Happy B-Day, Krishna! (UFOs from Heaven)

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells,  Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC

The dark lord, blue Krishna: krsna means black or dark (Reuters/BBC.com)

What will a public UFO landing display look like? There was that War Over LA. Albert Hall during the Ultimate Fighting Championship, London, 2002 (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images).

Robert Bingham (center) guides Los Angelenos to daylight UFO summonings and sightings.

.

And this one's for patriarchy, Asherah!

Hindus believe that both the Buddha and Lord Krishna were earthly incarnations or avatars of the celestial god Vishnu.
 
India's great celestial goddess and god, Radha and Krishna, are the beloved ultimate couple.

Just as Yahweh (Jehovah, YHVH, one of the Old Testament gods of the Bible and, apparently, the only One that mattered) was once married to Asherah in Judeo-Christian tradition, Radha and Krishna are the immortals, space (akasha)-devas, who came to Earth to frolic.

Ancient Asherah bas-relief

Wait, wait, wait, and hold hold your horses! God had a wife? There is more than one God in the Jewish and Christian Bible? Yes, and yes. The whole sacred book tells of their, the plural gods' exploits on Earth, which scholars construe and misrepresent as a monotheistic -- "one god" -- text about only a single God speaking of Himself in the royal "We." But many kinds of celestial gods and space lords are referred to by name. Scholars who know better gloss this by saying, it's all names for one God. He likes lots of names and classes of names and to refer to himself always in the plural.

Birth then carried across the water in a basket reminiscent of Moses... In pictures: Hindus around the world celebrate Krishna's birthday, one of the most popular Hindu gods (BBC).

• The foundations of Hinduism: Brahminical Vedas

The Bible is much closer to the ancient myths (true and attested to accounts) of the Vedic Pantheon, Ancient Roman Gods, Ancient Greek Gods, and post-Vedic Buddhist cosmology. Buddhists do not worship these gods -- devas, gandharvas, apsaras, brahmas, asuras, nagas, garudas -- but they are well aware of them. And the Buddha taught that if one so wished and, moreover, undertook the appropriate courses of conduct (merit, profitable karma), one could be reborn among the devas. The devas are recollected (devatānussati) rather than worshipped for this reason.

Goddess Radha devi, the favorite consort of the lord: kids play dress up (AP/BBC.com)

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Radha the milkmaid (gopi) was already on Earth in a scene reminiscent of Western religious tradition, as the gods -- including the Cowherd avatar or Shepherd Krishna -- found the "daughters of men" attractive and came in unto them and bore with them hybrid-offspring, heroes of old, men of renown.
 

Janmashtami is Hindu Xmas in India, Lord Krishna's birthday commemoration. Krishna has risen in popular importance above all other incarnations and manifestations of the One God of the Brahmins Brahma (called "Great Brahma" or Maha Brahma in Buddhism).

• [There is something higher but it is not a personality, and it is Brahman, the Ultimate Reality behind the Illusion of Maya, Godhood, Godhead, GOD, realization and union. So we always distinguish: "gods" (devas, deities) from "Gods" (brahmas, divinities) from "GOD" in nontheistic Buddhism. Nontheism does not mean atheism, but rather denotes the fact that whether or not there are gods is not pertinent to enlightenment. Enlightenment transcends that discussion And whether or not their are creators (DNA splicers, cosmic magicians, manipulators of energy, mind/heart readers, powerful aggressors, peaceful enjoyers of the Brahma Viharas or "Divine Abidings"), there is no ultimate uncreated Creator God creator of all...unless one thinks of the impersonal GOD as that creator, but that is more a syncretic Hindu-Mahayana concept than anything the historical Buddha ever taught.]

How the Sumerians depicted the flying visitors from space on compact cylinders

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The Dogon of Mali, Africa

Whether it is Buddhism, Brahmanism (the pre-Buddhist Vedic teachings of the Brahmin-caste priests, later Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism (a kind of Buddhism steeped in Hindu concepts), Jainism, Sumerianism (of Sumer, Mesopotamia, Iraq), Zoroastrianism, Judaism (Bedouins, Hebrews), Islam, early Christianity, or later Catholicism there are "gods" who came down from on high in space. At least that's where these beings said they were from They may have come from the hollow Earth, nearby Moon, the visible planets, or from the next solar system over, but they came. Even the Dogon know they came.

