smart" without having to display "intelligence" in a form that humanity might pay tribute to as a flattering similarity to its own presumptions. These substrates do not need college degrees, write books, or win the Nobel prize in order to live long, well, and prosper. Then again, perhaps there is a substrate world of religion, politics and history we are unaware of, like a colony of insects unaware of us. Similarly, religion and politics are both vehicles of a persistent three-patterned formula fashioned according to the dictates of a particular culture.
In describing religion, it is of need to note that it has often been used as a means for both affecting and effecting political perspectives. A short review of their inter-mingled connection in a large social setting is of value by looking into the distant past:
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Although sun worship has been used frequently as a term for “pagan” religion, it is, in fact, relatively rare. Though almost every culture uses solar motifs, only a relatively few cultures (Egyptian, Indo-European, and Meso-American) developed solar religions. All of these groups had in common a well-developed urban civilization with a strong ideology of sacred kingship. In all of them the imagery of the sun as the ruler of both the upper and the lower worlds that he majestically visits on his daily round is prominent. The sun is the bestower of light and life to the totality of the cosmos; with his unblinking, all-seeing eye, he is the stern guarantor of justice; with the almost universal connection of light with enlightenment or illumination, the sun is the source of wisdom. These qualities—sovereignty, power of beneficence, justice, and wisdom—are central to any elite religious group, and it is within these contexts that a highly developed solar ideology is found. Kings ruled by the power of the sun and claimed descent from the sun. Solar deities, gods personifying the sun, are sovereign and all-seeing. The sun is often a prime attribute of or is identified with the Supreme Deity. |
Note: the all-seeing eye is a motif used on the American Great Seal, and
the Japanese flag sports a sun.
Source: Religion's Mythological Metaphysics page 3
 Encyclopædia Britannica |
 Cenocracy T-Shirts |
Even though the above article makes the claim that only a few cultures developed solar-based religions, and does not mention how many may have been otherwise influenced by the Sun, the following article suggests it serves to look at "solar worship" from an expanded frame of reference:
According to tradition, the sun goddess Amaterasu founded Japan in the 7th century BC and was an ancestor of the first of its emperors, Jimmu. Even today the emperor is known as the “Son of the Sun,” and a popular name for the country is “Land of the Rising Sun.” The first concrete evidence that testifies to use of a sun flag for Japan dates from 1184, but there are oral traditions going back centuries earlier. Source: "Japan, flag of." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite.
There need not be three distinctive one-to-one relationships between the Sun, theology and Politics typically used by a present day reading public whose analytical tools of deduction are suffused with a preoccupation with personal finances, personal appearance, or personal importance. What is frequently lost on many readers of religion, politics and history (social or otherwise)... is how the three inter-twine. They are a three-to-one ratio. Religion in former times was not seen as a separate issue from the other two. Religion was the dominant force of both political and historical life. The Bible is a type of genealogical account of past life, religious figures and the future. But religion used as a political scaffold is different from a religion that tries to own god and morality as part of a trinity where both the general public and scholars have difficulty in making distinctions of. They are separate issues that the brain of humanity, due to an inclination to group into a tripartite structure, necessarily concludes the three must be inseparably linked. They are not. This is convergent thinking.
However, just because there is an idea about separating Church and State does not mean long-established relationships are easily dismissed... even if new labels are applied to old ideas to obscure the relationship. Neither this attempt at divergent thinking nor its counter-part of convergent orientation are enough to obscure ancient origins or modernized embellishments thereof. The basic pattern remains. We can even see it in the triplet coding of DNA and RNA... which are patterns that can be altered if the basic origin truly is environmental and the environment changes dramatically— whether the sequence from start to finish is fast or slow. Hence, a three-branched government or a tripartite social structure (Priestley class- Warrior class- Artisan/Craftsman class) is linked to past three-part religious concepts which inturn are representations of one or more events in nature.
