Lessons for an Entity Incarnating as a Mammal © 2007, Jonathan Zap Revised 2008   Edited by Austin Iredale Recently I was able to recall a Socratic teaching dialogue I had with a spirit guide while I was between incarnations. My questions---which have the embarrassing naiveté so typical of the disincarnate--- are italicized. Spirit Guide: Another mammal is not an organ of your body.  Your body has all its own parts. Another mammal is not you, or another side of you. Your psyche has all its own parts. Sounds pretty obvious, how could I get that mixed up? ...

Dynamic Paradoxicalism: The Anti-ism Ism © 2007, 2008 Jonathan Zap Edited by Austin Iredale "Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical."---Lao-tse Dynamic paradoxicalism is my attempt to create a meta-philosophy that is a counter to fundamentalist and absolutist thought, which is nearly as common amongst New Agers and the Left as it is among religious fundamentalists and the Right.  The greatest of life skills is the ability to live with ambiguity, ambivalence, and paradox, without trying to regularize these uncertainties into finished, absolute truths.  Dynamic paradoxicalism recognizes that most important areas of truth exist as a paradox, where seemingly contradictory elements have a dynamic level of validity based on context specific ...

Kill the Time Grid and Fire Up Your Life ---a Lesson in Practical Magic © 2007, 2008 Jonathan Zap Edited by Austin Iredale Shame, and believing the lie that there is something wrong with you, fragments and disassociates you from the present moment. You don't want to be who you think you are, and that leads to intense self-conflict, pain, and confusion, and this inner darkness can coalesce into a "shame contract," and a key feature of the shame contract is that it exists as a "time grid." A time grid is a way of attempted escape from the present moment---in which you believe yourself to be no good and feel ashamed---by projecting yourself into an imaginary, idealized ...

Magik With Tears © 2007, 2008 Jonathan Zap, Harald Kleeman Jonathan's First Entry: I have long wanted to engage in dialogue (or trialogue or quadrilogue) with people schooled in the principles of Magik on some basic principles and applications of the art and science of manifestation. As you know, Crowley’s primer book on Magik, Magik without Tears , took the form of letters to a particular student, so it was a kind of monologue/dialogue where he responds and reiterates questions and issues, but the other side of the conversation is silent.  In this new Aeon we won’t be so patriarchal, and I propose opening the dialogue to three others I have in mind (Tyler Bennett, Freddy Abrams and Rob Brezsny if any of them cares to participate) so that we ...

Resource Fluctuations Happen-----Working with Scarcity and Abundance Photo and Text © 2007, Jonathan Zap Resources do matter, but they have always fluctuated, and that fluctuation occurs with need as well as want resources. A good strategy is to learn how to thrive, or at least work with, the resources currently available. That's the two sentence version, which may or may not be a sufficient resource. For those willing to read more, here's the rest: Life rarely gives you everything you want. For all we know, this squirrel may be fantasizing about walnuts and silently cursing the universe for giving it left over Halloween pumpkins instead. But as far as I could tell, when I photographed this squirrel on a residential street in Denver, the squirrel seems to be thriving on what its got. An outside point of view is ...

My friend Rob Brezsny asked me to pick out some quotations from my writings that he could feature in his newsletter.  I did, but most of the ones he came up with were ones he found himself.  Here’s an excerpt from his newsletter, followed by the quotes that I came up with.  I’ve always had a weakness for quotations.  Here’s one of my favorites: “I hate quotations.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter JANUARY 9, 2008 FreeWillAstrology.com "You have everything you need in the present situation to work with impeccability. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't work toward manifesting additional resources and opportunities. It does mean that the present situation supplies you with everything ...

"In the Bowery"  collage on canvass, 1982 I don't have info on the artist, last name may be Palma If anyone knows more I would like to properly credit. Dealing with Meltdowns © 2008, Jonathan Zap Edited by Austin Iredale I was talking to a friend yesterday who has been exhibiting some self-destructive behavior recently, and experiencing much inner turmoil.  I was giving my boilerplate advice about the need for the Warrior approach when he replied, “Yeah, I agree with the Warrior approach, but when I get going on it, something will happen and then it will collapse.  It’s shocking how quickly it can fall apart.” I felt an immediate surge of gratitude for his honest self-observation, because  it was confronting me with a key problem that I, and many others, face as well. When we have a meltdown, it isn’t because we have stopped believing in ...

Foxes and Reptiles---Psychopathy and the Financial Meltdown of 2008-9 ©  Jonathan Zap, 2009 Edited by Austin Iredale (Vintage advertisement that unintentionally portrays the psychopath’s view of others.) The financial meltdown of 2008-9 may only be the latest example of the incalculable harm done to civilization, and countless individual lives, by psychopaths, a subspecies of Homo sapiens.  The purpose of this essay is twofold. First, I will provide a brief tour of the psychopath subspecies so that you understand who they are and how they operate. You probably already know psychopaths, and it is overwhelmingly likely that at some point in your life a psychopath that you encounter personally will try to harm you. Second, I will draw the correlative between psychopathy and the present ...

Rebelling from the Pain Body Matrix text © Jonathan Zap 555 The character Pinhead from the Hellraiser novels and movies by Clive Barker  Wikipedia entry on Pinhead: Pinhead was not always a Cenobite, but was in fact once a human. Pinhead originated as Captain Elliott Spenser, who was born into the Victorian upper-middle class of British society in 1888. He joined the British Expeditionary Force, eventually rising to the rank of Captain and served during World War I. Spenser was a charismatic and eloquent man, who could feel great empathy and compassion for those around him. These are factors that undoubtedly assisted in his mental deterioration which he suffered after the Battle of Flanders in 1914. Spenser did not believe ...