In Buddhism these "shining ones" (beings of light of varying radiance) are generally referred to as akasha-devas from the akasha-deva-loka or "space light beings world" to distinguish them from the earthling-devas (bhumattha-devas).

Playground of the devas

Recollect the Devas' Merit: Mediterranean Greece as the playground of the "gods" (D&G)

What UFO abductees can teach us

David M. Jacobs with George Boory (coasttocoast.com, Aug. 19, 2014)

Documented research

Prof. David M. Jacobs (ICAR, "International Center for Abduction Research," ufoabduction.com) has conducted decades-long research into the alien abduction phenomenon. He was on last night trying to explain his conclusions to a kind, half-witted host. Jacobs outlined his early interest in UFO sightings, how he focused on alien abductions after he met Budd Hopkins, and expressed his disappointment at how academic and scientific communities generally dismiss the subject of UFOs. There is, he feels, a preponderance of evidence to demonstrate their existence.
 

ET Semjase devi (theyfly.com)

From the beginning of human civilization ,aliens have shown an interest in human reproduction, he notes. UFO abduction incidents reveal this interest. The reason for this are their programs to create hybrids, he explains, describing an early case that Hopkins shared with him in which a woman was shown a baby that looked half-human, half-alien, and was asked by the aliens to hold and nurse the baby.

"They are making hybrids so that they can come down and be here," possibly to takeover this planet, he conjectured. Jacobs also mentioned the telepathic abilities of aliens: They can transfer and access data into and out of someone's mind.
 
He theorizes that hybrids are being created with a tremendous amount of information dumped into them by some insect-like ETs (praying mantis type), who seem to direct the hybrid program, not so much the reptilians (nagas) or Nordics (devas) or titans (asuras).


The show was rounded out by aerospace and defense systems developer Sir Charles Shults talking about his work on the technology of education, as well as various advancements and innovations in the fields of space exploration and AI (artificial intelligence). More

How Los Angeles celebrates Vesak

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara, Pasadena

Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara, 920 N. Summit Ave. at Mountain, Pasadena, CA 91101

The Buddha against the clouds on the island, Bentota Gama Vihara, Sri Lanka

  

A shower of Dharma, a spiritual offering to the Buddha, is made through the cultivation of virtue and meditation (sila-bhavana).

"The audience (hearers and learners) of Gautama ever awakens happily, day and night recollecting the qualities of the Buddha."

- Dhammapada

 

Gal Vihara (UNESCO/Alagz/mac.com/flickr)

The Pasadena monastery, known as the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara on Mountain and Summit, planned out a full day of activities open to all on Vesak, May 17, 2014. At 8:00 am we took on eight precepts and participants recollected and made offerings to the memory of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. At 9:00 am there was morning tea, Sri Lanka (Ceylon) having been a British colony previously known as the Island of Serendipity. At 9:15 Ven. Karunagoda gave English meditation instructions. At 10:45 there were more devotions and offerings to the memory of the Buddha. 

Adam Eurich, Dr. Ven. Karunananda (WQ)

At 11:00 there was a lunch of island delicacies -- red field rice, green jack fruit, golden curry, orange dal, bright greens with coconut shavings, crisp yellow papadum, fruits, treacle sweets, colorful strips of sauteed vegetables in tangy juices, and more. At 12:00 pm there was a recess to digest all that great food. At 12:30 pirith (parittas, protective mantras) chanting. At 1:00 there was a Dharma Forum, a lively discussion on the Buddha's message, with audience questions, and three very learned monks and a nun to discuss. At 3:30 we had more tea; it's what Ceylon and the Lipton Company are famous for. At 3:45 there was a Dharma Sermon in Sinhalese by a guest monk. At 4:45 a Buddhist Sermon and meditation practice in English with Ven. Chandananda, recently back from Sri Lanka. And at 6:00 a concluding eight precept observance (when practitioners revert to observing the Five Precepts), closing with a sharing of merits.

"We can influence others for the good by the good we are thinking."