If we follow up the preceding story of Lazarus and Jesus with Lazarus and the "Rich man" (or "Dives") [because "Rich Man" means 'Dives' in the old language of the Bible](meaning: Dives) and Lazarus, we must wonder if the two Lazarus' are the same person, different people, or a name used to describe a certain social circumstance. In any case, let us reference a comment:
The story has constantly been used to flay the rich and glorify the poor. It has been used by the clergy to keep the poor in subjection so that they will not desire the things enjoyed by the rich (and willingly give what little they have to the church by way of untaxed tithing). By this story, men have proved that there is inherent evil in riches and great virtue in poverty. Source: Heaven Dwellers: Rich Man and Lazarus
There are those no doubt who might prefer to view society as a poor Lazarus instead of one that is in a semi-comatose state labeled as death. They are unable to see themselves as experiencing a walking zombieism because they think that the usage of the reference is an illustration of those characters seen in motion pictures, whose flesh eating and deterioration portray a souless hell. And yet, the frequent usage of incapacitating zombies by way exerting destructive force on their head suggests their brains are not totally "dead". If society exhibits a type of zombie-like culture, imagine what a fully conscious society would be like. If we view society as a collective poor (today sometimes called the 99%), and the remaining 1% the rich or wealthy, we are left with the realization that the majority are acting like a group that is in bondage who need a Saviour but are not conscious enough to speak of one, ask for one, or collectively work together to contrast their opinion against the 1%. They are acting like Zombies whose reactions are not consciously responsive. Like insects mulling around by way of touch and taste, plants by way of phototropism, or animals relying on innate instincts which keep them bound to a certain parameter of behavioral indices, the current situation of humanity is portraying a similarity that keeps it from evolving. Each practices their own model of zombieism... each is a Lazarus subject to the poverty of the conditions it is born into, or a Lazarus blinded by a fate some might say is worth than death.
In the image below, one might caption it as a reference to the continual division between Rich and Poor being aggravated by various business, government and religious interests— with the only possible relief (imagined), is that to be received after (an actual) death... and the poor should accept this fate as a necessary (underdog) penance for receiving an eventual glorification in a presumed after-life; as if the 99% majority in the world were born solely to sacrifice themselves like naive and irrational Islamic suicide bombers are brain-washed to believe. Like Lazarus, the people have no real collective voice to bring about a greater Equality to relieve themselves of a very real suffering. No matter what culture is surveyed, increases in living standards also increase the standards by which poverty is to be measured and thus more easily recognized as remaining extremely disproportionate to those whose greed is not tempered by any tincture of economic magnanimity.
America, like other countries in the world, practice a Lazarus model of democracy. The people are ostracized by way of a disenfranchisement, particularly with respect to voting, which keeps them 'buried' from being able to practice a full expression of "self-representative" government. Current practices of voting rely on a superstition about political and governing mental ability akin to a reliance on magical thinking, whereby the public is like the idea of a walking dead. It should be no wonder then why there are numerous motion picture portrayals of self-destructive zombies and mummies, when the public is well-rehearsed at such behavior. Both creatures are projected images that the people can identify with on a very subliminal, preconscious symbolic level that a Jungian might label as part of our collective unconscious, though it might be better if we name it the collective unconsciousness of a stuporous state that we need to sober up from.
Our insistence for a Cenocracy (New Government) leans towards increasing the size of government to what a Democracy is supposed to be by its definition of "self-rule", defined in terms of a one person, one vote practice... by which laws are developed according to the collective Will, and not some limiting vicarious Representation. Necessarily so, we are talking about a Revolution. A revolution in both the applied definition and practice of Democracy away from its Lazarus producing situation. It is indeed time for our Lazarus society to wake up, to sober up and raise up their hands to be counted individually, in a collective, self-representative manner.
In as much as several motion pictures are now describing zombie conditions in terms of viruses, just as circumstances involving mummies have also been viewed from a bacterial or viral circumstance, we might also look upon the current zombie and mummified conditions of society as being due to a biological property. As such, the debilitating affects of present democracy (seen as a disease), are awaiting the person(s) with a cure. Far too many quacks have offered political remedies or a false map to some supposed promise land. We need a cure for recurring social problems that are being bandaged by the soiled linen of old ideas placed in clean garments and surrounded by an entourage of "official" embellishments providing false impressions. The present formula of American, British, Canadian and other democracies is a joke... they are diseases we must cure humanity of, just as we must cure humanity of Communism and Socialism. All are different strains of the same virus that are being addressed by modernized forms of witch doctor antics and verbalized incantations of repetition meant to be practiced as patriotic mantras to cast the public into a spell-bound state of mesmerism... while their lives and the environment waste away. And like authorities of old who vociferously proclaimed one or another cure, and that it was their ability alone given the responsibility for, but were ignorant of what to do... we of today are faced with the same predicament because history is repeating itself... as all life does in an environment whose existence relies on cyclicity and humanity refuses to direct all its resources towards removing themselves from.
