Esoterica

Scientists plan to send greetings to other worlds

After decades of fruitless scanning the skies for alien messages, scientists say it's time to try a basic rule of etiquette: Say "hello" first.

A new San Francisco-based organization called METI, or Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, plans to send signals to distant planets, rather than waiting for them to call Earth.

By the end of 2018, the project aims to send some conversation-starters via radio or laser signals to a rocky planet circling Proxima Centauri, the nearest star other than the sun, and then to more distant destinations, hundreds or thousands of light years away.

6 more mysterious radio signals have been detected coming from outside our galaxy

Back in March, scientists detected 10 powerful bursts of radio signals coming from the same location in space. And now researchers have just picked up six more of the signals seemingly emanating from the same region, far beyond our Milky Way.

These fast radio bursts (FRB) are some of the most elusive and explosive signals ever detected from space - they only last milliseconds, but in that short period of time, they generate as much energy as the Sun in an entire day. But despite how powerful they are, scientists still aren't sure what causes them.

Until the detection of the 10 repeating signals back in March, it was thought that the bursts were only ever one-off events, coming from random locations around space. And without a discernible pattern to them, researchers were left stumped as to what could be causing them.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Doing the Impossible: Tools for Change

The ability to face the impossible and do it anyway is at the core of what it means to be human. At their best humans have the ability to think outside the box, to take action guided by values that truly matter, to take risks, to be vulnerable, and to take action in connection with others, both physical and spiritual. In 2016 we lost so many luminaries who truly inspired us and gained people of gargantuan egos and questionable mental health who model for us our own deepest untouched Shadow and some of the worst humanity has to offer. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores learning from those who inspire us to do the impossible and become the person we never dreamed of. By knowing we are not enough and doing it anyway we become the person who is enough. When faced with things that are unjust, inhumane, and just plain wrong, doing the impossible is required if we are to be humane.

Tuesday, December 27, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Solstice Fire Between Stories: Tools for Change

The solstice of 2016 gives us the opportunity to step off the wheel of the Old World whether we are enjoying winter or summer. A solstice fire ritual is an opportunity to work with our most ancient ancestor, Fire, to release our deep habits of “life as we have known it” and step into the space between stories. To move toward the New World we must explore our unconscious collusion with the dominant paradigm that drives the old, familiar reality through us into manifest reality. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, offers us a ritual for both hemispheres to release the Old Story. Regardless of our conscious position in the world we are all playing roles of one kind or another in the old script. And we have shamanic skills that allow us to explore our unconscious collusion with the Old Story and expose the ways that we deceive, mislead, and otherwise excuse ourselves from stepping fully into our authenticity and the unknown.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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A Second Look at James Ray Documentary

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

CNN will be re-airing Enlighten Us this Saturday evening at 9:00 (check local listings), so if you missed it, you have another opportunity. As I wrote here, I don't think it's good, or fair, but it is worth seeing. I've been doing a little more digging into the odd bits of media coverage surrounding its television debut, because I was left with lingering questions about the director's choices and perspective.

One of the main things I've learned is that there really isn't a lot of interest in this documentary or in James Arthur Ray, as demonstrated by the dearth of coverage. The debut in the Tribeca Film Festival got a little coverage, but not as much as you might expect. I did find a smattering of new material, however. CNN pimped the television debut with some interviews, and, like the documentary, they're worth seeing if only for Ray's unconscious self-reveals.

I also rummaged up a few articles. The most in-depth piece I could find is in People magazine. People is owned by Time Inc., which is part of Time Warner, which owns CNN.

In all these interviews, Ray paints himself as a victim of the legal system, but explains that Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman weren't victims at all. They were heroes. He's kind of heroic himself and hopes his ability to survive all he has suffered can serve as an inspiration to struggling people everywhere. He's taken responsibility, though. He's definitely taken responsibility.

“My work was never on trial,” he says. “The tragedy was on trial. The jury found absolutely no shred of evidence of intentional misconduct or harm. It was a tragic accident, and it was determined to be negligent, and because three people died, it was determined to be criminally negligent.”

So "it" – the "tragedy" – was on trial and found guilty, not Ray. I guess it was the tragedy that was convicted of negligent homicide and went to prison?

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Psychedelic Marine, PTSD, and Tools for Change with Alex Seymour

The Psychedelic Marine is a vivid portrait of both the anguish of war and the power of entheogens and shamanic ritual to help combat veterans complete the inner journey combat begins, and heal from PTSD and the deep, traumatic loss from war. Author, Alex Seymour, enlisted as a teen in the Royal Marines Commandos and served for six years, completing two tours of duty, only to re-enlist 20 years later. Alex served another tour of duty in Afghanistan where he suffered severe losses. Host and shaman, Christina Pratt, speaks with Alex about the relationship between our fears, beliefs, traumas, and PTSD and the depth at which we can let go when faced with our own direct experience of The Sacred. Join us this week as we explore how ayahuasca in shamanic ceremony can offer a way to help soldiers prepare for war and help combat veterans heal from it.

This week's guest:
Alex Seymour

Alex served in the Royal Marines Commandos for 6 years and completed 2 tours of duty on active service. He then returned to serve as a reservist 20 years later as the oldest front line commando in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. After returning from a tour of duty during the war in Afghanistan, he needed a way to cope with the extremes he experienced in the war, losing 7 men in his unit, and having his best friend critically injured by a Taliban bomb.