- the Buddha

Day went into night with the cultural program running from 6:00-10:00 pm. The summer-like evening began with devotional songs (bhakti gita), a free food stand (dansala), and the exhibition of the rotating Vesak lantern.

While this event sounds unique splendid, it is only one of dozens throughout the city this month as Burmese, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Bangladeshi temples also celebrate. There are at least eight local Sri Lankan temples. On Sunday the North Hollywood Sarathchandra Buddhist Temple puts on a larger display. The highlight will be the big all-Buddhist Thai lay Dhammakaya-meditation movement evening, which annually invites every single Buddhist school and tradition to participate. Happy Vesak!

 

Documenting Buddhism in America (seekingheartwood.com)

• The Buddha's Birthday at Dhammakaya, L.A.
• Hindu temple opening in Chicago, Illinois

COMEDY: "Saturnalia" by Jimmy Dore (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; Jimmy Dore (jimmydorecomedy.com), Wikipedia edit

Greco-Roman: Ruins of Temple of Saturn (eight columns to the far right), with three columns from the Temple of Vespasian and Titus (left) and the Arch of Septimius Severus (center)

• AUDIO: The Jimmy Dore Show (12-27-13)
• True origins of Xmas: Pagan  "Saturnalia"  orgy

In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who was said to have reigned over the world in the Golden Age, when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor in a state of social egalitarianism. 

 

The sexual revelries of Saturnalia (held around the winter solstice and the famous date of Dec. 25th) were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age, not all of them desirable. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia, an Athenian festival held in honor of Cronus (Greek Kronos. More

 

In the most classic and well known version of Greek mythology, Cronus or Kronos (Greek Κρόνος) -- not to be confused with Chronos (the personification of time) -- was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans (Buddhist asuras), divine (deva) descendants of Gaia (Mother Earth or Bhūmi), and Uranus, the sky (space). He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. 

China [not] closing forced labor camps (video)

CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC.co.uk

China has forced labor camps for lower cost merchandise, but who cares? That merchandise goes mainly to the USA and Europe. It is not only for forcing free labor out of "undesirables" or promoting communism; it is for destroying civil liberties and promoting capitalism. If we don't care, we do not understand that there is no Xmas Without China. Today China announced the camps' closure, but that may just mean a change of sign boards.

World Buddhist Forum III, 2012 (china.org.cn)

Many celebrated last week's announcement that China will abolish its much-hated "re-education through labor" system.

 

The system, which dates back to the 1950s, allowed the Chinese police to send anyone to prison for up to four years without a trial. [Now Americans face the same fate under the 2014 NDAA.] A labor camp sentence was almost impossible to appeal. 

 

Abuse not limited to Tibetan minority (NPR)

"The...labor system was arbitrary, it was abusive, it was unconstitutional," explains Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher with rights group Human Rights Watch. He argues that the system's abolition opens the door for legal reform in China. 

(MY) China's slave labor camps make toys and electronics for the West

"Sometimes we have no choice; we work till dawn. When you work all night you become dizzy and your eyes hurt because you can't take any breaks." SANTA'S WORKSHOP explores the real world of China's toy factories. Workers speak of long working hours, low wages, and dangerous work places. Those who protest or try to organize trade unions risk imprisonment. Low labor costs attract more and more companies to China. Today more than 75% of our toys are made in China. But this industry takes its toll on the workers and on the environment. European and American buyers blame bad conditions on Chinese suppliers. They say that increasingly hard competition gives them no option. Believe it? What can we do?

• YEAR IN PHOTOS: China 2013
• PHOTOS: Christmas around the world

Big Leshan Budddha (leana.niemand3/flickr)

"There's no point in trying to improve the criminal law system, trying to decrease the incidents of torture, forced confessions, and miscarriage of justice if the police can just go another route and send someone without any kind of procedure and due process for up to four years to a labor camp," Mr. Bequelin says.

 

China had 260 labor camps holding 160,000 inmates at the start of this year, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights Watch. But that number seems to be shrinking. The Shanghai government announced on Wednesday that it has already released all of the people held at its labor camps. 

(AH) iPad: Secret Horrors Inside Chinese Foxconn Factory City as 

American journalist gains access to see how iPads are really made.