We need to desperately address the character of Lazarus in human society— called Democracy... though some might want to include Communism, Socialism, and Theology... and others might include education as well. The people are in need of a Saviour, to bring Democracy into the light of day, to free it from its bondage of severe constraint... who or what will it be? Foot Note 1:
The association of the solar events to the Trinitarian idea is not a new one. At one time there were several solar mythologists but solar mythology as a respectable scholarly pursuit decreased when many other tripartite ideas were given the same claim but did not hold up to scrutiny. Whereas solar a mythologist might claim a direct influential link, others felt that the origin could be found in conventional social phenomena. Added to this was a growing desire to find a greater mystery, like an audience ever hungry for a story that was not so predictable. By claiming that a link to all tripartite formulas had their pristine origin in the three solar events was like telling a reading public the answer to a mystery. They did not need to "buy into" the stories presented by solar mythologists, because the treasure hunt was over before it began.
Nonetheless, the association of the Sun to the Christian Trinity and the parameter of beliefs involved remains valid by simply taking into consideration that the pre/non-Christian (pagan) influences for the development of Christianity came by way of ideas from cultures highly intoxicated by solar worship... and was a phenomena of nature to replace former types of nature worship that extend deep into antiquity and proceeded into later ages with such things as using the images of animals as objects of worship and the presence of animal-faced totem poles... examples to which we might want to add the usage of animal skins, bird feathers, beaks and claws as ceremonial attributes sometimes depicted in motion pictures.
Veneration of animals would seem to be a natural out-growth of the dependency humans had on them for learning hunting skills, clothing and food. The three "moments" of the sun (dawn- noon- dusk) represents a "three in one" ratio aspect clearly denoted by the Christian idea of "three persons or entities" in one God. No matter how sophisticated Christian (and all other) theologians attempt to portray their beliefs, the ideas have origins in nature worship. Just because the connection is lost or can not be identified by current scholarship... and the general public... does not make the origin any less real or provide any less of a telling point that the three moments of the sun are "fusing" together as the Sun expands as a consequence of its burn-out that is taking place every second of every day. It should also be noted that the Sun's path from dawn to dusk is a triangular one... an image seen in pyramidal structures...
The following picture displays time-elapsed images of the Sun and Moon following a triangular path that is more easily recognized when the picture is flipped over and the two are placed side by side. Even though ancient peoples did not have the capability of time-elapsed photography, in some respects they were keen observers of natural events but described the in relative terms of the culture and age they lived in as well as the limited facility of their language... not to mention crudeness of conveying their thoughts in written forms.
Whereas a triangular image is clearly seen and can be recognized by most readers viewing this page, most readers are like ancient Egyptians when it comes to a limited acknowledgment of the effects that the three "moments" of the Sun (dawn, noon, dusk) has on biology, or how biology and our subsequent orientations are being affected by the "fusion" of these three events with individualized "expressions" of distinct poignancy, along with their overlapping characteristics typically viewed as the representation of one (single) day. In other words, though distinctions of intervals can be made as described by the words "dawn", "noon", "dusk", the effects of such are generally taken for granted by all of us. Our short life spans and an accompanying inability to correctly interpret past ideas and events related to the Sun and other natural phenomena, make it difficult to arise at a correct assessment as to how the changes in these natural phenomena are having on our behavior and ideologies.
