Letters have long held esoteric significance. This is especially true for the Hebrew alphabet. It also applies to the runes. In Norse mythology Odin gave the wisdom of the runes as a gift to mankind. What about our modern English alphabet? Could there be similar hidden esoteric meaning in the everyday alphabet we all use today?
Let us consider the first letter in the alphabet, the letter “A”. The earliest version of “A” was also the first letter of the ancient Phoenician alphabet, but their A lay sideways. The ancient Greeks turned the “A” upright as it still appears today. The current version of A is not a recent invention, but is thousands of years old.
The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is aleph. The first line of the bible begins in Genesis with, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the Bible’s last book, the Book of Revelation, God literally speaks, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last”. The Greek alphabet begins with alpha and ends with omega. In John 1:1 the bible said: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Words and letters seem to contain mystical, even divine significance. Words are symbols of thought turned into information, and then this information can transform matter. Writing can convey subtle and complex ideas, emotions, and concepts. It is the source of art and science. Language and writing are literality immaterial thought manifest into physical reality. It is an act of creation, from spirit into matter.
I suggest the letter “A” may represent God, but with an Egyptian influence. Ancient Greece and Egypt coexisted together. Could the letter “A” been partially inspired by the pyramids of Egypt? We can only speculate.
However, the uppercase letter “A” does look like a pyramid. And the lowercase “a” could represent the Eye of Horus, the famous Egyptian symbol. “a” looks like the circle of the eye with the eyebrow above.
If we place the lowercase “a” inside the top half of the uppercase “A”, suddenly we have a symbol that is recognizable today: the All-Seeing Eye of God, the Eye of Providence. Did the letter “A” influence the design of the Great Seal of the United States? This symbol appears on the back of the American dollar bill.
The reverse of the Great Seal portrays an incomplete pyramid symbolizing a nation yet to be completed. The Eye of Providence above suggests divine providence is guiding its completion. The symbolism is quite Masonic. The letter A suggests beginnings, as in the beginning of a new nation. And the Eye of Horus watches over us!
As a service to the esoteric community I offer the Occult View’s official and definitive Paranormal Reality Scale. It has a margin of error of +/-2%.
On a scale of 100% to 0%, how real is any particular paranormal phenomena? I offer this scale: The Near-Death-Experience is rated at 100%, UFOs are at 50% and Bigfoot is 1%. We can fit everything else in-between.
At 100% we have the Near-Death Experience. These experiences are a fact. If the NDE is genuinely paranormal or just a trick of the mind remains undecided. Decades ago the NDE was not even recognized. Today it is the topic of serious scientific inquiry. The NDE is 100% real but its true nature remains a mystery.
At 50% we have the flip of a coin. UFOs are iffy. There is compelling evidence of their existence, but nothing is conclusive. Today with digital manipulation, we can’t trust any image or video. Our only evidence are the accounts of people who have seen them, and those may be mistaken. Yet all it takes is for one incident to be true. Is everyone mistaken?
At 1% we have Bigfoot. We have the dubious Patterson Bigfoot film, some foot castings and not much else. What are the odds a hominid could survive in North America undetected? I say 1%.
Then we have the 0% category. This is a fun category. Anything is possible! But nothing is real. I include Santa Claus, Noah’s Ark, the flat earth and hollow earth theories, faked moon landings, Planet Nibiru, 2012 and so on.
In between I put Psi at 75%. I feel the research done by parapsychology has essentially proven Psi exists (telepathy, precognition). It is a subtle effect but quite real. However, it has yet to be recognized by mainstream science. I feel its day will come. It is on its way moving up to the 100% category.
At 25% I place ghosts. In my opinion ghost are as real as the NDE; they may be part of it. But any evidence for ghosts is weak. There are some pictures, some electronic voice phenomenon, but nothing close to being definitive. On the other hand, stories of ghosts are as old as humanity. There are countless anecdotal accounts, and these cannot be just dismissed. I feel ghosts are real, but try catching a ghost. Proof is elusive.
My blog has successfully completed its move to a new hosting service. I still have to test things out. I have a few glitches, but I’ll work them out. I was worried about this move. My previous service suspended my account for using too much of their server’s capacity. I had to make a move fast.