 

"Changing sign boards"

Top of Leshan Buddha (Joegwolf/flickr)

Still, some fear that the extra-legal camp system will disappear in name only. Most of the people locked up under the re-education through labor system are detained for drug offenses -- either selling or buying small quantities of illegal narcotics. [The same happens to an increasing number of Americans in possession of addictive prescription narcotics and pain killers. More

• VIDEO: Russia's adrenaline junkies seek YouTube fame

Ed Snowden's Xmas/NSA message (video)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; BBC Ch. 4; RT.com; Mat Larson (thearcanefront.com)

(RT) George "Orwell's 1984 is a fairytale compared to reality" of what they are doing to us. "They" being "Big Brother" (the US/MIC spying apparatus). These are the acts of a police state.

US/Military-Industrial Complex is an octopus

NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden delivered an alternative Xmas message via Britain's Channel 4. Snowden, in exile in Russia while seeking permanent asylum in Brazil, called for an end to mass spying by the US and other governments, stating that a child born today will have "no conception of privacy." He warns, "Inaction will usher in a surveillance state." More

Edward Snowden's message has been blocked worldwide. 
 

RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from studios in DC and Moscow. It is the first news channel to break the one billion YouTube views benchmark. It is often the only way to get the truth on stories affecting Americans because mainstream media here manipulates and censors information as well as disseminating psychological operations (propaganda) with the CIA/Facebook, NSC, FBI, DHS, military, NSA.

­

Bush and Dick as Beavis and Butthead

THE KALASHNIKOV (AK-47) assault rifle documentary reveals its origins, how it is made and tested, who uses it to kill, and much more. See the Izhmash manufacturing plant where some of the rifles are assembled; [most manufacturing has been licensed to other countries]. See elite soldiers from Russia's Interior Ministry train with the world-renowned weapon. Hear American war veterans recall their experiences with the gun. The patriotic inventor of the iconic killing machine, Mikhail Kalashnikov, recently died at the age of 94 claiming he had no regrets for his karma. He was an inventor; politicians used the invention to kill.

The Real and Fairytale "Jesus" (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich ("Letters & Politics," Dec. 24, 2013, KPFA.org, Berkeley), Dr. Reza Aslan (rezaaslan.com, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth)
Fox News' Lauren Green attacks historian Prof. Reza Aslan, Ph.D., why a former Christian and current Muslim would write about Jesus. It's reactionary, Islamophobic FOX "News" at its best.

BESTSELLER: Zealot (amazon.com)

Religious scholar Dr. Reza Aslan has discusses his fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography about the historical Jesus [Yah'shua].

It calls into question everything Westerners in Judeo-Christian societies thought we knew about Jesus of Nazareth.

 

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher (rabbi) and miracle worker [siddha] walked across the Galilee, gathering followers [as an anti-imperial rebel like many modern Palestinians] to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” 

Good St. Issa as a bodhisattva

The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal.

 

Two decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God. 

 

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Dr. Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. 

• Letters and Politics, Dec. 24, 2013, 10:00 am
• PLAY AUDIO NOW (in own media player)
• DOWNLOAD clip (MP3, 10.28 megabytes)
• Whistleblower journalist Glenn Greenwald excerpt at Minute 48:00

Jesus became a Pagan Roman god

Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs [which always simply meant someone aiming to save Jews from Roman rule] traipsed through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. 

 

This is the age of zealotry -- a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy.

 

Fairytale: white savior like Thor

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Dr. Aslan explores this diverse and turbulent age and, in doing so, challenges the conventional portraits of Jesus of Nazareth. He describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction:

• a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords;
• an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret;
• and ultimately, the seditious “King of the Jews” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime.

Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary.

• [Biblical scholar Allegro points out that the Jesus cover-story came from an entheogen-using Jewish cult, possibly the Essenes, whose sacrament and "cross" was the magic mushroom. It provided them direct mystical experiences. The BBC documents that Jesus was a Buddhist monk. He returned from 18 lost years in India with long hair to continue his rebel and messianic activities to free the Jews.]

Vishnu, I'm going back to Palestine. - Good luck.

And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself (as a Jew, a "messiah," a "god," and a man), the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity.