The following is an image illustrating the fusion of the Sun's three moments as it enlarges and consumes the innermost three planets, even though discussions involving the density of the Sun which will determine how large the Sun will get; and even though the image shows only the Earth being consumed on its trek towards its eventual burnout... and does not give an indication of how fast the Earth will be spinning as it rotation rate accelerates. Despite the obvious changes which would have to take place in overall human society due to the enlargement of the Sun, its subtle effects on the development, fusion, as well as disintegration of old ideas— will nonetheless become manifest as well. The "Three In/To One" ideology of the Christian Trinity and an eventual "Three In/To One" of a three branch government are extensions of this natural event occurring in the human sphere of biologically affected behavior. Different species will no doubt be affected as their individual biologies and physiologies dictate, with such characteristics being the most dominant type of "language" expression. (If a person or an entire species can not speak with words, they adopt other means of communication.) Those with a language, however well or poorly designed, will express themselves in terms of their specific culture of acceptance.
Some interesting solar-related ideas can be found on this page: Sunrays influenced Pyramid design, page 1
The "fusion" of the three solar moments is an important one because ideas and events (including biological ones) that are linked to a solar origin, regardless if most people are not aware of such (including well-meaning experts in various fields); may well, incrementally (with moments of "punctuation"), follow this same course... thus unraveling human concepts now held as sacred. A lengthy discussion about 3 to 1 ratios can be found beginning here: Three to One ratios page A. You should have an understanding of how prevalent ideas with three-patterned constructs are. However, a "three-to-one" idea should not cause the reader to dismiss the idea that the value of "three" was once referred to as "Many" in early number concept formations. Hence, we could also rephrase the foregoing "Three-to-one" as "Many-to-one", should we encounter the equation of "One" being derived from "Many", such as the ancient idea of multiple gods being replaced with the concept of a single "Master" god with subordinates... yet another religious notion that came to be practiced as an applied sociology (slave/master, King/subjects, etc...) and is the current state of affairs in terms of the many people in a public being "Represented" by a single Representative. The notions of "Diversity" or "Plurality" and "Sameness", or "Separate but Equal" are merely modernized terms of the same patterns of applied ideas used long ago.
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From pages 305 to 309 in the "Outline of History" by H.G. Wells, we find a bit of information regarding religious origins that may be of interest to some readers, who may or may not become cognizant of representations involving a "fusion" of three elements. And if you are one who disputes the authenticity of the information compiled by H.G. Wells, because the book did go through revisions, it should be noted that he nonetheless supplied such information, whereas there are numerous other formulas that are available to a writer most noted for his stories of Science Fiction The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, etc.... He could have claimed there existed a usage of two, four, five or some other number pattern, but, as is indicated in several of his other stories, the theme of "three" has played an historical role in the ideas of humanity, as it does in the tool-chest of many writers... and many of them are not even aware of such a pattern or their inclined usage thereof.
If Alexandria was late to develop a distinctive philosophy, she was early prominent as a great factory and exchange of religious ideas.
The museum and library represented only one of the three sides of the triple city of Alexandria. They represented the Aristolean, the Hellenic, and Macedonian element. But Ptolemy I had brought together two other factors to this strange centre. First there was a great number of Jews, brought partly from Palestine, but largely also from those settlements in Egypt which had never returned to Jerusalem; these latter were the Jews of the Diaspora or Dispersion, a race of Jews who had not shared the Babylonian Captivity, but who were nevertheless in possession of the Bible and in close correspondence with their co-religionists throughout the world. These Jews populated so great a quarter of Alexandria that the town became the largest Jewish city in the world, with far more Jews in it then there were in Jerusalem. We have already noted that they had found it necessary to translate their scriptures into Greek. And there was a great population of native Egyptians, also for the most part speaking Greek, but with the tradition of forty centuries of temple religion and temple sacrifices at the back of their minds. In Alexandria three types of mind and spirit met, the three types of the white race the clear-headed criticism of the Aryan Greek, the moral fervour and monotheism of the Semitic Jew, and the ancient tradition of mysteries and sacrifices that we have already seen at work in the secret cults and occult practices of Greece, ideas which in Hamitic Egypt ruled proudly in great temples in the open light of day.