Already familiar with entheogens, Alex traveled to the Amazon in search of ceremony and a shaman to guide him to something sacred to draw meaning from his experiences. His book 'Psychedelic Marine' tells this story and is available on Amazon.com.

Alex is the Technology Account Director for a global technology company and lives in Buckinghamshire, England, with his wife of 18 years, Julia, and his two children.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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CNN Ignores Victims in James Ray Doco

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The year 2016 has been dubbed "post-truth" by the Oxford English Dictionary, "an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’." Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Exhibit A) Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray.
 
The CNN produced documentary is slick, compelling, and far more revealing than its subject probably intended, but it is also very nearly fact free. Director Jenny Carchman wove together media footage and personal interviews without commentary. The lack of narration, which can be a very effective documentary style, meant, in this case, that one outrageous falsehood after another went unchecked. The passive narration was particularly troubling, given that the victims' families were completely excluded.

Jean Brown, sister of the late Kirby Brown, was quick to respond to James Ray's lies about her sister and her family, posting the above video the day the documentary aired. (see above) It is unfortunate that she was not given the opportunity to do so in the documentary itself. And it was not for lack of trying. As discussed here, both Jean and her mother Ginny took it upon themselves to contact the director, but Carchman evinced no interest.

Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman, were little more than footnotes in this story of their gruesome deaths. Make no mistake. This documentary is entirely about how their deaths affected the man who caused them.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is Shadow Work Now? Part Two

Shadow work is the sacred ground of decades of men's work and women's work pioneered by early visionaries like Jean Houston and Robert Bly and those that followed. If all of the decades of shadow work was actually all shadow work we would not have the ugly reality of the United States' collective shadow staring us in the face right now, waiting to be manipulated in the debacle of our 2016 presidential election. "Shadow work isn't psychological work, its heart work," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. "As soon as the ego shoved that aspect of self into the Shadow, that aspect of self was moved out of the realm of the mind into the realm of the heart." While insight and understanding are helpful and they satisfy the mind, true shadow transformation occurs in the darkest realms of the heart. It begins with nothing less than a daring rescue mission to free the falsely accused, imprisoned and forgotten self. And that is just the beginning.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Cultivating Immunity to Evil in the Time of Chaos: Tools for Change

Advertising seduces through free-floating anxiety. Hatred seduces through cowardice of the heart and the fear of risking acceptance of the Other. Greed seduces through the illusion of the easier, cheaper, or more profitable path. It is your choice to be seduced or to become immune to seduction. To become unseducible is to say "yes" to the dignity of your soul and "no" to the invitation to live life beneath the nobility of your human spirit. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores the first steps on the path to becoming unseducible and looks ahead to how we must walk during the collapse of the Old Story. We are better than this and we must become unseducible to prove it.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

CNN to Air James Ray Documentary

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Set your DVRs, folks. CNN will air Enlighten Us, the James Ray documentary of dubious quality I wrote about here. The details can be found on the CNN website.

ENLIGHTEN US: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray, directed by Jenny Carchman, will premiere Thursday, Dec. 01 at 9:00pm and 11:00pm Eastern on CNN/U.S., with limited commercial interruption, the network announced today.  ENLIGHTEN US made its world debut at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in April and also screened at Telluride Mountainfilm in Colorado and Tallgrass Film Festival in Kansas.

The film explores the story of the motivational speaker’s meteoric rise, fall, and attempt to return to the $11 billion personal growth industry following his conviction for negligent homicide in the deaths of three of Ray’s clients at one of his events.  The film explores the origins of the self-help industry, what followers of the industry are looking for, who is offering answers to those followers, and why some are willing to risk so much for that guidance.

In other news, Ray doesn't want to be a convicted felon anymore. Connie Joy has learned that he is petitioning the court to set aside the verdict that put him in prison briefly, for the small matter of killing three people.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Love in the Time of Chaos: Tools for Change

How do we find the eye in an intensifying storm of disorder, unrest, and fear? Shamanic people, traditional and contemporary, know that Trickster had a hand in making this world and it is that hand we need to grasp to pull ourselves up into the possibility inherent in this chaos. At the same time we need to look within and track the unconscious energies that want to recreate the old world as it has been. Indigenous people have been tracking this unconscious psychic virus for many centuries calling it by many names, like e'epa and wetiko. Wetiko is a true illness of the soul and is at the root of humanity's inhumanity to itself. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores how we can use our shamanic skills to become immune to the wetiko virus and learn to paradoxically ground in the chaos and co-create a New World.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Introducing the Wit & Wisdom of Teal Swan

I have been graciously invited to share my work on this fine blog. I'm a frog of few words, preferring to speak through the power of images. Perhaps you are familiar with my work, which may be found on my YouTube channel here.

I am intending my newest film to be part of a series. As Teal is so witty and so wise, I believe her videos to be a treasure of trove of cleverness. I am also opening the floor to suggestions. All are welcome to pass along favorite Teal witticisms and insights to be incorporated into future compilations.

I must also beg your indulgence. The process of making videos is still relatively new to me. And as you may have guessed this work is challenging and time consuming for hands such as these.