Zealot questions what we thought we knew about Jesus of Nazareth -- even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of his life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel: a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time, and the birth of a religion.

 

“Riveting...Aslan synthesizes Scripture and scholarship to create an original account.”

—The  New Yorker

“A lucid, intelligent page-turner.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Fascinatingly and convincingly drawn.”

—The Seattle Times

“[Aslan’s] literary talent is as essential to the effect of Zealot as are his scholarly and journalistic chops. . . . A vivid, persuasive portrait.”

—Salon
“This tough-minded, deeply political book does full justice to the real Jesus, and honors him in the process.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

Buy-Nothing Xmas, Holiday Comedy (video)

Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; Adbusters.org; Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert (Comedy Central News), Megyn Kelly, Bill O'Reilly (FOX Comedy)

Shaman Santa says, "This year, rise above the vulture-capitalist debt fest" (adbusters.org).

Colbert Report: Santa Claus Ethnicity Debate

In the Liberal "War on Christmas" replacing the traditional exclusive "Merry Christmas" with the inclusive "Happy Holidays" greeting, sides go head to head: FOX vs. CC (The Daily Show)

  

Budai on Bodhi Day

Going to participate once again in the Doomsday Consumer Fest that Christmas has become or try do things differently this year?

 

Buy-Nothing Xmas is the surest way to leave a zero-footprint on the planet. But truth is, not everyone is ready to go cold Tofurky regarding branded gift giving. 

Nevertheless, each of us can still make a radical move by upholding this single vow. Repeat the following out loud in front of a witness:

Mama, can I get a "Plus Size Barbie" this year? I cleaned my plate (HuffPost)

  

“I shall not visit a single mall or box store this Christmas. I hereby swear off Amazon (with its links to the CIA) and all of the other online mega stores! I pledge to go indie-local or bust!”

 

Festivus for the rest of us? FOX says no!

Avoiding the nerve centers of vulture-corporate-capitalism. Go local and indie with every gift bought. This magically changes moods and injects authentic spirit into gift-hunting.

 

And while in a tone-shifting mood, why not slip a paper bill into the hands of the next homeless person encountered? Or to a favorite NGO. Or to a meditation center. Or donate time... More

 

Dharma Punx Xmas Eve: Hollywood (againstthestream.org)

Swedish Xmas Fair, L.A. (video)

Amber Larson, Kelly Yanni, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Sweden is famous for more than IKEA

(SWEA) December is the time for SWEA, the Los Angeles Annual Swedish Christmas Fair. Scandinavian artisans, Sankta Lucia (candlelight) dancers, and vendor stands present the best of Sweden: fine art, tchochkes, jewelry, toys, Christmas collectibles, and much more.

Sankta Lucia, from Italy, is honored in Scandinavia with light and dance

Traditionell Lucia -- och ändå fick man hålla i hatten.
 

Kris has a bad helper, Krampus

All are invited to enjoy an authentic Swedish lunch or fika (coffee) and home baked sweets or maybe an invigorating glass of hot virgin Glögg. The radiant Lucia pageant and her choir performs twice, at noon and again at 3:00 pm. Children have their own fun corner. This fair will set kids, Krampus, Kris Kringle, and cruddy grandparents in the mood for the holidays!

• Happy Birthday Mao! (BBC) 
• Thailand rejects election delay

Like Sami-inspired bhumi-devis ("earthbound beings of light"),

legacy Christian singers celebrate St. Lucia in Mora, Sweden.

O, Christmas: Shaman Santa Cometh! (video)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; John Allegro

Was "Santa" originally a Siberian/Scandinavian shaman distributing magic mushrooms?

Reindeer-drawn sleigh in pagan Scandinavia, the Norwegian Lapland (visitnorway.com)

 

Budai (Elysia in Wonderland)

We love the holiday season -- not because of the crass commercialism, family fights, or endless droning of Judeo-Christian Xmas TV specials around the house.

No, it is because scholarly research has shown us the true origins of the Santa Claus.

It is not, as the Catholic Christians say, Saint Nick(olas). But we'll have to check in with Megyn Kelly and Jon Stewart for the ongoing debate about that as Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly weigh in.