These three were the permanent elements of the Alexandrian blend. But in the seaports and markets mingled men of every know race, comparing their religious ideas and customs. It is even related that in the third century B.C. Buddhist missionaries came from the court of King Asoka in India, and later on there was certainly a colony of Indian traders in the place. Aristotle remarks in his 'Politics' that the religious beliefs of men are apt to borrow their form from political institutions, "men assimilate the lives no less than the bodily forms of the gods to their own," and this age of Greek-speaking great empires under autocratic monarchs was bearing hardly among those merely local celebrities, the old tribal and city deities. Men were requiring deities with an outlook at least as wide as the empires, and, except where the interest of powerful priesthoods stood in the way, a curious process of assimilation of gods was going on. Men found that though there were many gods, they were all very much alike.. Where there had been many gods men came to think there must be really only one god under a diversity of names. He had been everywhere— under an alias. The Roman Jupiter, the Greek Zeus, the Babylonian Bel-Marduk, the Egyptian Ammon- Ammon was the Putative father of Alexander and the old antagonist of Amenophis IV— were all sufficiently similar to be identified.
In every clime adored
By saint, by savage and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove or Lord"
Where there were distinct differences, the difficulty was met by saying that these were different aspects of the same god. Bell-marduk, however, was now a very decadent god indeed, who hardly survived as a pseudonym; Assur, Dagon, and the like, poor old gods of fallen nations, had long since passed out of memory, and did not come into the amalgamation. Osiris, a god popular with the Egyptian commonality, was already identified with Apis, the sacred bull in the temple of Memphis, and somewhat confused with Ammon. Under the name of Serapis he became the great god of Hellenic Alexandria. He was Jupiter-Serapis. The Egyptian cow goddess, Hathor or Isis, was also represented now in human guise as the wife of Osiris, to whom she bore the infant Horus,* who grew up to be Osiris again. These bald statements sound strange, no doubt, to a modern mind, but these identifications and mixing up of one god with another are very illustrative of the struggle the quickening human intelligence was making to cling still to religion and its emotional bonds and fellowship, while making its gods more reasonable and universal.
This fusing of one god with another is called theocrasis, and nowhere was it more vigorously going on than in Alexandria. Only; two peoples resisted it in this period: the Jews, who already had their faith in the One God of Heaven and Earth, Jehovah, and the Persians, who had a monotheistic sun worship.
It was Ptolemy I who set up not only the Museum in Alexandria, but the Serapeum, devoted to the worship of a trinity of gods which represented the result of a process of theocrasia applied more particularly to the gods of Greece and Egypt.
This trinity consisted of the god Serapis (=Osiris + Apis) the goddess Isis (= Hathor, the cow-moon goddess)**, and the child-god Horus. In one way or another almost every other god was identified with one or other of these three aspects of the one god, even the sun god Mithras of the Persians. And they were each other; they were three, but they were also one. They were worshipped with great fervour, and the jangling of a peculiar instrument, the sistrum, a frame wet with bells and used rather after the fashion of the tambourine in the proceedings of the modern Salvation Army, was a distinctive accessory to the ceremonies.
And now for the first time we find the idea of immortality becoming the central idea of a religion that extended beyond Egypt. neither the early Aryans nor the early Semites seem to have troubled very much about immortality, it has affected the Mongolian mind very little, but the continuation of the individual life after death had been from the earliest times an intense preoccupation of the Egyptians. It played now a large part in the worship of Serapis. In the devotional literature of his cult he is spoken of as "the saviour and leader of souls, leading souls to the light and receiving them again."*** It is stated that "he raises the dead, he shows forth the longed-for light of the sun to those who never can escape him, he will save us, after death we shall still be the "care of his providence." The ceremonial burning of candles and the offering of exvotos— that is to say of small models of parts of the human body in need of succour— was a part of the worship of the Serapeum. Isis attracted many devotees, who vowed their lives to her. Her images stood in the temple, crowned as the Queen of Heaven and bearing the infant Horus in her arms. The candles flared and guttered before her, and the wax ex-votos hung about the shrine. The novice was put through a long and careful preparation, he took vows of celibacy, and when he was initiated his head was shaved and he was clad in a linen garment....
Horus was the only beloved son of Osiris (Serapis). He was also the sun god, and the scarabaeus with wings extended was his symbol. In an eclipse, when the solar corona appears, it has a strong resemblance to the extended wings of a scarabaeus. Horus was "the sun of righteousness**** with healing in his wings." Finally he "ascended to the Father" and became one with the Father. In the older Egyptian religion he was the Intercessor with the Father for sinners and he is depicted in the Book of the Dead, which was buried with everyone who could afford a copy, pleading for the deceased. Many of the hymns to Horus are singularly like Christian hymns in their spirit and phraseology. That beautiful hymn "Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear," was once sung in Egypt to Horus.
