When I was young I wanted to live. I feel depressed now, which is what you expressed in this blog as well.

And then the issue of large-scale child killing that you mentioned in another blog. How are soldiers able to kill civilians in Afghanistan or do Drone strikes in Pakistan, throwing bombs on houses inhabited by women and children while they know that the men, the fighters, are hiding in mountain caves where no bomb can ever penetrate? If you watch those videos, with the children hurt and killed … what can you feel other than disgust and anger? I could not do that and I am against it.

In fact, how do these soldiers operate at all? I could not stay sane doing things like that. It may be true that in those countries the marriage between adult men and young girls is still a custom, but is that a reason to judge them, on the basis of our own value system which after all has brought about large-scale violence all over the world, and this since not just since a few hundred years?

It could well be that men in those countries are more happy because they can marry young girls, but it seems this is all defeated now through Western interference.

Thank you for your writings.

– Mike, USA

Your Ecuadorian decision was of course far from a honeymoon given the unfriendly nature of some of the local people and what sounded like a French hotel owner whose behavior was unwelcoming making him unfit for his tourist position.

You also expressed what I had previously known about namely the very status of the shaman you would be working was not a very promising or impressive type based on your description.

Although the taste of the brew was something you found agreeable which could indicate your connection with the plants composing of mother earth, such agreeable taste indicates a strong connection with nature or that you are more in tuned with nature while others disgusting response to the taste indicates perhaps a much lesser connection with the plants consisting of the natural environment, you seem to have been suffering from what you suggest was a disturbing energy field coming from the shaman himself if I understand correctly.

Despite this, what appeared to have brought about comfort in your discomfort was a feminine or female figure you had encountered which clearly indicates that you are female inclined, oriented toward the non-male aspect which is the healing power potential for you.

These experiences speak about the genders and how they resonate or do not resonate with you. They seem, in my novice opinion with no formal training in shamanism, that men or males appear as aversions or semi-adversial figures to you while the female or women are viewed as gentle, non-threathening beings with the power to put you at easy. This is what I see coming from the chapter.

Potential purposes suggested include stabilizing Syrian regime, providing military support to the regime and a readiness to support the regime in the event of external intervention against the regime. Also mentioned was the report that Iranian warships were sent to train Syrian Naval forces so you can imagine Iran is there to send a clear message the international community to not intervene in the conflict.

Even if Syrians take up arms in order to defend themselves, they will most likely not win against the awesome power of the Syrian regime now coupled by the even equally if not more powerful ally supporting the regime, Iran. Can the dictator fall now with Iran behind him? Difficult to see how the Syrian people will prevail here.

Here is the link to the programme.

– Nelson, San Francisco

Now the Middle East is in great turmoil, marked by a sharp contrast from that of ancient times. Persistent and profound violence is what the region is known for with no end in sight. Saudi Arabia is the one major country that observes Sharia Law to the fullest and takes the literalist’s perspective towards the use of Sharia.

Unlike in the West, in criminal trials, the accused have no constitutional protection from day one, with no charges reportedly brought against him, no access to a lawyer and he will eventually be sentenced to death via stoning or be-headding.

The Saudi King was recently featured in that documentary about Syria, talking bad about him. The Saudi King is just a massive wealthy powerful man who is a dictator himself with a long history of allowing if not encouraging Sharia and therefore Draconian law to exist if not flourish in his country. Well I would have to imagine that the medieval Islamic empire tapped into the realm of human sexuality, at least not to the greatest extent that we speak of.

The BBC’s documentary reference to ancient medicines which could enhance sexual potential indicates that the Islamic empire was mindful of this condition however we cannot know whether other areas of sexuality were addressed. Today, good luck finding research material on sexual paraphilias. Do they exist within the contemporary Muslim world? For sure, however given the religious extremism of today, open vital research on this is difficult to access.