Here is my advice for bloggers, for what it’s worth. If you are a serious blogger, own your domain name on a hosting service. If you utilize a free blogging service, you won’t get the recognition that owning your own site will offer on the search engines. If you start with a free blogging service and grow, you’ll eventually want to own your domain name. Accomplishing that afterwards will be a huge hassle and you may be unable to move your existing content over.
I’m glad I started off using WordPress with my own domain name. When I started I was a tiny blog with no visitors. Why invest in blogging? If blogging is a hobby, then free sites are great. But if you are a passionate blogger, start off with room to grow.
When I started I made a mistake. I choose a hosting service that was wonderful at the time but I didn’t give myself room to grow. Thank goodness I at least owned my domain name; all my content (3 years of it) can follow me wherever I go.
I did research for a new hosting service, looking for one with a good reputation for customer service. You get what you pay for. And you can get excellent service for the same price as others with horrible service.
I picked InMotion Hosting because of their reputation. They were very helpful in making my move. Thanks Eric! I give them my endorsement. And I want to thank E for her help, I couldn’t have done this without her skills. Thank you E! Hugs and kisses!
Christopher Hitchens died of cancer. Along with being a powerful writer he was one of the leading advocates for atheism. Dying from cancer, he pledged he would not turn to God in his final minutes. He said if he ever made such a comment, it would only be if he was delirious and out of his mind.
Hitchens is now in heaven (I’m sure to his surprise). Can an atheist go to heaven? Do all Muslims go to hell? Who exactly invented these rules for salvation?
I was listening to a Christian radio show about bible questions and answers, and someone asked about dinosaurs in the bible. The speaker explained how the Great Flood created the dinosaur fossils. No scientific evidence was given to explain how being underwater for 40 days and nights created fossils deep beneath the earth, and in finely detailed layers as well. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was like OMG…flabbergasted! I could not believe grown, educated men could actually discuss flood created dinosaur fossils as reality and not a joke.
I think this type of religious thinking fueled Hitchens and others’ atheism. Hitchens wrote about religion: “Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”
I can’t argue with that. Hitchens is correct. However, Hitchens was wrong if he equated spirituality as being the same as religious dogma. There is a difference. When atheists attack the very idea of spirituality, they become the flip side of the religion coin. Suddenly they are the ones who are in denial of reality.
After his cancer Hitchens was quoted about atheism: “No evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind. But I like surprises.”
If an atheist, skeptic or scientist wants proof of an afterlife, it is out there. The evidence for the NDE (near-death-experience) is compelling. I would suggest it is proven. It seems those with an ideological axe to grind avoid examining the NDE research in detail. If skeptics did, the extensive NDE research would turn their worldview upside-down.
The NDE is the atheist’s dinosaur fossil.
According to near-death experiences a religious belief, or lack of them, don’t seem to matter much. What people do experience is a judgment day when we have to relive all the harm or good we did in our life. If you hurt someone, you will experience exactly what they felt, no escaping that. It sounds supremely fair to me. Hitchens now realizes he was mistaken, but he had a good reason to distain much of religion. Nobody will go to hell because they recognized religion’s nonsense. That would be supremely unfair.
There is also a very real chance that Mr. Hitchens may contact with those who were closest to him. There exists a window of opportunity where the deceased may contact the living. When my mother passed away, she contacted my father who is something of an agnostic. I wrote about it on my blog at the time. This is very real stuff, and I hope Mr. Hitchens’ loved ones are receptive to the possibility.
Speaking of After Death Communications (ADC) here is an excellent interview on the topic from my favorite esoteric podcast: Binnallofameria He has an excellent interview with Bill Guggenheim about the topic.
Before he got sick Hitchens’ had an opinion column that appeared in my local newspaper’s editorial section. He was extremely perceptive. I am happy Christopher Hitchens still exists.
A decade ago I became casually involved with ghost hunting. I didn’t intend to get involved with ghost enthusiasts and their investigations. However, I had a friend Jamie who introduced me to the ghost hunting subculture, and I was intrigued.
Back then (not really long ago) ghost hunting was a true subculture few people heard about. That is hard to believe today. However not long ago the concept simply didn’t register on the public’s radar. If I talked about the topic, nobody heard of it. Blank stares. “What is ghost hunting?”
It was an interesting and exciting time. We felt we were entering a truly unknown world. Imagine doing something new, possibly groundbreaking. When I discussed our activities with non-enthusiasts, they thought I was…well, goofy. That was part of the thrill of an emerging subculture. We were doing something special yet it was not recognized by those outside the culture.