The indigenous Scandinavians, the Sami, and their shaman ways tied to reindeer and magic mushrooms: Introducing Santa

 

Weihnachten means Krampus

No, it is a Scandinavian/Siberian tale of something that really happened and happens -- a custom, a ritual, something to look forward to in the cold of winter. Across Siberia and Norwegian-Swedish-Finnish Lapland, among the indigenous peoples, the blond Sami and brunette (pre-Buddhist) Mongolians, the local shaman gathered the entheogen mushrooms.

• (Many Buddhists are Russians, and many more are Mongolian-Siberians, Central Asians, and inhabitants of Europe's only indigenously Buddhist country, Kalmykia).

Amanita mushrooms on pine needle floor

The red and white gifts from Mother Nature sprung up under and around pine trees. Big gifts come in small packages. Each family got its share, delivered by reindeer-drawn sleigh to hut houses with prominent chimneys burning away. The shaman came in the front door, made his moist distribution, which were in dire need of drying to preserve and maximize their effectiveness. (A chemical conversion process takes place through heating, drying, or boiling).

• Why pine trees? Is it because they are evergreen and therefore a symbol of fertility? Partly as birthrates nine months down the road show, but mainly because these fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of pine trees. Not much can grow in the bed of dropped needles, a chemical plant strategy to enhance the success of their species by more or less sterilizing adjacent ground and minimizing competition.

Paul Stamets: the world's first "Internet" or communication Web, Mycelium "Running"

  

Mushrooms communicate very well.

The driest and warmest place to accomplish this was above an open fire, in the hearth, in convenient stockings that that hung their. Stocking stuffers, to the delight of Kris Kringles and toadstool-loving gnomes and sprinkling-fairies and mischievous elves who haunted residents with their poltergeist activities. These elementals really went to work, activities which became visible to those consuming the Forest's offerings. No one knew better than the reindeer themselves, with perhaps the exception of old jolly (delirious) Saint Shaman. They "fly" in two senses, high as the sky thanks to licking the snow and trotting, prancing, bounding as they pull.

  

Jolly Budai or Hotei with his sack and candy (Dbonyun/flickr.com)

Massive Budai (melissahardytrevenna)

• Eventually the legend of an obese saintly man carrying a big sack of gifts to give out drifted Far(ther) East from Siberia to China and made it to Buddhist Asia. In addition to Scandinavian shaman "Santa" in his white and red furs, there is Chinese shraman "Santa" in his patchwork saffron robes: Budai (Hotei) Bodhisattva, the "fat, happy Laughing Buddha" as he is almost universally regarded. He was actually a historical figure, a jolly and rotund Buddhist monk who went about carrying a sack of treats to give to children.

Another Mushroom Link

Jesus was a mushroom -- no, really, he was!

If we were to say that Saint Issa (of "Jesus Christ" fame) was a mushroom, we would be scorned and ridiculed -- charged with hooliganism and inciting religious hatred like our Russian colleagues. But it is not we who say such a strange thing. 

It is preeminent, banned-by-the-Vatican scholar John M. Allegro (johnallegro.org) -- author of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, familiar with many texts in Christian languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English) -- who figured it out.

 

The would-be Satan or Santa?

He was such a towering figure in Christian theology that he could not be dismissed. So his work, originally titled "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East," was banned.

 

What does Allegro mean when claiming that the sacred sage Jesus (a former Buddhist monk according to the BBC), son-of-god (Sanskrit devaputra, anyone reborn among celestial devas, son-of-man, anyone reborn in our manusya loka, Human Plane, as the offspring-of-humans), Jewish revolutionary (renegade rabbi), and presumptive Vajrayana "Maitreya" (Messiah, the new Mithra), was a "mushroom"?

Ye olde Xmas catalogs (wishbook)

Was he the Nazarene Leader of the Essenes or "Jesus Christ," whose name is actually a title meaning "Yahshua the Redeemer"?

Of course, Jesus of Nazareth may have been a good Middle Eastern man and troublemaker (or an exiled dynastic Egyptian trying to gather up an army to attack the Pharaoh), but he only lived on in legend as the "greatest person who ever lived" (Jesus Christ superstar) because clever esoteric Essene/Jewish cultists embodied the lore of magic mushrooms in the name of this obscure figure.