We know that the centuries old tradition of pederasty/homosexuality among the Afghan sub-culture of men still exists today while it is formally condemned by the Afghan government, though interesting to note members of the Afghan government are reportedly key players in the revival of the centuries old tradition of the dancing boys. This sub-culture is, by the way, not fully pederastic, but borders homosexuality, given the age appeal goes into the mid to late teens, perhaps even 20s.

In this sense, all experiences are relative, of course, but they can be objective for that matter as well. I am convinced this intelligence is real and I was in touch with something real not something belonging to the imaginal realm, not something that is a reflection of my own beliefs. In this sense, every entheogenic experience, when it’s done within the right set and setting, is authentic and objective, the real coming together of two different realms of existence, and communication via telepathic exchanges.

Other authors agree with that objectivity and authenticity of those experiences, versus the delusions you get from narcotics and when drugs are used as entertainment instead of favoring the contact with the inner god.

The professor’s motivation to study uncover ancient Islamic scholarship is nature, makes sense, given that his formal scientific training is western, conventional. So what this independent scholarly journey has done was to bring about a vital balance to what would have only been a one-sided intellectual affair.

I found one particular remark by the physics professor regarding the Prophet Mohammed also known as “The Messenger”, advised followers to seek knowledge wherever they can find it, even if they had to go to China. This is profound insofar as it implies a welcoming attitude towards other cultures and the potential value in traveling to other parts of the world in order to acquire knowledge.

The Islamic world doesn’t know any taboos when it goes to science. I wonder for example how they look at sexual paraphilias, I have never read anything about it, or what they think about sexology. When I have the time I will try to see and find some resources. But it’s difficult to get. Google is by no means unbiased. It crawls foremost stuff from Western cultures. Then there is the language barrier, if one cannot read Arabic.

On the other hand, with Islamic modern-day fundamentalism, much of that old paradigm may have changed. It is in my view Jewish and Christian fundamentalism that have triggered Islamic fundamentalism as an anti-reaction. Orthodox Jewish and Christian fundamentalists to this day do not recognize sexology as a science, and I think it’s the same with Islamic fundamentalism. But all those groups are minorities, after all, and this is important to see. The majority of Muslims are not fundamentalist and are against Sharia law, you see that very clearly in Afghanistan and the Taliban. The Taliban are considered as crazy extremists even in their own country, and they are a tiny minority. Their influence is exaggerated in the Western media. In truth, how can they have international influence if even their own government considers them as a bunch of wild apes? It’s exactly the fact that they are mentioned virtually every day on Western TV channels that gave them any of the power they allegedly have. In truth, all extremism is against nature and therefore cannot have long-standing power, and another fact is that most people on earth are not extremists.

It may be difficult for many Muslims today to look back in history, in the face of an Israeli regime that is outright abusive toward Palestinians, and that is supported, almost without any criticism, by the USA. This has driven Muslims in a defense position, very logically so, and people in a defense position are not open-minded any more, they are rigid and judgmental. Also, another argument is that because of the imperialist structures inherent in Western world dominance, most Muslim countries are poor compared to Western nations. That was not so in medieval times, to the contrary. This poverty, in turn, triggers jealousy and bitterness which are factors that make people rather closed-minded.

It is almost an irony that the most fundamentalist Muslim nation on earth, Saudi Arabia, is one of America’s best friends. Yet they are hardly ever mentioned in the current news, but fact is that they apply Sharia law as a matter of daily reality. If a woman’s face cover slightly shifts, she gets a knife in the face, in full daylight and no news report that. Moderate Muslim countries like Indonesia, Tunisia, Morocco and even Iran may wonder why the West is so hypocrite and illogical in their approach to the world. They may wonder if we have got a brain at all to support a nation, Israel, that practices torture and has concentration camps, and bombs women and children in Gaza virtually every day.

These are the facts that must upset even open-minded Muslims with the result that they shift perhaps without noticing it toward a stricter and stricter fundamentalism, which then also will affect their science negatively. But the same happens even in the USA, when you get out of the big towns and in the provinces where people have the most abstruse opinions. It is no wonder that most of the support the Republican campaign gets are from those provinces, not from the big metropoles.