Today the story has changed. The media has totally absorbed this subculture, embraced it and commercialized it. Ghost hunting has gone mainstream. It is amazing how fast popular culture will consume a good idea. Ghost hunting makes for a cheap reality TV show. There are multiple successful cable TV reality series about ghost hunting. The Paranormal Activity movie franchise is making hundreds of millions of dollars. Once the wider world embraces a subculture, the subculture gets compromised. Mainstream acceptance pretty much extinguishes a subculture.
The original ghost hunters I’ve known have long lost interest in the pursuit. TV ghost hunting shows created an illusion of “expert” which does not exist. I can tell you for certain there are no experts. Nobody understands this phenomena; it is a true mystery.
Many ghost enthusiasts have moved on to newer things, as I have. My blog is one example of this new direction. This subculture still thrives but the wider culture has yet to recognize this new direction. We are still are on the cutting edge, but we now travel on a new blade.
Jamie had a ghost theme website on Geocities. Geocities, owned by Yahoo, was a hugely popular place for people to create websites long before WordPress or Facebook. Unfortunately Yahoo ended Geocities and all these sites created by the passion of thousands of individuals just simply vanished. The early history of the Internet, its Stone Age, was extinguished. Do Internet fossils exist?
It seemed all the content from the early days of the Internet had been lost. However, there is a site named Oocities
They saved many of these sites before they vanished forever. Digital fossils still exist!
The Oocities statement: “In October 2009 we archived many of the unique pages on GeoCities before they were taken down. Geocities started in 1994 and was one of the most important websites in the world until it was closed on 27.10.2009. Our aim is to save those pages which are worthy and unique scientific sources or are of great public interest as well as those, which are historically interesting or just representing the 90?s website culture and style.”
This is a great resource for older content, and I am glad Jamie’s ghost website had been included. Unfortunately not all his content has been brought across, but most has. Here is a reference to the early days of ghost hunting before it became popularized:
My blog the Occult View will be moving to a new hosting service shortly. I expect everything to move across without mishap, but there is always the chance of technical difficulties. If something goes amiss and the Occult View disappears, it should return shortly. Knock on wood.
I started my blog on Christmas Day, 2008. Why? One cold and dreary night a week before Christmas, while walking down a blustery snowy street, I slipped on ice and badly twisted my ankle. I was able to get to my day job utilizing crutches and a garbage bag wrapped around my swollen foot. But at home I was not moving. I was stuck on the couch with my foot raised and nothing to do. So I decided to start a blog.
My first idea was a blog about doodling. After a few minutes I realized that was a bad idea. So I started a blog about a lifelong interest of mine: the paranormal, the occult and beliefs outside the mainstream. I don’t sell anything on my blog. I write because I feel these topics are important. There really is another level to reality which is hard to see or understand. It should not be ignored.
Upgrade Update: On Saturday December 10 my site was “suspended”. I am using too much of this service’s server space. I have clearly outgrown my current hosting service. To upgrade with them could cost 4 times a month what other hosting services charge. I don’t think so. I am back up temporarily, but the final move has yet to be made. My technical skills are wobbly, but I have a talented young lady who will help me. Thank you E!
On my sidebar is a cool widget, a Flag Counter. It shows the daily visitors to this blog. Well, Saturday it descended into oblivion. My worry is that people will think my site is gone and never visit again. That is why I posted my “technical difficulties” warning ahead of time. I’m still here!
A Muslim Australian citizen, on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, was arrested for blasphemy. Apparently he insulted the relatives of Mohammed. He will have a year in prison and suffer 500 lashes. According to this news account below his health and maybe his life will be at stake:
“Family members said they are worried about his health. “He is sick, and he has back injuries and he has diabetes,” his son, Issam Almaribe, told CNN affiliate 9 News Australia.”"
500 lashes, if done properly, can kill someone. His flesh will be shred from his back and his bare bones and spine will be exposed. If he survives he could be crippled for life.
Which begs the question, is it dangerous for any Westerner to be a Muslim? According to Islam all of the faithful are required to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Westerners generally speak their minds, are irreverent and take their freedom of speech for granted. We don’t understand the mind-locked nature of some Islamic cultures. Going to Saudi Arabia can be a life threatening situation. Yet, all Muslims are still required to make the haij (pilgrimage) to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.