Sami (Erika Larsen/NYTimes.com)

He returned to Nazareth or Jerusalem, Palestine (or Ethiopia, or Egypt) from 18 "lost years" in Kashmir, India. (See scholar Holger Kersten). He was preaching something new, which the mushroom cult adopted as a cover story. Christianity grew to greatness not as the religion of this godman-sadhu-guru, as we are we taught in the West, but as the amalgamation of Euro Pagan Greco-Roman syncretism -- appropriating (borrowing) everything but calling it by new names to fit its take-over-the-world theology.

• 

  Xmas in Japan = money

  Why do so many people claim Jesus/Y'shua as their own -- Jews, Greeks, imperial Holy Romans, Egyptians (Coptics), Tibetan Buddhists (who consider him a tulku, rimpoche, or even as Maitreya Buddha), Persians (who see him as Mithra), and so on and so on? It is because Christianity misappropriated parts of Jesus' life story to fabricate the greatest story every sold/told. It worked. Catholicism/Christianity can claim about three billion adherents, at least nominally, twice the number of Buddhists (when China's billion Buddhists, formerly counted as "atheists" in officially-communist China, are classified correctly in census records).

(TTW) Allegro on the mycological origins of Jesus Christ (Min. 1:50)

 

Scandinavian shaman fairyland

The Essenes -- mystic-monastic Jews, forerunners of the Gnostics, with a monasticism for spiritual striving that was new to the Near East/West (rather than the traditional rabbinical/priestly family integration) -- would have been lost to history. But the message that we are all "GOD," that we are of a divine nature (i.e., have the potential to become devas and brahmas when we are reborn again as spiritus, "light beings," subtle matter of the Fine Material Sphere), that an entheogen like magic mushrooms draws out and makes evident, was too good to lose.

Allegro figured out and published how Jesus came to be conflated with magic mushroom lore, but that he was, of that Allegro was absolutely convinced.

Garden gnome Budai

What motivated Budai/Hotei Bodhisattva to gain weight, distribute treats, and be so happy, that we do not know. Wandering Buddhist monks, called shramans, are like that.

More importantly, what will Wisdom Quarterly staff be doing for Christmas, the Pagan holiday of gift giving and merriment? Eating traditional Chinese food, rubbing Budai's belly for luck, reading our fortunes in the folds of inedible cookies, visiting family and friends to collect and distribute gifts just as Buddhist Lisa Simpson would have us do (any maybe this year there will finally be a wrapped pony under the plastic tree), and Xmas Eve meditation at Against the Stream.

(ML) A Very Pagan Xmas: The True Origins of Christmas

 

Everything we "know" about Christmas we don't. Iranian Mithra has more to do with it than Israeli Jesus. Every common holiday misconception is cracked wide open. The producers who unmasked Halloween now unwrap Christmas. This is a must see for seekers of truth. It recounts Biblical tales. But was Dec. 25th Jesus' birthday? Why do we decorate a pine tree, put lights up, teach children to believe in St. Nicholas, or Santa and his magical reindeer? Paganism. Christendom adopted popular customs; it did not invent them. This will be the Season for Reason when the real story of Christmas is known. For once our eyes are open, Christmas may never close them again.

  

Paul Stamets' Fungi Perfecti (fungi.com)

 

The Sami or Lapp

Sami girl in kolt (visitnorway)

Lapp means a "patch of cloth" for mending. Thus, the name suggests that the Sami are wearing patched garments [just as India's "shamans," the Buddhist shramanas, or "wandering ascetics" (some say bhikkhu/ni originally meant "one who picks up  or makes use of discarded rags for clothing") wear patched robes], a derogatory term and one that needs to be replaced. The word "Laplander" is also problematic since that could mean any person who lives within this region, even non-natives. Finally, there's a part of the Sami population who always have lived outside the region of "Lapland" such as the Sami of Sweden, Jemtland, and Härjedalen. (Editor: One Sami word that made it into several major languages is tundra, which speaks volumes about this part of the world). More

• PHOTOS: Reindeer, dishes, and Sami (New York Times)