In this worship of Serapis, which spread very widely throughout the civilized world in the third and second centuries B.C., we see the most remarkable anticipations of usages and forms of expression that were destined to dominate the European world throughout the Christian era. The essential idea, the living spirit, of Christianity was, as we shall presently show, a new thing in the history of the mind and will of man; but the garments of ritual and symbol and formula that Christianity has worn, and still in many countries wears to this day, were certainly woven in the cult and temples of Jupiter-Serapis, and Isis that spread now from Alexandria throughout the civilized world in the age of theocrasia in the second and first centuries before Christ.
Section 4:
The commercial and intellectual importance of Alexandria continued for many centuries. Anticipating the account we shall presently give of the rise of the Roman power, we may tell here that, under the Empire, Alexandria became the greatest trade centre in the world. The Roman Alexandrain merchants had numerous settlements in South India. At Cranganore on the Malabar coast there was a temple dedicated to Augustus, and the settlement was defended by two Roman cohorts. Embassies were sent from the Emperor to various South Indian potentates. Moreover, Clement, Chrysostom, and other early Christian writers speak about the Indians in Alexandria and their cults.
"Toe-notes" to the footnotes for these sections which are not attributable to H.G. Wells's account:
*The name "Horus" (as a Sun god) may have later given rise to the the word "horary", meaning "related to the hours", as in the phrase "the horary cycle"... that can be interpreted the cycle of hours in a solar day; for which a circular clock represents both in function and in form. (Time is cyclical as measured by the day and the Sun is circular.) Other words with the "Hor" as a prefix might be horizon, horoscope, horizontal, horology, etc..., all of which can be viewed as having a relational semblance.
**One might make a stab at the spelling relationship of the word "Hathor" and the Thor of Norse mythology. While there may not exist a distinctive parallel of function or gender, the similarity in the names may suggest some borrowing not clearly identified by typical mythological examinations. For example, the usage of the Spanish word Hola (or Holla)), (pronounced like "O-la", where the "h is silent") upon greeting someone and the Arabic "Allah" are said to have a similarity. Because of the ancient influx of Arabic speaking peoples into Spain, it is not difficult to consider the possibility that one can be derived from the other. However, similarities are more difficult to access when functionality is used as the primary means of identification, though calling one's mouth a third hand or a cane a third leg or the pineal gland the third eye may require a bit more imagination than some people would want to supply. No less, some may want to extend the similarity of Holla (O-la, ohla, Olah, olla, ollah) with Allah by adding the greeting word "Oie", used by some British- English speaking peoples, and the "Hey" of American English speakers, though the latter example may be viewed as attempting to see a connection based more on inference than as a linguistic derivative. While stretching the imagination is easy, confluence of ideas is not.
***Acting as both the functions of a Jesus and God: To lead (lost- innocent) souls (back) into the light and then acting as God to receive them.
****The word "sun" was eventually changed to "son". Hence, the sentence for a modern audience would be read as "The Son of Righteousness", which Christians would identify with Jesus (who would not appear on the human landscape for about 300 years), or alternatively described as the Son of God. The notion of "wings" is to be applied to the idea of angels as an attribute that Jesus would have, and would assist him in his ascent to God.Return to above
From pages 426 to 427 in the "Outline of History" by H.G. Wells, Section 3:
Yet be it noted that while there was much in the real teachings of Jesus that a rich man or a priest or a trader or an imperial official or any ordinary respectable citizen could not accept without the most revolutionary changes in his way of living, yet there was nothing that a follower of the actual teaching of Gautama Sakya might not receive very readily, nothing to prevent a primitive Buddhist from being also a Nazarene, and nothing to prevent a personal disciple of Jesus from accepting all the recorded teachings of Buddha.
Again, consider the tone of this extract from the writings of a Chinaman, Mo Ti, who lived somewhen in the forth century B.C., when the doctrines of Confucius and of Lao Tse prevailed in China, before the advent of Buddhism to that country, and note how "Nazarene" it is.