I have an answer for avoiding such a dangerous trip to Saudi Arabia. We need an alternative Mecca for Western Muslims, perhaps a new Mecca somewhere in the West. Is there a reason why Western Muslims can’t establish a new version of Mecca elsewhere? I’d suggest they create one in the United States, where we have freedom of religion combined with the separation of church and state. Those uncomfortable with traveling to the Middle East could come to our “Mecca of the West” where they would be safe from getting lashed.
Maybe it is time for a split between Eastern and Western Islam. Each really does live in different worlds. I think it is time for a liberal form of Islam to emerge, starting with a new center.
A decade ago I was casually involved with ghost enthusiasts and their investigations of hauntings. Back then there were rumors of an unrecognized haunted cemetery in northern Illinois. It was said to be an old, crumbling cemetery with incidents of genuine paranormal activity. However, nobody really knew where it was for sure. There are a great many cemeteries in northern Illinois including some that have never been made public. This rumored cemetery was simply called Cemetery Z.
There are a plenty of renowned and famous haunts; we know them by their reputation. Resurrection Cemetery had such a reputation because of the famous vanishing ghost hitchhiker named Resurrection Mary. Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, suffering from decades of vandalism and desecration, was viewed as one of the most haunted of cemeteries.
However there are haunted sites without any reputation whatsoever, but are often equally significant. Nearly all hauntings remain unpublicized. Most people who experience such things don’t even talk about it, or if they do it’s just word of mouth. My blog reports actual incidents of the paranormal when I come across them. How many never see the light of day? Nearly all.
And so there was the rumor of the haunted Cemetery Z. Were stories of it only an urban legend? Years ago I was invited to join a couple of ghost hunting enthusiasts to check out the possible location of Cemetery Z. They said it was a small, obscure cemetery in an urban area. It fit the rumors. It was very old and suffered from the same type of desecration that possibility turned Bachelor’s Grove into a ghostly place.
The two ghost hunters and myself went to check out Cemetery Z. Unfortunately I didn’t know where this cemetery was. They didn’t tell me. I was just to follow them in my car. When we got there, we checked it out. They brought an EMF meter and a recorder for any EVP. I brought my tarot cards to attract the attention of any spirits around.
Many of the tombstones were very old. The date on the picture to the left is 1862. The cemetery was in a populated area yet it was in bad shape. There was awful graffiti on a crumbling abandoned mausoleum; inside it was worse.
Gravestones were broken and toppled. A cross is missing its arm. I could imagine this site would become a future Bachelor’s Grove type cemetery.
The graffiti on the mausoleum symbolized the type of desecration that could open the door to occult activity, which in turn might result in paranormal activity. Is this the famed Cemetery Z? It is a good candidate. However, we’d need to talk to local residents to hear if anyone experienced anything unusual around it. The problem is we have all left ghost hunting behind us.
Does this cemetery still look the same since I took these pictures many years ago? Worse? I should go back again, but I don’t know where this Cemetery Z is. Does anybody know the name of this cemetery? If I can find out, I’d like to return for another visit.
Below is a video I took inside the crumbing graffiti covered mausoleum.
Above is a clip from the documentary series Through the Wormhole. This episode dealt with the near-death experience of Dr. Eben Alexander. He had one of the most unique near-death experiences I’ve ever heard about. He had a multiple NDE while he was in a coma. And he was able to recall it with remarkable detail. Dr. Alexander is a neurosurgeon. It is rare for a medical professional to have an NDE and he is in a unique position to understand what he went through.
Dr. Alexander gave an interview on Skeptiko. You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript here:
The doctor is a very smart and impressive individual. We have two choices…either he was deluded, or his experience was as he related. I assume his experience was exactly what he said it was…a genuine NDE.
During this excellent Skeptiko interview, Dr. Alexander said he had a transcendent experience where he attained incredible knowledge but was unable to bring it back. It seemed transcendence is beyond human understanding. However, I feel a great deal of transcendent information was brought back from the other side anyway.
Dr. Alexander is writing a book on his experience, and I look forward to reading it in great detail. We can learn secrets from these mystical experiences. For now, I will examine a few points from his Skeptiko interview:
GUARDIAN ANGELS
Dr. Alexander went into an NDE several times during his coma, and each time he encountered what he described as a guardian angel. Again, assuming this is real, and then we all have a guardian angel, spirit guide or possibly a “higher self”. These are ancient beliefs and it appears there is merit in the concept of spiritual guides. That is a comforting thought. However, if we all have a holy spiritual companion, would we want to disappoint them? I’d want to make my spiritual companion proud of me!
PLANETARY ANGELS
During the Skeptiko interview Dr. Alexander said he saw arcs of silver-gold light in the sky emitting stunning hymns that descended from them. He said the most accurate word to describe these arcs of light and their hymns was “angels”. At the same time he described seeing waterfalls and pools of water. These arcs of lights occurred while his NDE was still apparently confined to the physical world. Afterwards he described leaving the physical universe.
How to interpret this information? Earth has planetary angels working on our planet, just as individuals have personal guardian angels. Interesting…earth may have its own planetary guardian angels. And that brings up the same question…do we want to make our world’s angels proud of us or not?
TRANSCENDENT MELODY/VIBRATION
For myself, this passage from the Skeptiko interview was the most interesting since it may be useful in our daily living existence:
Dr. Alexander said:
“But suffice it to say that I would find myself back at the earthworm eye-view. What I learned was that if I could recall the notes of that melody, the spinning melody, that would start the melody spinning again and that would take me back into that beautiful, crisp, clear hyper-real valley on the butterfly wing. My guardian angel was always there and she was always very comforting.”
When Dr. Alexander talked about the melody, he reminded me of Esther Hicks. Esther Hicks is the famed author of the book Law of Attraction and is the leading voice on the topic. She essentially described the Law of Attraction as attaining the same “vibration” as the universal “source”. The goal is to attune our own personal vibration so it is in tune with this source. It is achieved thru how we think and feel. Thoughts are vibration and can connect by vibrating in harmony with the universe.
What are vibrations if not a melody? Music and hymns are vibration. Dr. Alexander was able to return to the “source” by remembering his melody/vibration. Can we do the same without having first hearing the divine melody?
Dr. Alexander shared his mystical experience with us, and it connects with other mystical experiences. Isn’t it interesting that mysticism shares a common theme?
The Advanced Hypersonic Weapon can travel multiples the speed of sound, and is maneuverable. They had a successful test of this weapon on November 17. It has the ability to strike anywhere on earth within an hour.
“Today the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command conducted the first test flight of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept. At 6:30 a.m. EST (1:30 a.m. Hawaii-Aleutian Time), a first-of-its-kind glide vehicle, designed to fly within the earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed and long range, was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii to the Reagan Test Site, U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll.”
Triangular UFO?
Why is this test being publicized? You’d imagine it would be kept top secret. I’d suggest these tests are meant as a message to the world, including China and Iran. I wonder if this weapon is the only such craft that has been developed? There must be other secret crafts as well that remain top secret. Are these secret craft responsible for UFO sightings?
Triangular UFOs have been the most common shape of UFOs sighted in the past decade. The flying saucer has pretty much disappeared to be replaced by the mysterious triangle. If the triangle is a secret weapon, do extraterrestrial UFOs exist? What are the flying saucers of the past since it is unlikely super weapons existed decades ago? Where have they gone?
On another UFO related topic, the U.S. government put out an official response to a petition asking about government knowledge of an extraterrestrial presence. Here it is below:
“Official White House Response to formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race – Disclosure.”
By Phil Larson
“Thank you for signing the petition asking the Obama Administration to acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth. The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye. However, that doesn’t mean the subject of life outside our planet isn’t being discussed or explored. In fact, there are a number of projects working toward the goal of understanding if life can or does exist off Earth.”
Ok, that seems pretty clear cut. The U.S. government denies knoweldge of ET. But who exactly is Phil Larson? Is he qualified to answer this question?
“Phil Larson works on space policy and communications at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy”
I suppose Phil Larson is a White House science PR guy. Public relations! I’d think he’d be the last person to be told if ET was a reality. Yet it is still nice to have an official statement from the government. I like the last line: “The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.” How do we define “credible”? There have been a lot of very strange sightings over the years, some very strange indeed. It seems we’ll have to solve this mystery without them.
Below is a curious video of a triangular UFO. Alien…or American?
However, the uppercase letter “A” does look like a pyramid. And the lowercase “a” could represent the Eye of Horus, the famous Egyptian symbol. “a” looks like the circle of the eye with the eyebrow above.
Recent Comments