"The mutual attacks of state on state; the mutual usurpations of family on family; the mutual robberies of man on man; the want of kindness on the part of the sovereign and of loyalty on the part of the minister; the want of tenderness and filial duty between father and son— these, and such as these, are the things injurious to the empire. All this has arisen from want of mutual love. If but that one virtue could be made universal, the princes loving one another would have no battle-fields; the chiefs of families would attempt no usurpations; men would commit no robberies; rulers and ministers would be gracious and loyal; fathers and sons would be kind and filial; brothers would be harmonious and easily reconciled. Men in general loving one another, the strong would not make prey of the weak; the many would not plunder the few, the rich would not insult the poor, the noble would not be insolent to the mean; and the deceitful would not impose upon the simple." |
This is extraordinarily like the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth cast into political terms. The thoughts of Mo Ti came close to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This essential identity is the most important historical aspect of these great world religions. They were in their beginnings quite unlike the priest, altar and temple cults, those cults for the worship of definite finite gods that played so great and so essential a part in the earlier stages of man's development between 15,000 B.C. and 600 B.C.. These new world religions, from 600 B.C. onward, were essentially religions of the heart and of the universal sky. They swept away all those various and limited gods that had served the turn of human needs since the first communities were welded together by fear and hope. And presently when we come to Islam we shall find that for a third time the same fundamental new doctrine of the need of a universal devotion of all men to one Will reappears. Warned by the experience of Christianity, Muhammad was very emphatic in insisting that he himself was merely a man, and so saved his teaching from much corruption and misrepresentation.
We speak of these great religions of mankind which arose between the Persian conquest of Babylon and the break-up of the Roman Empire as rivals; bit it is their defects, their accumulations and excrescences, their differences of language and phrase, that cause the rivalry; and it is not to one overcoming the other or to any new variant replacing them that we must look, but to the white truth in each being burnt free from its dross, and becoming manifestly the same truth— namely, that the hearts of men, and therewith all the lives and institutions of men, must be subdued to one common Will ruling them all. "St. Paul," says Dean Inge in one of his 'Outspoken Essays', "understood what most Christians never realize, namely, that the Gospel of Christ is not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance."
And though must has been written foolishly about the antagonisms of science and religion, there is, indeed, no such antagonism. What all these world religions declare by inspiration and insight, history as it grows clearer, and sciences as its range extends, display, as a reasonable and demonstrable fact, that men form one universal brotherhood, that they spring from one common origin, that their individual lives, their nations and races, interbreed and blend and go on to merge again at last in one common human destiny upon this little planet amidst the stars. And the psychologist can now stand beside the preacher and assure us that there is no reasoned peace of heart, no balance and no safety in the soul, until a man in losing his life***** has found it, and has schooled and disciplined his instincts, and narrow affections. The history of our race and personal religious experience run so closely parallel as to seem to a modern observer almost the same thing; both tell of a being at first scattered and blind and utterly confused, feeling its way slowly to the serenity and salvation of an ordered and coherent purpose. That, in the simplest, is the outline of history; whether one have a religious purpose or disavow a religious purpose altogether, the lines of the outline remain the same.
*****"Losing one's life", (in order to find it) is an idea that has been presented in various formulas. And though some may want to interpret this in a literal sense, as are so many religious oriented ideas that should not be, it too should more rightly be viewed as a metaphor... as a generalization that can be adopted in different settings. For example, many writers struggle with seeking to lose the life in which they possess the voice of one or more others they have encountered and have had some influence on them; but need to find themselves, to gain a separate life, in a sense to be "reborn" as an individual with their own voice, their own identity. While some people do become quite adept at one or another profession or even hobby, they never really achieve the means at finding a personal voice of individual expression... they simply acquire a distinctive mastering of another's expressed "voice", be it in religion, science, business or some art. In the present context of application, the different practices of Democracy are all subjected to a restraint which muffles self-expression. The people must be permitted to acquire their own collective voice of individuality. Democracy must be set free!
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Date of initial Creation: Saturday, November 28, 2015
Date of initial Posting: Saturday, December 5, 2015
Updated Posting: Saturday, September 17, 2021...2:26 AM